YAWPING

As many of you know, three months ago I decided to take a break from the blog in order to focus on my MA poetry portfolio. I am pleased to say that said portfolio is now finished, prettily bound and sitting on a desk waiting to be marked. Therefore, with little more than nail biting and worrying to endure over the coming weeks, I’m now in a position to return and start blogging again.

When I discovered the theme for my first week back there was definitely a small sigh of despair. I’ve always been a keen and varied reader but, somehow, comic books have never really made it onto that reading list.

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The Mystery of the Taliban?

Okay, so my weekly confessional has come around again and I must admit, I'm a bit of a book hoarder. 

I buy all sorts of books, none of them particularly fancy but to me, for that hour or so when I first open a new book up, it is an absolute must have. I do this with all kinds of books for all kinds of reasons. I go for price, cover, review, name, recommendation- all the usual things but the one thing that can hook me in is mystery. This is half of the reason I buy poetry books. I know they aren't in fashion long enough to be going out of fashion but there is always a rush there- and nobody seems to ever stop me. I buy them for the different ideas, for the different beliefs and for the different understandings and viewings of the world, which leads me on nicely to something of a topical post. 

There has been something of a backlash this week towards news publishers Hurst & Co. are to publish a Taliban poetry collection later this month. Whilst at first this may seem an outrageous proposal, I was reluctant to jump to conclusions over this before I had actually seen a copy of the book or at least read some of the poems in it...

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