Through Fernando Pessoa the flesh was made word. Reminiscent of the renowned Chinese painter Wu Daozi, who, as legend has it, vanished into one of his own landscape paintings, Pessoa (1888-1935), the great Portuguese poet, appears to have disappeared bodily into his written works. Dispersing himself into the many lives of others through the medium … Read more
In the wake of the murder by a police officer of the unfortunate Sarah Everard, and the ensuing justified anger, many media people were calling for “good” men to act more visibly in opposing violence against women. While I back 100% the calls made for “good” men to speak up, I am also concerned that … Read more
A poetaster’s tribute to Geoffrey Hill’s The Book of Baruch by the Gnostic Justin (2019). I heard Sir Geoffrey refer many times in his Oxford lectures (2010-2015) to our current situation as one of ‘plutocratic anarchy’. I suspect that, like many, he was fascinated and frustrated by the oxymoronic sight of ordinary, ‘common’ people persistently … Read more