Amy Key
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Articles by Amy Key
January is such a weird month – it goes so slooooow and yet, somehow, we’re less than a week away from our first bookclub live of the year with memoirist , who wrote the introduction to the new edition of Vivian Gornick’s classic memoir, The Odd Woman and the City. But before that, how are you getting on with this month’s books? Whether you’re reading fiction, non-fiction or both, I’d love to know what you think.
Joni Mitchell’s Asylum Years have been long overlooked – these albums take you deeper
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Joni Mitchell’s Asylum Years have been long overlooked – these albums take you deeper
Microsoft Cares About Your Privacy Microsoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
Joni Mitchell’s Asylum Years have been long overlooked - these albums take you deeper
For a superfan I’ve not been very diligent with Joni Mitchell’s back catalogue (comprising 19 studio albums recorded over 39 years, several live ones and an ever-increasing volume of compilations). My relationship with her music broadly begins with 1969’s Clouds and until recently, save a few random tracks, it ended with 1976’s Hejira. In some ways, this curtailment of her oeuvre has been intentional.
The Hidden Chapter Of Joni Mitchell That Shows The Singer’s Risk-taking Side - The Independent
For a superfan I’ve not been very diligent with Joni Mitchell’s back catalogue (comprising 19 studio albums recorded over 39 years, several live ones and an ever-increasing volume of compilations). My relationship with her music broadly begins with 1969’s Clouds and until recently, save a few random tracks, it ended with 1976’s Hejira. In some ways, this curtailment of her oeuvre has been intentional.
Joni Mitchell’s Asylum Years Have Been Long Overlooked – These Albums Take You Deeper - The Independent | Everand
For a superfan I’ve not been very diligent with Joni Mitchell’s back catalogue (comprising 19 studio albums recorded over 39 years, several live ones and an ever-increasing volume of compilations). My relationship with her music broadly begins with 1969’s Clouds and until recently, save a few random tracks, it ended with 1976’s Hejira. In some ways, this curtailment of her oeuvre has been intentional.
7 Novels About Women Living Alone
Reading Lists Amy Key recommends books from across the world about solitude and its pleasures, desires and conflicts I thought it would be easy to compile a list of books where women live alone. And it was, but what is considerably less easy it to think about books where women live alone and don’t fall into, or emerge from, a completely deranged state.
The SheerLuxe Culture List: March
All products on this page have been selected by our editorial team, however we may make commission on some products. Palm Royale is set in high society Palm Beach in 1969, starring Kristen Wiig and Laura Dern. We’re excited: the renowned ensemble cast also features Allison Janney, Ricky Martin, Josh Lucas, Leslie Bibb, Amber Chardae Robinson, Mindy Cohn, Julia Duffy and Kaia Gerber.
Words Taking Wing - A Life In Letters: Art And The Poetry of Jean Harrison At Settle
arts Peripatetic by vocation but rooted by emotional inclination, the poet Jean Harrison, who died in 2020, enjoyed a relationship with Settle and the North Craven landscape that goes beyond a sense of complacent affiliation.
Poem Of The Week : Yoga : A User's Guide By Zoë Walkington
Time, we feel, to break the seal of seriousness. If our Poem of the Week strand is often characterised by the doom-laden and the tragic, by the introspective and the maudlin, it might be because today’s poetry is morse for the prevailing zeitgeist, which, in turn, is relentlessly depressing. The collection from which Zoë Walkington’s satirical vignette is taken is filled with stylized puns, witticisms and unusually left-field reflections on that same zeitgeist.
Poem Of The Week : Furnace Hill By William Bedford
isn’t often that we revisit old territory in our Poem of the Week strand, but William Bedford’s engaging, self-contained ‘Furnace Hill’ is taken from a collection that is constructed around a single unified theme: that of different perspectives of a working class Sheffield in the early part of the twentieth century, and bound up, indivisibly, with collective family memory.
A Room Of Notes : Azúcar By Nii Ayikwei Parkes
arts It is a rare thing to find a novel that takes neither a definitively post-colonial, nor a revisionist, approach to Afro-Caribbean history.
Poem Of The Week: Valentine By Amy Key
arts Valentine Instead of I love you here’s you : all cordial, necktie, vinyl and cola cubes – the unsubtle quirks that make my heart wheel. I’m the champagne in the saucer, you’re the bubbles spun by soap. No legacy of teacups can hold what I feel. With you, morning hatches silly, buttery and plump; lean to me, sing belly, curve, loosen. My platelets coo. How the flex of your voice lolls in this devout climate of sheets ! Here’s the nineteenth kiss in the queue.
As the Only Single Person in My Friend Group, Seema Patel Has Become My New Heroine
It doesn’t feel dignified to admit that a friend’s romantic relationship—especially a new one—makes you feel bad. But I’ve been wary of how my friends’ romantic relationships might freeze me out since 1994, when my best friend bailed on our plans so she could spend an evening with her boyfriend for their “three-month anniversary.” I was bereft.
The secret ways of thinking that power the world's most successful people
Polina Marinova Pompliano is the founder of The Profile, a new media company that features long-form profiles of successful people and companies each week. Previously, she spent five years at Fortune where she wrote more than 1,300 articles and earned the trust of prominent investors and entrepreneurs.
I’ve Been Single for Decades. The Effect on My Finances Has Been Staggering.
Relationships Without commitments and responsibilities to a predominant other—a partner, a child—I’ve found myself wanting to identify what commitments and responsibilities I will choose to hold. To shape a life that has its own rituals, events to assign meaning to and rules to live by. Even if only that I will change my bedsheets once a week. Get eight hours of sleep a night. Make sure my nieces and nephews know I love them. Use up leftovers rather than spend money on take-aways.
Review: Two books by women examine lifestyle choices - being child-free, and going solo without partnering up
“Without Children: The Long History of Not Being a Mother” by Peggy O’Donnell Heffington. Photo: Seal Press For women in their childbearing years, at least from a social norms perspective, a life most valued usually means three things: Marriage. Children. Happiness. If you’re perpetually single or childless? You must be lacking. But two authors with books coming out within weeks of each other see the whole fall-in-love-and-procreate thing differently.
The Dress (guest piece by Amy Key)
Hello all, It’s been a while and I can only apologies I haven’t managed to get a newsletter out before now. One day I will tell you all what’s going on for me at the moment – professionally and personally – and I know you’ll all understand but I can’t yet.
Arrangements in Blue : Notes on Love and Making a Life
Is it possible life without romantic love isn't so bad?An essential memoir about building life on your own termsA 2023 Book to Look Out for in the Guardian, Spectator and i-D'Beautiful... Key writes with such tenderness and insight' Olivia LaingWhen poet Amy Key was growing up, she looked forward to a life shaped by romance, fuelled by desire, longing and the conventional markers of success that come when you share a life with another person. But that didn't happen for her.
Amy Key & Megan Nolan: Arrangements in Blue
Using Joni Mitchell's seminal album Blue - which shaped Amy Key's expectations of love - as an anchor, Arrangements in Blue (Jonathan Cape) elegantly honours a life lived completely by, and for, oneself. Building a home, travelling alone, choosing whether to be a mother, recognising her own milestones, learning the limits of self-care and the expansive potential of self-friendship, Key uncovers the many forms of connection and care that often go unnoticed.
Leeds-Based Writers Shortlisted For Prestigious Forward Poetry Awards
arts Two Leeds-based writers have been shortlisted in different categories of the UK’s most prestigious awards for poetry. Malika Booker and Safiya Kamaria Kinshasa, who have been selected, respectively, in the ‘Best Poem – Written’, and ‘The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection’ categories, hail from opposite ends of an inclusive spectrum that aims to celebrate the work of both newcomers and established poets.
The Long Reckoning: A Story of War, Peace, and Redemption in Vietnam
George Black. Knopf, $35 (496p) ISBN 978-0-593-53410-6 Journalist Black (Empire of Shadows) delivers a fascinating study of the ongoing repercussions of the American war in Vietnam.
Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon
Melissa L. Sevigny. Norton, $30 (304p) ISBN 978-0-393-86823-4 In this marvelous history, science journalist Sevigny (Mythical River) recounts the 43-day rowboat trip down the Colorado River undertaken by University of Michigan botanist Elzada Clover and her mentee Lois Jotter during the summer of 1938.
Unlikeable Female Characters: The Women Pop Culture Wants You to Hate
Anna Bogutskaya. Sourcebooks, $16.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-72827-474-4 This sharp debut by Bogutskaya, a film programmer for the Edinburgh International Film Festival, examines how gender norms affect the reception of female characters and celebrities.
Marvel Comics in the 1970s: The World Inside Your Head
Eliot Borenstein. Cornell Univ, $23.95 trade paper (282p) ISBN 978-1-5017-6936-8 Borenstein (Plots Against Russia), a Russian and Slavic studies professor at New York University, delivers an entertaining exploration of Marvel’s turn inward during the 1970s.
Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind
Mike Jay. Yale Univ, $32.50 (320p) ISBN 978-0-300-25794-6 Before drugs were deemed to be a social scourge, they were part of a long tradition of experimentation practiced by scientists, artists, and average Joes, contends journalist Jay (Mescaline) in this eye-opening entry. The author argues that contemporary interest in using various substances to explore the “hidden regions of the mind” has roots in practices that peaked in the 19th century.
The Bathysphere Book: Effects of the Luminous Ocean Depths
Brad Fox. Astra House, $28 (336p) ISBN 978-1-66260-190-3 In this mesmerizing history, novelist Fox (To Remain Nameless) draws on research notes from a trio of pioneering deep-sea explorers to offer a lyrical meditation on the mysteries of the ocean. In the late 1920s, engineer Otis Barton and “protoecologist” William Beebe developed the bathysphere, a “four-and-a-half foot steel ball...
The Male Gazed: On Hunks, Heartthrobs, and What Pop Culture Taught Me About (Desiring) Men
Manuel Betancourt. Catapult, $26 (208p) ISBN 978-1-64622-146-2 In these smart and probing essays, film critic Betancourt (Judy Garland’s Judy at Carnegie Hall) reflects on his relationship with masculinity through the lens of the heartthrobs of his youth.
Missed Conceptions: How We Make Sense of Infertility
Karen Stollznow. Broadleaf, $26.99 (244p) ISBN 978-1-5064-8526-3 In this eye-opening entry, linguist Stollznow (On the Offensive) considers infertility on a personal and cultural level. The author writes of being one of the approximately 12% of American women struggling to conceive, and explains how her battle with infertility spurred her to track the evolution of social attitudes regarding the issue over time.
Tremors in the Blood: Murder, Obsession, and the Birth of the Lie Detector
Amit Katwala. Crooked Lane, $17.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-63910-342-3 In this fascinating look at the history of lie detectors, Wired reporter Katwala (Quantum Computing: How It Works and How It Could Change the World) explores how American law-enforcement came to place its faith in them. In 1921, San Francisco police chief August Vollmer learned of experiments to detect lies by measuring blood pressure.
Why Ree Morton’s ‘Don’t Worry, I’ll Only Read You The Good Parts’ Made Me Cry
Ree Morton, Don’t Worry, I’ll Only Read You the Good Parts, 1975. Photo by Joerg Lohse © Estate of Ree Morton, courtesy of Alexander and Bonin, New York I prefer to encounter art alone. It’s perhaps a puritanical streak: I want my response to be completely unmediated. It’s also impatience: I like to move on quickly if I’m not drawn to linger. I don’t want to be held back by someone else’s pace.
3 Witchy New Poems That Find Art in the Occult
The cover of Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry. Photo courtesy of Ignota Books Anybody remotely familiar with poetry will understand that falling in love with a poem is a little like being bewitched. Doesn't that make poems magical spells—or at least the closest we can come to enchantment on the printed page? Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry, the debut publication from the new imprint Ignota Books, takes that truth to a whole new dimension.
These Are Our Toys’:
There is a vast unfathomable symmetry to Julian Turner’s new collection, whose conclusion in deep space is as intrinsically unknowable as the remote landscape of the Cairngorms in which the opening poem, ‘Lairig Grhu’, is set.
Blood Beneath The Skin:
Amy Key is the kind of poet for whom a blank sheet of reviewing paper is the only critical preparation. A sheet of A4, and her words. Tempting though it always is to take a (not so) sneaky peek at the back cover blurb, these are voices amongst many others, including my own.You need, instead, a dramatic re-think; a look at the poems through Windolene’d glass.
In The Archipelago:
As we continue to look inward rather than outward, and the ship of our state sails towards economic and cultural uncertainty, it is a kind of relief to see Sheffield-based Poetry Business exercising its mandate for inclusivity by wholeheartedly embracing the poetry of another EU state.I don't profess to know Finnish poetry, and perhaps being new to the unusual nature of the poetics enables a clearer view.
Peter Bland And Rennie Parker
Being 'elsewhere' may afford a writer an ingress into a more receptive, possibly even perceptive, state of mind.
Poem Of The Week
Amy Key's is a vision in several shades of pink. A willing playmate in a maelstrom of frenetic emotion, she eviscerates in technicolour; her imagery is wrought as though magnified through a wide-angled lens peering downward into the startling clarity of a coral reef.Such an uncluttered vision enables, releases even, an openness which is fragile, inevitably self-lacerating, and always sincere.
Announcement and Next Steps by Amy Key
In the absence of anything as definitive as blood type or maths, I am delighted to declare I found the back to the earring, also I want to share this news with you, a check against the inventory of living. others it’s “put something in the diary to look forward to.” This is an elaborate mural in an ill-frequented part of the city. My diary is full and the bakery is out of buns. Indoors there needs to be a swap from idle teasels to cacti.
Lousy with unfuckedness, I dream by Amy Key
each night I count ghostlets of how my body was wanted / behind with deadheading / rose hips have come / behind with actions that count only / when the timing is right / I took out a contract / it was imprudent in value / behind with asepsis / hello microbes of my body / we sleep together / hello cats / I make my bed daily / of the three types of hair on the sheets / only one is human / I count the bedrooms / I never had sex in / but there were cars / wild woods / blackfly has got to all the...
A marble bath by Amy Key
she at last
had permission to use
the marble bath
for the marble bath
she untied a paper bag
of periwinkle bath salts
& flicked them into the water
as though cracking a whip
she untied her hair
she untidied her hair
tested the water
with the soft pads of her toes
(tips of bladder wrack
in the sun)
her skin her markings
(as for the bath)?—?
Announcement and Next Steps
In the absence of anything as definitive as blood type or maths, I am delighted to declare I found the back to the earring, also I want to share this news with you, a check against the inventory of living. Customizable anything suggests it’s all worth it. others it’s “put something in the diary to look forward to.” This is an elaborate mural in an ill-frequented part of the city. My diary is full and the bakery is out of buns. Indoors there needs to be a swap from idle teasels to cacti.
News
Latest News from the Review February 11, 2015 by Amy Key Sir Robert Francis held a press conference this morning in advance of launching his report. The statement he made is available here: Sir Robert Francis Statement to the press Read more February 2, 2015 by Sir Robert Francis QC I have now completed the Freedom to Speak Up review and sent my final report to Secretary of State for Health.
The Price of Citizenship: Refining the American Welfare State
Michael B. Katz, M. B. Katz. Metropolitan Books, $35 (469pp) ISBN 978-0-8050-5208-4 Arguably the leading historian of American social welfare, Katz (In the Shadow of the Poorhouse; The Undeserving Poor; etc.) has written a defining history of post-Nixon transformations of America's welfare state, including its nonprofit and private sectors (private pensions, health insurance, etc.).
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