Here, you can find poetry close-reads, as well as essays on poetics, aesthetics, cognition, and more general philosophy.
Essays
2026
- May 29 Bees: A Close-Read Studying Rae Armantrout’s exploration of mortality and language
- March 11 Paralytic: Dissecting Ariel #7 A subversion on the Plathian speaker's typical apathy
- March 4 The Immortal Writer A quick read of Dickinson's 'A Book'
- February 20 Balloons: Dissecting Ariel #6 A surprisingly light-hearted look at the process of childhood.
- February 14 Where's My Moon?: a close-read A poem on infancy and knowledge
- February 6 The Hanging of the Mouse: a close-read Analysing one of Elizabeth Bishop's prose poems
- January 17 Poppies in July: Dissecting Ariel #5 A nature poem weaves two strong images together
- January 9 Kindness: Dissecting Ariel #4 A simple personifying image proves anything but.
- January 3 Contusion: Dissecting Ariel #3 Searching for depth in one of Plath’s more simple-looking poems.
2025
- December 29 Edge: Dissecting Ariel #2 Plath teaches us how to create and wield associations.
- December 11 Words: Dissecting Ariel #1 A poem which balances order and chaos instructively.
- October 27 Morning Song: dissecting Ariel #0 A quick close read of a fantastic collection-opener.
- August 19 Gorgeous nonsense: on Gertrude Stein A brief exploration of Stein's perplexing work
- July 1 On artistic intent and interpretation What happens to art when the artist puts down their pen?
- May 24 Favourite cognitive science texts A summary of the texts I enjoyed, and why I enjoyed them.
- May 21 What is interesting? A debut of Core Theory
- May 17 What even is a science of the mind, anyway? A response to Adam Mastroianni's article on psychology paradigms
- March 27 Maths recap: Group Theory, Combinatorics and Graham's Number
- March 22 tag list A breakdown of the tags used in the blog