& The Midnight Heart Blog
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 [...]
This is a transcription of the speech given at the reception of The Little Cage of Ellis Bell. The past is another country. They do things differently there. These words from L. P. Hartley' The Gobetween are probably a cliché now, and the idea that the past is a faraway country is certainly challenged by [...]
The Little Cage of Ellis Bell A Week-long Exhibit in the Hopkins Hall Gallery Summer Series 12th – 16th June This project presents the work of British artists Victoria Brookland (art) and Zoë Brigley Thompson (poetry), alongside historic garments from the Ohio State Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection. In juxtaposition, the paintings, poems, and [...]
I heard today that some of my poems are going to be included in the anthology The Edge of Necessary: Welsh innovative poetry 1966-2016. I started thinking about the particular kind of experimentation that I enjoy, and where that urge comes from. It put in my mind a particular moment. In 1985, when I was 4 [...]
I am much indebted to the incredibly talented Claire Trevien who has just posted today a videopoem based on my poem 'Stanford, California.' The poem is part of a sequence 'Beatitudes for the Women' on the subject of violence against women. This one is a found poem that recycles real testimony from the Stanford letter, [...]
