#ExamTime in, and at, an uncertain age : ai-powered approaches to question-setting

#ExamTime in, and at, an uncertain age : ai-powered approaches to question-setting

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

10 May

#ExamTime in, and at, an uncertain age : ai-powered approaches to question-setting

In memoriam, Charles Hunt, RIP

Discuss themes of despair and destruction, and how they are invoked, in this poem by William Carlos Williams.#ExamTime

1 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 10, 2024

If, instead, this poem had been written by Sappho (and this were a translation made by Robert Lowell in circa 1943), how - if at all - would your answer differ, and why ?#ExamTime

2 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 10, 2024

If, yet again, this were considered, by its author, to be prose (rather than, principally, poetry), and had perhaps been written by the lead examiner (who may be a published poet), how also - if at all - would your answer differ, and why ?#ExamTime

3 / 3

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 10, 2024

Maybe coming to a universe of examination-halls* near you (soon)... ?
/div>

'Alpha Papa was a better name, and a better overall piece of work, than Juliet Bravo.'

Discuss, with (if desired) reference to the unending mediocrity of #LizzyBoots, the Barthesian semiotics of this purported anonymous evaluation.

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) July 5, 2024

* You know the ones : where you're suddenly aware that you are still wearing your slippers, or pyjamas - or that you forgot to revise !


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Poem in a Tweet : Pewter suitcase

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2017 (19 to 26 October)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 August

After reading George Monbiot on climate breakdown*... :

A pewter suitcase,
Full of sand - and grease,
That is my inheritance
From these taut eras
When we despair

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 29, 2017

End-notes :

* Also, here :

Why are the crucial questions about Hurricane Harvey not being asked? | George Monbiot https://t.co/r2Q8xaSaCC

— The Guardian (@guardian) August 29, 2017

Talking of it 'exposes a programme that relies on robbing the future to fuel the present, that demands perpetual growth on a finite planet' https://t.co/TEb1tIXQ3L

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) August 29, 2017

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

A Nupe Ohm : An Englishman in Cambridge

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2016 (20 to 27 October)
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20 May, Post-script added 28 May


An Englishman in Cambridge


When there are looks,
Or stares,
Of dread disapproval,

One wonders when,
Or where,
These people grew up -

Or failed
To grow up -
That it seems,

To them,
That blokes can't have
Long hair


© Belston Night Works 2016




Post-script:


On being a shit (Part I) :

I have
To bitch
(To them)
About her,
Having
To bitch
About me,
Bitching
About her
To them

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 28, 2016

On being a shit (Part II) :

When you stare
(From five feet),
It's not that
I'm far gone,
Insentient
To your blunt
Looking :
I'm just
Trying to pretend
You don't matter

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) June 2, 2016

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

We were just overlapping circles*

More views of ‒ or before ‒ Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

19 September

We were just overlapping circles*

When I didn’t ‒ and you did ‒
It was y minus x,
A cancellation
(Not summation)
Of the good in us


When you didn’t, nor did I,
Residing ‘quite elsewhere’
In two diagrams :
Hidden discourse
Our universes


INTERLUDE


When I had to, you could not ‒
My cypher decoded
(And utterly plain)
In your fierce sight,
Shaming my spirit


When you felt as I did,
An unrushed moment ‒ as
Of tranquillity ‒
Settled upon us,
Mended all our hurt


RONDO



Copyright © Belston Night Works 2015



End-notes

* Quoting ‘Jigsaw Puzzle of Life’, Kate and Anna McGarrigle.

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Izzie Poems (Part V*)

This is : A Poem for Izzie and Iggy

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 May (Postlude added, 4 October ; plus, from a Tweet, two haikus, 13 October)

A Poem for Izzie and Iggy

What you devoutly shared,
You might still have shared –
Not as lovers’ secrets,
But as thoughts, open
And showing your care


A clear communion,
As between one speck –
From another world – and
One more, made kindred
By shared origin ?


Or do ‘the poets pipe
Of love’ childishly ? :
Gawain, elevating
His slight dalliance,
Because he is famed… ?



© Belston Night Works 2015


Postlude :

To the tune of : My Lady Isabella's Jig so obsessed was she, with herself, that she overlooked how she turned him off

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 3, 2015

Twinned traitors

He enjoys stories
Of her dark, sexy exploits
With the other men

It makes the sex sharp,
And fine, that he might hit her –
For what he'd allowed


Succubus

Sucking your nipples
Till you came (or seemed to come... ?)
Accorded prowess :

Flattery's efforts
Let you worm in warming hope –
Which you could then crush


End-notes

* These are the other Parts : Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Izzie Poems (Part IV*)

This is : A Poem for Iggy II

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

4 May

A Poem for Iggy II

Stardust sounds so much fun,
Unlike, dear Iggy,
Major Tom, dutiful,
The protein-pill man,
Making all the grades


Louis chirp-states Stardust,
Before throatily
Drawling – with scat notes –
Out the melody’s
Lines, lovingly so


Even when Stéphane
Sends smiles through the song***,
Stardust is more dust, still,
Than Star-Shine Bright,
From another world



© Belston Night Works 2015


End-notes

* These are the other Parts : Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part V.

On @YouTube, though, StéphaneGrappelligives us another take on Stardust : http://t.co/hjfc37HWXM

— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) May 4, 2015


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Izzie Poems (Part III*)

This is : A Poem for Iggy I

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

3 May

A Poem for Iggy I

Iggy Not-Quite-Stardust,
And Not-Much-Spaceman,
Crash-landed – with his craft –
In that southern Sea
Of Isabella


Gravity’s attractions,
Notwithstanding strong,
Quite unsecondary –
In that descent, swift
To Isabella


Hush, said Isabella,
Whisht, whispered then he :
For he did not un-know,
But knew, knew anew,
Through Isabella


© Belston Night Works 2015



End-notes

* These are the other Parts : Part I, Part II, Part IV, and Part V.

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Izzie Poems (Part I*)

This is : A Poem for Izzie I

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

1 May

A Poem for Izzie I

Sounds, in the air, sound our hearts,
Find out the longing that stays
Silent, the more that we say,
Cramming the air that departs
Our vacant lips


Lips, lips that touch, touch our soul,
Deepen the yearning that knows,
Silent, the way that we go,
Parting the halves of the whole
Within our mind


Mind, in two minds, not to be,
Seeking the loving that binds,
Silent, the ones who are kind,
Healing the wounds on the tree
That living inflicts


© Belston Night Works 2015




End-notes

* These are the other Parts : Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

The Izzie Poems (Part II*)

This is : A Poem for Izzie II

More views of – or before – Cambridge Film Festival 2015 (3 to 13 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

29 April (5 May, links added to other Parts)

A Poem for Izzie II

These things, once known,
We do not un-know –
But know again,
Here, where now
We sense ourselves


Our love, though new,
We know, know anew –
Till we once find,
Here, e’en here,
Where we may be


Maybe, through words,
We knew what we know –
But now see,
Here, unseen,
What now we see


© Belston Night Works 2015




End-notes

* These are the other Parts : Part I, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Shakespeare in Love : Sonnet 155 [Apocryphal]

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

6 January*


To Stella


Than Stella, with her limpid pools,
(Whereon the poet fondly looks)
No better cure for bitter fools
And if these lines, so careless wrought,
Wring pity from her fulsome dart –
No better place than what we sought –
Then Heav’n above, for all its heart,
Demand this tribute : That the mules
(Which evermore the Christ shall cart,
As long as Gospels be our books)
May bless thee as they ever ought,
And bray this message to the cooks :

Rejoice ! Come in ! And let the feast ensue –
Dear nuptials blessed by God, and fit for you.



© Belston Night Works 2015



End-notes

* Allegedly Twelfth Night, but that seems to reshash the argument that (as it is) 1 January 2001 was the first day of the millennium...


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

A poem near Christmas

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

Interpretation

For Anne Sixsmith

When I say that singers of carols
(one carol, and a quick Figgy Pudding)
Woke me on the last Sunday of Advent –
Heaven sent,
You say that it’s my interpretation…
But it still did me good to believe it


When a beat police officer
(maybe ‘beat’ in some several senses)
Finds me on my last legs at Christmas –
In distress,
I say that it’s her interpretation…
To think me better off, locked in a cell


When, in Strasbourg or New York
(representing our global views, perhaps),
Hearers respond to what others say –
In good faith,
They view it not as interpretation…
That nation should thus speak unto nation


When, transported from Hebrew
(maybe Veni, veni Emmanuel),
We hear a special name for Christ –
At Advent,
Isaiah says what they shall call his name,
Which, being interpreted, is God with Us




© Copyright Belston Night Works 2014


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Poem : Our inheritance

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

2 June


Our inheritance

To Alex (and, of course, Jeremy)


A dinner, with friends,
Reminds :
Of what we have,
What we hope,
How we leave
Behind...


We talk of marriage,
Tax-free
Gifts (for IHT) –
Yet ‘bunching’
Our estates,
Blithely !


Do thus we, then, wed ?
To shed
That which we leave
From taxes :
Our residue
When dead ?



Copyright © Belston Night Works 2014


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

My poem about Tom Hanks

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

16 October

Inspiration strikes in strange places! (More often, it doesn't strike at all.)


My poem about Tom Hanks

Tom Hanks
Invariably thanks
Cast and crew,
Getting through
Some-another damn' film (or two)



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Poem for a Vixen

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

13 July


Poem for a Vixen


Regarding IKEA
(Not a native Idea),
I have some respect.

But I choose to reject
Going out on a date
Mixed with humping a crate.



© Belston Night Works 2012


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Writer in residence

More views of - or at - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
(Click here to go directly to the Festival web-site)

23 September

It's crept - well, rushed - around to the time when Murray Edwards College (once New Hall) hosts a three-hour session with Jane Monson, the Festival's writer in residence.

I'm hoping for a good place to park nearby, as Jo for Jonathan is on at 3.30 and that makes it tight for finishing at 3.00 and getting there - actually, that's complete nonsense, because, wherever I park, the college is where it is! Must have confused some of my parameters (or dimensions)...

This time, at least, I won't have to cadge some paper, because I've managed to look some out - in four hours' time, who knows (Jane?) what will have been screened and written...?