Vivat Libertas

I'm a philistine. I'm not necessarily proud of this, but I'm a philistine all the same. I simply find it difficult to connect to, say, the visual arts or poetry in the same way that I connect to prose or music - especially music. My wonderful boyfriend is planning on entering the National Poetry Competition , which is a really huge fucking deal , and asked me for critiques on the poems (I think this is a bad idea because I don't consider myself a particularly great judge of poetry; more on this later). I browsed about fifty poems, from first prize winners to commendations. I pored through fifty poems by some of the most promising poets worldwide. Precisely one touched me. Out of fifty poems by the cream of our literary crop, I would have come back to only one of them - Hill Speak by Zaffar Kunial , if you must know. This is because for all that I'm coarse and unappreciative of the fine art of poetry, wrought by pointed hand, I really love all the little det...

If you use any social media whatsoever, you will have probably seen quotes by people which are invariably about love, loss, and existential angst. It is optional for these poems to be in all lower case, or to sometimes include short story fragments. They are interesting; social media offers opportunities for disseminating work like no other (even when censored) and they can potentially do really cool things with images. I just wish that most of them weren't so crap. If you have bought and loved books by, say, Emery Allen or Lang Leav, you're probably furious right now. How could I , a talentless little wretch with hardly the reach of either of these authors, dare to criticise them? The answer is simple: I'm in the wrong demographic. I didn't really care that much about this genre of writing - I saw it sometimes on my tumblr dashboard and it didn't particularly appeal to me. I found it far too cloying and twee for my taste. A while ago my best friend lent...

I really hate poetry in translation, to be honest. A lot of people might think that that's an overreaction, and frankly I wouldn't blame them. Yes, it's always so much nicer to be able to read in the original language, but if you can't do that a translation will suffice. Right? Wrong. I don't know how many people reading this appreciate the differences between languages - but they can be huge. I can understand English, Latin, French and Hebrew and each of them has a different way of describing an experience. Latin will quite happily mess around with syntax and uses tense and mood to powerful, precise effect; French has concepts that are difficult to translate into English, as does German; Hebrew is highly inflected, in some cases even more so than Latin as it uses a stupid amount of different forms for the second person singular pronoun depending on gender and context and uses this to great effect - for example, at times it can distinguish between concept an...

Otherwise known as the Catullus Fangirling Post. (If you don't know who Catullus was, read the link and be ye educated. It's very, very worth it.) Right. So while off at Latin camp  (shameless self-promotion is shameless, but still), the Hellenic Book Service came along to sell stuff to us. Ignore the aesthetics of their website - their actual physical shops and services are very, very good, especially for Latin/Greek/Classics geeks (and non-geeks as well - a day in there is a day well spent for anyone who wants to cram their head full of knowledge). They also sell some second-hand stuff as well, including a copy of Fifty Latin Lyrics  which I picked up for a pittance compared to the price on Amazon. This isn't product placement - this is me explaining how I got where I am now. Anyway, I'm working through said Latin Lyrics  to keep my brain sharp and broaden my horizons a little, since I've been meaning to read more Latin literature but haven't really had...

A very short, random poem I wrote about the effect Pablo Neruda's poetry had on me. It was kind of just a spur-of-the-moment thing and I hadn't posted in ages, so... Neruda With your pen and voice and sheer poetry You touched my heart, softly stroking it - Sounding a string or two, deeper and richer Than I thought I'd know. On a starless English night You swept away the clouds And let me see the bright pinpoints of a lover's dreamworld. My heart and mind were wrenched, I didn't care, I fell to it like some lovesick maniac and let loose the feelings I'd kept hidden for so long. That night, I held the pages, more fragile than a wing, between my fat fingers and came so close to love I felt I could touch its face: To me, nothing mattered More than words.

Don't worry, this blog hasn't suddenly turned into French. My writing skills aren't good enough for that yet, unfortunately. Anyway, for those of you who understand French, I came across this poem in What is Art?  by Tolstoy. For those of you who haven't read it, think of a cross between Mary Whitehouse and Plato. If your brain hasn't exploded from the sheer weirdness of that last statement, What is Art?  is just a very conservative treatise on art which argues that without religion, art has degenerated from something meaningful into something which serves only to give sensual pleasure. And if you're thinking that that sounds like every conservative diatribe ever, you'd be right. Still, I'm reading it because hey, it's Tolstoy and I like to argue. This poem is cited as an example of the degeneration of art, as it talks about how poetry should be intentionally vague. Disregarding any and all critical opinion , I like to think of it as a parody. ...

...You guessed it. Look at me - I'm all that with My self-slashed wrists and slavish copies Of those good people who've gone before me; I don't have to be original When I write about "realism" or "profundity" - they're always classics. I wouldn't know them if they slapped me in the face?! Pah! I've got "depression" too - maybe "dyslexia". That way I cut myself as a cry for help and Not because I want attention, that way When people can't read my chicken filth I'll have an excuse - after all, making fun of people's Worse when they have disabilities, right? Better than learning how to write properly and well - Too much effort. All I need's my whining and my faked angst Because only sadness matters, only sadness Is serious enough for attention. As for happiness? Humour? The things that make life worth living? Oh, those are for losers! READ THIS BEFORE YOU COMMENT. Yeah...dashed off i...

Another poem. I see you lying there against the wall, your skin Pale as pearls or ghostly sand Unknown by earth. Your hair falls In ripples against your face, like Plants of sea or pond stroking you into sleep; your eyes seem Reflected from the bottom of the sea - The eyes of a drowned sailor. In more news, I've had my C2 exam - actually, it went OK. Here's to hoping that I get a good grade and don't have to retake. In other, worse news, I have a P2 exam on Friday...wish me luck, I'll need it!

(You just lost.) In other news, we're all alive and I can't be bothered to look for that interview with Harold Camping anymore. I went to bed at about 1 in the morning, therefore the world couldn't have ended. Anyway... Yet another poem I wrote during English when I should have been paying attention for my torture   coursework   bullshitting aptitude test  Controlled Assessment. For those of you who don't know, a controlled assessment is when you sit in a room for far too long and write an essay. It replaced coursework (where you do in-depth, extended work at home) because of concerns about plagiarism. So now, instead of being able to show off your knowledge and do research at your own pace, you only get access to specific things, you can only use certain kinds of notes (some of the rules are that you can't take in printed notes unless you're a laptop user and that you can't write notes in paragraphs) which, incidentally, are far more limited than notes ...

Yeah, a random poem I wrote when I should have been paying attention in English. I would not sit my exam But rather sit and lie, spinning my thoughts Under the green tree of summer Where I live free as air and My spirit reaches beyond reaches, to rows upon rows of minds Opening me to new ideas: I beg them, lead away my soul forever. Do not leave me, I beg them too, To write with cramp for those who cannot write: Words weep and struggle on their page in endless strife, Fixed in grey forms, stumbling over themselves. Don't leave me to their red pens and dark lines, their regulations, Dark narrow minds who'd narrow mine as well. Rather, give me back my apple tree, Give me back my summer, Give me back thoughts, feelings, words spoken On fleeting air, with fear and love of nothing Save for liberty.

i don't capitalise my words and i break up sentences like this does this make me profound?