“Sod the wine, I want to suck on the writing. This man White is an instinctive writer, bloody rare to find one who actually pulls it off, as in still gets a meaning across with concision. Sharp arbitrage of speed and risk, closest thing I can think of to Cicero’s ‘motus continuum animi.’

Probably takes a drink or two to connect like that: he literally paints his senses on the page.”


DBC Pierre (Vernon God Little, Ludmila’s Broken English, Lights Out In Wonderland ... Winner: Booker prize; Whitbread prize; Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman prize; James Joyce Award from the Literary & Historical Society of University College Dublin)


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13 November 2011

STEVIE SMITH: A WISER VIEW OF EUROPE




I Remember



It was my bridal night I remember
An old man of seventy-three
I lay with my young bride in my arms
A girl with t.b.
It was wartime, and overhead
The Germans were making a particularly heavy raid on Hampstead.
What rendered the confusion worse, perversely
Our bombers had chosen that moment to set out for Germany.
Harry, do they ever collide?
I do not think it has ever happened
Oh my bride, my bride.



Stevie Smith














Stevie didn't like blokes much. She was a mighty poet. I Remember is the boss tonight; there are many more ... I posted this having pondered for days Poppy Day, or Remembrance Day, the 11th of the 11th, and remembering Andrew James White, my Poppy, who was there amongst the blooms. A hundred years ago. I knew him well.
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