UPDATE: I’ve just seen that Baby Teeth Journal has their blackout poetry competition on again. So, if you think you can do better than my entry from last year (and let’s face, probably all of you could), head over to their site now! You have until 1 March 2022 to enter. The System the system…
‘To be or not to be’ should not be the question
As a rule, I don’t like definitions. It isn’t really that I don’t like them, it’s that I don’t find them very helpful. Their purpose seems to be to divide and conquer. In their assumption of an ‘other’, they trap us in unhelpful, unproductive, ‘either or’ thinking. Take the glass half-full or half-empty scenario. The…
Not. Not. Not. Not.
I have notebooks piled up around my study. One of them is my ‘Book of Memories’, where I scribble down random memories that pop up, usually triggered by some current event. Another, my commonplace book, records words and phrases that I like (I’ve talked about my commonplace book before). Yet another captures story ideas, in…
My treasure chest of life
In an earlier post, Fictional words with real-world swagger, I talked about how we can apply made-up worlds to our everyday lives and achieve real-world outcomes. Today, I want to give a shout out to the sentences that take your breath away; not in a oh-my-god-that’s-horrendous type of way, but in the I-have-to-go-back-and-read-that-again type of…
Embracing the bad
Kyle A. Massa’s recent post on his most embarrassing writing fails is a cracking read. But it’s not the writing fails that makes it so good; it’s Kyle’s retelling of events and his ability to look past the cringe of reading back through old writing to find the lessons therein. Those lessons being, if I…
Summer TBR list revisited
One of my summer reading picks was Devotion by Hannah Kent. Although I finished the book some time ago, I’ve struggled to pull together a review. That’s not because I didn’t enjoy it – quite the opposite, I adored this book – but because I think it is one of those books that is best…
A 28-day month has its advantages
Back at the dawn of the new year, I wrote a post explaining why this blog and why now. TL;DR The blog is my driver for writing more often and getting past the fear that strikes when I think about sharing my writing with, well, anyone! Since that post I’ve managed to post just twice….
Language and power: Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
Today I’m going back to my academic roots to take a look at the use of language in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. I got on a bit of a roll so it is a long one. Sorry! ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ George Orwell, 1946 Language is loaded with…
Grey Box remnant
Like the Girl in the cafe, this piece riffs on the work of another. This time, my inspiration is from David Foster Wallace and the opening sequence of his unfinished novel The Pale King. His poetic first sentence is something else. Past the suburban chaos and false borders of ill-claimed land and past the bleak…
This is why I’m here …
For those that have followed my blog since its inception (quick pause here while I yell a big thank you into the bloggerverse), you’ll know that my posts tend to be a bit all over the place. In fairness, I do give a heads up on this in my ‘About’ page, so I don’t feel…
thekettlehasemphysema.net 
You must be logged in to post a comment.