Tag Archives: thriller

Day 17 — reading genes + reading droughts

April 17 is my grandmother’s birthday; she would’ve been 101 today. So I wanted to honour her again by a poem that explores my reading ancestry.

The Poetic Factoid was going to be about the correlation between reading & various genetic traits, until I came across a word in my research & I knew the poem had to be about that.

*****

the genetics of reading

looking back through time
     there’s a definite lineage
          a genetic heritage of literature

my mother’s always been deep
     into crime to which I was a late comer
          her greatest gift to me was green Anne
               the Poldarks surprised me by being 
                    much more than mere bodice 
                         ripping regency romances

— teen me returned the favour by hooking her on fabulous fantasy

mum was clearly given gifts from her mother as both
     delighted in the murders & mysteries of Dame Agatha
          Georgette Heyer & Dorothy L Sayers ; gran even
               read James Bond, Alistair McLean & similar thrillers
                    when younger before migrating to Danielle Steele &
                         almost anything Large Print by the end of her eyes

— wish I could’ve got her opinion on Julia Quinn

grandad was much more factual
     a biographical non-fiction kinda guy
          books on birds & the natural world
               histories  the English language 
                    the bulk of which I inherited 
                         including     naturally  fittingly

— his impressive leather bound editions of poetry 

          it gives me great pleasure sharing 
     these generational reading genes (even if 
my pants are a bit bigger than theirs)

******

Day 17 Factoid — to read or not

A Presbyopian Inspired Drought

the one time in my life 
i’ve read very little 
was for a year or so 
a decade ago when 
every book bored me
when i could not
sit still long enough
to complete a chapter
even a couple of pages
it was aberrant behaviour 
for a life long wyrm 

finally i realised 
the print was blurring
eight to ten inches 
from my eyes — but 
within a month
the magic of specially 
tailored super glass
scientifically ordained
specifically adapted
for my ageing eyes
brought the magic back

Guilty Pleasure or Blatant Disregard for one of our Most Valuable Assets?

On Day 15 of NaPoWriMo15, I posted that I only had (by my conservative estimate) 2,376 books left to read in my life. Over the last 2 days I have perhaps wasted one of those books by flicking into a work of pulp fiction adventure thriller technobabble; an airport novel; a bestseller in other words, read by millions. Sure the characterisation is thinner than the paper it’s printed on, the dialogue clunks along like my first car did & the plot, well actually the plot was a bit thin in this one — which is a shame, cos that’s kinda what you read these type of books for. Evil brother & sister wanna restore the Ottoman Empire, blow up Istambul, find Christ’s sandals — sorry dude, but I need a mite more than that…

In order to try & salvage some redeeming merit from the six or seven hours I gave to this brick, I have created a short yet whimsical piece of poesy.

The author, whose name will be revealed shortly, seems to think the only way to communicate emotion is through the eyes (this only gelled into realisation for me on pg 210, after which I started to take notes heehee).

For this exercise I replaced all sight related words with scent related ones. See mate, you can communicate stuff with other senses …

*****

Clive Cussler Nose (Eyes) Best

some worked (well one did):
his nose instantly flaring in horror

some sort of work (varying degrees of sense & successability)
his nose lost and soulless
cold determined odour in Marie’s nose
a scent of anger searing his drowsy nose
a stern sniff from his dark nose expressing his will
tall tall pale-skinned men with hardened dark noses
the red-nosed anger in the man bordered on the psychotic

one was poetic, if strange
falcon-nosed man

some were silly in the original, & remain so
he would sniff at Dirk with rage, then his nostrils would pong over into a thousand-mile whiff
he calmly smelled back at her with a scenting nose that danced above a deep scar on the right side of his jaw

& one was so silly in the original, no change was need
a dull light seemed to burn through Dirk’s eyes, though his lids were tightly closed

*****

owen___the_nose___wilson_by_rwpike-d39der7

PS Happy Birthday Buddy