I enjoyed the Radio 4 version of Simon Armitage’s Gawain and the Green Knight over Christmas. A lot of actors tend to (over)act poems rather than read them, but I thought Ian McKellen and the other performers made a pretty good job of it. And the sound effects were atmospheric without intruding too much on […]
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Simon Armitage on Gawain and the Green Knight
Great article by Simon Armitage in today’s Guardian about translating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of my all-time favourite poems. The Green Man at the October Plenty Festival in Southwark (courtesy of my wife’s blog) I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to translating medieval poems – it’s not that hard […]
Announcing the ‘PC for Poets’
I found a fantastic new blog yesterday, We Make Money Not Art, which introduced me to the PC for Poets – a new kind of tablet PC designed by Crispin Jones: This tablet pc is designed to create a feeling of emotional attachment – it marries elements of traditional craftwork and pattern design with contemporary […]
Craig Raine on Ted Hughes
The Times has a great memoir by Craig Raine – The Double Exposure of Ted Hughes. It’s quite long, so I’ve reluctantly torn myself away from it halfway through – this is my reminder to go back and finish it later. As well as some good reminiscences, it contains the news (to me) that there […]
Magma 36 Out Now
Magma 36 is out now – we’re delighted to welcome Anne-Marie Fyfe as Guest Editor for this issue. She has selected poems around the theme of ‘Inscapes’, including new poems by Seamus Heaney, Billy Collins and Medbh McGuckian. As well as the star names listed above, Magma 36 continues our tradition of publishing many new […]