The Sideways Door & Scroll V

Having mush for brains in the middle of this heatwave means that I forget to post things when they're out.

The Sideways Door's May response was up a few days ago. You can find it here.

I have been writing a series on poetry for Scroll and the penultimate column is up today.

How to write new ones is the real question. I'd rather fill a bathtub with ice and hide in it, rather like Tom Cruise (aargh!) in Minority Report.

Belated

For the first time ever, I have missed this blog's anniversary. I began this thing nine years ago on the 21st and I'm rather surprised at myself. 

Maybe I should even change my description and all.

Then I remember that after all I forgot to announce the blog's ninth so.

Let's have another kind of ninth, huh?

And just for fun, the flash mob version.

[Belated] happy anni, Spaniard.

Scroll IV

The latest in my series on Scroll is now up. I was thinking of Tony Leung; I admit it.

Everything else - I can hardly bear to be on my laptop. It's so hot my wrists burn. Coping with summer takes more energy than I have.

The Sideways Door: May Prompt

Perhaps I am sick of sitting in one place using just the tips of my fingers. Or I'm fed up of driving and driving in this heat, doing tasks rather like a worker ant, with no tangible result. Whatever the reason, this month's prompt comes out of that sense of wanting to reconnect with using one's hands.

Here it is: 'The sweetest dream that labor knows'. 

(I have been itching to correct the spelling of the word 'labor' here and on Daily O but since it's a quotation, I'm leaving it.)

Catching up with April: Links to columns

The last two weeks of April were hellish. Two friends died within the space of a few days. Anxieties both specific and general tied in with what appeared to be disaster upon disaster made me want a cave rather badly.

It meant I was offline a lot and did not link to my columns as they appeared. 

So here - rather belatedly, especially now it's time for the next prompt already - are the two things that appeared while I was away.

The April response column at The Sideways Door, in which I wrote about the poems people wrote when they woke up from a deep sleep.

And Part III of my series for Scroll on what makes me write poetry. Or something.

I'm hoping May will be better than April was, but not holding out too many hopes. At any rate, not having watched Avengers, I have Thoughts on what I think the film is, and if I am not too traumatised by this week, I may even air them.