The Writing of ‘A Name Writ in Water’

I wrote this book about ten years ago, partly as a response to the sudden death of my mother-in-law, who’d just turned sixty. Time, then, to get something down. But what? I’d studied Keats closely at university, including the letters and Robert Gittings’ biography and had even written a poem about Keats’ arrival in Naples: to have gone through all that, only to be quarantined for another month. So, after a bit more research, I had my plot and also the ending, which I knew would steer clear of Rome, because Anthony Burgess had written a novel about Keats dying there already. Over a period of two years, in cafes and classrooms [empty ones], I gradually put together a series of scenes describing the journey to Italy. I chose third-person focalised narrative because that offered me both descriptive luxuries and the ability to explore voice/point of view. The hardest part was settling on dialogue that didn’t sound like botched Beau Brummell, so I tried to keep it as simple as possible, in contrast to some lusciousness over river-bank and ocean-wave.  In particular, I found I enjoyed writing about the Thames [five years’ hard labour in Grays, Essex helped] and about…

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Our Man storms Sofia…

   Further to Tom’s adventures amongst the poetic heartlands, hedonists and difficult breakfasts in Montenegro and Croatia follow him as he heads over to Bulgaria to immerse himself in Sofia’s o’er-brimming literary life… Sunday 31 July There’s a long string of coincidences behind my standing in our hallway with a rucsac full of poetry books, magazines and an English-Bulgarian-English dictionary and with a boarding card for the late-night flight from Bristol to Sofia. The short version is that, in 2013, I read part of my one-man show I Went to Albania at the University of Portsmouth. Afterwards a student came down to the front and asked me if I’d ever been to Bulgaria. Less than six months later I was in Sofia as a guest of Vasilena’s family and talking with her artist sister, Marina, about an online project which would surface in January 2014 as Colourful Star – quite possibly the only Anglo-Bulgarian poetry/visual art project on the internet. Since then I’ve taught myself Bulgarian (at least to read and write – my conversational Bulgarian still suffers from my appalling accent), begun translating Bulgarian poetry and plays and – thanks to an ever-expanding circle of Bulgarian friends – somehow…

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Our Man in Montenegro…

Follow Tom’s amazing adventures in the poetic darklands of Montenegro as he tackles the complexities of literary life in the shadows of the recent conflicts… Tom Phillips Wednesday 22 June It’s not yet high season on the Croatian coast, but Dubrovnik Old Town is packed. The three of us – Mary, Peter and I – are on our way to Niksic in Montenegro for a conference on writing and place, but after an early morning flight from a rain-soaked Bristol we’re sneaking a holiday into half a day: seafood lunch, swim, ice-cream. Like the famous bridge in Mostar, much of the Old Town is a reconstruction: sections of neater stonework like scar tissue attest to the destruction wrought by artillery shells lobbed onto the city from the surrounding higher ground. By the breakwater in whose lee people swim, a man and three boys are heaving loose stones from under the city wall and tossing them into the sea. The earnestness with which they do this suggests that this isn’t merely a game; they too are engaged in some form of reconstruction. Nikola’s due to pick us up outside the West Gate in his dark-blue Audi. This is the most tenuous…

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