Previously we’ve looked at the hazards of dismissing someone out of turn simply because they’re deemed “too popular“, but how do they get that way in the first place?

Recently on a forum someone inquired as to whether there were any “world renowned” LHP practitioners “like what Phil Hine is for chaos magick”.  This struck me as odd on at least two accounts.

Certainly, Phil Hine has written several well received books about chaos magick (namely Condensed Chaos and Prime Chaos), but why does Hine, for this person, serve to represent chaos magick? Continue reading »

Popularity: 35%

The idea behind guest blogging is to showcase other bloggers and writers. It offers a chance to promote someone else’s work, and provides a change from my voice and style. Additionally, there are topics I might not think to cover that another person would.

After Kara Rae Garland (Soror Ceilede) guest blogged for us last month I’ve been looking into featuring more guest bloggers on Plutonica.net and have made some inquiries with several talented writers, and others have approached me about the possibility of writing for the site.

In light of this I’ve put together some suggestions covering the most common things I’ve been asked about here in Suggestions for Guest Bloggers. It covers things like topics, post length, and what to include in your byline.

If you’d be interested, or if you’d like to know more, contact me.

Popularity: unranked

Last week I posted about my introduction to Baudelaire and shared a few excerpts from Twenty Prose Poems. I’ve been reading Les fleur du mal; my edition 1963 edition was translated in the ’30s by George Dillon and Edna St. Vincent Millay with an introduction written by the latter.

After praising the translation in which she played a part, Millay, a poet herself, explains in detail various poetic forms. In particular the differences between traditional French poetry, which tends to be written in alexandrines, and English poetry, which uses a variety of forms (iambic pentameter, dactylic hexameter, etc.) and notes the challenges she faced in translating poetry from French into English.

She also makes the following comment:

It is impossible to make a good translation of a poet of whom one disapproves. To excuse him or to condemn him is, for the translator, equally impertinent and equally fatal. Them poem is the thing. Is it interesting? – is it beautiful? – is it sublime? Then it was written by nobody. It exists by itself. The reader of poetry who has never had the brain-dizzying experience of being seduced into stupefied, into incredulous, into dismayed, into amused, into delighted, into wild unqualified enthusiasm for a poem written by his bitterest personal enemy, or by the person whom he has for years considered to be the Most Sickening Poet on the Face of the Earth, has never known one of the few authentic paradisiacal vertigoes of life.

Continue reading »

Popularity: 3%