Thursday, 19 December 2024

Connotation, Denotation and the Complexity of Poetry: A Response to George Szirtes

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It’s not often I find myself quoted, but when I came across George Szirtes’ 2007 Stanza Lecture, I was flattered and taken aback to find my ...
Thursday, 28 November 2024

Layered Meaning or Fleeting Impressions? The Case of Frank O’Hara

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Frank O’Hara’s poetry has always left me uncertain about its merits. I’ve given his work a try and ultimately found that its casualness and ...
Friday, 22 November 2024

The Poetic and the Political

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Back in the late 2000s, I took part in a few online discussions about poetry and politics, or more accurately, the intersection of politics ...
Thursday, 14 November 2024

From Folk Ballads to Dylan and Cohen

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The evolution of song lyrics from simple folk ballads to complex poetic forms, is one of the most significant transformations in the history...
Monday, 7 October 2024

Is John Ashbery Overrated?

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John Ashbery occupies a complex position within the avant-garde tradition. While he is celebrated for his “innovative” style and layered the...
Sunday, 15 September 2024

Wombwell Rainbow Interview: Poets and Writers' Writing Approaches and Methods

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I was interviewed for The Wombwell Rainbow a few years ago. The interview was part of a series of interviews with poets and writers about th...

The Influence of Bob Dylan: Rediscovering the Joy of Poetry

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It has been so long since I first started writing poetry, that I had almost forgotten why I started to write it. It certainly had everything...

Wuthering Heights: The Ultimate Film Adaptation of Emily Bronte’s Novel

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Looking at the barrage of overrated and over-produced contemporary films it is easy to forget that film once aspired to be an art form. One ...

Exploring the Art of Generalisation: Songs vs. Poetry

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What distinguishes a song from a poem? Is it the melody or the vocal delivery, the lyrics or the musical arrangement? Certainly, it encompas...

Christopher Plummer: A Journey Through Six Decades of Theatre and Film

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Christopher Plummer’s In Spite of Myself is one of the best showbiz memoirs I’ve read. It’s very long (over 600 pages) but never boring, la...

The Argotist Online: A Tribute to Celebrated Poets, Academics and Songwriters

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It is just over a year since I had to had to close down The Argotist Online, due to the increasing cost of running it, both financially and ...

Seamus Heaney: a Critical Analysis of His Poetry and the Influence of Philip Hobsbaum on Him

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Since his death in 2013, Seamus Heaney’s reputation as a poet has grown from strength to strength in the popular media and in some academic ...

Twentieth Century British Poetry Was Not As Innovative As Twentieth Century American Poetry

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The pervasive influence of Wordsworth on British mainstream poetry in the Twentieth Century is undeniable. This influence played a significa...
Monday, 2 September 2024

‘Reflective Discursiveness: Exploring Poetic Thought and Fragmentation in Wordsworth, Ashbery, Prynne and Harwood’ at Unlikely Stories

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My thanks to Jonathon Penton for publishing my article ‘Reflective Discursiveness: Exploring Poetic Thought and Fragmentation in Wordsworth...
Monday, 5 August 2024

Exploring the Art of Generalisation: Songs vs. Poetry

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What distinguishes a song from a poem? Is it the melody or the vocal delivery, the lyrics or the musical arrangement? Certainly, it encompas...

Is Poetry Still Stuck on the Bookshelf?

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Tony Frazer of Shearsman Press said in a 2017 online discussion that ‘few poetry books sell 500 copies. I’ve been told that a sale of 500 is...

The Limitations of Visual Poetry

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In The Reader, the Text, the Poem , Louise Rosenblatt says: ‘The poem, then, must be thought of as an event in time. It is not an object or ...