The above phrase, “Hold on tightly; let go lightly” was spoken by the spiritual teacher, writer and thinker Ram Dass. But this quotation is one I have not heard first hand: it was quoted to me from a podcast. Somehow, I would like to keep it this way: language can gain resonance through the second-handContinue reading “Hold on tightly; let go lightly: ‘Song, after an Abortion’ by Diane DiPrima”
Category Archives: Literature
Floating through Tides: a new, formless existence
Sara Freeman’s construction of a fragmented, formless and at times empty world in Tides (2022) is filled with a buoyant lyricism that keeps the prose moving in a manner resembling its title. Each page is its own lyrical segment, chapter-less and unique; a tribute to a woman drifting, purposefully, out to sea. It is thisContinue reading “Floating through Tides: a new, formless existence”
Fake deaths: Shakespeare’s and Will Kemp’s co-authorship
Although it was rare for playwrights to have much control over casting in the 1590s, Shakespeare’s role as a sharer in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and his likely involvement in performance suggests a stronger overlap between parts and players. There is, in fact, textual evidence for Kemp’s roles — whose own name replaces the directionContinue reading “Fake deaths: Shakespeare’s and Will Kemp’s co-authorship”
Partly of the Sky
In a photograph from 1917, the avant-garde poet Mina Loy appears both enigmatic and defiant. Taken by Man Ray, the centrepiece of the portrait is Loy’s earring: a dark-room thermometer. In a typically Dadaist manner, the object detracts from the subject. The portrait mirrors the way twentieth-century critics, from Ezra Pound to Roger L. Conover,Continue reading “Partly of the Sky”
The Women of Troy
Pat Barker’s female protagonist Briseis in The Women of Troy (2021) has to be one of the most understated, measured and omniscient narrators I have come across in a while – which is why the following is my favourite excerpt from the novel: Then — and now — people seem to take it for grantedContinue reading “The Women of Troy”
Roots & Wings 