Technique as dousing
In discussing the technique of writing, Seamus Heaney conjures a water diviner as a metaphor. At first glance far-fetched, as...
A piercing sound
A high, piercing pipe sound likened to midges harassing the air, this simile makes me think of the horrifying tsssssssss...
Stormy tea trays
We’ve had some rotten weather recently, rain-grey clouds rolling over us like dismal tumbleweed, so this resonates.
Like a horse’s eye
A lively boy's eye view of travelling in a boat and looking through a porthole. Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) was a...
Like a mouse
You can see the man sawing between his teeth, the high-speed tooth-pick darting in and out like a mouse in...
Widest-winged condor
This novel being set in England, I liked this evocation of a splendid bird from the other side of the...
Stars like apples
Distant stars appearing so close you could reach up your hand and pick them, like apples in a tree. One...
All for me
The writer's friend and travelling companion, Edward, is a motor man. All things car and bus related thrill him and...
Unreel writing
There's something of fairy-tale magic in this idea of writing as a thread teased out from the writer's cupboard of...
A visitation from a minor god
The past is a place which enriches me in almost all I do, and I love travelling there as much...
Ripening writing
In this comment on Zbigniew Herbert's Report from the Besieged City (title of both a poem and a poetry collection),...
How clever can you get?
I liked these piled up and shamelessly outrageous examples of cleverness, although of their various skills, the first is the...
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