‘Closed For Business As Usual’
This first pic is a study in the dishonesty of perspective: my fat arse shielding the even fatter arse of Oxford-based writer Dan Holloway, both of us in pursuit of … Continue reading
Ungaretti’s Typewriter
A new addition to the Beatnik landscape: Ungaretti’s Typewriter. Customers (all two of them) are invited to type any random thought, flow of consciousness dribble, abstract or recited prose or … Continue reading
Toilets (or J. Alfred Pisspot)
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock hangs on the inside of the shop toilet door. It would be included in any anthology of poetry read best in the loo and, … Continue reading
Heathcote Williams: The Local Polemic
Painted fluorescent over two walls of the Albion Beatnik loo is Heathcote Williams’ poem ‘Books’. The poem was written perhaps eight or nine years ago. Heathcote Williams died recently, undoubtedly … Continue reading
Everything Wrong With You Is Beautiful
I’ve always liked Tina Sederholm’s poetry. There is a plumb line weighted with honesty that cuts through it, and she probes either side of its divide. Her whole craft is … Continue reading
Filming Bernard O’Donoghue Read ‘Connolly’s Bookshop’
Bernard O’Donoghue’s poetry collection The Seasons of Cullen Church (Faber, 2016) is lyrical and observant, an elegiac lament, beautiful so often, riddled with memories of a childhood spent near Cork. … Continue reading
Let’s Talk of Graves, of Worms, & Epitaphs; Make Dust our Paper…
So here’s a nice little copy sold yesterday of George Herbert’s The Temple & A Priest to the Temple, Everyman edition, the binding slightly shaky but from a time when … Continue reading
A Privy Culprit of Poetry Readings
What is the collective noun for poets? I was asked that recently and was rather stumped for an answer. It’s been like Radio 4’s Any Questions recently, and not so … Continue reading