@pwbwriter1
Vancouver writer of poetry, fiction, literary criticism & academic articles about the law. Lover of all things Italian & Irish. Most recent of five titles: The World You Now Own (2024); Idiolect (2021); & The Four-Faced Liar (2021). www.pwbridgman.ca
More about #RomanOleksiv. In his father, Yaroslav's, words: "It's important to talk about it. You can't just be silent. We frequently go to Mom's cemetery, practically every other day. He comes, lights a candle, we sit for a while and go home. That is our life."
www.rferl.org/a/children-w...
What heart will not be stirred by Roman's searing testimony & his translator's response to it? When strength & compassion are conjoined in this way, we are reminded of the human goodness that must prevail in Putin's contemptible war against Ukraine
This is, or should be, Ukraine's #AlanKurdi moment
This may be the strongest case I have ever seen ever made--unwittingly of course--against AI. It runs slightly ahead of the promotion of those odious robots that increasingly are being developed to provide companionship for seniors in care homes to save governments and private operators money.
Now, how can I print a copy of this post and leave it lying around somewhere in the house without looking obvious?
I am delighted to be on the Gordon Burn longlist because number one, I am a Gordon Burn nut, and number two the books I have already read on this list are brilliant. Thank you so much.
It's called "shrinkflation" in Canada.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTwi...
Ah well. The nomination is a garland you can wear with pride and which no one can take away from you. Congratulations on being a finalist.
Fingers crossed for a win for "On Beauty".
Bravo! I am mostly indifferent to team sports (the shame!) but many like me were nevertheless caught up in the excitement of the World Series this year--a time in Canada when the unhinged president of our southern neighbour threatens to annex us and make us the 51st state. Not going to happen.
Canadians learned that lesson recently when the Toronto Blue Jays had the World Series "in the bag" until they didn't--in the second overtime inning of the seventh & final game. But, despite the loss, the upsurge in excitement & enthusiasm for the team's fine effort lives on. So not a loss, really.
Tsawassen and its environs! Please join @catwrites604.bsky.social and me for a reading tomorrow at 7pm, Nov 11th, at Albany books!
"...always aware of the human alchemy of writing and reading, how you let creativity flow in yourself and how the results land in the reader."
Read the insightful @ruthpadel.bsky.social's tender paean to S. Heaney & the new Collected, out now from @faberbooks.bsky.social
www.ft.com/content/d562...
From P.W. Bridgman, Idiolect (Ekstasis Editions, 2021)
From P.W. Bridgman, Idiolect (Ekstasis Editions, 2021).
Perhaps the presence of a ghost qualifies a poem as "spooky" & worthy of posting on a rainy Hallowe'en?
"You Have a Visitor, Sir" features Philip Larkin, a talking parrot called "Lickspittle," an undertaker called "Mr. Bottle"... Something for everyone.
Congratulations, Nicholas. This is wonderful news. Please DM me with details, if you can, about how I might be able to purchase an inscribed copy. Tom aka PWB
Bravo! Kevin Barry's celebrated Young Skins was one of my Reads of the Year in 2016. Great to see it receiving this new recognition. I also put Karen Solie's The Road in is Not the Same Road Out on my 2016 RoTY list. This year her Wellwater won the Forward.
glasgowreviewofbooks.com/2016/12/31/r...
"...My father removed
The pope’s blessing and replaced it
With his own. That might work
Better for you, he said."
From "Garnets," a spellbinding new poem by @tricialockwood.bsky.social in the latest issue of the @lrb.co.uk.
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
In time, Heaney confronted the Troubles with the full weight of his talent. (See esp., Station Island, section VIII).
Other NI poets ably navigated the Odyssean challenges O'Toole notes--none better than Ciaran Carson in "Belfast Confetti" (here in his own voice).
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEI9...
@fotoole.bsky.social on Heaney's initial reluctance to engage with the Troubles in his poems.
"He resisted gut instincts that could not be transmuted into art, steering clear, like Odysseus, of both the whirlpool of propaganda and the monster of indifference."
observer.co.uk/culture/book...
Coming in November. Don't Speak To Strangers. Our next series of Online Poetry Pamphlets. Featuring Moyra Donaldson, Scott McKendry, Alicia Byrne Keane, David Nash, and Lianne O'Hara. @artscouncilireland.bsky.social @poetryireland.bsky.social
'I have my own poet’s preoccupations that come back to me more or less uncontrollably, which I then have to turn into something basically legible that someone else might be interested in.'
Joint winners Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie in conversation: thelondonmagazine.org/interview-fo...
Hope you and John had a glorious anniversary celebration!
Thanks, Theresa. Progress in recovery is better and swifter than last year but, even so, getting out to tomorrow's concert is not on the cards, alas. I'm missing the entire Writers' Festival this year too! Timing is everything. Still, I'll be fully mobile and pain-free in a few months.
I think that might be a poem.
Nothing less than recovering from the knee-replacement surgery I underwent ten days ago could keep me away from seeing Dan Bejar and Destroyer perform at the Vogue in Vancouver tomorrow night.
Break a leg, Dan.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBWg...
Is there anyone who could read this poem aloud & not have his or her voice catch?
Finding work like this sets me on an obsessive search for more writing by the poet. It's plain to me now. Gregory Orr deserves more of my attention than he has received.
So the search begins.
Thank you, Phillip.
And the tragedy echoes down the ages. Basil Fawlty to Sybil: "“Oh dear, what happened? Did you get entangled in the eiderdown again? Hmm?"
x.com/FAWLTYTOWERS...
When AI climbs over the little plastic fence that surrounds the daycare's sandbox, toddles unsteadily indoors (diaper is full so centre of balance is off) and starts mashing the keys on somebody's laptop with its tiny, moist hands.
Tiny moist hands have much to answer for in this world of ours.
Happy 46th to you and John, Theresa! Hoping you have something wildly imaginative in mind for your celebration. Tom
Did you know that Tess Gallagher formed an enduring friendship & poetic axis with Ciaran Carson in the mid-1970s? CC admired her writing & Irish subject matter is plentiful in her poetry. She read at his memorial in 2020. Clip from an interview circa 2007 is attached.
inside.ewu.edu/willowspring...