Richard Midwinter arrived early at the Garrick and on entering the theatre was struck by a large eighteenth century painting in the foyer of a man with his arm around a stone bust of Shakespeare. Quite a striking image, he thought. Midwinter, himself an actor, stood for a moment staring at the playwright, in the … Read more
Intriguingly, women held more or less equal power in many of the African continent’s varied societies prior to its violent colonial subjugation. Gender equality was, however, viewed as a challenge to imperial hegemony by colonial administrators – more familiar with women in Counter-Reformation Europe attired in nun’s wimples ‘in order to prepare them for a … Read more
September is Here and I want to feel the tingle of autumn over the horizon. The palette of skies, laying themselves nightly before my eyes like Turkish carpets in the souks of Istanbul. I want to anticipate the nuanced change of the leaves, delicate as if the maestro himself draws them into the rising crescendo … Read more
The Revolutionary Andrée Blouin, 1921-1986 A hungry child can never truly sleep. In the orphanage for sinful offspring – our fathers white, our mothers African – the nuns were merciless, severe. I shook by night inside a narrow, iron cot, aware only of my body’s hunger, a heavy shadow shuttering my limbs. I prayed for … Read more
Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.’ James Joyce, ‘Araby’, from Dubliners (1914) Nineteen Seventy-Nine was a big year for me. I turned eighteen, which meant I could vote, had I felt so inclined. I had my first … Read more
Maldon days hēt þā hyssa hwæne hors forlǣtan, feorr āfȳsan, and forð gangan, hicgan tō handum, and tō hige gōdum. The Battle of Maldon (991 AD) Galvanized into action, my companion horses neighed as they galloped to the woods, riderless and rudderless. I turned back to my liege lord, reluctant to retreat, … Read more
JACK GILBERT WAS TOO HORNY TO BE A METAPHYSICAL POET not that sex and metaphysics cancel each other out— his was good news for Linda Gregg, until it wasn’t. Interviewer: Did you and Linda ever collaborate? JG: We were intertwined. We read each other’s poetry, appreciated each other’s poetry, discarded each other’s poetry. (Quick shout-out … Read more
He put on the yellow marigolds with some difficulty, while at the same time remembering something a wise Roman stoic had once written that went ‘dig inside yourself. Inside there is a well of goodness ready to gush at any moment, if you keep digging,’ and wondered if he had learned the line while studying … Read more
Discovery Discovery are coloured dark deep red. I heard one falling as I brushed the tree — a startled bird troubling bushy leaves — but with more plummet, accelerated power, crimson sinker parting waves of green, descending progeny, seeds sheathed in a cream flesh, webs of genes cradling what could be, bound for the food … Read more
Many of those featuring in this series wrote top class journalism, including Albert Camus, Noam Chomsky, Voltaire and George Orwell. None of them, however, are pre-eminently or exclusively associated with their journalism. There is one intellectual who is however. That of course is Christopher Hitchens – the non pareil journalist of our recent age, and … Read more