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‘King of infinite space’.

The Virtue of Uncertainty. By ALAN WALL. ◊ t is a curious fact, a vivid historical coincidence, that the great French scientist Laplace was formulating his notions at precisely the same moment that John Keats was writing his letters about Shakespeare. Laplace was an eloquent spokesman for classical causality: we can summarise this crudely by […]

From Reverse | Inverse

  Five Prose Poems. By LUCY HAMILTON.  • Crossings and critical points I. indow on Paris. I peered through the bars down to the cobbles five floors below. I could only interpret the event in retrospect. Transfer my perspective into my young cousin’s shoes. But she didn’t see it happen. She was in that room […]

Three short fictions.

By MEG POKRASS.   Clouds, the Day After You Were Born he day you were born, clouds flirted with each other. They had nice hair, ideas that led to better formations. Easily they blended into pleasant shapes. But the day after you were born, clouds argued about some misunderstanding. In the middle of the night, they collided in the cold kitchen. The one, slouched over martini breath, said, Why do I frighten you? The […]

The Back of Beyond.

And two more prose poems. By Tony Kitt. ◊ The Back of Beyond At the crossroad of prognostication, a thief penetrates non-squeakiness, sigh by sigh. His cautiousness germinates stupefaction. His apple heart sheds seeds. He has been preparing for this moment by oiling his joints with money syrup since the birth of his inner hamster. […]

Kubrick: Sex in the cinema.

A Fortnightly Film Commentary. By Alan Wall. he nude on the canvas isn’t entirely naked: at least it is covered in paint. Not so the nude on celluloid. Film is thinner than canvas. You can see through it. With celluloid, they shine the lights right through your body and out the other side. How does […]

Robert Desnos, screenwriter.

A Fortnightly Film Commentary.Minuit à quatorze heures (1925) | Les mystères du Métropolitain  (1930) |Les récifs de l’amour (1930) | Y a des punaises dans le rôti de porc  (1933) ◊ By SIMON COLLINGS. he surrealist poet Robert Desnos was a passionate advocate of the power of cinema. He believed film had the potential to free […]

A clutch of ingenious authors.

A Fortnightly Review Four Times EightyOne: Bespoke Stories by Michelene Wandor. Odd Volumes | 978-0999136591 | £15.95 ◊ Florilegia by Annabel Dover. MOIST Books | 978-1913430047 | £9.45 ◊ Abécédaire by Sharon Kivland. MOIST Books | 978-1-913430-10-8 | £11.95   By ANTHONY HOWELL. aving “found my stride” in the seventies, I am always interested in […]

Missing in Mechelen.

The Search for Estera Pesa Nasielski To commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the resistance attack on the twentieth Jewish convoy from Mechelen, Belgium to Auschwitz Birkenau, Poland on 19 April 1943.   By Will Stone.   oday there is no one left alive who remembers Estera Pesa Nasielski of Brussels as a living person. She […]

Thirties street photo.

And two more new poems. By STEVEN MATTHEWS.   o earnestly they walk, the dead, the streets of their city, all suits and fedoras, tie-pins straight, glittery brooches perfectly pinned on lapels of winter coats, a few cars lingering at kerbs, cheerful groups in the cafés not noticing the singing sweep of light shining down […]

‘Snowdrifts’.

  By MARINA TSVETAEVA. translated with a note by Belinda Cooke. ♦ This little-known sequence, ‘Snowdrifts’, written in 1922, shows Marina Tsvetaeva at a transition point. Her mind is filled with the apocalyptic events she has experienced at home, at the same time as she looks to her unknown future abroad. The Soviet writer Ilya […]

The Lad from Stratford.

A Fortnightly Review. ◊ Elizabeth Winkler Shakespeare Was a Woman and other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature Simon and Schuster 2023 | £13.77 $19.38. • By ALAN WALL. ll that follows is by way of deeply troubled reflections. I do not have any fixed opinions on the authorship question. The […]

Kingfishers and cobblestones.

And five more new poems. By KITTY HAWKINS. • KINGFISHERS AND COBBLESTONES ON ERLEIGH Road the pavement shifts: beach at the edge of the world where compact sand imitates fish scales after the tide clocks off. Thanks to confident poet friends I’m including mulch in this one. Thanks to recommendations I use cathartic effectively. We’re […]

AI

Signs of the Times By Alan Wall. e couldn’t have had the Renaissance nowadays. Too many books involved. A fire hazard. Health and Safety would not have stood for it. If it’s not online, it can’t be relevant anyway. The accessibility of knowledge is the proof of its utility. If it’s not mainline, then it’s […]

Please swipe right.

  By Chloe Phillips. ◊ blow things up for a living, so I guarantee that I can do your taxes. I’ll put on my uniform if you ask: I’m a volunteer firefighter, full-time pimp; I made $5,000,000 last year— that’s irrelevant. I’m known for being funny, like six-pack inducing funny;) My friends describe me as […]

Never again.

By Igor Webb.   ounted on the wall next to my desk is a large (24″ x 18″) formal black-and-white photo of me in a gilded frame, aged maybe three. When the news of the Hamas invasion of Israel, and of the Israeli response, first broke, it was this old photo that immediately came to […]