‘I wish I could think of a positive point to leave you with. Will you take two negative points?’ Woody Allen, from his stand-up comedy routine (1964) Consider the facts: French writer Annie Ernaux has an affair with a young man, thirty years her junior (she was fifty-four, he was twenty-four), and writes about it, … Read more
It happens. After four years of marriage, I’m madly in love…just not with my husband. I feel like Diane Lane in Unfaithful, guilt-ridden, and giddy as I face my new reality. I am a terrible wife…but…I was becoming a fantastic girlfriend. You may deem me a horror, but the truth is never a fairytale. Only … Read more
The Gallego, Dos Lunas, sat on the low wall of the Mirador San Nicolas hurling abuse at the tourists that passed him by. ‘Idiotas!!’ He shouted with his hand waving about in the air, until his mind soothed and he returned to the comfort of his can of Vol Damm (at 8% it was the … Read more
From hospital suite One no matter how the oak ward is word-less the light buzz of a garden through terminal windows without logos _ rationalise brother at rest _ through doors _ down corridors _ the sheen of _ sterile floors feet walking away Two angel _ blue light so _ far angel … Read more
It was just after opening time when Murphy walked into the bar. He wasn’t welcome at any time of the day really. The Fat Landlord’s lazy wife, a picture of early morning sourness probably let the nuisance in, but who cared? It certainly wasn’t me. She was a miserable, cold unfriendly woman affectionately known as … Read more
Christopher Tolkien, referring to his father, defined what J.R.R. called his ‘secondary world.’ He said ‘it is a world that cannot be seen, it cannot be found, it exists only in the mind.’[i] He goes on to say for many people when they first realise the existence of this place, this secondary world, they find … Read more
If I Could Only I dream of roses blooming in the sky, of boys with guns, of body parts slung over broken toys in some unholy rite. And through mind-searing noise, I hear the wail of mothers keening for their young. I dream of hell. But when dawn breaks, I wake to find that, silently, … Read more
The poet Haley Hodges has recently written a winsome essay for Cassandra Voices claiming that the Galactic Empress, Her Swiftiness, Queen of Ubiquity, is our “greatest confessional poet.” Let’s leave aside that Tay-Tay isn’t a poet—that song-writing and poetry-writing are different games with different rules—she is certainly a confessional, and one in the terms Hodges … Read more
Neil went to tea break for the gossip, to find out what was going on, although he screened out the small talk about football and politics. The canteen overlooked the carpark with the smoking shed at the other end – another good source of information. It was raining the day he heard a replacement boss … Read more
Confessional poetry has had a haunted reputation from its post-war onset. The literary legacies of Robert Lowell, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and W. D. Snodgrass—widely considered ground zero for the entire confessional school—are crucified at least as frequently as they’re praised, and a healthy allergy to what contemporary teachers of writing pertly refer to as … Read more