Final draft of the commissioned poem has gone to Apples and Snakes and R.I.B.A. 6 stanzas of eight lines each stanza titled according to Edwin Smith’s cameras. 1. Kodak Box Brownie 1927 2. ICA Ideal 205 1935 3. Contax II 1936 4. Thornton Pickard Ruby 1904 5. Graflex Speed Graphic 1960 6. Ensign Autorange 1955…
Daily Short: John McGahern – ‘Swallows’
I have been collecting John McGahern books for twenty odd years. Like William Trevor and Frank O’Connor he was part of the Irish Parthenon of writers that just sort of there…like kindly uncles. Because of my focus on poetry to the exclusion of all else I had neglected them. I hadn’t read any of them …
Daily Short: John Burnside – ‘Graceland’ from Burning Elvis
‘His greatest fictional achievement so far; never before has he shown the horror and grace of consciousness better than in these gems’ (The Times – no author traceable). When John Burnside started publishing fiction he was in the curious position of already being a well-respected ‘award-winning’ poet. So his dalliance with ‘fiction’ and memoir could…
Daily Short: Matthew Licht – ‘Dave Tough’s Luck’ from Various Authors: Fiction Desk Anthology
Ok I do not like this. I do not like a short story that throughout refers to a mentally disabled young boy as a ‘retard’. I do not like constant referrals to physical slobbering and chimpanzees in reference to said boy even if it is a smart-arse crack at the ability of drummers too (…
Daily Short: Rick Bass – ‘Redfish’ from ‘The Watch’
I purchased this volume when it came out back in 1989 or 1990. Probably as flagged up by Raymond Carver or the Granta anthologies of Dirty Realism. I remember being impressed at the time. Going back to the collection I started with ‘Mississippi’. Like a Townes Van Zandt (both from Fort Worth Texas) folk tale…
Daily Short: Arthur Machen – The Red Hand and Poundland
The wonders of Poundland…..one of my favourite current book trawling locations where the cheap Wordsworth anthology above was available for yes a pound. Today’s gem is a tale from 1895 by Arthur Machen who thanks to Wikipedia I now know has been an influence on a diverse range of writers including John Betjeman, Javier Marias,…
Station to Station – Edwin Smith commission.
The Edwin Smith commission is turning out to be a detective story….nothing is what it seems…this photo is not Kentish Town station as represented in his catalogue..it is Walthamstow Central and it still standing. Wonder how RIBA will take the news. Shame I spent two days researching Kentish Town station and linking it to George Orwell….
Keeping the Aspidistra Flying – Self Promotion
Will Self paraded his verbal skills with a reading at NTU on Saturday which proved that there is some content behind the bravado, solipism, debauchery and sheer profligacy. Looking at SELF’s career it hard to find an entry point such is the sheer weight of verbiage trundled ad nauseum across every promotional page available. The…
Daily Short: Mark Strand – Dog life.
A strange one this and no mistake. Mark Strand who had arisen as poet in Sarah Jackson’s lecture is now discovered lurking in Shapard and Thomas’s 1986 anthology of the then recently termed,’Sudden fiction’ which now typically called ‘Flash Fiction’. The anthology I picked up in 1989 when fairly obsessed with post BASS* 1986 American…
Daily Short: Joy Williams – Dimmer
Joy Williams – Dimmer introduced by Daniel Alarcon from Object Lessons: The Paris Review presents the short story (Heinemann 2012) http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6303/the-art-of-fiction-no-223-joy-williams This is the hardest Daily Short story so far. Not only have I never read Joy Williams before I also had no idea of her background so the interview above, which is excellent, has…