@richardswsmith.bsky.social
“With a noir gusto, Addonizio’s passionate monologues draw you into the boudoir of narrative and keep you there until she’s finished. Her sleekly told story-meditations are both terribly familiar and wonderfully intense.”
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/b...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/b...
Beware falling into idiocy when writing about poetry
Writing about poetry is like writing about wine, food, music, sex, or even painting in that you are likely to fall into idiocy. Or at best you are likely to write something that is largely devoid o…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
December 7, 2025 at 10:02 AM
“With a noir gusto, Addonizio’s passionate monologues draw you into the boudoir of narrative and keep you there until she’s finished. Her sleekly told story-meditations are both terribly familiar and wonderfully intense.”
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/b...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/b...
The poorer parts of this city [Halifax], the parts I have been guided through as Virgil guided Dante through Hell, are in many ways more foreign to me, a soft Southerner, than Dhaka, which I visit often.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/a...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/a...
A day in the post-industrial North understanding why people voted Leave
As I sit eating my full-English breakfast in a Victorian hotel in a post-industrial city in the North of England a line of T S Eliot’s comes into my mind “restless nights in one-night cheap hotels.…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
December 6, 2025 at 2:51 PM
The poorer parts of this city [Halifax], the parts I have been guided through as Virgil guided Dante through Hell, are in many ways more foreign to me, a soft Southerner, than Dhaka, which I visit often.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/a...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/15/a...
Can prostate cancer propel Wes Streeting to Downing Street?
www.bmj.com
December 5, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted
"the UK summer of 2025 was the hottest in more than a century of records and....made 70 times more probable because of the climate crisis"
3 worst ever harvests since 2020
A years worth of bread lost in 5 years......rationing beckons
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
3 worst ever harvests since 2020
A years worth of bread lost in 5 years......rationing beckons
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
UK farmers lose £800m after heat and drought cause one of worst harvests on record
Many now concerned about ability to make living in fast-changing climate after one of worst grain harvests recorded
www.theguardian.com
December 4, 2025 at 9:34 AM
"the UK summer of 2025 was the hottest in more than a century of records and....made 70 times more probable because of the climate crisis"
3 worst ever harvests since 2020
A years worth of bread lost in 5 years......rationing beckons
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
3 worst ever harvests since 2020
A years worth of bread lost in 5 years......rationing beckons
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
The main argument against immortality is that it would be boring, but would I ever get to the end of books? People are writing good books far faster than I’m able to read them. Surely I would never grow bored of books—or music?
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/p...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/p...
Perhaps I could live forever: musing on immortality
I posted this blog in the BMJ in August 2012, but I was reminded of it this morning when reading and thinking how there is so much that I want to read and so little time left for reading. My death …
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
December 5, 2025 at 9:11 AM
The main argument against immortality is that it would be boring, but would I ever get to the end of books? People are writing good books far faster than I’m able to read them. Surely I would never grow bored of books—or music?
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/p...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/13/p...
Dearest Marianne,
I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, as yours has too, and the eviction notice is on its way any day now.
Endless love
and gratitude,
Leonard
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/t...
I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, as yours has too, and the eviction notice is on its way any day now.
Endless love
and gratitude,
Leonard
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/t...
Two letters to make you weep
Simon Sebag Montefiore’s marvellous Written in History: Letters that Changed the World contains a wide variety of letters, but two that we heard at the reading we attended were particularly poigna…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
December 2, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Dearest Marianne,
I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, as yours has too, and the eviction notice is on its way any day now.
Endless love
and gratitude,
Leonard
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/t...
I’m just a little behind you, close enough to take your hand. This old body has given up, as yours has too, and the eviction notice is on its way any day now.
Endless love
and gratitude,
Leonard
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/10/t...
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
acairnofpoems.com/2025/12/01/i...
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
acairnofpoems.com/2025/12/01/i...
I explain a few things by Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), the great Chilean poet, wrote this poem in 1936 as the Spanish Civil War began and Madrid moved from peace to war, from “the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,/wave o…
acairnofpoems.com
December 1, 2025 at 2:16 PM
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
acairnofpoems.com/2025/12/01/i...
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!
acairnofpoems.com/2025/12/01/i...
Reposted
The COPs in a nutshell
November 29, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The COPs in a nutshell
“We humans have an instinct to record on paper feelings and memories that could be lost in time, and to share them.” Letters are “the literary antidote to the ephemerality of life.”
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/l...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/l...
Letters: “the immediate breath of life”
Goethe called letters “the immediate breath of life.” In the introduction to his delicious book Written in History: Letters that Changed the World the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore writes: “Not…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
November 30, 2025 at 9:56 AM
“We humans have an instinct to record on paper feelings and memories that could be lost in time, and to share them.” Letters are “the literary antidote to the ephemerality of life.”
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/l...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/08/l...
I read this marvellous sketch of William Gladstone, perhaps Britain’s greatest prime minister, this morning in Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians.” I thought it a wonderful piece of writing and an intriguing portrait.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/w...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/w...
William Gladstone: “Did his very essence lie in the confusion of incompatibles?”
I read this marvellous sketch of William Gladstone, perhaps Britain’s greatest prime minister, this morning in Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians.” I thought it a wonderful piece of writing and …
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
November 29, 2025 at 4:02 PM
I read this marvellous sketch of William Gladstone, perhaps Britain’s greatest prime minister, this morning in Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians.” I thought it a wonderful piece of writing and an intriguing portrait.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/w...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/06/w...
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
acairnofpoems.com/2025/11/28/i...
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
acairnofpoems.com/2025/11/28/i...
In Blackwater Woods by Mary Oliver
A friend who died a year ago pointed me towards the poetry of Mary Oliver (1935-2019), America’s best-selling poet in 2007. My friend had chosen Oliver poems to be read at her funeral. She recommen…
acairnofpoems.com
November 28, 2025 at 11:04 AM
To live in this world
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
acairnofpoems.com/2025/11/28/i...
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
acairnofpoems.com/2025/11/28/i...
For the sake of yourself, your family and friends, and particularly for children and grandchildren (if you have them) sign this letter.
www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-...
www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-...
November 28, 2025 at 10:08 AM
For the sake of yourself, your family and friends, and particularly for children and grandchildren (if you have them) sign this letter.
www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-...
www.nebriefing.org/open-letter-...
The progress of Islam is better by the sword of kindness, not by the sword of oppression. Ignore the disputations of Shias and Sunnis; for therein is the weakness of Islam.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/a...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/a...
A letter from 1529 that holds deeply wise and apposite advice for today
Last week we went to a talk and readings from Simon Sebag Montefiore’s inspired book Written in History: Letters that Changed the World. I plan a longer blog on the book, but this is the letter tha…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
November 28, 2025 at 10:00 AM
The progress of Islam is better by the sword of kindness, not by the sword of oppression. Ignore the disputations of Shias and Sunnis; for therein is the weakness of Islam.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/a...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/05/a...
Good ideas for a Green Christmas from Real Zero. www.realzero.earth
November 27, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Good ideas for a Green Christmas from Real Zero. www.realzero.earth
I'd never seen before this beautiful painting of the Annunciation. It's very Bellini and very Venetian. I love the view through the window. I must find out where this picture hangs and travel to see it.
Annunciation. So clean and clear, as Giovanni Bellini is wont to be. Today is his day.
November 27, 2025 at 9:58 AM
I'd never seen before this beautiful painting of the Annunciation. It's very Bellini and very Venetian. I love the view through the window. I must find out where this picture hangs and travel to see it.
Reposted
V good Economist article.
Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening
economist.com/finance-and-...
from The Economist
Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening
economist.com/finance-and-...
from The Economist
November 27, 2025 at 9:39 AM
V good Economist article.
Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening
economist.com/finance-and-...
from The Economist
Investors expect AI use to soar. That’s not happening
economist.com/finance-and-...
from The Economist
Who hath known the ways of time
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/c...
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/c...
Collected quotes from Poems and Ballads by Algernon Charles Swinburne
From Anactoria Have we not lips to love with, eyes for tears, And summer and flower of women and of years? Stars for the foot of morning, and for noon Sunlight, and exaltation of the moon; Waters t…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
November 26, 2025 at 12:57 PM
Who hath known the ways of time
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/c...
Or trodden behind his feet?
There is no such man among men.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/03/01/c...
The greatest of all wonders is not the conqueror of the world, but the subduer of himself.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/q...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/q...
Quotes from Schopenhauer: The average man cannot reconcile himself to death; therefore he makes innumerable philosophies and theologies.
The fear of death is the beginning of philosophy, and the final cause of religion. The average man cannot reconcile himself to death; therefore he makes innumerable philosophies and theologies; the…
richardswsmith.wordpress.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:56 PM
The greatest of all wonders is not the conqueror of the world, but the subduer of himself.
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/q...
richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2019/02/26/q...