DH Lawrence 1885 - 1930. His star blazed short and bright. I studied some of his novels and poems when young and until now I never delved into his collected essays. David Herbert is always outspoken, a writer who keeps it real. When I was a student my tutor said 'you always know what his characters are feeling.' As an essayist he shares his own feelings. In his essay written in 1929 'On Funk'- funk in his day meant cowardice and fleeing from...

Accidentallyexisting is on the radio today as part of the celebrations for National Poetry Day! Here's a link for UK people (I'm not sure if it'll work for others elsewhere - but give it a go anyway!) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05f6njp She'll be reading during the breakfast show (between 7 and 10am) but you should also be able to listen again if you don't catch her live.

I, Daniel Blake is one of those films everybody thinks I should see. A typical conversation, or text message, goes something like this, sorry you missed the screening, you’d have loved it and the discussion afterwards in Dalmuir library. It’s one of those films I already know the story. Some old guy meets up with some young girl who has kids. They’re on the buroo and they get shat on from a great height because they’re poor and working class and...

I liked this book, it’s about us, the working class often portrayed standing outside history books adding a bit of colour to the stories of kings and governors, quietly happy to die for their country, or the working class portrayed as a Lemuel Gulliver lying down in the long grass and falling asleep and being tied down by Lilliputians who make theatrical speeches he doesn’t understand but he does what the little men, the 1% of the population...

Posted by Insertponceyfrenchnamehere on Fri, 01 Sep 2017 Poetry Monthly – September Hello and thanks for the summery, whimsical contributions to August’s Poetry Monthly, Blue Sky Tree High! There were some beauts and here are some to re-read: https://www.abctales.com/story/ed-crane/un-dia-en-las-palmas https://www.abctales.com/story/hedgehog1/dandelion https://www.abctales.com/story/luigipagano/grande-dame Summer’s not quite over, but September...

I usually write a blog about Celtic’s big games, but this was one of those matches where everything goes as planned. Celtic didn’t score five this time. But if you listen to Steven Thompson on telly then Celtic could easily have scored five or six, had eighteen shots on target and he doesn’t think the gap between Celtic and Rangers has declined. Thompson is, of course, a former Ranger’s centre-forward and hardly a neutral. From where I was...

Dreams and Meanings. I wrote an email about my prediciment. A few days ago after a chance remark in a chance meeting at a shop tilll by the door of the shop. I had no reply. I had no nothing. What is new? Since then activity by the thieves has been reduced to when I'm asleep. It's not hard since I'm suffering again - a fluey thing – and I want to sleep. Its widely hawked about its the Romanies, perhaps because to conceal their activities and for...

An anthology of short stories in aid of Grenfell Tower and Trauma Response Network. On the night of 14th June 2017, a fire engulfed the 24-storey Grenfell Tower in west London, killing at least 87 people and injuring many more. An entire community was destroyed. For many people affected by this tragedy, the psychological scars may never heal. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is a condition that affects many people who have endured traumatic events...

Our first weekly picks for Autumn! Story of the Week is love_writing's 'The Oil Refinery' and Poem of the Week is Di_Hard's 'time travelling' - both wonderful pieces, so if you haven't read them yet, please do, and congratulations to the talented writers who created them. https://www.abctales.com/story/lovewriting/oil-refinery https://www.abctales.com/story/dihard/time-travelling Here's this week's Inspiration Point: https://www.abctales.com/...

Roxane Gay is the author the New York Times bestseller Bad Feminist the tag on the cover of the book tells the reader. This is an easy book to read in terms of thin chapters and the subject matter of need and greed and what makes us what we are. This is right up there with the classic, Lucy Grealy, Autobiography of a Face. Chapter 1 of Gay’s autobiography is one sentence long. Everybody has a story and a history. Here I offer mine with a memoir...