In all our sanctuaries we sit at risk

Tag: Community

  • The Scottish Referendum : odd thoughts

    Posted:

    The campaign has not just energised Scots and many more – it will surely have embittered many, too. How will Scotland fare once the decision is made and the “sides” stand back from the barricades, the losers looking at the winners in the eye ? Will they help each other put the barricades away ?…

  • Our present democracies will not rescue us from ourselves.

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    For the young, it will already seem a long time ago that the Soviet Communist bloc effectively closed down, its remarkable leader Mikhail Gorbachev introducing “Perestroika,” its various constituent states, including Russia itself, “giving way” to democracy in remarkably quick succession. A major symbol of that dramatic and joyful time was the destruction of the…

  • Word Play

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      May words work. May mine look you in the eye and having found you out work on you right there. Fraud and felon play with words, seeking only to deceive and buy and bend you to their will. I must work a cleaner way my words releasing you to where you belong. Words must…

  • The ground underfoot has a thin crust these days but we’re still talking

    Posted:

    On Saturday  May 7th, I spoke at a conference at Warwick University. It was called “2nd International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine”. I gave a short power-point presentation and read a paper. Here is the power-point and here is the paper. This version of the latter is slightly longer than the one I actually read. I…

  • Riding the Hyphen – but to what effect ?

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    I run a small charity called Hyphen-21 and January can be an anxious month, with accounts and reports needed by the Charity Commissioners no later than the 31st. But I actually enjoyed writing the report this year. It clarified a few ideas and its overview brought out some pattern and coherence to what usually just…

  • And what is Art for, then ?

    Posted:

    For the first time on this blog, on this New Year’s Day, I want simply to report on something I did recently. I’m proud of it, but am also still absorbing what it meant. Half way through December, I ran a “Mental Health Arts” evening in a church assembly room, part of an inner-city church…