Monthly Archives: August 2018

Skim Reading Is The New Normal

My thanks to my friend, Brien for drawing the below article to my attention.

“We need to cultivate a new kind of brain: a “bi-literate” reading brain capable of the deepest forms of thought in either digital or traditional mediums. A great deal hangs on it: the ability of citizens in a vibrant democracy to try on other perspectives and discern truth; the capacity of our children and grandchildren to appreciate and create beauty; and the ability in ourselves to go beyond our present glut of information to reach the knowledge and wisdom necessary to sustain a good society”.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf

There Was A Young Lady Called Bland

There was a young lady called Bland
Who wanted a one night stand.
I said “that’s all right”,
So she stood there all night.
That strange young lady called Bland!

There was a young lady called Bland
Who wanted a one night stand.
A holy man named Paul
Said “all men fall.
Your wish is my command!”.

Our Golden Age?

Someone or other once remarked that “all political careers end in failure”. One could, I think say the same of literary careers as all writers (irrespective of how successful or otherwise they are) die. However, in another sense some writers will live on through their words, whether they be self-published or published via traditional means. A man may moulder in the grave but his words (as well as his deeds) live on. Kevin

Audrey Driscoll's avatarAudrey Driscoll's Blog

The early decades of the twenty-first century saw a great flowering of the literary arts, due in large part to the advent of self-publishing on the Internet. The writers called themselves Indie Authors. Many of them were members of the so-called Baby Boom generation, born between the end of the Second World War and the nineteen-sixties. With a high degree of literacy and egos inflated by the conviction that they were the first humans to experience anything worthwhile, many of them used their retirement years to write. Literary agents and publishers were overwhelmed by a flood of submissions from these eager wannabees. Mail rooms overflowed with manuscript boxes, fat brown envelopes and SASEs. Rejections issued forth, provoking incredulous disappointment. Technology came to the rescue, providing online publishing platforms that allowed the indies to elbow the weary gatekeepers aside and publish. Millions of ebooks and POD print books issued forth. Savvy…

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Composed More Or Less In Realtime While Sitting In A Liverpool Garden

My poem, “Composed More Or Less In Realtime While Sitting In A Liverpool Garden”, was written while sitting in my mum’s garden in the city of Liverpool.

The poem is a stream of consciousness piece and is one of very few written by me.

To read the poem please follow this link, https://newauthoronline.com/2016/05/30/composed-more-or-less-in-realtime-while-sitting-in-a-garden/

There Was A Young Man Called Daniel

There was a young man called Daniel
Who in looks resembled his spaniel.
A young lady walking by
Said, with a sigh
“I have fallen in love with your spaniel!”.

There was a young man called Daniel
Who rather resembled his spaniel.
A young lady named Kate
Just couldn’t wait
To walk that spaniel belonging to Daniel!

An interview with poet K Morris and a review of “The Writer’s Pen and Other Poems”

My thanks to Robbie Cheadle for interviewing me for her blog, and for writing a review of my collection of poems, “The Writer’s Pen and Other Poems”.

To read my interview with Robbie, together with her review of “The Writer’s Pen” please follow this link, https://wp.me/p7Uxin-3hc

Time Passing

For as long as I can remember, I have been fascinated by traditional (pendulum) clocks. The slow movement of the pendulum reminds me of Old Father Time chopping up seconds which will never return. There is, in the swing of a pendulum something both comforting and chastening. The slow swing reminds one of a slower pace of life, of a more stable/traditional society, while one is also conscious that each movement brings one’s demise fractionally closer. A number of my poems touch (either directly or indirectly) on the passage of time, including “The Hands Are Almost At Half-Past”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2quCnrHgpE4.

“The Hands Are Almost At Half-Past” can be found in my collection of poems, “The Writer’s Pen and Other Poems”, which is available for preorder in the Amazon Kindle store, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07GD1LBMV/ (for the UK) and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GD1LBMV/ (for the USA).