It has been a long time since I last wrote a post. As it happened, this was not long after my book came out — a little over six months ago.

Remembering a Great New Zealand Poet.

While the power of poetry has been recognised and cherished in many cultures, it is possibly in Ireland that it has been most impactful both as an instrument of great beauty and great resistance.

In the winter of 2018, Daria Stepanova lost her mind. It wasn’t a gradual process, like the erosion of soil or the withering of plants. Rather, it happened suddenly, like a rush of wind over deep trees or a burst of lightning high in the blue summer air.

These two sentences are how Google’s AI chatbot Gemini introduced its response to a Michigan college student Vidhay Reddy while engaged in a back-and-forth conversation about the challenges and solutions for aging adults, intended to assist Vidhay with his homework.

Every now and then, and much rarer as I get older, a book I read throws (disturbs, rattles, unsettles) me in a way I didn’t think possible.

Today, I learned that for quite a number of ladies over there in America, the election was a “referendum on women’s rights and reproductive freedom.”

The morning after the American elections, the world has woken up much the same as any other morning, despite the hysteria and fear-mongering of the preceding months. 

Yes, it is an odd title and, given my writing style, highly unusual. But if you bear with me for just a few moments more, I’ll explain.

If I were you, I wouldn’t knock on that door. I wouldn’t even walk on that side of the road where that house is, not on Halloween night in any case.

I wish spring in Wellington is less nippy, less like a small dog around the ankles, and more like a honey-coloured cat that brushed past me last night.

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.

It’s dark because you are trying too hard.
Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly.
Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply.

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.

I’ll admit to having given a few, if any, serious thoughts to editors and what they really do, until I became in need of one.