Skip to main content

May 2015: Literary Links

Bookish reading and the like...

Korean Artist Beautifully Illustrates What Real Love Looks Like







On 13th May 1888, Beatrix Potter, aged 22, recorded a trip to Machynlleth in her diary; 
"May 13: Went with Mamma and Papa to Machynlleth, Merioneth. From Euston to Stafford by Holyhead Mail all very well, but the Welsh Railways are past description. Four hours to go sixty miles between Shrewsbury and Machynlleth. When mushrooms are in season the guard goes out to pick them. Machynlleth, wretched town, hardly a person could speak English. Wynnstay Arms, to which we were directed, closed these two years. Lion, only other, a singular place."
"Countryside most beautiful, but on rather a large scale for getting about."
"Welsh seem a pleasant intelligent race but I should think awkward to live with. The children exceedingly pretty, black or red, with clear complexions and bright blue eyes. The middle-aged are very plain but the old people are better. The language is past description."


The Enemies Project from Poetry Wales provided some of the best spoken word I've seen in Wales for ages and ages... I went to Cardiff AND Swansea and would have liked to see more. here's their website: http://www.theenemiesproject.com/gelynion/



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Open newslist

Guardian open up their newslist. Helpful and insightful or another step towards the takeover of less-informed citizen journalism and media cost-cutting/ job cuts? Discuss... More:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/series/open-newslist?fb=native In other media news... The Times and Sunday Times cut 150 editorial posts More:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/oct/20/times-job-cuts?fb=native

GIG ALERT: Natalie Ann Holborow at Uplands Poetry Night, Swansea

 

BOOK REVIEW: 'It deserves to be read far more widely.'

In her engaging review essay 'Fantastical Doubles and Split Selves' in the latest issue of New Welsh Review , author of The Word, JL George, looks at responses to trauma in three recent novels including Fox Bites by Lloyd Markham . Here are three of our favourite snippets: ‘Lloyd Markham’s first full-length novel Fox Bites , set in early-2000s Zimbabwe, takes a similar tack, colliding social upheaval – as viewed through the sometimes-uncomprehending eyes of a young, neurodivergent boy – with smaller, more personal disruptions. The young protagonist, Taban, suffers bullying and isolation among his peers after his family splits apart: his aunt, uncle, and beloved cousin Caleb moving away to a farm which will later be seized during land reforms.’ ‘Taban must resist the temptation to become part of a cycle of abuse, thereby becoming a conduit for the destruction of his world. Although the stakes of the book eventually become world-threatening in the expected way of science fiction...