Marc Provins

Some still lifes created at home in natural light for today, isolated portions of my domestic life. We must be pulling out of winter as my pictures are getting brighter. I was looking through my 20th Century in Poetry book today which is a weighty tome as you might imagine, arranged in chronological order from 1900 to 2000.  At the back there is an Index of First Lines, which is essentially a list of fragments, thought provoking glimpses into the poems contained within. I like the slither of insight you get into the content of the poem as well as an instant sense of how writers mould language like soft clay. Sometimes that clay is fired in my imagination and I have to turn to the page to read the complete poem, sometimes I just keep reading down the list. A fragment of fragments for you: Do you drive an old car? 703 Down the close darkening lanes they sang their way 146 Dürer would have seen a reason for living 207 Even now there are places where a ...

The lack of light and heat through the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere means we just have to accept being indoors more. I quite like this time especially having an open fire and getting a big jumper on. Also post Christmas there are usually some good books to be read.  2013 was the year I rediscovered poetry, which took me by surprise, triggered by a visit to Hull and reading Philip Larkin's work for the first time. Since then I've got my hands on a 20th Century Poetry Anthology, Philip Larkin Collected Poems and a book called What W.H Auden Can Do For You by Alexander McCall Smith. These have all helped me to understand the power that can be packed into a few short stanzas.  It has come as a revelation to me that a poem can help interpret the world around us in a similar way to photography, suggesting layers of complexity and providing alternative readings of the everyday. I like being thrown an idea or concept that becomes a new framework through ...