First published on Spike Magazine (June 28th 2011) //
Yuletide films are a risky proposition (and reviewing them in summer equally so). Can a Norwegian director of note make his mark? Declan Tan finds out
Author: Declan Tan
Alan Moore’s Mammoth Opus and the Longest Novels in the English Language
First published on AOL Asylum.co.uk (June 27th 2011) //
With the legendary Alan Moore putting the final (probably magical) touches to his second Northampton-focused opus, Jerusalem, which runs to a biblical 750,000 words, we’ve decided it was high time to collect 10 of the longest books in the English language.
Some are masterpieces, some are unsurprisingly, little more than two thousand page farts of dullness.
Continue reading “Alan Moore’s Mammoth Opus and the Longest Novels in the English Language”
the earth has a skin // poetry
First published on The Open End (June 6th 2011) //
two cents // poetry
First published on The Open End (May 31st 2011) //
San Pedro Prison on St. George’s Day
First published on Spike Magazine (May 31st 2011) //
Declan Tan’s second ‘Letter from La Paz’ is a fictional account of a visit to Bolivia’s San Pedro prison
“A pint a-Carling yeah and whatever you’re havin’,” a white-spit mouth, mine, chums out familiar to the bar girl. I’m pointing at the tap and reaching my hand out as it pours, my fingers snatching at the half-filled glass. I can’t wait around. We’re in La Paz for 3 days. I’m counting pints in my head. We have to fit it all in somehow. I just been ridin’ down the World’s Most Dangerous Road on a borrowed mountain bike and I need a pint of England’s finest to savour the moment. Yeah I know. Top Gear did it in jeeps, the legends.
Cumulo // fiction
First published with MiPOesias and available here in print //
She sat her bum down next to him; clad in black as the hanging nimbus overlooking their train, but not as wet. As she had waited for the sliding door to allow her through, her innocent face staid and glum, he eyed her slyly with suspicion, but without really looking, and resisting the urge to put his face directly onto hers. So with her now next to him and alien, he merely fidgeted, not knowing where now to position his arms, or how to hold the nothing in his hands, himself feeling quite the gangly-armed intruder. Either way and oblivious to his concerns, she did not notice, she only sat there and that was all.
Reclaim The Beach
First published on Asylum.co.uk (May 25th 2011) //
Asylum’s investigative journo and cultural gadfly Declan Tan reports from an illicit beach party on the Southbank of London’s River Thames.
A Screaming Man (2010) Review
First published on Snipe //
Mahamet-Saleh Haroun’s third cinematic feature, sparse and emotionally kinetic, tells the modern-day allegorical tale of a Chadian man, Adam (Youssouf Djaoro); once unchangeable by the world, and content in his life, while seemingly devoted to his family (but more so his past), who begins to disintegrate as a result of pressures outside his usually taut control; forces which jolt him out of his still-water complacency.
Protected: ‘The Idler Academy’ Poetry Night Review
On Teaching Classes of an Evening
First published on The Open End (May 13th 2011) //
Now. I teach English as a foreign language. I teach it mostly to people who have jobs, or are looking for jobs. Most of them have jobs. I ask them Why they want to learn English and they don’t much pause to consider it. They give me the same answer: to improve themselves, or to communicate with clients and customers. That seems fine.
Internet Present 