Matthew Barton asks whether poets are justified in ‘pilfering’ the experiences of other people, in order to create their own works.
To what extent it is legitimate for a poet to raid another person’s experience is an interesting question: to assume another’s voice, their joys or sufferings, and create what is inevitably, in some sense, artifice, [...]
Joe Spurgeon explores some options for budding writers and literature enthusiast looking to find their creative spark.
Earlier this year, after 14 years of consistently high demand, Bristol University quietly announced it was dropping its Creative Writing Diploma, stating they would be “unlikely to recruit to it again in future.” These pages weren’t the only [...]
R.M.Healey on the young antiquarian, bomb damage and beauty in decay.
Perhaps one of the oddest things about John Piper, arguably Britain’s best-loved twentieth-century artist, is not that he was attracted to the West of England, but that he forged this link so very early in his life. For as a teenager who had become [...]
Richard Jones talks to Andrew ‘Beezer’ Beese about shooting 80s underground Bristol – and sucking in the lead.
“I grew up with a camera round my neck,” says Andrew ‘Beezer’ Beese, talking while on a visit back to Bristol to put the finishing touches to the first UK edition of his book of photography, Wild [...]
Some books sit on your bookshelf gathering dust. The Titch Hiker’s Guide has been in my house for two weeks and hasn’t even seen a bookshelf, the corners are bashed from being stuffed into bags, the pages are crumpled and the spine is a shadow of its former self after being left wide open in [...]
American-born, Bristol-based Jean Hasse teaches at the University of Bristol. She composes music for all instruments and ensembles, for film and special events, and she is an accompanist and composer for silent films. At first glance I wasn’t sure whether her new work, Pocket Pieces was meant for children or adults. The simple writing (especially [...]
Should you stop at Hilton Park service station on the M6 in Staffordshire, near Spaghetti Junction, look over the embankment. Behind it lies the remains of a moated house surrounded by dense shrubberies in which stands a derelict Regency conservatory. It’s another romantic ‘lost’ garden uncovered, analysed and recorded by Tim Mowl and his team [...]
Passport, corkscrew, a wallet full of euros and Alastair Sawday’s French Vineyards by Patrick Hilyer could signal the start of a relaxed and elegant style of French holiday. The book is designed to seduce wine lovers and Francophile travellers alike into packing their bags and nosing out their favourite wine region. Thereafter the guide book [...]
This is the true story of Harriet Bolt, born into a poor family in Bedminster in 1885 to an alcoholic father and a mother whom she learned to defend. It is a beautifully-written book that Sheila Hayward, Harriet’s grand-daughter, took more than six years to complete. It was worth it; Hayward paints a vivid portrait [...]
I found this book hard-going. Not because it’s difficult to read- on the contrary, it’s made up of very brief chapters of two or three pages with short paragraphs and lots of bullet points. But for me, that’s the problem. I was hoping for analysis and instead what I got was a series of assertions, [...]
