Archive for June, 2017
Poetry Special – (September 2014 / 14.18)
June 17, 2017
Poetry Special – (September 2014 / 14.18)
Graphing by Claire Ibarra
Artist, Claire Ibarra’s fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in numerous literary journals, including The MacGuffin, Natural Bridge, Boston Literary Magazine, Blink-Ink, Amoskeag, Foliate Oak, The Broken Plate, and BluePrint Review. She is also a contributor to the anthology An Honest Lie, Vol.2: Delusions of Insignificance by Open Heart Publishing and the upcoming anthology Dreams of Duality by Red Skies Press.
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Laurie Kolp
Forbidden Fruit
I cradle time in arms of steel
your smile, your eyes, your hand in mine
crossing bridges, autumn leaves
a pile of clues I refused to see
the paws you dug beneath my shirt as shears,
breasted heaviness, your tongue.
I thought fruit signified love,
but you threw apples at my feet.
Laurie Kolp lives in Southeast Texas with her husband, three kids and…
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On giving feedback
June 15, 2017
I found myself in the position of giving feedback to some writers recently. The writers were teachers who had signed up for two Master’s modules about writing. These comprised a critical look at how we teach writing, for which they needed to put together a research project evaluating their own practice via an analysis of pupils’ work; and a creative writing module consisting of a portfolio of creative pieces accompanied by a critical commentary. Guess which one I found harder to mark?
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A Short Analysis of Philip Larkin’s ‘Essential Beauty’
June 14, 2017A Short Analysis of the ‘Humpty Dumpty’ Nursery Rhyme
June 8, 2017
The curious origins of a famous rhyme
Humpty Dumpty was originally a drink, then he became an egg in a nursery rhyme. Quite how this happened, nobody seems to know, but it did. The name ‘Humpty-dumpty’ was given to a drink of boiled ale and brandy in 1698, and that’s only the first known reference in print – the name is probably considerably older. By 1785, as Francis Grose recorded in his fascinating collection of contemporary slang, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, the rhyming term had been applied to people, and was used specifically to describe a ‘short, dumpy, hump-shouldered person’ and, by extension, a clumsy person. But the words ‘Humpty-Dumpty’ mean one thing and one thing alone to most readers: an egg in the famous nursery rhyme which begins, ‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall’. What is the meaning of this little rhyme, and what are…
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“I’m not a city” and other poems by Kinga Fabó
June 7, 2017
The Transfiguration of the WordOpen, the sea appeared asleep. A nun-spot on the hot little body. I wanted to remain an object. This and the same happened together. Only an omitted gesture. And the sea will no longer be immortal. Translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Martha Satz LoversYou are… |
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Helen Freeman
June 6, 2017
On the Back Burner
I crush roast beans with my pestle
then throw grounds into water on a high flame
stirring till the colour succumbs and bubbles.
Bitterness rises within.
As I brew Madam’s coffee,
she engages in more crucial matters –
manicures and massage, her driver’s lateness
and yet another Riyadh wedding invitation.
The employer’s affairs, they say,
are not for me to censure.
I must learn my place. I must salute.
I stir and stir to prevent the overflow
that leaves such a splatter to scrub –
there’s a clasp here to master.
I drop cardamom pods into the darkness
adjusting the scent, and I’m home:
the bombs, my father under Aleppo rubble,
the hawk who sometimes hooked
meat from my palm long gone,
my inheritance expunged.
Count to ten. Breathe Dad always said
but look where that got him.
Heat dissipates, coffee cools
in the pot of…
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