The story so far. In the 5th century Vortigern’s attempt to hold the imperial province of Britannia together has been defeated, not by external enemies but by British rebels led by Vortimer, his eldest son. Vortimer is a devout Christian and has invited the Pope to send an embassy to restore the Church, and combat…
Decadents abroad
Photo: Wikimedia Commons Love in a Time of Hate: Art and Passion in the Shadow of War, 1929-39 Florian Illies, Simon Pare (trans.), Profile Books, June 2023, 336 pages, £20 KEN BELL says Weimar-era Bohemians failed to respond to the Nazi threat On one level, Florian Illies’ Love in a Time of Hate: Art and…
Four poems by Jeremy Hooker
JEREMY HOOKER is a poet, critic and editor. His work for BBC Radio 3 includes ‘A Map of David Jones’. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and an emeritus professor of the University of South Wales. His Selected Poems was published by Shearsman in…
Five poems from The Book of Merlin
LARRY BECKETT’s poetry ranges from songs, Song to the Siren, to blank sonnets, Songs and Sonnets, to the epic American Cycle, including Paul Bunyan, Wyatt Earp, Amelia Earhart, and seven other book-length poems. Beat Poetry is a study of the poets and poetry of the fifties San Francisco renaissance. The Book of Merlin will be…
Three poems by Ian C. Smith
IAN C. SMITH’s work has been published in Across the Margin, BBC Radio 4 Sounds,The Dalhousie Review, Gargoyle, Griffith Review, Southword, Stand, & The Stony Thursday Book. His seventh book is wonder sadness madness joy, Ginninderra (Port Adelaide). He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island. Prologue ‘And yet to…
Thomas Malory’s civilisation-shaping chivalry
Photo; Shutterstock LIAM GUILAR revisits the too little-read Le Morte Darthur According to the blurb for one Audible version of Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur: Comparing Batman, Superman, and Captain America to Sir Launcelot, Sir Tristram, and Sir Galahad isn't a huge leap of the imagination. Perhaps, for the 15th century reader, King Arthur…
Polanski at (nearly) 90
Photo: Shutterstock CHRISTOPHER SANDFORD looks back at an astonishing and controversial career Temporal landmarks may be purely arbitrary and exist only in our heads, as Einstein and his crew tell us, but it surely still comes down to a case of tempus fugit in the matter of the Rosemary’s Baby director Roman Polanski. Turning 90…