Review in goodreads of Money by Martin Amis

Readable substitute to caffeine

Money by Martin Amis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars


What I truly enjoyed is the language Martin Amis uses, or more precisely his use of language. It is so dynamic and energizing that I found myself re-reading some words to test their effect again and again.

Also the feeling it constructs, of tasting, hearing, living in a dazzling city like New York.

Martin Amis will always be a favourite because he is so different and new.

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Valentina Cano in Boston Poetry

Hollow Woman by Valentina Cano

While the woman watched TV,

the room around her decided to leave.

To take itself away from someone

who chewed air,

who thought of nothing

but of the empty spaces between words.

The room could not stand another

minute of her breathing,

silent, strong, and tasting of the endless

cups of cheap tea cooling like bathwater in her stomach.

The room left

and the woman never noticed.

Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy

Today´s the last day to see Anselm Kiefer at the Royal Academy 
Royal Academy, London

Anselm Kiefer’s monumental work in ash, straw, diamonds and sunflowers dazzles in a superb retrospective.

Here I quote from Rachel Cooke-

• ......he works on a grand scale in lead, sand, gold leaf, copper wire, broken ceramics, straw, wood and even diamonds, his ideas informed by, among many other subjects, the Holocaust, Egyptian mythology, the architecture of Albert Speer, German Romanticism and the poems of Paul Celan. He is the kind of artist whose physical presence – in his black T-shirts and rimless spectacles, he puts one in mind just lately of an executive from Apple – always comes as a surprise. How, you wonder, can a man who deals with so much weighty stuff have such regular-looking shoulders, such ordinary biceps? And why is he smiling? Doesn’t the darkness ever threaten to engulf him? Doesn’t his project – now more than 40 years old – sometimes pinch at his sanity?

A poem by Paul Celan, To Stand in The Shadow

To stand in the Shadow
of the Wound’s-Mark in the Air.

For no-one and nothing to Stand.
Unknown,
for you
alone.

With all, that within finds Room,
even without
Speech. 

I Eye

Need weekend inspiration look at the skies here-

AGNI Online: and today Proust paints distance by Mary Buchinger

And I felt the splashing looking and reading Mary Buchinger´s poem:

and today Proust paints distance by Mary Buchinger

glass jars—
                  the village children

    lower them
                      into the Vivonne for minnows


crystal containers   of    flowing crystal
        insoluble glass     impalpable water 

         the fish flashing,
         caught and carried for bait


     come, time, come
bite,

                                      that child-once-was
                                          that splash in a jar

Writer´s sleeping habits

Famous Writers’ Sleep Habits vs. Literary Productivity, Visualized

by Maria Popova“In both writing and sleeping,” Stephen King observed in his excellent meditation on the art of “creative sleep” and wakeful dreaming, “we learn to be physically still at the same time we are encouraging our minds to unlock from the humdrum rational thinking of our daytime lives.”...................

SLAM POETRY DOES NOT EXIST

Interesting article on poetry genre: Slam Poetry.


SLAM POETRY DOES NOT EXIST: HOW A MOVEMENT HAS BEEN MISCONSTRUED AS A GENRE

By Chris Gilpin

Lately, I’ve been meeting slam poets who have never participated in a poetry slam. Let me be clear. I’m not talking about spoken word artists working outside of the slam movement; these are self-proclaimed slam poets with no interest in participating in poetry slams. They’ve never attended one and have no intention of doing so.

This is a bit absurd but understandable, given how many people think that slam is a poetic genre rather than a grassroots movement. If you believe that slam poetry is a poetic genre, then you should be able to learn the technique and craft of making slam poems and do so in any context. Why bother with the potential let down of a poetry competition? Just find some slam poetry on YouTube and imitate whatever style has the most hits. Tada! You’re a slam poet!

 

There’s only one drawback to this approach: slam poetry does not exist.......