All posts tagged: Poetic

The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova review – a poetic exploration of Russian guilt | Fiction

The Disappearing Act by Maria Stepanova review – a poetic exploration of Russian guilt | Fiction

Published by Sam Flores

M, a 50-year-old novelist living in an idyllic place by a lake, is travelling to a literary festival to give a talk. A sequence of events, mostly beyond her control, leaves her stranded in an unfamiliar town. It’s dead quiet, except for a travelling circus camped on the outskirts. M checks into a hotel, ignores her phone and wanders around, reminiscing about books read, films watched, museums visited. Some of these recollections are grounded in fable; others are vividly realistic. Among the latter are memories of her childhood and youth, spent in a “country that no longer exists apart from on old maps and in history books”. M describes the country she comes from as a “beast” waging war against its neighbour. We can guess her meaning without turning to the author’s biographical note. Maria Stepanova – whose masterly In Memory of Memory combined family memoir, essay and fiction – left her native Russia after its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. We might also wonder how closely The Disappearing Act tracks her own life. But the novelist M is not here to …

Finland’s poetic masterpiece, the Kalevala, has roots in 2 cultures and 2 countries

Finland’s poetic masterpiece, the Kalevala, has roots in 2 cultures and 2 countries

Published by Sam Flores

(The Conversation) — At the outset of the Kalevala, Finland’s national epic, a singer bemoans his separation from a beloved friend who grew up beside him. Today, the friends rarely meet “näillä raukoilla rajoilla, poloisilla Pohjan mailla” – lines which translator Keith Bosley renders “on these poor borders, the luckless lands of the North.” The Kalevala, a poetic masterpiece of nearly 23,000 lines, first appeared in 1835. Now, nearly 200 years later, those “luckless lands of the North” are an increasingly tense border zone. On one side sits Finland, affluent and famously “happy.” The Nordic nation of 5.6 million is a member of the European Union and, more recently, the NATO alliance. On the other side sits the Republic of Karelia, with a population of around a half-million. Originally home to the Karelians, a people closely related to the Finns, today Karelia is part of the Russian Federation – and the percentage of Karelian speakers is in the single digits. Finland celebrates Feb. 28 as Kalevala Day, or the “Day of Finnish Culture.” Yet the …

Inside Van Cleef & Arpels poetic watchmaking universe

Inside Van Cleef & Arpels poetic watchmaking universe

Published by Sam Flores

As a relatively new watch journalist in the industry a few years ago, I remember one of the first watches by Van Cleef & Arpels that captivated my attention. It was the Pont des Amoureux timepiece – a kinetic display of time that depicts a pair of lovers meeting for a kiss on a Parisian bridge.  The dial is truly a visual spectacle. The lady indicates the hours, while the gentleman tells the minutes. As time passes through the day, the pair inch closer to each other, until they meet at the top at midnight or midday, and lean in for a romantic kiss. Newer models of the watch are also fitted with an animation-on-demand module that allows the kiss to happen at any time of the day, simply by the push of a button.  The Pont des Amoureux is just one of Van Cleef & Arpels’ timepieces that encapsulates the maison’s watchmaking tagline, “the poetry of time”. Its distinctive approach to horology is defined by the art of storytelling, capturing emotion, imagination, and a sense …

An Epic Poetic Journey Through the History of the Black Female Figure in Art

An Epic Poetic Journey Through the History of the Black Female Figure in Art

Published by Jenni Sidey

This entire collection is stunning. It’s full of poems about desire, race, and the construction of the self. Lewis troubles the very idea of selfhood: what it means, how it happens, the historical and cultural forces that define and determine how we define and determine where each of us begins and ends. Some of the shorter, lyrical poems absolutely wowed me with their sharp and startling lines. So you’ll have to forgive me for focusing entirely on the titular poem. It’s not that the rest of the collection isn’t deserving, it’s just that this long narrative poem is so astounding, so world-shattering, so revelatory, that I have not been able to stop thinking about it since I read it. I will never think about poetry and art—and the making of both—the same way again. This poem changed my relationship to art-making. That is a rare and remarkable thing. In the prologue to the poem, Lewis explains that ‘Voyage of the Sable Venus’ is “a narrative poem comprised solely and entirely of the titles, catalog entries, or exhibit …