A poet on poetry
A surprising combination of qualities to look for in fine poetry (and other writing). Hard to think of poetry which comes closer to embodying all three than the meticulous, mysterious and fresh-voiced verse of George Herbert. ‘The three qualities I admire in the...
On illusory madness
A fine description of Mervyn Peake’s balance between bounding imagination and taut writing, rounded off with a vintage metaphor. ‘It remains essentially a work of the closed imagination, in which a world parallel to our own is presented in almost paranoiac...
Writing on wheels
Another in a series of accounts by John Steinbeck’s wife, Elaine, of his perpetual search for the perfect writing space. This bright idea came of his frustration at one point of a writing room which had no sound insulation and therefore no privacy. But his...
Of centuries and cows
These quirky comments by Steinbeck charmed me – first his reaction to the first room he chose to work in, and then his decision to move elsewhere on the old property they rented near Glastonbury. ‘We lived in an ancient cottage that was listed in the...
Of boats and books
Another example of Steinbeck’s search for a perfect writing spot, in different houses, places, times of his life, as described by his wife. She never entered these spaces without being invited, which on occasion led to some surprises.This is a writing room high...
When did you begin?
Recently I read an old penny-paperback of The Grapes of Wrath. I was about three-quarters of the way through when I left it on a plane – I hope someone picked it up and read it. So I bought another copy of the same edition as it had a foreword by...
Something more pressing
Yes, you can find a thousand things more urgent than writing, or at least more insistent. Writing for this and other websites takes precedence over a series of children’s stories I have begun. Blogs have a rhythm or schedule, books are open-ended. I find time...
Dancing light, rippling reflections
Having occasionally lain in bed practically hypnotised by the dappling and dancing of light bouncing from water up to ceiling, I liked Hoban’s reference to flashes of mystic writing, like a watery, visual morse. ‘… dancing light reflected from the...
Mastiff-like tenacity
Such jaw-gripping tenacity is used to describe the force that the ending ‘-cious’ adds to words, as in the word ‘tenacious’. Thoreau observes and analyses language as incisively as he observes and analyses nature. ‘… the...
High-perched asylum
In his acknowledgements, Leigh Fermor thanks a number of people for ‘kindness and haven during restless literary displacements’, and it seems he spent considerable time writing at their homes, or homes in their possession, over the years. One of those...
‘Write,’ he said
A fine parting injunction to a friend you are seeing off at the train station. Julián did as he was told. ‘Write,’ he said. ‘I’ll write to you as soon as I get there,’ answered Julián. ‘No. Not to me. Write books. Not...
As free and lawless as a lamb’s bleat
First, the unusual simile, I never thought of a lamb’s bleat as free or lawless. Then the idea that a true poetic sentence is free and lawless. I found several similar comments in Thoreau, and something about them gave me a sense of liberty. I was once...
