Elsewhereabouthese(p)arts
Some interesting browses of recent days;
Over on the Guardian Arts blog, Billy Mills welcomed the arrival of Lughnasa in particular and Autumn in general with a call for posts of Autumn poems - which quickly led to the usual syndrome of blog commentators picking a tangent and engaging in hostilities thereon. This time its about obscenity or violence of language and imagery in Art, no less. Some tasty poems scattered in there though - and the thread is still growing!
***
Expat Hungarian poet & translator George Szirtes' blog is consistently thought-provoking, always worth a visit and a couple of recent posts, springing from his recent trip to his birthplace, Budapest, stood out. But there's no shortage of great stuff here, from his trademark dry humour to more sombre commentary. Just excellent!
***
Meanwhile, over on Polyolbion, Matt Merritt has a good review of Happenstance stablemate James W Wood's recent collection, Inextinguishable. It's a cracking collection, which I hope to review here myself soon. One distinguishing feature is the fact that it's illustrated - students of Edinburgh College of Art interpreted his work, to mixed effect. This is an area that interests me - but it's rare to see a really successful collaboration of this kind. In that regard, I feel this book isn't quite there. However, the poems themselves are fine! Some of the artwork is fine too, but together - I'm not so sure?
***
Finally, over at the Irish Times, I see Aidan Dunne had also previously reviewed the I Can / Can I ? exhibition which features on the post below. He's a bit more emphatic in his take, where I found myself a little less moved - more bemused really. To be fair, I think that's part of this particular exhibit's intention. Anyhoo, who cares what the feckin' critics think - get in there yourself!
