Tag Archives: Basil Bunting

Close, 2

(A short disquisition on how sideboards do furnish a room, in which I’m thinking about types of closeness: how close we get to – or should approach – those lives we thought we might lead. How distant the writer might … Continue reading

Posted in current emanations, Makaronics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Stiob! It’s the New Unsettlement

(I’ll try to post this four part piece daily across this week.) 2 One social phenomenon which illustrates this neatly is the late Soviet satiric mode of stiob*. According to Dominic Boyer and Alexei Yurchak, who produced a study comparing stiob … Continue reading

Posted in dundee makar | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Carry On, Leonora: 1

(This is the first of five sections of a piece I’ve been puzzling over all summer about the great British Surrealist painter and writer, Leonora Carrington. Puzzling because I don’t quite know where I’m going with this, though it clearly … Continue reading

Posted in xenochronicity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

homeless words

(This little review of the NE magister MacSweeney was for Scotland on Sunday, and was written in June 2003.) Occasionally, in the middle of the night, those who knew Barry MacSweeney would receive questionable phonecalls. He had a wry, lilting … Continue reading

Posted in reviews (some antique) | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Root and Graft

(This piece was written in November 2004 in response to a request from Beeb2’s Culture Show for a take on the NE’s literary scene. It didn’t take. But it roughs out the idea that there is in the UK a cultural … Continue reading

Posted in elderblog | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment