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Blog entries on '07 September 2005'

Wednesday 07 September 2005

Antony

You probably all know, but in case you missed it, the beautiful, peerless, astonishingly talented Antony (Hegarty) has won the Mercury Music Prize. I've been telling anyone who would listen about Antony and the Johnsons for years now, so I'm thrilled a genuine artist with real talent has won the award.

Posted by Mark Thwaite

Wednesday 07 September 2005

Dies: a sentence

According to their website:


Les Figues Press is a small independent press, publishing TrenchArt, an annual subscription series of novella-size books of literary prose and poetry. The idea behind TrenchArt is fairly simple. First, the Press wanted pocket-size books by writers asking big questions – what is art, what is human, what is necessary – published in a loosely constructed conversation, hence the annual series. We wanted these books to be grounded in literary tradition, even as the work sought to push that tradition’s present limit, so we designed the books with a classic front cover and an original piece of contemporary art on the back. Finally, more established writers provide introductions to the individual books, thus supplying a framework for readers while welcoming the new work into a larger literary community.


Very kindly, Les Figues have just sent on a copy of Vanessa Place's Dies: a sentence.


In Dies, Place withholds the period for 117 pages and one long night as its legless narrator recounts the war journey that has lead him to his final point of final truth, next to an armless man making stew. Place’s single sentence unmoors time and space, subject and object, victim and perpetrator, in a voice sanctifying everything and elegizing nothing.

Posted by Mark Thwaite

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Serendipoetry

Appointment

He fingers the ends with the care of a vet
handling a new-fledged baby bird.
'How would you like it cut?' he asks.
'Well.' I reply. 'I have a wedding to stop.'

I know I won't go. Just impediments
are for the movies. But I let him snip
through the blade of afternoon light,
layering out the splits, the kinks, the fluff
as thoughtfully as though I had the guts
to shout your name and race you to the bus.

-- Ros Barber

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Word of the Day

meretricious

1. Appealing in a cheap or showy manner: tawdry. 2. Based on pretense or insincerity. more …

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