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AUTHORS 
JOCELYN BROOKE

You don't run into a lot of guys named Jocelyn these days, but this one's worth knowing. Brooke is an unjustly neglected novelist & critic, whose twin passions for home-made fireworks and rare botanical finds make for some truly beautiful and fascinating writing . He's enjoyed a slight resurgence of late, with works being quietly re-issued by Faber Finds and the fantastic Little Toller. I was happy to come across James Bridle's labor-of-love website devoted to Brooke & I recommend a visit to anyone looking to dig deeper into this remarkable writer's life & work.

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FOUR IMAGIST POETS

I've been spending a bit of time with this lot all summer...

click images for more info on each...

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KENNETH REXROTH
on Camping


Kenneth Rexroth was an important American poet known as the "Father of the Beats" (though he had the good sense to eschew that label). He wrote searing love poems, brilliant essays, and masterful translations. You probably already knew all that. But did you know that he was also an expert on camping? That's his very own camping stove up top (and the man himself down below), and with summer here, you might want to get ready to head outdoors by reading his unpublished guide to Camping in the Western Mountains (1939) right here.

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THREE CANADIAN WOMEN
I'm reading more about...

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ROBERT BRIDGES
POEM


Today is the birthday of poet Robert Bridges. I've had his short poem, "I love all beauteous things" rattling around in the back of my head for years now. It serves as a motivation to create & try new things without worrying too much about whether they'll work out. Sometimes the process of trying or making something new is enough. Speaking of which, some "beauteous" new things will be announced here soon...

I love all beauteous things,

      I seek and adore them;

God hath no better praise,

And man in his hasty days

      Is honoured for them.

I too will something make

      And joy in the making;

Altho’ to-morrow it seem

Like the empty words of a dream

      Remembered on waking.

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AUTHORS

H.E. BATES


Today is the birthday of H.E. Bates, known in his time as "The English Chekhov" and one of my favorite short-story writers. A prolific writer with a long career, he first gained fame under the pen name "Flying Officer X" when he was commissioned by the RAF to write stories of flying life during WWII. Bates wrote as authoritatively about flowers and country life as he did about violent plane wrecks and bleak wartime landscapes, and his keen, sometimes heartbreaking observations of the small joys and disappointments of human life more than earn him his Chekhovian nickname.

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ETC.

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY


Today marks 100 years of International Women's Day. It put me in mind of Djuna, Frances, Elizabeth, Stevie, Christina, Marina, Penelope and Olive, a few of the brilliant women I'll always enjoy reading.

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BOOK/VIDEOS


A few favorite book related videos. A remarkable reading from The Waste Land by Fiona Shaw, a churchyard chat between Philip Larkin and John Betjeman, and W.H. Auden's Night Mail.

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AUTHOR PORTRAITS

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY


The lion-guarded main research branch of the New York Public Library is full of enticing, private study-like Special Collections rooms, whose upholstered chairs and Persian rugs are not for the general public. The doors are wide open on thousands of beautiful photos and prints from those rooms, however, thanks to the library's online Digital Collection. Although they look like members of a particularly intimidating art-rock band, the above are actually images from the "Author Portraits" holdings of the Berg Collection.

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POSTERS

WRITERS' HOUSES


I am completely feeling these posters, designed by M+E and commissioned by A.N. Devers to announce the launch of her Writers' Houses website. More posters are in the works, but actual writer's homes abound on the Writers' Houses website, a catalog of links, images and stories about houses where the literary great have lived, created, and in some cases, drank themselves to death. It promises to become a heaven for bookish snoops like myself; people who want to look at poet James Merrill's well worn Eames Lounge and amazing wallpaper, or the attic room where a 22 year old F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote This Side of Paradise so he'd have enough money to marry Zelda Sayre.

Visited a famous writer's house yourself? You can submit your photos & experiences here.