In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Author: Rogan Wolf

  • Where in the World does Poetry Belong ?

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    I run a project called “Poems for…” It  offers poem-posters free of charge for public display. Many of the poems are bilingual, with over fifty different languages represented so far. The poems go to schools and libraries and healthcare waiting rooms across the UK and in fact all over the world. Here below is a…

  • The Cleaning of Our Streets

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    I have just signed the Hacked Off Declaration of Support for the Royal Charter for Press Self-Regulation. All three political parties are committed to this interpretation of Leveson’s recommendations. The rival version is known as “Ipso” and is favoured by most of the Press, all of whose previous systems of self-regulation have been a hollow…

  • Fable 13 – Jason’s Sermon from a Ledge

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    This short piece examines the topic of ever-accelerating change which we as a race have brought upon ourselves with our science and ingenuity, creating whole new worlds in ever quicker succession. It questions whether this acceleration we have released is manageable, even survivable. A character called Jason is the speaker. He has appeared in some…

  • Dawn by Lampshade

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    It’s good to be up in the mornings just before the sky begins to turn. It’s a bit like a huge lampshade, stretched very tight all round. The lamp-switch is one of those fade-on fade-off ones, and the bulb has come on very dim and lovely, no obvious colour yet, no reds or greens, still…

  • Thank God for the Bishops

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    I am writing this piece soon after Vincent Nichols declared that the UK Government’s changes to the benefit system are “punitive” and a “disgrace.” Two strong words quietly spoken by a man about to be appointed Cardinal by the Pope.  Since then, twenty-seven Anglican bishops and sixteen other clergy have followed suit, accusing the Tory-led…

  • The Raging Hawk

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    I run a creative writing workshop each fortnight in a psychiatric in-patient unit in Brent and always cycle there and back. One part of the route runs alongside the Grand Union canal, another part the Thames between Hammersmith and Wandsworth. On my way home one evening, just below Hammersmith Bridge, still in day-light, tide very…

  • Fable 12 – Jason Compares Place A with Place B

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    This short piece is an allegory. Here is a link to it. It compares opposing ways of life, or mind-sets, or brain hemispheres. Place A is a fortress defending its inhabitants from reality and truth. Place B is wide open to these things and paralysed in consequence. While Place B seems more human than Place A,…

  • Lout Language as an Abuse of Power

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    This piece was mostly written in the second half of October 2013. The UK Privy Council (quaint relic of a powerful medieval institution, suddenly back on stage) had just turned down a recommendation for a new form of self-regulation put to them by various representatives of the Press, the vast majority of these of a…