One Night Stanzas

Apologies for the lack of Procrastination Station last week! Here’s a double-whammy of link love to make up for it!

OK, plug time! I made a bunch of new stuff and it’s up at the Read This Store! Grab it before it’s gone!

More video responses to the question ‘What Is Poetry?’

Rachel on artistic obsession.

Margaret Atwood’s ten tips for writer’s block.

Poet JK Rowbory is trying to raise £350,000 for vital medical treatment, by selling her poetry book. Can you help?

Two fabulous poems: one from Lynn Emanuel and the other from the always-brilliant Kim Addonizio.

I just discovered the Juxtabook blog! Loved this post: Labels, or how to ruin a lovely book.

Charles Bukowski’s Funhouse, featured by the Guardian Books Blog.

Scott Ginsberg is awesome — here are his four compelling reasons to write in the morning, even if you’re not a morning person.

I found out Taylor Mali has a blog — best news all year.

Writers talk about teachers who inspired them.

I’m really anxious to see the Howl movie.

How to be an annoying author.

This is a joke, right?

What ONS featured poets, friends, and readers have been up to recently: HUGE congrats to my good friend Ryan Van Winkle for his inclusion on the Cranshaw Prize shortlist. Fingers crossed for you, Ryan! // Inspiration machine Amanda Oaks is featured at My Favorite Things // A new haiku from Juliet Wilson // A new poem from Ainslee Meredith // At a handful of stones: Gareth Trew, Tom Rendell, Howie Good (he’s also at Bolts of Silk!) // I loved this from Stephen Nelson… and this even more // Matt Haigh shares his Best Poetry Books of the Decade // & non-poetry-related, but Morgaine (Boy’s mum!) has started an Etsy store!

If you haven’t yet seen these pictures from Haiti, then you should. Then you should donate. I mean it.

Extraordinary pencil sculptures.

Turn your books into jewellery? Surely not!

A woman photographed at 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 years old… all on the same day.

Are you following The Creamy Middles blog yet? You should be!

I love these portraits of Teddy Boys.

One day, I want to be just like Olga!

Thanks to @ricgalbraith for showing me this:

Wizard Smoke from Salazar on Vimeo.

What happened when a 14 year old with a tape recorder broke into John Lennon’s dressing room in 1969?

& finally… can I have one of these, please?

Have a great weekend! x

(Photo by JKönig)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

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So if you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time you’ll know I am utterly obsessed with typewriters — I currently have nine of these dream machines cluttering up my tiny flat, and you can meet some of them here. You can also find out a bit more about typewriters, and why writers love them, in this post from a few months ago.
However, I decided I hadn’t done a typewriter-related post in too long, and the darned things seem to be in the news all the time these days for one reason or another. So here’s a compendium of links and bits and pieces celebrating the typewriter — enjoy!

Why typewriters beat computers.

Cormac McCarthy’s typewriter, and the story behind it.

Literary genuises and their vintage typewriters.

A typewriter poem from e.e. cummings.

A writer’s relationship with their typewriter…

Typewriters morph into creepy sci fi creatures.

Check out my own lovely typewriter jewels!

VOTE! The manual typewriter: love it or leave it?

Etsy loves typewriters.

(Image by Sammy Brennan)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!

Sorry, I am late yet again with my Things I’m reading Thursday post – and ONS has been pretty quiet this week in spite of my best intentions. My rather pathetic excuse is I’ve been up against two deadlines this week… normal service will be resumed, I promise! To make it up to you, there’s a brand new ONS giveaway — details at the end of this post. In the meantime, here’s what I’ve been reading this past seven days; feel free to share your books (and thoughts thereupon) too…

Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant
OK, if someone had said ‘hey, read this book – it’s 500 pages long and set in an Italian convent in 1570’, I’d have run a mile – in a bookstore full of fiction, this might well have been the last book I’d have chosen to read. However, because it’s required reading for me at the moment, there was no way out… so I braced myself and dived in.
I was actually quite pleasantly surprised – particularly since I’d tried to ease myself into the book by reading some reviews, and one or two I found were pretty savage. The book basically follows the story of a young novice who enters the Ferrara Convent against her will, and focuses on her relationship with one of the long-serving nuns who empathises with her plight. Unfortunately, Dunant makes the mistake of painting Zuana, the older nun, far more vividly than Serafina, the supposed protagonist – for me, Zuana was the more interesting of the two and I couldn’t really get a grip on Serafina’s character. The book also contains vivid and sometimes harrowing descriptions of convent life – nuns mistaking extreme fatigue and sickness for divine ecstasies, self-mutilation in the name of faith, etc. However, Dunant does not give a one-dimensional portrayal of these women – all the nuns display a degree of religious fanaticism, and many are vain, proud, jealous and secretive. The novel really comes to life in the passages where Dunant describes the small vanities of the sisters – their surreptitious personal grooming, the pampering of their pet lapdogs – I was far more interested in hearing about the trivial details of convent life than about tortured Serafina and her thwarted love affair. So I think perhaps I missed the point of this novel… but I did enjoy it, in spite of myself. I’d recommend it, but beware – like The Wonder from last week, it is also really, really (perhaps somewhat needlessly) long.

I’ve also been dipping in and out of various poetry books – too many to list here – in order to find inspiration for my forthcoming portfolio deadline. So instead of picking one of the many I’ve been looking at, I thought it was high time for another ONS giveaway. Last summer I was sent a little package of poetry books by the lovely people at Donut Press — this is another of those. Frankie, Alfredo, by Liane Strauss is up for grabs and Donut describe it thus: “poems of great ingenuity, humour and charm. This feminine metaphysical verse frequently explores aspects of desire, and holds at its heart a number of seeming contradictions: it is often ironic yet romantic, passionate yet deftly controlled, intellectual yet accessible, and displays wit counterbalanced with modesty.” Who could refuse such a book? I’d be tempted to add that it’s small but mighty – about A6 size – and has cover art to die for. Want a free copy? Just tell me what you’re reading this week in the comments box, before Thursday 28th. Simple!

(Photo by Montgolfier)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!

(Photo by Sarajea)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!

I felt like doing something a bit different this week, so here’s an all-visual Procrastination Station for your viewing pleasure! Enjoy :)

OK, a good start: here’s Sharon Olds talking about, erm… bums.

Sarah Kay on Jellyfish and karma.

I could basically listen to Benjamin Zephaniah all day…

Some facts about owls.

I love Simon’s Cat.

Speaking of jellyfish…

Cuteness!

& finally… I love Tom Waits.

Have a good weekend!

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!

As a total literature geek, I am kind of ashamed to admit that I have only just properly discovered Black Books. For those of you who don’t know, Black Books was a brilliant TV series that ran on UK TV a few years ago — it only lasted three series but every single episode was total gold. Black Books is the name of a very untidy secondhand bookshop run by Bernard Black (Dylan Moran), who is basically a total swine — drunk, abusive, apathetic and generally pretty nasty. His friend Fran (Tamsin Greig) owns the shop next door (at first — she then gives it up for a string of other amusing jobs) and basically comes over every so often to check that Bernard hasn’t slipped into a terrible votex of misery, or killed anyone. Bernard also employs a shop assistant called Manny (Bill Bailey) who he routinely attacks, belittles, tricks and generally abuses.

& finally… Holiday reading:

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

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Link love!

Q&A with Jeanette Winterson

A M A Z I N G book art!

Natalie Goldberg on writing every day, from Ophelia Blooming

The best book designs of 2009.

Remembering writers who passed away during the past decade

This is why I love the Rejectionist.

AL Kennedy on a writer’s friends

Ever wondered exactly what the deal is with using hyphens? Look no further.

Some recent antics of friends of ONS: Matthew Haigh at a handful of stones… again! // Regina Green also at a handful of stones — and congrats! Regina also (deservedly) won a poetry scholarship! // Also at a handful of stones: Howie Good & Michelle McGrane // David Tait at The Cadaverine // Lewis Young talks to Bob Dylan // Heaps of new stuff from Chris Lindores

I love octopi, and I just discovered CEPHALOLOVE. Cue *squee*.

Anyone else seriously looking forward to The Road? Trailer here!

Five people who only ever wear one colour.

Utterly surreal but somehow addictive: Nic Cage as everyone.

Hawtness at Chainsaws and Jelly.

Alphabetti badges!

Sugarchile Robinson: real musical genius.

If you haven’t seen this yet… well, just watch it.

Have a great weekend!

(Photo by ~BostonBill~)

Don’t forget to visit The Read This Store, and its sister store, Edinburgh Vintage!

Subscribe to ONS!