Jeffrey Side

Note This post reflects my own process of learning about gender and trans experiences. At no point do I intend to define or speak for trans...

Back in the early 1990s, I was looking for something beneath the surface of religions. And I adopted a metaphor, probably not original to me...

When I used to be a Christian, I went through several shifts in what I believed, not just about doctrine, but about the very nature of God. ...

In the world of James Bond fandom, the Rolex Explorer 1016 is often regarded as the watch Ian Fleming intended for Bond. This view derives l...

I came across an interesting forum discussion on a James Bond forum called “Absolutely James Bond” that discussed which watch Bond wore in t...

(Adapted from an article I wrote for The Argotist Online in 2013) In his 2013 article, ‘Charmless and Interesting: What Conceptual Poetry La...

For many years, I identified as a Christian. It wasn’t just a label—it influenced how I viewed the world, formed my values and approached li...

The Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown , directed by James Mangold, captures Dylan's rapid rise to fame during the 1960s folk movement...

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 ...

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 ...

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

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

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

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...

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...

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 ...

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’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...

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 ...

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 ...