Some recent Google rankings for the site
The development of the site
This site: an opinion
Imperfections
Brief biographical information
Comments on the site / criticism of the site
The profiles published on the site
My phone number
Site Map
The Home Page includes the functionality of a
Site Map. There isn't a separate Site Map.
Some recent Google rankings for the site
Google no longer gives figures for the total results returned for a search. Only the rankings are given now. The approximate figures for total results shown below are from a time just before the change. Rankings can go up and down but nearly all the figures shown below have been very consistent for a long period of time.
ethical depth 1 / 146,000,000
farming water
collecting composting -
1 / 28,000,000
Christianity remembrance redemption -
1 / 12,700,000
[from a critical perspective]
aphorisms religion ideology
1 / 1,480,000
[the aphorisms are my own, not quotations from other sources]
Cambridge University excellence stupidity 1/ 1,500,000
[From a perspective which, overall, is very appreciative]
theme theory introduction 1 / 465,000,000
linkages themes 1 / 58,900,000
poetry line length 3 / 33,300,000
poetry modulation 1 /
14,700,000
poetry composite 1 / 35,800,000
Seamus Heaney poem criticism -
1 / 866,000
Seamus Heaney poetry success flaws -
1 / 531,000
metre meaning generative metrics -
5 / 528,000
The development of the site
The site is centred upon what I call {theme} theory, although I regard this theory as having a great number of practical applications. Innovations, I also believe, are far more likely to be made if a person thinks in terms of linkages and contrasts and other {themes}. In this site, I give some of the innovations I've made - but not all of them.
I first began to formulate Linkage Theory, the precursor of {theme} Theory, as a result of intensive study of poetic forms. At this stage, I explored linkages between poetry and art and design, for example, by fragmentation of the poem, but later, I made a more intensive study of linkage and contrast in the visual arts.
Chris Pulman, in 'The Education of a Graphic Designer,' writes 'If you ask why something works and you push back far enough, eventually everything seems to be based on contrast: the ability to distinguish one thing from another. Composition, sequencing, even legibility all rely on devices that affect the contrast between things.' (Quoted in the Web Style Guide). I later developed my ideas concerning contrast (and linkage) far beyond these origins.
The next stage involved a great broadening of scope: the concrete linkages and contrasts of modern life, technical extensions to linkage theory, above all the inclusion of linkage theory in theme theory, with a much larger set of applications, including mathematics, logic, physics, chemistry and biology - and many more applications in everyday life.
I'm responsible for every aspect of this site. The content, design and implementation are my unaided work. The only exceptions: many of the photographs. (These have been purchased or are copyright-free.) The diagrams in the Patent Document were produced by me and I produced a very great deal of the text, but not the aspects which make use of the distinctive patent language, such as the legal claims, other aspects which make this a legal document.
by Anna Evans, a poet born in England but now living in the United States. She has the Web site Barefoot Muse, a Journal of Formal Metrical Verse:
which I commend, the work of a dedicated poet and editor, whose desire to promote formal metrical verse I certainly share.
The comments below are from the section 'Dreaming in Iambic Pentameter' at
http://www.barefootmuse.com/blog/?m=200612
In
the discussion below, I'm referred to in the first paragraph and discussed in the final paragraph.
' I have a mixed bag of literary figures for you to consider: two dead and one alive, two English and one Portuguese, two men and one woman etc. etc. The main thing they have in common, as I see it, is writing with no other purpose primarily in mind BUT to write: no pressures of academia, no intent to conform to a given school, no drive to publish (other than that we all have, which is for others to be able to read our words.)
'I’ll start with Stevie Smith. In a recent Thrift Shop haul I acquired an early edition of Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, complete with newspaper clipping obituary of John Berryman from 1972, and a copy of Stevie, the unauthorized 1985 biography by Jack Barbera and William McBrien. (Each book cost me 25c. I imagine, if you spent any time waiting in line at Barnes & Noble or Borders this holiday period, that fact makes you feel a little sick.) Born in 1902, Stevie followed an unconventional path to poetry. She became a secretary after leaving secondary school, and was introduced to the London literary scene after the critical and commercial success of her first autobiographical novel Novel on Yellow Paper. Her poetry is quirky and filled with a black humor that has survived the decades. She never married, and rumor has it she died a virgin, although she had several love affairs with men in her twenties and thirties. She illustrated her own books of poems, and considered the possibility (rather than the execution) of suicide to be a redeeming feature of an imperfect life. She is not well known in the US, although she retains a following in the UK thanks in part to her best known and much anthologized poem, also one of my own personal favorites, “Not Waving But Drowning.” So, if you’re bored with the cookie cutter poetry served up in the likes of APR, you could do worse than google Stevie. You might even find one of her poetry books (Tender Only to One and A Good Time Is Had By All) in a Thrift Shop near you.
'My former teacher Stephen Dunn is lecturing at Bennington in January. Now I admire Stephen hugely, and his book of essays Walking Light is one of the reasons I am currently pursuing an MFA myself. When the letter came out with his lecture topic, therefore, it was natural for me to want to find out a little about it in advance. Who is Fernando Pessoa? I asked myself. It turns out to be a perplexing question. Fernando Pessoa was a Portuguese poet and man of letters famous not only for his poetry but also for his heteronyms. He wrote a vast body of material (fiction, essays, poetry, plays) under a number of pseudonyms, but was unique in claiming to feel the presence of each of these personalities as strongly (some would say stronger) than he did his own. Each heteronym had his own style: Alberto Caeiro was a natural poet of minimal formal education; Ricardo Reis was a classically educated modern pagan etc. etc. Again, Fernando had hardly any involvement with academic life–he worked as a professional writer and translator until his death from alcoholism in his early forties. My knowledge of his poetry is limited, although I plan to use the gift card from my good friend KB to purchase the newest selected translation, but his essay collection Always Astonished is a must read ...
'Finally in this list I offer you a contemporary writer and thinker, Paul Hurt. I don’t know too much about Mr. Hurt, except that he is, like the other two, a total original unassociated with academia. I came across him because he has written a meticulously thought out essay on Jared Carter’s poetry. Then I browsed around his site, assuming he was a poet, and realized that he is much more than that.'
Imperfections
I've been working on new, very demanding projects. The time I have available for other projects is restricted. Pages I intended to revise / extend, pages with formatting issues, will have to remain for now in their present state. Many of the images on this page without a link to a page will be provided with links and text explanations but again, the demands on my time will delay this work.
Brief biographical information
Very brief information, to supplement the pages of the site which give some biographical information, and there are only a few pages which give any, none of it in much detail.
I'm in the older age group. My upbringing was working-class - no bathroom, an outside toilet (with working-class sheets of newspaper, not middle class toilet paper provided.) My father was a painter and decorator and my mother was a cleaner. My first job was as an unskilled builder's labourer. My second job was as a nursing assistant in a closed psychiatric ward in a bleak and forbidding hospital, a hangover from the days of the Victorian asylum. My third job was as a night porter in an hotel.
Most of my working career was in a 'professional' job, mainly in Biology but often in Chemistry and Physics as well.
After about ten years, I began to work part time. When I left the job, my working life was transformed. I was working harder than ever, acquiring many new skills - but it was and still is completely unpaid work.
Comments on the site / criticism of the site
Comments, including critical comments, are always welcome.
What I've written on any page of the site can be challenged - preferably with arguments and evidence. I don't mind criticism, unless it's reckless, completely uninformed criticism by someone sheltering behind a pseudonym.
Emails sent to me are treated as confidential. They won't be released into the public domain and won't be published on this site, in whole or in part, except with the permission of the sender of the email. The sender is free, of course, to make public the comment or criticism.
There are exceptions: automatic, machine-generated emails sent to me may be quoted on occasion, but usually won't be. Any emails threatening action which is clearly illegal may be quoted on occasion, but if the threats seem to be made by a crank rather than someone with dangerous intent, then the content of the email won't usually be released into the public domain.
In a limited number of situations, I may release the content of emails sent to me into the public domain for other reasons. I post notifications of my intention. I don't take sudden, arbitrary action. The only examples of this action have been very few and far between and have been to do with Christian posturing too ignorant to ignore.
My phone number
If you'd like to speak to me by phone for any reason, I can be contacted at 07301785530.
I hardly ever use a mobile phone. I far prefer to use a landline. I don't give the landline number here. If you'd like to phone me on the landline, please email me with a request for the (Sheffield) phone number.
I'll be glad to send the information. As with other emails I receive, your email address won't be released into the public domain and I won't quote your email in whole or in part, on this site or anywhere else. I won't email you for any purpose other than providing you with the landline number, unless you make it clear that an email from me would be welcome or acceptable. When you phone - if you decide to - then I would expect you to conceal your own phone number.
