Poetry/Gloating Corner

I have won a prize! The Great John Crowley Giveaway Haiku Competition offered the chance to win a galley of The Solitudes, Book One of Crowley's Ægypt sequence in exchange for a haiku. I was winner three, and you can see one of the Overlook Press's staff read out my verse on the site above. For those who would like it in print, here it is:

A and E conjoined,
as in "cæsura", recall

The ash in Ægypt.


Notes in the manner of TS Eliot: A and E in Britain is accident and emergency; also arts and entertainment; no doubt many other things too; the cæsura, or shift provided by a metrical break, is an essential component in a haiku, and should occur where it does in this verse; it should precede an oblique seasonal reference in the last line. Ash could be that, either as the remnants of burning or the tree; "ash" is, of course, the name for the letter "æ".

Crowley (link to his blog on the right) writes wonderful books. Little, Big, published 25 years ago, is a vital novel. The Great Work of Time is one of the best sf long short stories ever.

Spooky or what? Just what, that's what

In Uncle Zip's excellent recommendations [ http://uzwi.wordpress.com/2007/04/25/from-beyond-the-grave-etc/ ] he says that he can easily imagine Rosamond Lehmann communicating from beyond the grave. Astoundingly, I was thinking about Rosamond Lehmann only yesterday and thinking about blogging about her. Isn't that amazing?
Well, no, of course, because it's not that much of a coincidence, and one that you'd only notice when it happened, as you would not notice the thousands of times someone didn't write about something you'd just been thinking about. Also, Uncle Zip has very good taste, so it's not surprising that he'd mention people I'm interested in. John Crowley's just come back from the Ukraine, where he's been talking about Bulgakov. I think about Bulgakov almost every day. So does Jon Courtney Grimwood, I'd guess. So not at all spooky.

From A Note in Music:

"At the Rescue and Preventive Bazaar last year Norah had laughingly urged her to consult the fortune-teller, saying: 'She's too uncanny, my dear. She's told me the most astounding things. All my past.' She had refused with a scoff and escaped from Norah, and gone back quickly to her cake stall: for the truth was that she was afraid of the fortune-teller. She had had a vision of the woman, scrutinizing her palm and saying finally:
'This is a most curious case. There is nothing here: nothing in your past, nothing in your future. As for character - lazy - greedy - secretive - without will or purpose.'
That was a year ago. And to-day she would be even more afraid... "

I will return to Miss Lehmann and that remarkable book of hers about nothing, in which nothing happens, later.