Tim Jones's Blog, page 51
July 26, 2010
Tuesday Poem: If Looks Could Kill
If Looks Could Kill
When the woman gave me a look
back over her shoulder
I went and crossed the road
it was dark and poorly lit
I didn't want to scare her
and I didn't mean any harm
well, none of us do,
but we're clumsy
we break things and people
that's the way it is
that's the fact of the matter
look, we were made that way
and the most they do is look
but they'd have done with us long since
if looks could kill.
Tim says:I was very affected by Men, a powerful poem by Bert Stern which...
July 21, 2010
C. J. Cherryh's Chanur Series: Space Opera Done Right
I used to be a big fan of science fiction writer (Carolyn) J. Cherryh, and have read many of her books. Somewhere back in the mid 1990s, I stopped enjoying her work so much, and I had not read a book by her for many years until I decided to re-read her five-volume Chanur series, published in the late '80s and early '90s. And, to my surprise and pleasure, I enjoyed them at least as much this time around as I had the first time of reading.
The Chanur series consists of five books:
The Pride...
July 19, 2010
Tuesday Poem: North
On Ilkley Moor
I parked me red
Ford Laser hatchback
and gazed to the north.
Rain and smoke stood over Wharfedale.
It was all in its appointed place:
stone houses and stone smiles in Ilkley
the wind on the bleak
insalubrious bracken.
I was waiting for memory
to make the scene complete:
some flat-vowelled voice out of childhood
snatches of Northern song.
For memory read TV:
Tha've broken tha poor Mother's heart
It were only a bit of fun.
Bowl slower and hit bloody stumps.
Tha'll...
July 14, 2010
An Interview With Chris Bell
In 1976 Chris Bell was the youngest poet to have been published in Norman Hidden's British small press magazine 'Workshop New Poetry', which later championed British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, among others. His short stories have appeared in 'The Third Alternative' (UK); 'Grotesque' (Ireland); 'The Heidelberg Review' (Germany); 'Transversions' (Canada); 'Not One of Us'; 'Zahir' (US) and 'Takahe' (New Zealand), as well as on the internet. 'The Cruel Countess' was anthologised in The Year's B...
July 12, 2010
Tuesday Poem: Two Kinds of Time, by Meliors Simms
Two Kinds of Time
In some universes
time is experienced as linear.
Individuals move through their lives
cutting a track into their possibilities
and paving it into permanence behind them.
Aware only of the winding road they have chosen,
looking backwards down the line from now to birth
looking forward into the obscure thicket of the future
sometimes, peripherally aware of a bare hint
of what if's as what isn't.
In some universes
time is experienced as a plane.
Beings move around their...
July 7, 2010
A Foreign Country. A Poetry Archive. The Manhire Prize. Ecopoesis.
A Foreign Country
What with revising my novel and finishing my poetry collection manuscript, I haven't written many short stories lately — but I'm very pleased that a new story of mine is appearing in A Foreign Country: New Zealand Speculative Fiction, an anthology from Random Static Press that's being published in August and is available for pre-order now.
The lineup of authors is:
Philip Armstrong, Richard Barnes, Claire Brunette, Anna Caro, Matt Cowens, Bill Direen, Dale Elvy, J.C...
July 5, 2010
Tuesday Poem: The Wrong Horse
The Wrong Horse
The pleasures of the text are the pleasures of spring.
Halter tops, tanned skin, buttocks
sashaying past an open office door.
You pack your books away.
The self is conceived as a structure of signifiers.
Thirty years at the chalk-face,
a dozen published books,
twenty to life in the M.L.A.
The forms of nature order themselves in codes.
Wine and juice, finger food,
a bound edition of Baudrillard,
a speech from the Head of School.
To repeat excessively is to enter into loss.
...
June 30, 2010
Can Urban Foraging and Radical Self Help Kickstart the End of Capitalism? Douglas Lain Intends To Find Out
Douglas Lain is a US writer and podcaster with whom I collaborated on a petition against the US invasion of Iraq, though we have never quite got round to collaborating on a story. Doug's latest venture should be of interest to writers of all stripes, and to people interested in Transition Towns, community resilience, and urban foraging besides: he is "crowdsourcing" the funding of a radical self-help guide to urban foraging, and you can help by contributing up to the deadline of Wednesday 14 ...
June 28, 2010
Tuesday Poem: Gemini Spacewalk, by Harvey Molloy
I was out there
with the flag
and the mission instructions
for the EVA
on my sleeve
but I fell behind schedule
caught by the blue arc
of sky and ocean
against the black
a hurricane-stirred
cappuccino cloud
covered the Gulf of Mexico
except for the transparent
flea of the Florida peninsula
even the small
drops of ice
from the coolant tank
formed perfect worlds
and I thought
of Trey's letter
from the 365 US Marine
helicopter squadron
a fortnight spent cleaning the a...
June 23, 2010
Why You Should Be At Au Contraire
I've banged on a couple of times on this blog about how voting on the Sir Julius Vogel Awards will be taking place at Au Contraire, this year's New Zealand National Science Fiction Convention, taking place from Fri 27 to Sun 29 August 2010 at the Quality Hotel, Wellington
But what I should have stressed is how good Au Contraire is shaping up to be.
The convention gets a sizeable helping hand from taking place the weekend before this year's World Science Fiction Convention, Aussiecon 4...
