Poetry

  • The Sick Rose

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    O Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm, That flies in the night In the howling storm: Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy. —William Blake, Songs of Experience

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  • Physics vs Poetry

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    When I’m traveling I try to read the New Yorker — a transatlantic flight usually gets me through most of an issue. I was even more interested than usual when I picked up the issue at Heathrow and found the front-cover blurb, “Physics vs Poetry: New fiction by Ian McEwan”. McEwan is thought of as…

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  • Poetry and Space

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    I’ll be introducing this event tomorrow. Come on over for an evening of scientific poetry… (Apologies: most of the following links are broken.) Inua Ellams is one of the UK’s most talented performance poets. He is establishing a great reputation for the power and quality of his work. His live appearances have included the BBC…

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  • Glass/Cohen

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    I went to see and hear “The Book of Longing” last night, Philip Glass’ musical setting of a selection of Leonard Cohen’s poems. Leonard Cohen, praised for the last forty years or so as much as a singer-songwriter as a poet, is an odd choice as a libbrettist. Glass may mostly be a better composer…

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  • Howl at 50; Happy New Year

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    This week marks the 50th anniversary of the first reading of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”, most famously an angry eulogy for the destruction wrought by McCarthyite fifties America: I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded…

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