In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk
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The Parrot, the Cage and the Pulpit
The tower pictured above is of the Tyndale Monument. This is situated north of Bristol, on the Cotswolds escarpment, above the village of North Nibley. The tower was built in Victorian times, for it was only then that people realised the extent of Tyndale’s influence over, and contribution to, the English of the King James’s Bible. At that time, North Nibley was thought to have been Tyndale’s birth-place (scholars are now less sure). The photograph of the tower is by Matt Bigwood. Reproduced by permission.
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The Soaring Bird
The soaring bird did ok last night. It soared all round the Clifton branch of Waterstones. So did the name of the late Pat Boyden, to whom the book is dedicated. Even Maybot and the American Minotaur made an appearance, since this is the world we live in now, but they were each well in control for a change and short while, the chaos they both represent and foster held firmly within the bounds of traditional rhyme royal stanzas. Click here for the full array. And now look, Jez has arrived to join to the party :
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Of Animal and Other Meetings Book Launch
The book itself is already online and for sale on this blog to the right of the home page.
It is a collaboration between me, the author of the poems, and the members/artists of the Portugal Prints community, who produced the illustrations. Portugal Prints is based in Camden and run by Brent, Camden and Westminster Mind. PP community members and staff also designed and formatted the book from cover to cover and published it on the Blurb Book website. That collaboration between us all has for me been one of the greatest pleasures of the enterprise.
Any profits from the book will be split half and half between Mind and “Hyphen-21” a small charity I run which holds any funding which the project “Poems for…the wall” attracts. I have been running the project for the past 20 years or so. All its material is available from its site. For the address, see the bottom of the little poster above.
The book is dedicated to the late Pat Boyden, my aunt. When I was 21, I read her the first version of the book’s first poem. The poem describes a barn owl caught out in the daylight, being mobbed by crows. Pat and her husband John ran a farm and had opened their home to me at that time of my life. I read the poem to Pat in their sitting room.
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Parrot on the People’s March
The people marching in London today were without a prime minister, or a leader of the opposition, or for that matter an effective political party to represent their interests. With jumped up fantasists from the bottom league running this nation, the people out on the streets today were giants and restored the nation’s honour, reminding the world and ourselves of our sanity.
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Parrot Counts the Cost of Youth
It struck me hard yesterday, that issues that are dominating our lives (or at least mine – unhealthily so) – such as Trumplestiltskin in America, Brexitosis in the UK – appalling both – are actually just inexcusable distractions from issues and crisis far larger and more important – for instance global warming and mass extinctions of species, and so on.
A world-wide “catastrophic event” is unfolding daily.
But we stay focussed on leaders and policies associated with nonsense, absurdity and ill-doing. And at least one of those leaders – and of course I mean Trumplestiltskin – deny that this “catastrophic event” is even happening.
Our choosing of these monstrous, these disastrous “leaders,” these shameful distractions that absorb so much of our energy and resources, are in themselves symptomatic, and a further aspect, of this “catastrophic event” that is sweeping life away. Part of it, reflecting it, they also feed and hasten it.
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Demos Highjacked
The nightmare Brexit train seems to have hit yet another set of buffers. And still “the People have Spoken” is being quoted in hushed tones as if holy writ, despite the lies and misinformation, despite the mayhem and pressing questions, despite the obvious, the truths that glare. There is nothing holy about this mess. Let us hope it is redeemable.
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