& The Midnight Heart Blog
[This talk was given on March 3rd 2018 at a talk for a Heforshe event at the Ohio State University.] I want to start by quoting a short poem by the British author Jane Commane. The poem is called ‘Landmarks’ and it describes the threat of violence in our everyday spaces, asks how or why [...]
I know I am not the first person to admire Kate Chopin's The Awakening. The book focuses on Edna Pontellier, a married woman, who through her friendship with a younger man discovers her gradually awakening sexuality and desire. Published in 1899, the book was ahead of its time, and Chopin's book was declared immoral by her [...]
'Swan' is out now in Australian Book Review. It's a poem that I worked on with the poet Joanna Klink at Kenyon College over the summer. I am very grateful to her for getting me to think about getting back to the sensuous kind of writing with which I began. 'Swan' is a poem about [...]
'Sonnet for the Hole in the Glass is out today at Rattle, and it is the Editor's Choice for the Rattle Ekphrastic Challenge. https://www.rattle.com/sonnet-for-the-hole-in-the-glass-by-zoe-brigley-thompson/
I saw the film Loving Vincent last week, and it was just incredible. Here is the blurb: “I saw 50 or 60 painters painting, and someone told me: ‘Oh it’s you! I’ve been painting you for six months.’ Probably a lot of them knew my face better than I,” jokes Robert Gulaczyk, who plays Vincent van Gogh [...]
I have been working for a long time on the current manuscript, and some of these poems have been published in the last few months. Other are forthcoming, for example in Orion, The Manhattan Review, Poetry Wales, Abridged, and the anthology The Edge of Necessary: Welsh Innovative Poetry. 'Round Trip,' a poem about Brexit and Britain's precarious relationship with [...]
I am teaching a special seminar this semester on detective fiction, and I enjoyed hearing Jonathan Lethem's thoughts on the detective as a subject of trauma, and a refusal of individualism. I share it here: http://bigthink.com/videos/big-think-interview-with-jonathan-lethem
I loved watching the TV show Westworld over the summer, and I just wanted to share this video, which brings out the meta qualities of the storytelling in the series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYtFYowC7LU
I forgot to mention a poem published in Poetry Ireland Review recently titled 'Ravishment.' It was an incredible issue, and I highly recommend it. Vona Groarke's final issue as editor, it included work by Simon Armitage, Sinéad Morrissey, Colette Bryce, Paul Muldoon, Sean O'Brien and Caitríona O'Reilly. Books reviewed include new work from Derek Mahon, Bernard O'Donoghue, [...]
I just had an article out in The Manifest Station, which is about the idea of repeat victimisation. Domestic violence is still so badly understood, and unless you have studied the subject, it can be difficult to understand why abusive relationships unfold the way they do. It was important to me to get these thoughts [...]
