Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Saturday, 11 April 2015

brian nisbet, now you know

















Loved Brian Nisbet's launch party for his poetry collection Now You Know. See Brian's website for more about his work.

The event took place at Rewley House in Oxford on Thursday afternoon and was introduced by poet Jenny Lewis.

There were beautiful settings of Brian's poems to music (played exquisitely by his wife Emily, on trombone, and a violinist) with accompanying readings by Mary Lucille Hindmarch (who organised the event) and Patrick Collins, drama tutor at Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education.

There were also wonderful readings of five of Brian's poems by poet and great admirer of Brian's work RV Bailey.

I loved seeing Brian again and hearing his poems. I worked with him on long fiction during the second year of the Oxford Diploma in Creative Writing. On Thursday we saw how gifted he is when it comes to poetic language and its rhythms and sounds and ‎range of effects, whether communicating profound insight into human experience or brilliant comedy.
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