A splendid volume of "Words In Air" is now in my hands. Edited by Thomas Travisano and Saskia it contains the entire correspondence of two great American poets - Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop.
At just over 800 pages long, this hard back edition is thoughtfully annotated and brings together three decades of correspondence that reveals the innermost secrets of the authors. Namely, they suffer from procrastination, uncertainty, and inner doubt just as much as the rest of us.
Both of them are flawed; she was an alcoholic, he suffered from well publicised bipolar breakdowns. Yet out of these events came poetry of immense power; the detail in Lowell's work grips you. The lime and cool earth of Uncle Devereux is real, I can feel and smell the softness of the lime, the cool gritty feel of freshly dug earth, portents of death and a reflection of his Uncle's state.
Bishop is relentless in critiquing everything she reads, and not afraid to criticise Lowell. In her time, Bishop's work was underestimated and different from Lowell's. The crossing of letters, some of them poetic in their own right, is like watching a long running tennis point where the athleticism of the two players makes it impossible to turn away.
I'll post a full review when I get through the book, so that will be mid January I hope. In the meantime I'll be back online buying copies of Lord Weary's Castle, EB's complete poems and rereading Life Studies to fill in the blanks when they discuss each others works.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
World Peace & Fraud
Peace in the Middle East. Will this ever happen? After 5,000 or so years of continual fighting, where all sides claim that the other is the problem, can we just stop? Now please?
I know it's not that simple; I'm not so naive to believe that if everybody sat down in a circle and held hands we'd all bond deeply and love each other forever. What's happening is tit-for-tat Old Testament style eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth bombastic nonsense. In the middle of the current round of escalating tub thumping, commonly known as war, innocent people getting killed and maimed for simply being born in the wrong place.
Is it right to use these people as collateral to prove a point? Is it right that America and Iran continue to fund the two sides who are constantly at each others throats? Is it right that, ultimately, it's the least able who end up paying the highest price of losing loved ones? Is it right that people, like you and me, living in Gaza struggle to get bread and water while those in power continue to push their agendas but don't give up on their luxuries?
All of this makes me want to weep as I realise that humans are unable to treat each other with dignity or respect. I fear this will never change; we will continue to breed the habits of fear, distrust, and greed.
In the meantime, back in the Uncivilized Developed World, we're going to see more fraudsters outed over the next twelve months. During the last downturn icons like the late Robert Maxwell revealed that they had no money, it was all a scam and they were relying on the revolving credit machine to keep their empires afloat. Today we have Bob Madoff in an allegedly similar position. By the end of the week we should know the extent of Mr Madoff's personal fortune but it's going to be many months before the true extent of the losses are made public.
So we await the next fraudulent installment of greed to hit the streets. Will it be the buy-to-let schemes that promised investors millions if they stumped up no money, borrowed 100% of the investment on an interest only basis and rented it out? Will there be other quasi-pyramid schemes unveiled as empty shells with no money left?
I know it's not that simple; I'm not so naive to believe that if everybody sat down in a circle and held hands we'd all bond deeply and love each other forever. What's happening is tit-for-tat Old Testament style eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth bombastic nonsense. In the middle of the current round of escalating tub thumping, commonly known as war, innocent people getting killed and maimed for simply being born in the wrong place.
Is it right to use these people as collateral to prove a point? Is it right that America and Iran continue to fund the two sides who are constantly at each others throats? Is it right that, ultimately, it's the least able who end up paying the highest price of losing loved ones? Is it right that people, like you and me, living in Gaza struggle to get bread and water while those in power continue to push their agendas but don't give up on their luxuries?
All of this makes me want to weep as I realise that humans are unable to treat each other with dignity or respect. I fear this will never change; we will continue to breed the habits of fear, distrust, and greed.
In the meantime, back in the Uncivilized Developed World, we're going to see more fraudsters outed over the next twelve months. During the last downturn icons like the late Robert Maxwell revealed that they had no money, it was all a scam and they were relying on the revolving credit machine to keep their empires afloat. Today we have Bob Madoff in an allegedly similar position. By the end of the week we should know the extent of Mr Madoff's personal fortune but it's going to be many months before the true extent of the losses are made public.
So we await the next fraudulent installment of greed to hit the streets. Will it be the buy-to-let schemes that promised investors millions if they stumped up no money, borrowed 100% of the investment on an interest only basis and rented it out? Will there be other quasi-pyramid schemes unveiled as empty shells with no money left?
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Feeling 90s
In keeping a track of the miserable state of my investments I've realised that UK plc is now giving up on 15 years of stock market gains. This is an impressive achievement. There was a time when I felt, a little smugly, that I'd invested wisely and put aside enough money each month to ensure a comfortable retirement.
In the later part of 2007 I read Nassim Taleb's "Black Swan" and began to fret about what I'd actual exposed myself to. His premise is that the perceived wisdom of investing monthly in stock markets that always rise is a fallacy. In the end it's all going to end in tears.
For those of you thinking about or coming up to retirement, it probably will be a painful recognition that there's no other choice but to keep on working. Unfortunately that means I need to consider other plans that will allow me to stop working for money earlier.
Before you get too downhearted, spare a thought for the people living in Iceland. They're really going backwards up the creek, fully kitted out with barbed wire canoe and a sieve to bale out the water. Latest predictions are their economy will contract by 10% next year. That's a truly worrying statistic; imagine the rest of the world's economy contracting by that much.
Here in the UK, our darling Chancellor finally admitted that we're going into a recession. You really don't get many prizes for stating the bleeding obvious.
While our Prime Minister made the greatest political gaffe seen in some time; in a unique moment of hubris he described how he had "saved the world". Terrible choice of words, it's going to haunt him between now and the next general election. We'll see it played over again so many times he's going to want to cry into his truly well funded state retirement.
In the later part of 2007 I read Nassim Taleb's "Black Swan" and began to fret about what I'd actual exposed myself to. His premise is that the perceived wisdom of investing monthly in stock markets that always rise is a fallacy. In the end it's all going to end in tears.
For those of you thinking about or coming up to retirement, it probably will be a painful recognition that there's no other choice but to keep on working. Unfortunately that means I need to consider other plans that will allow me to stop working for money earlier.
Before you get too downhearted, spare a thought for the people living in Iceland. They're really going backwards up the creek, fully kitted out with barbed wire canoe and a sieve to bale out the water. Latest predictions are their economy will contract by 10% next year. That's a truly worrying statistic; imagine the rest of the world's economy contracting by that much.
Here in the UK, our darling Chancellor finally admitted that we're going into a recession. You really don't get many prizes for stating the bleeding obvious.
While our Prime Minister made the greatest political gaffe seen in some time; in a unique moment of hubris he described how he had "saved the world". Terrible choice of words, it's going to haunt him between now and the next general election. We'll see it played over again so many times he's going to want to cry into his truly well funded state retirement.
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