A PLACE FOR SIDEWAYS TRAINS OF THOUGHT
I have always found Henry James to be a difficult writer to read. I have often tried but, honestly , apart from the Turn of the Screw, which is riveting, and Daisy Miller, I have never managed to get past any of his prologues. This is probably due to the fact that, being an interpreter... Continue Reading →
Last year I stood on a corner at a crossroads in Hanoi where a stream of motorcycles, scooters and mopeds was going east to west and another south to north and both flows were heading for each other. A crash seemed inevitable, unless one stream suddenly gave way. But as if it were a baffling... Continue Reading →
Once every day at least, I use my landline to locate my misplaced cell phone. I wish I knew the number for my misplaced wisdom.
Listen to the poem here Life is an outbreak of Hungarian measles by which I mean the diagnosis never was nor will be found in scrolls or textbooks. When life comes round, however much you had been looking out for it, it never is quite what you did expect. It might turn out to be... Continue Reading →
When beginning as an interpreter many years ago , I was reminded that “Ivory Coast” was a name to be avoided as the authorities of that state insisted on it always being called by the French name Côte d’Ivoire. 2.Côte d’Ivoire is now a rather strange name since the ivory trade is prohibited. 3. A... Continue Reading →
I don’t think I am the only person to have thought once or twice that it would be nice to have a name like the ones you hear in Westerns: Soaring Eagle, say, or Jumping Raccoon. In one film, of which I remember nothing else, one of the characters said that Native American children were... Continue Reading →
I have begun to add readings of poems to my YouTube channel (sidewaysstation). For the time being there are five, but I'll be adding more over time.
I've been recording poems for a while in a new section of the site entitled "Poems read aloud". Click on the link to go to the index (also on the second line of the main menu at the top of the page).
I was listening to an interesting podcast called 99 percent invisible. I got distracted at some point and lost the thread, but a few minutes later my mind was reeled in again when I heard the words "the distance a shout carries in the city". The voice continued to read what seemed to be a... Continue Reading →
Siren song My city with its uphill loves, my Genoa all full of sea and steps and, rising from the harbour, whirlpools of living life all the way up to reach the ridges of the sheet-metal roofs, now with what forcefulness inside me, here where each word has turned to lead, does it quiver... Continue Reading →