HOME (FOR A MONTH) IN GRASMERE

HOME (FOR A MONTH) IN GRASMERE

by | Jun 18, 2019 | Blogs, Staff and Guest blogs

In March this year it was my great fortune to stay in Grasmere with the Wordsworth Trust as their poet in residence. The reach of the Trust is huge and I would urge anyone who doesn’t know about them to find out: https://wordsworth.org.uk/ The brief for the residency...
Magic in the reeds

Magic in the reeds

by | Jul 4, 2018 | Blogs, Staff and Guest blogs

Magic in the reeds: A day at Wicken Fen with Professor Nick Davies by Alexandra Davis   “And I …will … Show thee a jay’s nest, and instruct thee how To snare the nimble marmoset. I’ll bring thee To clustering filberts, and sometimes I’ll get thee Young scamels...
On Let’s Dance

On Let’s Dance

by | Nov 22, 2017 | Staff and Guest blogs

I wanted to write about David Bowie’s Let’s Dance album for the Rialto Cold Fire pamphlet, primarily because it features the song ‘Modern Love’, one of my favourite songs to dance to. Never going to fall for (Modern Love) Walks beside me (Modern Love) Walks on by...
Diamond Dogs Rule OK

Diamond Dogs Rule OK

by | Jul 28, 2017 | Staff and Guest blogs

Writing The Hounds and their Half-Hound Master Bowie’s Diamond Dogs was originally meant to be a sprawling stage show – a glam rock dystopia on roller skates. Its heady post-apocalyptic imagery and dramatic shifts in mood and tone certainly give it the feel of...
On ‘Station to Station’

On ‘Station to Station’

by | Jul 28, 2017 | Staff and Guest blogs

On ‘Station to Station’ Station to Station is my favourite David Bowie album, and it seemed the natural starting point when I was asked to write a poem about the Dame. Its immediate successor, Low, is the better, more important record but Station to Station has this...
On ‘Lady Stardust’

On ‘Lady Stardust’

by | May 24, 2017 | Staff and Guest blogs

When commissioning pieces for the original Bowieoke event, I decided to give the other poets their pick of Bowie albums to write on, and to choose my own from among those left. It came as a welcome surprise that 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the...
TO DAVID FOSTER WALLACE by Ben Wilkinson

TO DAVID FOSTER WALLACE by Ben Wilkinson

by | Feb 8, 2017 | Poems in The Rialto

[See end of post for image credit] To David Foster Wallace   by Ben Wilkinson Since I was old enough to know myself I’ve been trying to figure it out – the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing, like half the time I’d chuck it all in; throw...
FIGHT SONG by Paula Bohince

FIGHT SONG by Paula Bohince

by | Sep 1, 2016 | Poems in The Rialto

FIGHT SONG  by Paula Bohince August 2014 A crisis on a monitor, and there’s this football field, white chalk formalizing grass, a spongy black track where I walk off my no-baby weight. A deadline has passed, so a journalist will leave this world violently as I go...
Kate Wakeling on Writing

Kate Wakeling on Writing

by | Jun 29, 2016 | Blogs

It’s taken me ages to find my way with writing, to feel that I was allowed, internally, to get on with it. From there, it’s been a brilliant and slightly terrifying experience to put a first pamphlet together, and I’ve maybe not yet quite caught up with the idea of it...