On first reading I was distinctly unimpressed with Lorcán Black's "Strange Husbandry". Indeed, I very nearly didn't finish it. But I put it aside (for a couple of months) and re-read it last week. [This is a new process I seem to have adopted with poetry collections - especially those I struggle with initially.] The … Continue reading “Strange Husbandry”
Category: Books
“The Black Snow”
The language in Paul Lynch's "The Black Snow" possesses a kind of sustained lyricism which blends the poetic, the archaic, and the rural vocabulary of old Ireland. If you're not au fait with the language, occasionally you can get lost in it (in the sense of not being quite sure what is being said) and … Continue reading “The Black Snow”
Book trailers
Over the last few weeks I have been generating short video trailers for my books (most are less than a minute long). Here they all are collected in one place!
“Ham on Rye”
I have just read Charles Bukowski's Ham on Rye in double-quick time. It's urgent, powerful, raw - and like Henry Chinaski himself, doesn't pull any punches. It's a book which also peels back layers on society, on belonging (and not belonging), on the treadmill of vacuous routine. Pointlessness is never very far away, and romance … Continue reading “Ham on Rye”
“The City and its Uncertain Walls”
Having read just about everything he's written, it's fair to say that I'm a huge fan of Haruki Murakami. On that basis, I started reading "The City and its Uncertain Walls" with a degree of relish. However, whilst in many respects "City" is typical Murakami, there are a couple of things that bother me about … Continue reading “The City and its Uncertain Walls”
“An Arbitrary Light Bulb”
There is a challenge in reading poetry which is intrinsically personal to the poet. Often, in order to get the most from a piece, you need to know the people concerned or the places described or the events which happened. Without this, striving for interpretation can feel a little like reading with one metaphorical hand … Continue reading “An Arbitrary Light Bulb”
February’s best Substack posts
"when you see anything of mine that you don’t like remember that I’m sincere in doing it and that I’m working toward something." - Ernest Hemingway A selection of links to recent posts from my Substack site. "Writing until the light goes out" "Writing until the light goes out"
Grimsby Docks – a trailer
“Constructing a Witch”
One of the many dangers in putting together a largely single-themed collection of poetry is that the poet may find themselves working with a restricted suite of words - this in addition to running the risk of 'sameness' or good poems/lines simply getting 'lost'. Painters do something similar of course (think Rothko or Picasso's 'periods'), … Continue reading “Constructing a Witch”
Ian Gouge - Writer 