James Hannom: De Lucretio Dictisque Suis

I very much enjoyed reading this article in Aeon by James Hannom. In itself Hannam's article is excellent, being comprehensively illuminating on the whole topic of Lucretius & his life & times & philosophy, giving equally extended treatments, both to Lucretius's philosophical atomism which is of interest to modern philosophy, and to his - shall we say - niche contention that the world is flat.

Hannom's article has a particular personal resonance, in that I had a classical education several decades ago, during the course of which, aged 15, I found myself translating large chunks of Lucretius. This probably sounds like an ordeal, but it wasn't. I found it absorbing. It was my personal introduction to philosophy. In fact, it's probably fair to say that translating Lucretius, and the early acquaintance with philosophical atomism, was what led eventually to my PhD. I'm devoted to novels, plays, & verse nowadays, and very much an ex-philosopher, but Hannom's De Lucretio Dictisque Suis is still revocative. All very Proustian ...

Racist Icons of the Left No.94

"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese. And the two ancient races have now begun a hard life together, fraught with bickering and squabbles. Discrimination and poverty unite them in the daily fight for survival but their different ways of approaching life separate them completely: The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."

Che Cuevara
The Motorcycle Diaries.

SWSS stage a play excerpt, and two sonnets due to be published in Clementine Unbound

I've been extremely remiss in not posting anything about my literary endeavours for a good few months. Here at last is an update.

Firstly, I haven't written all that much, but things are still ticking over:-

* Only a few thousand words of Helix Folt the Conservative. This is taking longer than I meant it to.

* 150 lines or so of The Modern Hudibras, an heroic couplet mock epic about Presbyterian street preachers on Broadmead in Bristol City Centre, which is modelled on Samuel Richardson's late 17th century heroic quadrameter mock epic Hudibras.

* The Wasters. An imagist poem about modern Bristolian degeneracy, very obviously modelled on T.S.Eliot. I'm quite pleased with this, although it needs one or two revisions.

* My collection entitled Odes, Epigrams, and Further Sonnets is gradually accumulated. Again, the quantity of new material is relatively low, but I'm quite pleased with the quality.



Secondly, as regards the dissemination-of-the-oeuvre question, I have two developments to report:-

 * On March 13, Briony Pope and SouthWest Scriptwriters staged an excerpt of my play The Senseless Counterfeit as part of the second SWSW Scratch Night, held aboard the Lightship in Bathurst Basin in Central Bristol. This was a one-off script-in-hand performance by a cast of professional actors, and was very well-attended and very successful. I was absolutely delighted to see my work staged for the very first time, and to see it done so well. My thanks to Briony and to Amanda Horwell who directed the piece, and also to the cast for their really excellent performance, and to the people behind the Cabot Cruising Club who so very kindly opened their vessel up for the event.

 * G.F.Boyer on behald of literary periodical Clementine Unbound has very kindly accepted my Sonnets 53 and 56 for publication on, respectively, April 30 and May 7.