Peacock, Manguel, Boldini...

Apologies for being so scattershot with my posts in recent days. Life is a full-time job lately. Since I've been away so much, I thought I'd do a multipurpose post that hits all my usual topics. Here I give you:

1. Antique smut — Reclining nude, Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931)

2. A link to my last piece at Chapter 16 — My interview with poet Molly Peacock is online here.

3. A mention of perfume — Since there were only a few people interested in the Enigma draw, you can all have a sample. Lisa BTB, Margi, and StellaP, please email me your addresses!

4. Something of interest off-blog — Here's a great essay by Alberto Manguel, "The Muse of Impossibility."

5. Poetry — I'll be posting my interview with Margaret Atwood tomorrow, so here's a bit of one of her poems to whet your appetite.

I watch you
watching my face
indifferently
yet with the same taut curiosity
with which you might regard
a suddenly discovered part
of your own body:
a wart perhaps,

and I remember that
you said
in childhood you were
a tracer of maps
(not making but) moving
a pen or a forefinger
over the courses of the rivers,
the different colours
that mark the rise of mountains;
a memorizer
of names (to hold
these places
in their proper places)

So now you trace me
like a country’s boundary
or a strange new wrinkle in
your own wellknown skin
and I am fixed, stuck
down on the outspread map
of this room, of your mind’s continent...

From "The Circle Game" by Margaret Atwood

There, I think that covers all the bases. Back tomorrow with Atwood. Y'all enjoy your week.