’It persists as anomaly, as conscience, as critique and as refuge’

’It’s almost impossible to say why certain music attracts me, or interests me, and other things leave me cold. The process of criticism is heavily dependent on a rationalisation of subjectivity. As a critic, you can spend your life prioritising your own tastes with increasingly elaborate intellectual justifications that disallow any alternatives’. That’s David Toop, … Continue reading ’It persists as anomaly, as conscience, as critique and as refuge’

‘It’s only when you talk to yourself that they prick up their ears’

I like anthologies - to borrow or to buy cheaply, not often to keep. There are too many poets that don’t (in the end, after a few re-readings) interest me. But how else to find out what’s out there, what’s being written? And these are the anthologies I like best: the annual volumes of The … Continue reading ‘It’s only when you talk to yourself that they prick up their ears’