Kester Brewin

A few weeks ago I was loitering in art bookshop on Charing Cross Road waiting for a film in Leicester Square, and came across this book of postcards, all with images celebrating the Mexican Día de Muertos. The pictures are gloriously macabre, and yet somehow comic too. The original festival is pre-Columbian in origin, but now [...]

Baying crowds, a bloody execution by an occupying power, the speedy disposal of a body, conspiracy theories already abounding… All sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it? As a ‘Christian’ nation, the US will understand more than anyone that killing your nemesis is only the beginning of another version of their lives – and that new version [...]

Reminded today of one of RS Thomas’ poems – someone I need to read more of again. This picture of flinging gravel at the sky’s window… all for that small movement of affirmation… Timely right now. Folk Tale Prayers like gravel Flung at the sky’s window, hoping to attract the loved one’s attention. But without [...]

Happy new year? Well, only if you’re from the Middle Ages, when the traditional time to celebrate new year was from around 25th March for a week. It’s thought that this might be the background to April Fool’s Day: when ‘modern’ types started celebrating new year according to the Julian calendar, they made fun of [...]

The rising and falling, fire and ice, droplets and friction, discharge in deep groans… Our darkness lit, just for a moment, earth rejoicing in rain after three bone-dry days. Buckety-buck one, buckety-buck two… Closer, and ever closer. __ [I spent Easter with family in Kenya, and Sunday produced the most magnificent thunderstorm. The hippos that [...]