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Rose McLaren

Rose McLaren is an artist in London.



Articles Available Online


Talk Into My Bullet Hole

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July 2015

Rose McLaren

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July 2015

‘Someday people are going to read about you in a story or a poem. Will you describe yourself for those people?’ ‘Oh, I don’t...

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May 2014

Art Does Not Know a Beyond: On Karl Ove Knausgaard

Rose McLaren

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May 2014

Karl Ove Knausgaard’s My Struggle has an oddly medieval form: a cycle, composed of six auto-biographical books about the...

H is already awake and worrying She is dealing with a new problem I am in love with her so I help Tea or coffee? Tea Pigeons have nested on the flat’s small balcony She is outside, investigating in bare feet The studio flat is small enough that I see through the glass doors from bed Delicate shit marbles the railings, the tiled floor, the two plastic chairs and matching table In her hand is a dinner knife Urgently she scrapes off the shit Each surface sings a little as the blade is worked across: octaves of metal up in the clouds, tiles slightly lower, plastic right through my chest    Accustomed to her ritual, the pigeons stay put Loudly they caress each other Synchronised with the sun, their feelings swell at twilight and then once more at dusk Affection lives in their throats H will sometimes shush them Finger pressed pointlessly to her lips, as if they are children I don’t mind their fragile heads Bodies so large Through the mottled glass doors their claws appear deep-sea, something starfish H wipes the dinner knife with a rag She turns and mouths the word tea at me, her eyebrows raised    I return a thumbs up and finish picking the sleep from my eyes Last night’s dream settles as a memory A pigeon’s beak methodically piercing my skin, until bloodless holes run in neat lines across my forearms The moment of contact is nothing more than a pinch Light hits the bed first, before shifting into the kitchen The apartment belongs to H Plants thrive in every corner Walls painted a specific shade of white She has concerns about the old electrics A sound of crickets fills each outlet, loudest at the kettle I close my eyes against the sun The teabag brews too long H will not drink it    The pigeons must feel the damp from last night’s light rain Each flap of their wings releases small, perfect down feathers H is irritated as they drift inside She drops the knife into the sink and begins to sweep aggressively Her

Contributor

August 2014

Rose McLaren

Contributor

August 2014

Rose McLaren is an artist in London.

The Prosaic Sublime of Béla Tarr

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Issue No. 6

Rose McLaren

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Issue No. 6

I have to recognise it’s cosmical; the shit is cosmical. It’s not just social, it’s not just ontological, it’s really huge. And that’s why we...
Stalker, Writer or Professor? Geoff Dyer's Zona and Genre

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February 2012

Rose McLaren

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February 2012

‘So what kind of a writer am I, reduced to writing a summary of a film?’ wonders Geoff Dyer half way through Zona. Such...

READ NEXT

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May 2011

On the Relative Values of Humility and Arrogance; or the Confusing Complications of Negative Serendipity

Annabel Howard

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May 2011

On a distinctly drizzly Wednesday evening in February a friend of mine looked at me and said: ‘Only those who...

poetry

October 2012

Bacon’s Friends

Stephen Devereux

poetry

October 2012

Always got caught out by their shadows: Stuck to their soles like monkeys on trapezes, Cellophane fortune tellers curling...

Interview

January 2016

Interview with Fiston Mwanza Mujila

Roland Glasser

Interview

January 2016

Roof terrace of the Shangri-La hotel, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, USA; late afternoon, 8 October 2015. We ensconce ourselves in...

 

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