In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Category: Language

  • Three Poems post-Brexit

    Posted:

      Last Stand   The hyphen between I and Thou is our last stand and foothold. There’s nowhere else to retreat to. No set answer no fixed place. Centuries back the desert fathers came here and left strange word behind among skull and thigh bone and the odd green shoot forced into life through ardent…

  • How can we Defend Free Speech from the Lie ?

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    This piece follows the recent UK referendum on our membership of the EU. Both the quality of the debate and the “decision” that came out of it have left many millions of people reeling and horrified. But how was that decision arrived at ? Why do so many of us find it impossible to accept…

  • Riding the Hyphen between I and Thou

    Posted:

    With our present tumult and travails in mind, I have remembered a series of poems I wrote in the mid-nineties called “I Hyphen Thou.” I thought they might be relevant then, but they seem even more so now. Below are two short extracts. The idea of the hyphen is based on a book called “I…

  • Post-Referendum First Thoughts

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    At the time of writing, Britain is faced with what the experienced commentator Michael White has described as the worst political crisis of his lifetime. Not just our political parties, but much of our democratic process seem to be imploding. It seems that, having voted to break away from the EU, our nation itself feels…

  • Going to Work

    Posted:

      The leaves are sodden they’ll take months to become useful again. I bagged them today in a world so warm I used my fingers to rake the grass clear of their wet colours. I imagine them now as I write with the wind getting up and the fox stirring for his scavenge through the…

  • Despatches to my Gazan Son

    Posted:

    At the end of last year I translated into English a long poem by the distinguished Turkish poet Cahit Koytak. In Turkish, the poem is called “Gazze Risalesi.” It was written in 2008, but could just as easily have been composed last Summer, during the Israeli bombings which took place then, too. It seems that…

  • Poems for United Response

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    United Response is a registered charity which supports people who have disabilities. It aims to help them fulfill themselves and be less isolated in our community. It seeks to ensure they receive their basic human rights. In mentioning this particular organisation here, I am not seeking to advertise it at the possible expense of others…

  • Message to Andy

    Posted:

    After the May election, I joined the Labour Party. Since then I have been inundated by messages from an extraordinary number of Labour representatives, each passionately keen to get virtually personal with me. These include each of the present Party Leader candidates, as well as candidates for the Deputy Leader, all of whom, of course,…