In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

  • An Exhibition of Bilingual Poems

    I’m uploading below a set of photographs of an exhibition I organised a few months ago, in Clifton Cathedral, Bristol. The picture above is just one example. Several pictures show, as this does, how the exhibition looked in its setting. Several more show single poems close up, the words made somehow even stronger in their setting here, against the stark concrete walls.

    It has taken me a while to find ways to upload so many pictures all at once, without busting the memory bank. It’s now several months since the exhibition took place. But I feel justified in apparently harking back now. I believe that it said, and still says, something very topically relevant. And, through these images, it speaks to us with great power, urgency and beauty.

    The exhibition taught me (I’m slow to learn) that words and what they mean cannot be isolated from context. The place or time in which they are read can also add to or detract from their power to reach through, to chime in with. Against the rough concrete surfaces of the cathedral, this place given over to expression and celebration of the sacred, I think the poems spoke with even greater strength than usually they do. Place and words spoke to and for each other. I shall keep looking for ways to publish the exhibition on the internet that will do it adequate justice.

    “This is like a contemporary Book of Psalms”, someone said, on first seeing the poems set out there.

    Clifton Cathedral was built in the late 60’s and early 70’s. It is a striking and impressive building, austere, majestic and yet inclusive. The exhibition took place on a large balcony within the cathedral. As well as the bilingual poems, it displayed a number of poems on mental disturbance. All the poems were formatted as posters, many enlarged – some to A2 size, a few to A0. A local photographer, Alan Thunhurst, took and then edited the vast majority of the pictures.

    We’ve almost arrived at the pictures. I have taken a while to find and explore the various platforms one can use. This below is ok but I have not found a way to enlarge the pictures here. There is a Facebook option and that does give you that flexibility. But you have to be on Facebook first. Here : https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009086896863&sk=media_set&set=a.2271411376505070&type=3

    Google Photos provides another gallery setting and that too allows you to progress through the photos, enlarging as you go, if you choose : Here : https://photos.app.goo.gl/ajwMWSykbYYQxeSk7

    Posted:

  • The Comfort of the Cage

    This was written on a day (Tuesday October 8th) when the UK news gave cause for yet further despond, alarm and shame, but as Dr Doombeetle says, it will all be someone else’s fault, as always.

    And Jez ? Those female MP’s facing de-selection ? Good one Jon. Good one Jez. That dreadful conference and Jon’s attempt to shaft Tom Watson ? Good one Jon. Good one Jez.

    References in the stanza : Len = Len McKluskey ; Jon = Jon Lansman, founder and Chair of Momentum ; Lilliput is the land of the little people, featured in the first part of “Gulliver’s Travels” by Jonathan Swift. “Gulliver’s Travels” is a satire consisting of four parts, with Lilliput featuring only in the first one. It was written in the eighteenth century.

    Posted:

  • The Parrot Mourns, the Bell Tolling

    It’s become a truism that, following the 2016 EU referendum, the UK has been split essentially in half. The “Leave” half – if half is what it is – is “led” now by an Etonian felon. It seems very possible, even likely, that – post-Brexit – the country will fragment yet further, from small ship to flotilla of dinghies.

    And all this splitting has arisen from an argument over whether or not to split from the EU.

    Maybe the EU has never really been the point. Maybe we’ve just grown addicted to splitting and being led and misled by people unfit.

    “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and”Divide and Rule” are obvious references here.

     

     

    Posted:

  • Parrot Returns to Number 10

    The Parrot has dropped by at Number 10 once before, and quite recently. But this stanza probably belongs more with the previous stanza below this one, than with his first visit.

    It’s a matter of perching carefully on a window still, out of sight. The parrot does not request entry at the front door. He is no twisted advisor in a track suit. He is an exuberant listening bug. 

    Posted:

  • The Parrot Cries Out

    The Tories were holding their annual conference. The “Get  Brexit Done” slogan was everywhere and government sponsored adverts supporting Brexit were apparently going up in primary schools. The toad was leaping about to toadie applause, the beetle was sidling about to toadie terror. The rain was lashing down. The climate crisis was being fought over…

    Posted:

  • The Parrot on My Shoulder

    Things were happening very fast when this was written, many of them carrying a sense of threat and chaos and ill-intent on the part of the perpetrators. It was hard work just to absorb what was going on, harder still to think creatively, or reflectively.

    This stanza is partly concerned just with that thought. But partly too with a sort of catch-up thought, as it gradually sank in : John Major had combined with Gina Miller to take legal action that eventually resulted in the Supreme Court finding Johnson’s prorogation of parliament unlawful. Was that not utterly extraordinary ? For one thing, here was an ex-Prime Minister, a Tory, going to the law to challenge and thwart and call to order a/ another Tory and b/ another Prime Minister…

    Posted:

  • The Parrot Meets Doombeetle Down a Drain

    These two stanzas were suggested in the first place by an actual incident. Mr Johnson’s main advisor Dominic Cummings was making himself surprisingly available for stray encounters around Westminster. See here, for instance : https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=752395791889320

    The reference to Cox in the second stanza is to Geoffrey Cox, the Tory Party’s Attorney General. He performed theatrically in the House of Commons, following the re-call of Parliament, helping to drown out the true implications of the Supreme Court’s recent decision (and presumably its judgement on his earlier advice to the government that prorogation would pass muster), by raising his voice and shouting “chicken” at the Labour MP’s opposite.

    Posted:

  • The Parrot Still in London

    This is one of a rapid succession of these rhyming commentaries, written during a sequence of events even more furious, momentous and disturbing than usual. I composed it quite early on Thursday 26th September. The previous night., in the House of Commons, only just back from America, following the Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling, Mr Toad was wholly unrepentant. He simply said that the judgement that he had acted illegally in proroguing parliament and essentially that he lied to the Queen, was wrong. Clearly he knew the law better than they did. And then he just carried on lying. But at least he was there in that assembly, required by law to present himself for all to see and hear.

    And what we saw and heard was disgraceful but also clearly premeditated. Elements in the country would like this defiance, this “standing up to,” this rejection of the norms, this green light to bigotry.

    Was it possible that Britain could become even more divided and worked up ? It would seem so. But to whose benefit ?

    Posted: