By DAVE TROTT [CampaignLive.com] – I come from, according to The Guinness Book of Records, the largest council estate in Europe.
A massive working class section of east London, bordering on Essex.
East London itself is around 2 million people.
Everyone judges themselves according to their context.
And, in our context, we thought we were doing okay.
The houses weren’t slums, no one was out of work
Everyone had pretty much what they needed, enough to get by.
We didn’t feel hard done by, because everyone was the same.
But, like most lads, I always felt my mum deserved something special.
So I used to save half my pocket money each week.
It meant at Christmas I could buy presents for the family.
I’d always get a pipe for my dad.
Some perfume or similar for my big sister.
But I’d always spend most of the money on Mum’s present.
I’d always get her the biggest thing I could afford.
And mum was always very proud of whatever it was.
Later on, as a teenager, I went to art school in New York.
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John Wilkinson’s
Adages for Poetry StudentsChris Miller reviews Chaos and the Clean Line by Stephen Romer
AND Two Essays
by Alan WallSee also Garin Cycholl’s new review of Vladimir Sorokin’s Blue Lard
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Audio archive: Two poems, with an audio track, from Heart Monologues by Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani | Daragh Breen’s Aural Triptych | Hayden Carruth reads Contra Mortem and Journey to a Known Place | Anthony Howell reads three new poems | James Laughlin reads Easter in Pittsburgh and five more | Peter Robinson reads Manifestos for a lost cause, Dreamt Affections, Blind Summits and Oblique Lights
Previous Serials
2011: Golden-beak in eight parts. By George Basset (H. R. Haxton).
2012: The Invention of the Modern World in 18 parts. By Alan Macfarlane.
2013: Helen in three long parts. By Oswald Valentine Sickert.
2016: The Survival Manual by Alan Macfarlane. In eight parts.
2018: After the Snowbird, Comes the Whale, by Tom Lowenstein.
LONDON
Readings in The Room: 33 Holcombe Road, Tottenham Hale, London N17 9AS – £5 entry plus donation for refreshments. All enquiries: 0208 801 8577
Poetry London: Current listings here.
Shearsman readings: 7:30pm at Swedenborg Hall, 20/21 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1. Further details here.NEW YORK
10 reliable poetry venues in NYC.
· The funeral of Isaac Albéniz
· Coleridge, poetry and the ‘rage for disorder’
· Otto Rank
· Patrons and toadying · Rejection before slips
· Cut with a dull blade
· Into the woods, everybody.
· Thought Leaders and Ted Talks
· How Mary Oliver ‘found love in a breathing machine.’
AND read here:
· James Thomson [B.V.]
A dilemma for educators:
Philosophy and the public impact.
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Michelene Wandor on Derek Walcott and the T.S. Eliot Prize.
.Nick Lowe: the true-blue Basher shows up for a friend.
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Anthony Howell: The new libertine in exile.
Kate Hoyland: Inventing Asia, with Joseph Conrad and a Bible for tourists.
Who is Bruce Springsteen? by Peter Knobler.
Martin Sorrell on John Ashbery’s illumination of Arthur Rimbaud.
The beauty of Quantitative Easing.
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