Poetry Review – Jim Neat: Stuart Henson appreciates the challenges of constructing fact-based poetry such as Mary J Oliver’s biography of her father
travel
Tomar and the Knights Templar, Portugal. Under vows of holiness, poverty and chivalry, the Order of the Knights Templar, founded around 1120 to protect pilgrims to the Holy Land, achieved much else besides.
During my last week in Calgary I still had to do some shopping, visit the Glenbow museum, the Zoo and Lougheed house, a villa belonging to a rich Métis family.
I visited two places out of Calgary: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and Banff, thanks to my friend Pam who drove me there and toured me around.
On 1st July, Canada Day, I was up and ready since early morning wearing a red T-shirt and red cowboy hat.
One of the main aims of visiting Canada was to develop my research on Margaret Atwood. The New Central library in Calgary, which opened in 2018, provided me with all the facilities I needed.
Before planning my journey to Canada, I made a list of my priorities. At the top of it was experiencing the country of the author I am studying for my PhD: Margaret Atwood.
In 1894, Edouard Michelin, the fine artist of a gifted family, looked at a pile of tyres and said to his engineer brother André: “With arms and legs, that would look like a man.”
D A Prince is won over by Jane Kirwan’s evocative poems of village life
Tokyo: a bridge between tradition and modernity, by Carla Scarano D’Antonio. Compared to Kyoto, Tokyo is bigger, busier and cosmopolitan. My friend Ornella and I had plenty of time by ourselves as my daughter was busy with her course at the Bunka Gakuen University where she is attending a Master in Fashion and Design.
Kyoto was a revelation. I started to get a taste of Japan, its understated, silent and impeccable organisation and the ancestral and modern quality of Japanese culture.
Poetry review – REMARKABLE OCCURRENCES: Emma Storr reviews a collection by Patrick Lodge which features vivid and dramatic poems about the explorations of Captain Cook
By Michael Bartholomew-Biggs • books, poetry reviews, travel, year 2020 • Tags: books, Emma Storr, poetry, travel