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Jonathan Gibbs

Jonathan Gibbs was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize 2013. He has since published a novel, Randall or the Painted Grape (Galley Beggar Press).



Articles Available Online


Jessie Greengrass’s ‘Sight’

Book Review

February 2018

Jonathan Gibbs

Book Review

February 2018

Jessie Greengrass’s debut story collection caught my eye with its delightfully extravagant title, An Account of the Decline of the Great Auk, According to...

feature

May 2016

Cinema on the Page

Jonathan Gibbs

feature

May 2016

Film is a bully. It wants to make its viewers feel, and it has the tools to do so....

I disowned my real pain & engaged with its subordinates:   despicable neediness, heroic guilt and undeterrable envy Each day I woke trussed up with this hernia of failure, bleat bleat There was inevitable blood; I slept on a pyre of bottles Stalked by motherhood, unable to summon my latent powers Leaves blew into the hallway and did their ageing there, the eager wind fussed with them like the beaded fringe of a shawl at war with itself Powerful identification with the leaves In the garden, splendour made its entrance while I wasn’t looking I was quaking all this time, my whole body a throat stoppered by tears I tried to will dreams of romantic redemption, but my brain swatted them away, like flies gunning for something you really want to eat     No one should be frightened of pleats (Coco Chanel)   My life has been merely a prolonged childhood Bored, with a squalid boredness that idleness and riches bring about (I would make a very bad dead person) Money is not attractive, it’s convenient The only thing I really like spending is my strength Every time I’ve done something reasonable, it’s brought me bad luck: that sweet smile of gratitude, tinged with a longing to kill me I am ready to start all over again The first people to whom I opened my heart were the dead I hate people touching me, rather as cats do I merely observe that I have grown up, lived, and am growing old alone I loathe people putting order into my disorder Let them skip the pages Sometimes I lose myself in the maze of my legendary fame What an abomination, a ghastly disease! That handsome parasite that is the imagination, lapped up in secret, in the so-called attic I imposed black; it’s still going strong today I don’t have to explain my creations; they have explained themselves I knew how to express my times I used to tolerate colour Changing one’s mind appalls me Do you see what a foul temper I have? I cannot take orders from anyone, except in love, madly, with a man who loathes me Everything is lovely and empty I only care for trivial things, else nothing at all If I built aeroplanes, I would begin by making one that was

Contributor

August 2014

Jonathan Gibbs

Contributor

August 2014

Jonathan Gibbs was shortlisted for the White Review Short Story Prize 2013. He has since published a novel, Randall or...

The Story I'm Thinking Of

fiction

April 2013

Jonathan Gibbs

fiction

April 2013

There were seven of us sat around the table. Seven grown adults, sat around the table. It was late. We had eaten, and we had...

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poetry

February 2015

In bed with the radio

Péter Závada

TR. Mark Baczoni

poetry

February 2015

IN BED WITH THE RADIO   You’d turned against me. There’s safety in knowing, I thought. Like lying in...

Interview

Issue No. 11

Interview with Alice Oswald

Max Porter

Interview

Issue No. 11

Alice Oswald is a British poet who lives in Devon with her family. Newspaper profiles will inevitably mention the...

Art

February 2016

'Look at me, I said to the glass in a whisper, a breath.'

Alice Hattrick

Art

February 2016

Listen to her. She is telling you about her adolescence. She is telling you about one particular ‘bender’ that...

 

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