What was she thinking, being swallowed by the water whole?

[sovay]

1. Late yesterday brought my contributor's copy of Niteblade #19, containing a reprint of my poem "The Coast Guard." The full content becomes available online once the magazine reaches its hard-costs goal, so I shall point you in the direction of the PDF and simply tell you this is one of the poems I am proudest of. It was written in the late fall of 2008 after fleurdelis28 and I drove out to Cape Cod to look for the wreck of a nineteenth-century schooner in the sand of Newcomb Hollow Beach. If you would also like to pick up the poem in its original setting of Sirenia Digest #41 or the shell-bound Chanteys for the Fisherangels, I will not protest.

2. This is my public service announcement of the day: Bryher's poetry. Read it. She is even less well known as a writer nowadays than H.D., who is one of my favorite poets and unwarranted secret history; I have decent luck with H.D. in used book stores, but in the fall of 2010 I ran into a copy of Bryher's Visa for Avalon (1965) and I still count myself blessed, because I have never seen anything by her in stores before or since. I discovered the Emory cache yesterday. "Horses of Tros" is one of the poems I want everyone to read on principle of language; I think "From Helix" and "Amazon" are not far behind. Her two semi-auto-romans à clef Development (1920) and Two Selves (1923) are also amazing and I will be tracking them down in print as soon as I can. She could write the sea. None of these people should be obscure.

(And then I found that H.D.'s daughter Perdita worked for Bletchley Park and the OSS and her son wrote that book about the cat at the Algonquin Hotel and everything became synchronous.)

3. Do not read this article if you do not like very large insects. If you don't mind twelve-centimeter tree lobsters, however, it is a lovely story of the rediscovery of the Lord Howe stick insect (Dryocelus australis) and how it did not go extinct in 1920 after all, no thanks to us.

4. Caitlín R. Kiernan's Confessions of a Five-Chambered Heart is now taking preorders. I wrote the afterword. You want to read the stories.

5. derspatchel's recipe for hot buttered rum is really good, especially with Kraken. (I am not drinking it right now. I am not the person with the bottle in their kitchen. I kind of wish I were.)

I should go shovel the front steps again.

Comments

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

I am really interested to examine their poems in conjunction. Thank heaven that was a book I never, in all the peregrinations and upheaval, got rid of...

I do mind twelve-centimeter HARDSHELL DEATH CRUSTACEANS, but you get a pass.

[sovay]

Thank heaven that was a book I never, in all the peregrinations and upheaval, got rid of...

The Guardian just excerpted The Walls Do Not Fall (1944) for their Poem of the Week, which I approve of, but they're still talking about H.D. in terms of Imagism. Also, I wish people would stop crediting Bryher by her birth name. There's a reason she ditched it. That said:

HD knew the power of ancient languages: she had studied classical Greek, and she must have been enthralled by the hieroglyphics at Karnak. Perhaps it's also worth remembering that she was writing in a golden age of radio.

. . . I can't write a script to save my life and I want to write classical Greek for radio now. Please send help.

I do mind twelve-centimeter HARDSHELL DEATH CRUSTACEANS, but you get a pass.

Here, quick, have Wittgenstein and his boyfriend!

(That's Francis Skinner. This is Ben Richards again. What I love about that profile shot is that it's the other half of the famous photograph of Wittgenstein against the blackboard, the one that the script book for Jarman's Wittgenstein replicates. I don't know if there are others from the set, but I love the idea of Wittgenstein and Richards trading the camera off. It gives me some strange hope that there's a terribly goofy photo of him somewhere.)

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

That poem excerpt is reallyappropriate.

And you know how I feel about not calling people by the names they want to be called. Rawr. Especially when a person's sexuality must, it seems, be mentioned at every pass in print, accord that person the dignity of the name they chose. Rawr!

Well, he had taste in men even if he didn't believe in himself.

[sovay]

That poem excerpt is reallyappropriate.

It really is, isn't it . . .

or what good are your scribblings?
this – we take them with us

beyond death

I'll show you Derek Jarman's Wittgenstein. In addition to the incomparable Karl Johnson, Jarman cast his partner—Kevin Collins, who still lives with his garden at Dungeness—as, essentially, Ben Richards, and he's as good a ringer for that young man in the mackintosh as Johnson is for Wittgenstein.

(This is a very pleasant pineapple.)

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

We can bring him cookies when we go to Kent. Or biscuits, I guess.

He was extraordinarily pretty at the time, and his face manages to be strong and winsome at the same time. Grudging approval from this quarter.

[sovay]

He was extraordinarily pretty at the time, and his face manages to be strong and winsome at the same time. Grudging approval from this quarter.

Historical and present personages would be glad you approve.

This was supposed to be the pineapple link.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Geeeeeeeegh. (Replication of actual laugh sound. Not normal because nose still recovering from effusion of fizzy drink.)

Yes, one must see that film.

[sovay]

Yes, one must see that film.

Wouldn't you know, I own a copy!

I shall bring it and A Canterbury Tale the next time I come to visit. And a lot of research on Bletchley Park.

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

You know how to throw a weekend.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Here, quick, have Wittgenstein and his boyfriend!


Do you realize that thanks to you, I know which is which? That's pretty remarkable.

[sovay]

Do you realize that thanks to you, I know which is which? That's pretty remarkable.

I feel very useful!