quercuscommunity posted: "Julia has just looked round the door, having been attracted by the sound of laughter. I smiled. She raised her eyebrows, saw the page I was reading, and walked off, shaking her head. This is, I assume, a scenario that is played out in homes all over th" quercuscommunity
Julia has just looked round the door, having been attracted by the sound of laughter. I smiled. She raised her eyebrows, saw the page I was reading, and walked off, shaking her head.
This is, I assume, a scenario that is played out in homes all over the world as married couples communicate by telepathy, and the wives wonder what they ever saw in us.
She thinks I should stop reading writer's bios. You may remember me mentioning them once or twice before. They irritate the hell out of me. Or, in some cases, make me laugh. I don't , as it happens, have a degree, a second degree, a literary prize, a successful career or a published collection to write about. This is a shame as they are the staple items in the writer's bios you normally see. For people who lack those items there are always the long lists of publication credits. I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in how successful people are, or how they were published in a second class magazine that stopped running ten years ago. I might be interested if you were published in a decent magazine recently, but I'm more interested in now, and the next day.
Stained glass Museum - Ely Cathedral
What I want to know about an author is if they have had kids and disappointments, if they are grumpy in the morning and if they prefer brown sauce or ketchup. This sort of thing is important. The possession of two degrees, whilst praiseworthy, is of little interest. Julia has two degrees but when she comes home at nights it isn't her academic prowess that lights up the room, it's the shared juvenile sense of humour and the fact she sometimes brings sausage rolls. Having worked out that I'm a small boy in a man's body, she has worked out what appeals to me.
Back to poetry. modern poets are all so dull anyway. I don't mind reading about heavy drinkers and tortured souls. Sassoon and Graves, Larkin and Thomas, are all good. Dylan Thomas, that is. Edward Thomas is OK but not, I fear, in the same class when it comes to elbow lifting. Graves could give Lord Byron a run for his money with his Mediterranean lifestyle and unfettered breeding. Sassoon scores higher for torture than he soes for drinking, but nobody is perfect. One thing I do notice though, not one of them would need to rely on possession of a degree to make their writer's bio seem more interesting.
Peacock at Gigrin Farm
(Apologies if this appears a bit disjointed, having failed to post last night and being short of time this morning, I resurrected half of this from an old draft and finished it quickly so I could get on with stuff.)
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