2011 Top Posts (as voted by who?) Best Wishes To All

Although this is my first post of 2012, I thought that I would use the opportunity to find out what my 2011 top posts were. Now I personally know what my favourite was, but that would be to easy. What I wanted to know, was what post had the most visits for each month of 2011 and what were the top three posts of the year. The aim was to see if this has any correlation with my perception of The Parrish Lantern and how I see it’s direction for the coming year etc. So starting with January 2011, here are the most visited posts, or as per the title The Top Posts ( as Voted by who – you?)

January’s top post was  a celebration post of one of the greatest philosophers in the world, one of the  first who saw the links between eastern philosophy and the ideas behind the likes of Jasper, Heidegger & Sartre, in fact I’m sure I imagined somewhere that Albert Camus expressly didn’t state that this individuals work had a major influence on his own, also writers such as Samuel Beckett continue a dialogue started by this individual through the statement “The more Pooh looked, the more Piglet wasn’t there”, January’s top post - Winnie the pooh day

February“THERE’S NO EITHER – OR – DIVISION with poems. What’s made up and what’s not made up? What’s the varnished truth, what’s  the unvarnished truth? We don’t care. With prose you first want to know: Is it fiction, is it nonfiction? Everything follows from that. The books  go in different places in the bookstore. But we don’t do that with poems, or with song lyrics. Books of poems go straight to the poetry section. There’s no nonfictional and fictional poetry. The categories don’t exist.” The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker

March This post was my reaction to the news arriving from Japan (11 March 2011 at 14:46) and was me reaching out, in the only way I know how - with words. Ume Blossoms are seen as an example of resilience and perseverance, they are also Spring Symbols (Kigo) and function as a protective against evil

April The top post for April was in response to a question posed by the Ladies Of The Blue Bookcase - Discuss your thoughts on sentimentality in literature. When is emotion in literature effective and when is it superfluous? This was an example of me sneaking more poetry onto The Parrish lantern, with a couple of fantastic Poems by Pablo Neruda & Brian Patten.

May The candidate for May’s top post, probably had other things on his mind, as the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, for his collection “ White Egrets”.   Derek Walcott treats his characteristic subjects – the Caribbean’s complex colonial legacy, the Western artistic tradition, the blessings and withholdings of old Europe (Andalucía, the Mezzogiorno, Amsterdam), the unaccommodating sublime of the new world, times cunning passages, the poets place in all of this – with a passionate intensity and drive that rivals his greatest work” .

June In this month a first occurred on The Parrish Lantern, the first Giveaway and hopefully what will become a fairly regular tradition -  THE NATTY HAT COMPETITION.  I was amazed by the success of this, I had around fifty poems entered into my comments box ….And The Winner was ………….Kinna from Kinna Reads,

JULY This is about my top book of 2011 and my post I look upon most favourably. In fact this book is also a flagitious  garrulous  stunt: a 280 odd folio fiction that on no occasion  puts to work a  particular symbol that falls twixt D and F.  Adair's translation, is also mind-bogglingly astounding  and full of dark art, it also constricts it’s wording choosing to follow its original  authors lipogrammatic constraint and in doing so fashions a book that has no ilk, July’s top post is A Void by Georges Perec

August This has me confused a bit as a top post as it’s nothing more than me waffling about updating  and introducing - pomes ALL SIZES page & twitter page on The Parrish Lantern

September’s Post choice also featured in my “The Traditional End Of Year Round Up Post” as runner up in my favourite short story collection and was my second book from the fabulous people at Peirene press, Maybe This Time by  Alois Hotschnig I described this  being a rabbit hole and Alice is so far outside her comfort zone - it hurts.

October Is another of my personal favourites and deals with a subject that has long fascinated me, that being Japanese literature and the dichotomy apparent within it, this little book provides a great insight into this country, it’s history and it’s literature. OUP, Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan.

November In this month I had my first encounter with the fabulous writer Nuala Ní Chonchúir’ via her short story collection Nude. Which to be honest I initially had trouble describing, I said that  in this collection of twenty tales, there are some that will make you smile, even laugh, some will leave you with questions concerning your attitude to the naked form, whether as living flesh or as works of art and others will just break your heart. But that was only half the power of this great collection.

December This month’s top post was a very close call between two totally different writers, in fact there was only a difference of five visits The books were The Face of Another By Kobo Abe and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. In The final count up The Book Thief just  topped  Kobo Abe’s total, but then, that may be down to the guest writers persuasive talents.

 

The only question (well the only one I’m allowing) is what were the top three posts visited in 2011, in traditional reverse order are

OUP, Very Short Introductions – Modern Japan.

A Void by Georges Perec

With the winner being - Winnie the pooh day

Yeah who’d have thought it?  Philosophy being a major point of interest on The Parrish Lantern! and a to now unappreciated often overlooked follower of that subject, has topped the pole on 2011 Blog posts, with that in mind here’s a few of his statements.

 

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."

“Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering.”

“Pooh looked at his two paws. He knew that one of them was the right, and he knew that when you had decided which one of them was the right, then the other was the left, but he never could remember how to begin”

“Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find youFor last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
~T.S. Eliot,

                                

Best Wishes for 2011 to all those who follow & comment on The Parrish Lantern.