Rusty Niall
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On viewing posh markets through a launderette window
December 8, 2024
My old launderette I've never been one to partake of the delights on offer at the Sunday market that's been popping up outside the train station every week...
The Paradoxical Isolation of the Writer
September 6, 2024
An essay about the solitary life of the writer and how we might need to re-think the ways in which we try to find our audiences.
Poetry and the Flow Rate of Meaning
July 22, 2024
If there's one thing better than feeling superior to instapoets it's feeling superior to people that feel superior to instapoets. I'm not really a fan of...
Democracy and Determinism
June 28, 2024
I'm not much of a believer in free will, but I still think it's important to vote. Here's why ...
poem: three pounds of flax
$ · June 16, 2024
if it's anything its this — the serenity within the surge — the weight of sweatshop labour in my moth-eaten fast fashion bed shirt — the four-by-four driver...
Why the Whitechapel Fatberg is my Guru
June 10, 2024
This is actually the Belgravia fatberg but I liked this image I've been an on/off follower of meditation practices for the last thirty years. I've done so as...
Thursday poem: on distraction
$ · June 6, 2024
There are things that must be done and the mind must keep chugging down a single track of pure intention.But what's that? Don't look at it.It's the big...
Poem: count them!
$ · May 31, 2024
on the concrete perimetersedging the grass vergeson the denmark hill estateI count at least fifty snails coaxed out by nightlong rainfrom green bristly...
Bringing a hacker mentality to problematic art
May 30, 2024
Being that this is a hot cracker of an issue, I'd like to start out by stating what I won't be talking about in this essay. I won't be talking about the...
Thursday poem: slow curve
$ · May 23, 2024
thinning sunlight spindles through leaves but a spiteful breeze still snicks between my bones my youngest doesn't like it when I copy her actions – like...
Thursday poem: this humdrum day with its unwieldy hours shot through with brilliant fragments
$ · May 16, 2024
this humdrum day [1]with its unwieldy hours [2]shot through [3]with brilliant fragments [4] [1] this humdrum day… My day (1.1) is no more interesting than...
Blade Runner: Rick Deckard's Ambivalent Humanity
May 13, 2024
This essay contains plot spoilers for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. If you haven’t watched it then you really should. I had two big insights this week. The...
Thursday Poems: Barely Present and Feedback
$ · May 9, 2024
barely present wooden beams prop up balcony alcoves – the shifting pre-war brickwork of a private estate a buddha plonked full lotus among stunted laurels...
Poem: Just You Wait Til I Get You Home
$ · May 6, 2024
I once saw the lead singer of the Pet Shop Boys sat across from me on the District Line. Me and the kids were heading back from lunch with my wife at a...
Why I'm not done with London (though London might be done with me)
May 5, 2024
When thinking about London I often remember Peter Ackroyd doing the rounds at the turn of the century to promote his book, "London:The Biography". When...
On the Poetry of Shogun
April 28, 2024
This essay contains spoilers for the 2024 television adaptation of Shogun and also features descriptions of the Japanese ritual of seppuku. A lot has already...
Art and Labour, Part 3: Video Games
April 21, 2024
Art and Labour, Part 3: Video Games A pink bear plods along a beachfront just after dawn. She is singing a little song to herself. She has no memory of the...
Art and Labour, Part Two: Poetry
April 14, 2024
Last week I wrote about cinema and labour after watching Wim Wender's Perfect Days and feeling conflicted with respect to how the film portrays the value and...
Art and Labour, Part One: Cinema
April 5, 2024
This week, I got round to watching the new Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days and it left me feeling thoroughly moved and inspired but conflicted at the same...
What did Transcendence (2014) Get Right About AI and Freedom?
March 29, 2024
This essay contains plot spoilers for the 2014 science fiction film, Transcendence, as well as discussion of the final shot of Christopher Nolan's Inception....
A False Universe of Pure Imagery
March 22, 2024
2012 was the year I became a father, the year of the London Olympics and my first year of teaching an undergraduate module on Poetry and Performance. I had...
Frank (2014): Papier-mâché Heads and Grass Shoes
March 15, 2024
This essay contains major plot spoilers for the 2014 film, Frank. My analysis of the film runs from the second paragraph onwards. I wrote an essay a couple...
Does Dune Part 2 Have a Post Credit Scene? (Or, how you can't capitalism your way out of a situation you weren't willingly capitalismed into)
March 8, 2024
I'm part of the problem. I know that I am one of billions who find themselves idly scrolling during moments of boredom and restlessness, when I can't just...
What is Spoken Word in 2024?
March 1, 2024
I have fallen out of touch with the Spoken Word and live literature scenes in the city I live in (and all the cities and towns beyond it). This is sad...
Deconstructing an AI Sonnet
February 23, 2024
(Rusty Niall is now hosted on Buttondown instead of Substack) About a week before Open AI stunned the world, and by the world I mean tech vloggers, with its...
On Earplugs and Eyescreens
February 16, 2024
Now everybody can have a moon at their window! Rusty Niall is now hosted on Buttondown instead of Substack. If you had asked me for something that aided my...
Perfect Little Jumps – Super Mario Bros 1-1 and Basho's Frog
February 9, 2024
Yes, I know that Frog Mario is Super Mario Bros 3 Before the most famous video game character went by the name of Mario, he was known in Japan as Jumpman....
The Morass of Mid Career: Inside Llewyn Davis and Me
January 31, 2024
Llewyn and Ulysses Rusty Niall is now hosted on Buttondown instead of Substack. This essay also contains plot spoilers for the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn...
Orange Cassidy: The wrestler that rescues Romanticism from Irony
January 16, 2024
bn Orange Cassidy (Author's Note: Just in case you were curious about the change in platform, my newsletter is now hosted by Buttondown rather than Substack....
Rusty Niall is Migrating from Substack to Buttondown
January 8, 2024
Why I have to leave this platform
Football at Shatner's or Diner from Heat?
November 12, 2023
The ideology of non-ideological spaces
Notes on the niche pastime of thinking about death
October 1, 2023
A lyric essay about a lifetime spent pondering the imponderable
Don't Get Clever With Me, Son...
August 31, 2023
The only thing that will displace an audience’s prejudiced image of you is your humanity.
Why you're probably wrong about Instapoetry
June 24, 2023
What defenders and detractors don't understand about Kaur-core
How playing Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (sorta) helped me to procrastinate less
May 27, 2023
...and why all tools must eventually break
Where are all the happy poems, when is Poetry Unplugged returning (?) and my future plans for this long neglected substack.
May 18, 2023
Well, hello there...
Beyond the Page and Person paywalls
January 26, 2023
Some thoughts about the past, present and future of poetry on the internet
A bad workman always fetishises his tools
December 8, 2022
Do good writers need to hate the act of writing?
Who do I think I'm fooling?
November 30, 2022
Misadventures in digital voice cloning.
Mastodon is my mood board rather than my echo chamber
November 13, 2022
A note of hope, a note of caution and the return of my clock card poems
It Follows and the Negative Space of Horror Films
November 5, 2022
Oh look, the post I would have shared on Halloween if I had finished it on time.
The Last Time Social Media Sparked Pure, Unbridled Joy
October 30, 2022
Twitter again. Yeah, I know…
A Window Cleaner Discovers a Korok Seed at the Tip of an Unnamed Skyscraper
October 22, 2022
A yarn inspired by my last blog
Oversized Desk Toys and Korok Seeds
October 20, 2022
On accessible open worlds and inaccessible cities
autumn=happens | poet=gets feels
October 14, 2022
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedit proper chucked it down last night & i appear to be less preoccupied with the...
The Two Faces of the Dying Monarch
October 12, 2022
On how stories of monarchy are often more effective than stories of healthy democracy
Two Killer Zens on the Subject of Notability
October 8, 2022
The second poem’s better but you should read the first one anyway
Violence in Poetry
October 7, 2022
Can poetry use violence in similar ways to other media?
Tiaras. Tar. Ta-ta.
September 30, 2022
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedcannons fire in the royal parks — approaching autumn I watched the funeral with the...
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Other Peoples’ Dreams
September 29, 2022
You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your...
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