. . . in my next book, Reading Old English Wisdom: The Fetters in the Frost, which discusses the major Old English wisdom poems. It has at last been published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, and I will be organising some kind of launch as soon as I can, though a degree of caution is still called for. I will post details as soon as arranging an event becomes feasible.
With his always-engaging playfulness, Borges can drive you crazy, but he never bores! Translated by Stephen Kessel.
A spare biography can be found here http://www.philipstclair.com/biography
Find out more about Muir and his work: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edwin-muir
I’ve only recently become acquainted with the American poet C.K.Williams, whose work negotiates a delicate balance between sharply focused observations of common ‘reality’ and a sense of half-glimpsed alternatives by which it is haunted. ‘Light’ is a classic example, poising vivid recollection of a visit to a bat-filled cave with the underworld visions of Dante’s Inferno. The bats focus the meditation, both as common images of life’s dark, uncanny side (think popular Halloween imagery, and then remember Halloween is the Eve of All Hallows, the traditional day for commemorating the dead) and as reminders of how our literary culture has also invested those uncanny realms with unsettling presences (think Dante, of course, but notice too how the bats’ ‘squeaking and squealing’ recall Homer’s ‘twittering shades’ of the dead).
A mediation on writing poetry, by way of apologising for not writing poetry. Poets play all sorts of games, especially with themselves.
