Largely because of shifting academic and popular fashions, because of his own mix of Anglo-Irish, Russian, French and American traditions, and because of his sophisticated reticence – not to mention more mysterious factors determining literary celebrity – Brian Moore seems to me, as perhaps Nathanael West was up until ten years ago, a case of…
1. Celastrus scandens is the innocent, woody vine whose clusters of orange fruit open to expose bright red seeds. Scandens means climbing, or examine, see, spectacle, and scene. The Greek root meant stumble, then snare, hence scandal and scansion too. So, sparklings or star-seeds strung out on a hard, twisted line, tumbling, stumbling, and scandalized….
It is summer and the birds maintain their silence. There is the smell of raspberries that proves to be my birthday, and the gathering of certain dust which I find encouraging, and Jesus Loves Me again and again on a vague piano. This I know. I pass myself the salt.
The characters in this work are meant to be real. References to persons living and dead are intended. Are there fifteen people in the world who will be afraid when they read this paragraph? No. That, in itself, is a comment on my insignificance. Are there fifteen people who will become uneasy on reading it?…
The air was soft, the ground still cold. In the dull pasture where I strolled Was something I could not believe. Dead grass appeared to slide and heave, Though still too frozen-flat to stir, And rocks to twitch, and all to blur. What was this rippling of the land? Was matter getting out of hand…
The Feast of St John, Corpus Christi Sunday, Houses breathing warmly out like stacks of hay, Windows wide, the white and yellow Papal flags Now drooped: one side of the street nods at the cool Shadow opposite sloping towards the canal’s Green weed that reflects nothing. Turn a corner, Nettles lap at a high hoarding,…
When she'd packed up the remains of the picnic lunch and gotten the twins settled in their carriage, Betty Meyers looked around for Bobby, her five-year-old. Squinting against the sun, she finally saw him 'way up the beach, playing with some French kids. "Bobby!" she yelled, but he pretended not to hear and she started…
The blue Norfolk air Is familiar with sea gulls. The ground is crawling with cats. The random observer, going about his time, May carry a pencil and piece of paper, To hunt out remarkable quarry: Today, Five cats, all furred-out in black and white Patterns, were up in the same tree; All out on…
I The ghost of Raymondo Cruz leaned awkwardly against a far corner of the angled bedroom; by now Victor recognized that the mere slump of shoulders, the bending of wrinkled green slacks and a downcast skinny face signified nothing tragic; odds were high that Popps was only meditating, for no tears slid around; Victor, the…
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