Berfrois

December 2016

X’s NYE

X’s NYE

X sometimes wonders if the best writing is by people whose names we will never know. The Geological Surveys published by the United States Government Printing Office--especially those from the 1930s.

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A Very Vaping Year

A Very Vaping Year

A review of 2016 by Queen Mob's Teahouse

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Scarfed in Mist

Scarfed in Mist

I had been living in Scotland for more than five years before I found The Living Mountain through two recommendations that came in quick succession.

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What signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?

What signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?

Nature and landscape are palimpsests of history and social violence more than they are alternatives to them. They show back to the observer the durability and definiteness of the world people have made so far.

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Almost Incredibly Soothing

Almost Incredibly Soothing

And I am sitting in my new room, with curtains, fire, table; and two great views; sometimes sun over the brooks and storm over the church.

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Gathering and Assembling: Judith Butler on the Future of Politics

Gathering and Assembling: Judith Butler on the Future of Politics

It is impossible to under-estimate the exceptional contribution to political understanding provided in the writing of Judith Butler.

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Poetry Prize II

Poetry Prize II

Berfrois is delighted to announce that the Berfrois Poetry Prize is back.

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The rhythm all ripple and suspended fall…

The rhythm all ripple and suspended fall…

A week or so back I found with some difficulty a friend who even in his own judgment has no claim to the vacant office, and we set out together across Dartmoor

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Olivia Rao plays

Olivia Rao plays

It had been so long since I last pulled out the Snakes & Ladders set that the cardboard box had warped. I'd put it away in that attic ages ago, and if the weather hadn't been the way it was, and I hadn't needed distraction, it never would've occurred...

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English?

English?

Traditionally, writing and teaching at the university level have been the career paths of choice for English majors. Nice work if you can get it. I never could, which is why I’ve spent most of my life as a librarian.

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To Feel Betrayed

To Feel Betrayed

Kristeva and Sollers met in Paris in 1966 when she was 25 years old and had just arrived on a fellowship from Bulgaria, and he was 30, already a published writer, and a disaffected son of the French middle class.

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Looking Happy

Looking Happy

I know nothing about London. I’m often amazed I lived there at all. But in total it was almost a year, on what was then the “working holiday” visa, which granted youths from the Commonwealth temporary work permits.

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Joe Linker: All the World’s a Bill-bard

Joe Linker: All the World’s a Bill-bard

The Captain-elect of a new Ship of Fools, his vassals jockeying for position aboard the whirling vessel, packing for the move, appears to be offering a revision of Snyder’s argument – to wit: The free world is simply a racket.

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