THOMAS SIMPSON is a poet and sound artist based in Western Australia. He is completing a PhD at Deakin University combining poetry, walking, and soundscape ecology in south-west WA. His first collection of poetry Bone Picker was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022 and was shortlisted for the 2023 WA Premier’s Prize for an Emerging…
The Wounded Healer
LUCIUS FALKLAND is the nom-de-plume of a writer and academic from London The wounded healer The job description was always very clear: You have autistic breakdowns, lose control. Uncertain futures, a general sense of fear, Takes hold of you and cuts into your soul, So you palpitate and snap and use a word That might…
Prom perfection
Image: Wikimedia Commons RICHARD DOVE relives a wonderful Last Night For some it is all about vexillology. For some the study of the flags being waved defined the evening. For the Daily Mail, the plentiful EU flags were a clear and obvious betrayal of Brexit. But they chose not to notice the quite resplendent union…
Last Night of a distinguished Prommer
MARTIN GODLEMAN witnesses Sir Simon Rattle's LSO swansong Sir Simon Rattle. Image: Monika Rittershaus. Wikimedia Commons I should have had a more pronounced focus on advanced ticket sales of Prom 56 when I casually noticed that Simon Rattle would not only be present at the eight week festival of music, but there to conduct Mahler’s…
Italian light, and Nordic darkness
Image: Stuart Millson STUART MILLSON (celebrating his 43rd season) reports from the 2023 Proms ‘Where are the Proms of my youth?’ asked Barrie Hall’s now almost forgotten book, The Proms and the Men Who Made Them – a title that would be unlikely to pass the sensitivity readers of today’s London publishers. When I first attended the Proms, one joined a queue (along…
Deep state
DEREK TURNER is editor of The Brazen Head. He is also a novelist, reviewer, travelogist, and the author of the chorography Edge of England: Landfall in Lincolnshire (Hurst, 2022). www.derek-turner.com. Twitter: @derekturner1964. Instagram: edge.of.england “Stilled legendary depth:It was as deep as England” ‘Pike’, Ted Hughes The plumber’s van’s been standing since the small hours At…
Good times in Kent
Photo: Drew de F Fawkes. Wikimedia Commons RICHARD DOVE cavorts to Chic at Rochester Castle In this year’s Grammy Awards, Nile Rodgers received the rare and prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. He told us last night (6 July) that whilst very honoured, it implies a career end and he announced: “He ain’t done yet.” On cue,…
A Man of Heart – The scribe’s story
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…