I’ve been reading Rob Taylor’s poetry for years and have been looking forward to his latest, Weather (Gaspereau Press, 2024). Now, once again I’m struck by his poetry’s honesty, heart, and honed insights. That’s the thing about news-- / you’ve heard it before, Taylor wrote previously (in The News) but here his poetic updates are fresh with previously unreported advancements.
I arrived at Laura Cumming’s beautiful book, Thunderclap: A memoir of art and life & sudden death, just before it won the 2024 Writers’ Prize for Non-Fiction. I had lovingly remembered her previous book, On Chapel Sands, a story of her mother’s life. In Thunderclap, she turns her close attention to the golden age of Dutch art in the 1600s, in particular the cataclysmic gunpowder explosion in Delft that killed the painter Carel Fabritius and destroyed many precious works of art.
My album on repeat right now (it’s true, we bought a record player in 2024!) is Bleachers’ ‘Gone Now’ from 2017. I’m not always very current with music (you can’t keep up with everything) so I missed the early boat on Bleachers as a talent, but of all his albums – including his 2024 ‘A Stranger Desired’ – I find this one the most interesting and joyful (even if a lot of the songs are sadly nostalgic).
Unwashed, Daniel Maluka. Mawenzi House, 2024.
“I had things to draw.”
