Straight as an avenue of poplars
When was the last time you received - or wrote - an 18 page letter? Â I think I have managed...
Language as refreshing as fresh-brewed tea
Such a fresh image to describe how a foreign language makes you feel. Here, a refreshing, fragrant black tea chucked...
Librarian as satrap
Having known nothing but kindness among librarians, this striking description of a martinet guarding his books almost at the point...
An invitation in your pocket
A sense of feeling like a grand guest, as if Tamerlane himself has invited you and the world is at...
A mess of broken eggs
An arresting image for catastrophe – an omelette. Too prosaic? Smashing eggs can certainly make a hell of a mess,...
Thoughts on the physiology of reading
As conveyors of ideas and knowledge, books have a wondrous physicality to them, more individual the longer they are in...
Shell-like tenderness
A delicate and curious way to describe ‘tenderness’, since shells are usually formed of hard material, but their shape can...
Take a twenty-verst stroll
A verst is an old Russian measurement for distance, a few steps more than a kilometre. So I wish you...
White-toothed commissars
Perhaps alluding to a world in which commissars, having some status in the pecking order, probably had a better chance...
Time and poets
This summary of where Mandelstam places the poet versus the ‘man of letters’ on the time spectrum intrigues me. Yes,...
Gift-bearing ambassadorial winds
Having a love of Persian poetry, known only through translation, and of Chinese poetry, engaged with tentatively and carefully in...
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