granta.com/a-strange-bi... If you've never read Tarjei Vesaas, then you are in for a treat. Hopefully this excellent essay can convince you from. @grantamag.bsky.social Scandinavia issue. The Birds and The Ice Palace really are two of the best novels I've ever read.

Who knew pursuing the writing dream would involve so much paperwork? And not the fun kind!

COVER REVEAL for HOLD OVER FIRE Delighted to share the cover for my new book. The cover image is a snapshot taken from the viewing platform on Nelson's Pillar in 1966 by my parents on honeymoon. They married on 21 February and were in Dublin the following week. The Pillar was blown up 8 March!

This is such an unbelievably good exploration of writing, translation, and so much else. Deep and wide as a lake, one of my books of the year tbh.

Further advance praise for Hold Over Fire 🔥

Ah, Arts Council Bursary Award application time!

Som en tog pendler Kongsberg-Oslo tre dager i uke kjenner jeg meg veldig igjen i dette. Jeg vil bruke litt men ikke alt tid på tog til å jobbe men det er nesten umulig. Og det med tog med kun fem vogn er ofte et problem på R12 toget også.

If you are interested in reviewing my new book or inviting me to read or collaborate in some way, get in touch!

You can now buy Book of Inversions and Bodyservant, in fantastic company with loads of amazing books and zines, at Cailleach Books www.cailleachbooks.ie/search?q=kit... which is also the festival bookshop for re:verb yesbutisitpoetry.blogspot.com/p/reverb.html @cmakris.bsky.social

Some advance praise for my new book, Hold Over Fire, out soon from Veer2. Grateful to writers who I really admire for their commitment to poetry as a form for possibilities. Big thanks to Ellen Dillon, Billy Ramsell and Peter Manson for their generous readings of my work. Ordering info soon x

Norway is one of those countries where if a bank holiday falls on a weekend, its tough luck, you dont get it back that year. Next year there will be a total of 6 public holidays because of when they fall. www.nrk.no/ostfold/rode...

Tell me someone has started a band called Name Three Songs.

Stuck inside of Vestfossen with the Kongsberg blues again.

Here's another novel gone out of fashion: The Gingerman. Deservedly or undeservedly so? Years since I read it.

E-poster om renteøkning på boliglån og avslag på jobbsøknader. Hurra!

I've only read 7 of the first forty of the Guardian's latest 100 greatest novels. I relied heavily in the early 00s on the Penguin Modern Classics list to act as such a list and it shows probably.

When I was younger, British parliamentary politics seemed so alive and engaging, exciting even in contrast to Ireland. It now seems simply exhausting and permanently in a state of crisis.

På toget mot Kongsberg (fra Nasjonal 15.51) og det uforsvarlige stappfull av folk. At det er kun et togsett er helt uforståelig. Jeg pleier å ta den 16.51 der det er nesten alltid to togsett. Merkelig!

I've been reading the American Heritage Dictionary again.

And here from the early #19thc, & Jane Austen's era--which, let's face it, not enough of us associate with collage--please see a page-spread created ca. 1821 by Miss Mary Watson & her friend Miss Ross (for an album now in the Special Collections Library at Manchester Metropolitan University).

Hurling remains one of the great sports to listen to on the radio.

Dugnad på barnehagen i dag! #kongsberg

We are watching The Man in the High Castle. Of all the small details, Juliana's apartment has a kitchen table overhead lamp that is a Louis Poulsen. A classic piece of mid-century modern design from Denmark. Left, the one in the show. Right, my own. I wonder what they think of its use in the show!

We are watching The Man in the High Castle. Of all the small details, Juliana's apartment has a kitchen table overhead lamp that is a Louis Poulsen. A classic piece of mid-century modern design from Denmark. Left, the one in the show. Right, my own. I wonder what they think of its use in the show!

We are watching The Man in the High Castle. Of all the small details, Juliana's apartment has a kitchen table overhead lamp that is a Louis Poulsen. A classic piece of mid-century modern design from Denmark. Left, the one in the show. Right, my own. I wonder what they think of its use in the show!

Glad to learn of Prynne’s short-lived (1957) Martian phase.

"Built in 1922, the scheme was one of the first residential developments for tenant purchase in the new Free State, introduced in response to the severe housing shortage in Dublin at the time." This just in: Irony deader than dead. www.irishtimes.com/property/res...

Blurbs are coming in and things are getting real. I'd like to do some readings in the latter half of the year, and into next year, so if you've got a poetry reading series, get in touch x.

bat box, one of thirteen poem nest-boxes, 'the rest of', installed in Stockwood Park, Luton.

Putting some order on my poetry shelves again

Gratulerer med kampdagen 1. mai! Litt oppvarming før toget:. Et intervju sammen med Ayat Saeid, leder av ungdomsutvalget i Fellesforbundet avdeling 1, - i NRK Ekko: radio.nrk.no/serie/ekko/I... 1/3

Glad kampdag, kamerater!

Today's highlight in Norway: News shared about the discovery of the largest coin hoard from the Viking Age Norway. Exciting times for colleagues @kult-hist-museum.bsky.social and elsewhere! www.sciencenorway.no/archaeology-...

@electionlit.bsky.social at a car boot sale in Norway, a "No to EU" handpainted pin in Norwegian "rose painting" style from 1994 referendum.

A prizes d piece of Prynne paraphernalia which I found enclosed in some books that I got in Norlis Antikvariat last year. Grue, his Norwegian translator, died a little over a year and a half ago, and the Prynne I picked up in Oslo presumably had belonged to him. RIP JH Prynne.

rest well jh prynne, the / mere & lovely centre, of the earth

WB Yeats' in the 1926 Census: nationalarchives.ie/collections/...

I've found Flann O'Brien, Brian Coffey and Denis Devlin in the 1926 census. Who else should I be looking for?

Found my first transcription error in the 1926 census!

This is such a weird article. Although they note the cost of children means that having a larger family is now a sign of wealth and status, at no point do they join the dots that people but "experiences" over objects because they are all renting or living at home. www.irishtimes.com/your-money/2...

For 1.75l milk, a load of bread, 500g butter, washing up liquid, a toothbrush and toothpaste I just paid 209nok (€18.83). Norwegian supermarkets are the biggest rip off on this country by a mile.

On 9 April 1940, Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany. Simon Stranger's wonderful, strange (ahem), and moving novel, Englished as "Keep Saying their Names", is appropriate reading, which I happened to pick up at the library this weekend.

One of the best bookshops on the island, and the people who run it are real book people.

Pesach sameach! Reading Exodus in Robert Alter's masterful translation. The real joy of these translations are of course the copious notes. Alter's 91st birthday is tomorrow.

Us: got our child's sleep routine down Daylight's savings: hold my beer....

There won't be a kamalelåså milked in Copenhagen tonight.

Post a non-religious picture you think of as holy

Fear not, nothing bad has EVER happened to the Irish soccer team in extra time

I don't often watch football, but when I do, I do go at it and awful hard

A piece I wrote ten years ago on the Vrsovice derby: The Kings of Vršovice – Póg Mo Goal share.google/yNfJIuShDocs... Something for halftime for ye