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Author Archives: The Editors

from White Ivory, chapters 11 & 12

< chapters 9 & 10 A Fortnightly Serial   By ALAN WALL. • Chapter 11 Messages   ILL GOT BACK to his flat on the Sunday and saw the red light flicking on and off on the telephone. He hoped it would be Sian. ‘It’s Paul.’ That was it. Will played it over again. When […]

from ‘On the Road to Lviv’.

By CHRISTOPHER MERRILL. ◊ he faithful chanting in Armenian At vespers in Ivano-Frankivsk, shaped The way I posed for a photograph outside The church—between a pair of Christmas trees Festooned with lights, which framed a cross or khachkar, Altar, and iconostasis sculpted Out of a block of river ice. Natalya Would add this photograph to […]

On the Difficulty of Reading Susan Howe’s

Articulation of Sound Forms in Time ◊ By Peter Middleton.   hat is the “fate of difficulty in the poetry of our time”? Charles Altieri and Nicholas Nace gather the thoughts of twenty-six leading poetry critics on this question, each of them discussing the issue in relation to a single recent poem. It’s a fascinating […]

from White Ivory, chapters 9 & 10

< chapters 7 & 8                                                                                                                                                  […]

A stubble like stars.

(after Jaccottet) By PETER LARKIN. ◊ had been reading Philippe Jaccottet in French and English for many years, so was particularly moved to come across his last published poems (La Clarté Notre-Dame) in the version translated by John Taylor. I wondered whether I could work with these texts in their English form in some way […]

from ‘The Runiad’ books 3 & 4

< from Books 1 & 2 A Fortnightly Serial. By ANTHONY HOWELL. ◊ ANTHONY HOWELL writes: My own romantic notion of myself has encouraged me to attempt an epic. It will have 24 books and be the same length as the Odyssey. Each book will be approximately 24 pages long, with three seven-line verses per page. I […]

from White Ivory, chapters 7 & 8

< chapters 5 & 6    chapters 9 & 10 > A Fortnightly Serial By ALAN WALL. • Chapter Seven Readings he first thing Will did when he got back home was to take his one remaining copy of Kicking Away the Ladder from the shelf. He stood by the window and turned it over […]

Alice B. and Gertrude in their photographs.

and two more new poems. By 3/4KYMBERLY TAYLOR. ♦ Alice B. and Gertrude in Their Photographs ear T, my sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea, into our photographs this hard line of distance, simply! Just between us and all ours. A photographing we will go, Basket along, dear pooch with curlicues. Rue de Fleurus’ garden […]

from White Ivory, chapters 5 & 6

< chapters 3 & 4        chapters 7 & 8 > A Fortnightly Serial By ALAN WALL. • Chapter Five Will’s Lecture E HAD FASTENED up on the wall, as usual, his reproduction of Francis Bacon’s painting of Miss Muriel Belcher. And alongside it his Head VI of 1948, one of those human mouths […]

The goddess of emptiness.

By Jean Frémon. Translated by John Taylor.   E WERE ALONE in the gardens of the hotel, awaiting fruit cocktails that were not arriving. After the many years that I have come to this country, I should know that time is not the same here as elsewhere, that showing one’s impatience is the height of […]

Carrying the past.

Fortnightly Review Film Commentary.  The Afterlight by Charlie Shackleton 1.37:1 | mono | black & white | 82 minutes an interview By Simon Collings. • harlie Shackleton’s film The Afterlight is a collage of clips from hundreds of films from around the world. It brings together a cast of actors all of whom are no […]

from White Ivory, chapters 3 & 4

< chapters 1 & 2     chapters 5 & 6 > A Fortnightly Serial.   By ALAN WALL. • Chapter Three The Blues Y THE TIME Will’s train was half way to London the following morning, his son Charlie was entering his supervisor’s room in a large concrete block. She had the typescript of the […]

from White Ivory, chapters 1 & 2

chapters 3 & 4 > A Fortnightly Serial. By ALAN WALL. • Chapter One. Attraction WO CARS ARE moving towards each other on a winter night. It is a country road and there is no roadside illumination. Only the carlights. These beams swerve and shudder and prod the tarmac, the grass, the trees. Occasionally they […]

Poems from Prière (1924)

By Pierre Jean Jouve. Translated by Will Stone.   Snows he wind of afternoon on the highest day of the year breath, coldness and warm impetuosity. The snows cannot loosen their dark noose, the pink mountain in peace reveals its rocks, makes known its immensity, informs all of its immortal death. The sky is forbidden […]

Civilizing, Selling, and T. S. Eliot Curled Up Behind the Encyclopædia Britannica

By G. KIM BLANK. The only book, except the Bible, which has followed the Anglo-Saxon around the world. —ad for Encyclopædia Britannica, 1911 The New Encyclopædia Britannica is a complete and modern exposition of thought, learning and achievement to 1910, a vivid representation of the world’s activities, so arranged and classified as to afford a […]