tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21610806921175496372024-03-23T03:14:05.605-07:00A Plague of PoetryA Plague of Poetry: Poems till Lockdown endsShughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.comBlogger160125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-9829169204307786992021-02-19T15:18:00.003-08:002021-02-21T01:09:05.032-08:00The February Backroom: Steve Griffiths<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWBvVat2CWN_dbKQTNtftDVHoB2S5Cdgdrn9GkAaPj7fIuyX7ts0emY07HyejRc7InnWdKmdcfVPEKu7wl7HS9luwgPgKfoTK9QPR4dr9VNrGrhdrQU92rCepS3WdqeiQ3p1_EtjqR2eM/s615/steveG.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="409" data-original-width="615" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWBvVat2CWN_dbKQTNtftDVHoB2S5Cdgdrn9GkAaPj7fIuyX7ts0emY07HyejRc7InnWdKmdcfVPEKu7wl7HS9luwgPgKfoTK9QPR4dr9VNrGrhdrQU92rCepS3WdqeiQ3p1_EtjqR2eM/s320/steveG.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>We are overdue a fine Welsh poet. Steve Griffiths was born in Anglesey, spent his working life in London, and now lives in Ludlow, where I met him a few years back. Ludlow is a wee artists' town on the border between Wales and England where I discovered, I think, the world's most perfect pub. It seemed to me a great place for poetry to thrive. The town and the pub. Steve has published eight collections of poems, most recently a pamphlet, 'Updrafts' (Fair Acre Press, 2020), and 'Weathereve: Selected Poems' (2019), the fruit of seven collections, all but the first published by Seren and Cinnamon Press. He is one of a hundred twentieth century Welsh poets writing in English featured in The Library of Wales ‘Poetry 1900-2000’ (2007, Parthian Books). <div><br />'Poetry', he says 'holds body and soul together, which has not always been the case.' The poem he is reading here today is about words, an appropriate subject for a poet, but which here take on strange Hitchcockian significance, almost a malevolence. A poet in the stasis of lockdown surrounded, as ever, by a persistent swarms of words.<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/SZwLuCdyFdE" width="320" youtube-src-id="SZwLuCdyFdE"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><div><br /></div>Words <br /><br /> <br />Don’t get me wrong, <br />some of my best friends <br />are words, <br />especially my own. <br />There are more of them about <br /><br />than there used to be: <br />they stick to your face <br />and drop to the ground <br />with odd numbers of legs <br />protesting at the air. <br /><br />They don’t string together <br />on the page and stay there: <br />like birds on the wire <br />they abandon you, autumn <br />can come any time. <br /><br />There’s no knowing whither <br />they’ll be bound: perhaps <br />to the forgotten crossroads <br />where an adult’s words <br />manhandled you aside <br /><br />as you tried <br />to describe the thunder. <br />There’s no ceiling to belief <br />in their power: what they say <br />goes before they wither. <br /><br />There is so much hurt in words, <br />there are not enough <br />eyes in the world <br />to flinch from it, <br />those eyes lit up <br /><br />that are looking hungrily <br />for words to do justice to them. <br />The words are greater in number <br />than the maggot or the starling, <br />than the sum of meaning. <br /><br />Friends tell me, sit and listen <br />to what’s there where none <br />penetrate, but they do, <br />through cracks and keyholes <br />and channelled down the wind </div><div><br />in the grass where I lie.</div><div>It's a wise man</div><div>who can turn away from them.</div><div>Even as I look up the clouds are</div><div>heavy with little ones.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Steve's Website:</div><div><a href="https://emea01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.stevegriffithspoet.com%2F&data=04%7C01%7C%7Cacbb1ba131174ce7e2ea08d8c438acb8%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637475094989671884%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=yZZCK1THyMl%2BwtXU6HuKDy3TbOACzbdrK1D7bThiMIo%3D&reserved=0">www.stevegriffithspoet.com</a>.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>His Author's page at Silverwood Books:</div><div><a href="https://www.silverwoodbooks.co.uk/author-case-studies/steve-griffiths-author-and-poet">SilverWood Books - Steve Griffiths | Author and Poet</a></div><div><br /></div><div>A Video poem Sequence: Late Late Love:</div><div><a href="https://stevegriffithspoet.com/late-love-poems-the-films/">Late Love Poems - The Films : Steve Griffiths Poet</a></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-1478803752442301252021-02-18T16:31:00.002-08:002021-02-19T15:30:08.458-08:00The February Backroom: Philip Hall<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYKa6iyXUC3wTARyGf3c0M1-tEwNOBXPgrVlxN099ocOJrEFzQdv5pQFoRmibkwoFEBt3BNAvN1mD-UbiRkDu0x6opqtdn4duZ8I9U3SlV4wMRRx2D_bCLEHhZu1rVsUHw6Mb54kaI7rQ/s2048/phillip+hall.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYKa6iyXUC3wTARyGf3c0M1-tEwNOBXPgrVlxN099ocOJrEFzQdv5pQFoRmibkwoFEBt3BNAvN1mD-UbiRkDu0x6opqtdn4duZ8I9U3SlV4wMRRx2D_bCLEHhZu1rVsUHw6Mb54kaI7rQ/s320/phillip+hall.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>I'm very pleased to have Phillip Hall in the Backroom today, a very committed, honest and passionate poet who lives in Melbourne, Australia.<div><br /></div><div>I feel that Australian poets are often far ahead of us in addressing important issues of colonialism and the environment. Phillip Hall has worked in remote Indigenous education at Borroloola, in the Gulf of Carpentaria. During his time there he established Indigenous poets’ groups and festivals and was made a Gudanji man, known also by his skin name of Jabala and his traditional name of Gijindarraji where he is a member of the Rrumburriya clan; he is Jungkayi (custodian) for Jayipa. His collection 'Fume' published by the University of West Australia was a song to the indigenous peoples, an articulation of connectedness and celebration of their custodianship of the land. It is a remarkable piece of writing and an example of the living purpose that poetry can serve to increase understanding and therefore love. <div><br /></div><div>Phillip Hall is a passionate member of the Western Bulldogs Football Club. His publications include Sweetened in Coals (Ginninderra Press), Borroloola Class (IPSI), Fume (UWAP) and (as editor) Diwurruwurru: Poetry from the Gulf of Carpentaria (Blank Rune Press). He currently co-edits the e-journal 'Burrow'. </div><div><p>Here he reads a perfect poem for lockdown: we recognise the grunge, the temptations of drink and our ear worm existences. A Mark Twain reference at the end to spend your lockdown afternoon researching, too....</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kiFbvzrBdV0" width="320" youtube-src-id="kiFbvzrBdV0"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">A </span></b><b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">valetudinarian’</span></b><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">s ‘crisis’ in a time of
COVID19<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><b><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">
for the progressive bluegrass of Punch Brothers <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> arranged in the old-fashioned way<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> (on a magic carpet<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> around a single mighty mic)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><i><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I am indebted in lock-down more than ever to my
partner safe at home<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">but also, more a cock on
the lookout<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">whose ensemble overdrive
is measured<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">in teaspoons of vegemite
or crushed garlic<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">or in mugs of strong
black coffee hiding<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">the bottle of pre-noon comeuppance that makes bearable<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">the reels and jigs of perfidy and moonshine<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 108pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">soaked up in
a sofa’s distressed leather:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">I am unshaven, daggy<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">in worn black and grey tracksuit and<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">holey woollen socks, shying away from the world<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">dog-tired from that damned earworm jingle<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; margin-left: 108pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">of what I’ve become:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> I wish to look at home<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">in check or plaid or flannel, to be practised<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">with power tools and solvents whilst commiserating<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">in a convivial evening’s ‘Hops of Guldenberg’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">or amidst other such booze-soaked hymns<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">but all I now get is an
empty inbox<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;">as I turn over and over
to ‘punch brothers punch<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif;"> with
care’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p>
</p><br /><br />A link to Phillip's poetry journal:</div><div><a href="https://oldwaterratpublishing.com">https://oldwaterratpublishing.com</a></div><div><br /></div><div>A link to his forthcoming collection:</div><div><a href="https://recentworkpress.com/books/product/cactus/">https://recentworkpress.com/books/product/cactus/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Some Poems and Review in 'Cordite' here:<br /><a href="http://cordite.org.au/author/philliphall/#:~:text=Phillip%20Hall%20Phillip%20Hall%20lives%20in%20Melbourne%E2%80%99s%20Sunshine,from%20the%20Gulf%20of%20Carpentaria%20(Blank%20Rune%20Press).">Phillip Hall | Cordite Poetry Review</a><div><br /></div><div>A Review of Fume:</div><div><a href="https://foame.org/home/article/review-to-sing-the-song-back-to-our-land-fume-phillip-hall/">Review: to sing the song back to our land, Fume, Phillip Hall | foam:e it's poetry</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p></div></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-63532987154126986272021-02-17T15:05:00.109-08:002021-02-17T16:03:26.191-08:00The February Backroom: Iona Lee <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOIGlNjUiqC1OYHduk-CB6aak3ytpKVCDK0fAkY_uJTWWGanbUH5QUykKyi-YaanWc8YV0FnN3UB_JVcy-j_lC9tK9B_xchQp77bptGgQg9BzvUqLGZEe2hxVxCaRLrjCPXLf0soq-kk/s640/iona2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOIGlNjUiqC1OYHduk-CB6aak3ytpKVCDK0fAkY_uJTWWGanbUH5QUykKyi-YaanWc8YV0FnN3UB_JVcy-j_lC9tK9B_xchQp77bptGgQg9BzvUqLGZEe2hxVxCaRLrjCPXLf0soq-kk/s320/iona2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><div>It's nearly a year since I began this blog for a laugh, the Spring sunshine was on the window of the Backroom, lockdown (for us here unaffected by the disease) a bit of a laugh, a wee slice of a dystopian story you could put down or switch off before resuming real life. Well 170 poems later, here we still are. I've said this before but one of the greatest pleasures for me, a poet in D and G, was becoming familiar with new poets, from all over the world and also, shame on my ignorance, from Scotland. We're pretty much removed from things down here, and the only real performance we have is old Davy arguing with the bloke in the Fish Van every Thursday. We have the woods to dream in though, so disconnected from life we're still connected, in an ethereal, liminal and slowly going away with the fairies way.</div><div><div><br /></div>Iona Lee is a dreamer and interested in the ethereal too, witchcraft, folk tales, dream and memory. She is also however very much connected to the world. She's 24 years old, an illustrator, musician, writer, editor and spoken word performer from East Lothian. She has been an active member of the Scottish poetry scene for eight years and is currently a part-time Arts & Music editor for Bella Caledonia. She was Scottish Slam Champion in 2016. Her work has appeared in The Scotsman, the Morning Star, BBC, the Skinny, Bella Caledonia, Gutter Magazine, 404 Ink, House of 3, Hatchett Publishing, Polygon, Tangerine Press, Speculative Books, and Spit It Out zine.<p class="MsoNoSpacing"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><div><br /></div><div>Iona is a powerful talent in both spoken and written word and I'm delighted she's agreed to appear here. In this poem her sense of stasis will chime with all of us, and the light and beautiful craft that's displayed throughout but particularly in the last three lines will have us all scrabbling to find more of her work. Links below!</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zYcmt--MPsA" width="320" youtube-src-id="zYcmt--MPsA"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div> ALL THINGS THAT ARE</div><div><br /></div><div><span><br /><i> “All things that are,<br /> are equally removed from being nothing”</i><br /> - John Donne</span></div><div><span><br />We leave our indoor ecosystem,<br />follow the map to where there is the promise<br />of trees and rushing water. I’ve missed them.</span></div><div><span><br />Only had a few square feet of world for weeks.</span></div><div><span>I want to see something far away, the sun<br />stride out in glittering ripples,</span></div><div><span>hear how the chatterbox forest speaks.</span></div><div><span><br />We whirlpool with people<br />and pause for every passerby:<br /> a shiny little green beetle,<br /> families out for today’s designated slice of the sky.</span></div><div><span><br /> Everyone is saying<br /><i> when this is over.</i><br /><i> I will, when this is over.</i><br /><i> When will this be over?</i></span></div><div><span><br />The water is awake with fresh cloud,<br />dark with waterlogged light.</span></div><div><span><br />Sunbathing, my eyes are left ajar.<br />I watch a dandelion clock as a breeze blows time away.<br />We have no map for tomorrow - things just are.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br />Iona's Website:<br /><a href="https://www.ionalee.com/">Home | ionalee</a></div><div><div><br /></div><div>The Poem 'Thresholds' in Transpoesie: </div><div><a href="http://www.transpoesie.eu/poems/888">www.transpoesie.eu/poems/888</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>'Amber in the Alcohol'</div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT4kfFcZH-Q&t=42s">(55) Iona Lee | Rappers v Poets - YouTube</a></div><br /><div><br /></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-18887970726463571812021-01-29T11:02:00.021-08:002021-01-29T16:12:02.763-08:00The Occasional Backroom: Rayanne Haines<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIbCRJs84gO5xZbCFRxAz06MTjMy_cI8ERqweHPQrQY9mTVBmK5WK3-1vgWdCkvfCrITbs88EmfP4ynW6YXRQqAwR9LhUlifkSQJ-1Bpru8XXcpIdCwdUe_AUDuIP0DoKJFeJhaFFBFU/s550/HS-RAYANNE-HAINES-550x550+%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="550" data-original-width="550" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzIbCRJs84gO5xZbCFRxAz06MTjMy_cI8ERqweHPQrQY9mTVBmK5WK3-1vgWdCkvfCrITbs88EmfP4ynW6YXRQqAwR9LhUlifkSQJ-1Bpru8XXcpIdCwdUe_AUDuIP0DoKJFeJhaFFBFU/w320-h320/HS-RAYANNE-HAINES-550x550+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="text-align: left;">T</span>hese are gothic times of course. When I was in Edinburgh last year it had a ghostly aspect but in the middle of lockdown it must be even more atmospheric. Bad, sad times but a once in a lifetime opportunity to trawl the deserted wynds, closes and stanks free of tourists and even many of the locals. For a poet it is an enviable prospect, especially if it's your first time. 'Edinburgh is a mad god's dream' said Hugh MacDiarmid. 'When I looked out in the morning it is as if I had waked in Utopia' said George Eliot. We should all be pretty jealous therefore of the Canadian poet Rayanne Haines who arrived in Edinburgh recently to pursue her studies and who, having served her quarantine, is now able to poke about and fuel her imagination in this most wonderful. dark and complex of cities. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div>Rayanne Haines’s writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from, 'Fiddlehead, Impact: The Lives of Women After Concussion' Anthology, 'Voicing Suicide' Anthology, 'The Selkie Resiliency' Anthology, 'Funicular', 'Lida Lit Mag', and many others. She is the host of the literary podcast, 'An Eloquent Bitch' and is the Alberta NWT rep for the League of Canadian Poets. Rayanne is a 2019 Edmonton Artist Trust Fund Award recipient. Past Executive Director of the Edmonton Poetry Festival, Rayanne is a current Masters student focusing on Arts Management and Cultural Policy Research. Her poetry and prose have been shortlisted for the Canadian Authors Association Exporting Alberta Award and the John Whyte Memorial Essay Alberta Literary Award. Her current work focuses on mental health and intergenerational female trauma. 'Tell the Birds your Body is Not a Gun' is forthcoming in 2021 with Frontenac House.<div><br /></div><div>Here she is reading 'Don’t Fall for Imitation Pearls with Exotic Names', a reverie on time, heritage and remembrance. 'All my memories are wrapped in whirlwinds of adventure....most purchased on the side of a road. i wonder if my sons will hold them dear.' <br /><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-A45xPII3ns" width="320" youtube-src-id="-A45xPII3ns"></iframe></div><br /><p></p></div></div><div><br /><br />Don’t Fall for Imitation Pearls with Exotic Names <br /><br /> <br />in the room where my father <br />hid his most important memories, <br /><br />a box sat in the corner filled with my <br />great grandmother’s pearls and silver. <br /><br />the items wrapped in white tissue paper <br />and flat cotton. packed away before her death. <br /><br />these false mementos of stature. the silver <br />chipped, pearls flaked, still, more precious than gold. <br /><br />treasures gifted by a husband she married <br />while still a girl in braids. her skin darkened <br /><br />by the sun, hands already callused from working <br />the land. in the room under the stairs where </div><div><br />my father hid these things, dust coated <br />the walls, and the boxes mother forbade us to touch. <br /><br />in the same room, my mother stored laundry <br />detergent, cat litter, the good holiday ornaments. <br /><br />mother would say knowing an object is safe <br />is more important than having it on display. objects <br /><br />hold memories you see, and father only had a few. <br />my sister and i would wrap our necks in these <br /><br />remembrances when left unsupervised. or hide under <br />the stairs, dreaming of husbands gifting us with rubies. <br /><br />the jewellery i own is spread haphazardly across <br />my dresser. items found on travels to countries <br /><br />my great-grandmother never visited. but maybe <br />wanted to. who knows, i never met her to ask. <br /><br />all my memories are wrapped in whirlwinds <br />of adventure. all of them worth far more than <br /><br />the cost of a plane ride. most purchased on the side <br />of a road. i wonder if my sons will hold them dear. <br /><br />i often dream of a house overlooking a valley, <br />built by my great-grandparent’s hands. i dream <br /><br />they’d sit on the porch sharing whiskey <br />and cigars. both covered in dust. great-grandmother <br /><br />reserving her cleanliness for sunday <br />morning when god and parish paid attention. <br /><br />This refuge hewn by hard work, before the city <br />moved in, when the midnight moon was a cotton <br /><br />ball and coyotes outnumbered people. and the world <br />was small and we knew how to love each other. <br /><br />behind their house now, there is an esso <br />station. in front, a five-story brick apartment. <br /><br />peoples’ memories stacked upon each other <br />like cardboard boxes. my great-grandmother, only <br /><br />ever a ghost to me, is buried in the graveyard half <br />a mile away. her baubles still hidden under the stairs. <br /><br />my mother still protecting them.
<p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Find out more at </p></div><div><a href="http://www.rayannehaines.com/">www.rayannehaines.com</a>. <div><br /></div><div>A Mini Interview here:</div><div><a href="https://www.poetryinvoice.com/poems/poets/rayanne-haines">Rayanne Haines | Poetry In Voice</a></div><div><br /></div><div>She's also on social media at:<br /><a href="http://www.twitter.com/inkrayanne/">www.twitter.com/inkrayanne</a>/<br /><a href="https://www.instagram.com/rayanne_haines/">www.instagram.com/rayanne_haines/</a><div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></p></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-59819485122818350032021-01-05T02:36:00.001-08:002021-01-05T02:36:30.691-08:00The Festive Back Room: 12th Night with Carol Jane Wilson<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPegz9IGwfH1BjnwBhaF7Eo3Kw46CGjMXg-I2Pwev7GFmHAQ9SiROsWNdDmDAjH93Uk_44XHdl_i5F-VDFa-pVk4wkRpPYa_Kr-OA2wdmVmSRsHbq5jfl8H7JeyiDRhPqz67-C6DEYzlY/s1600/carol+wilson.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPegz9IGwfH1BjnwBhaF7Eo3Kw46CGjMXg-I2Pwev7GFmHAQ9SiROsWNdDmDAjH93Uk_44XHdl_i5F-VDFa-pVk4wkRpPYa_Kr-OA2wdmVmSRsHbq5jfl8H7JeyiDRhPqz67-C6DEYzlY/w290-h218/carol+wilson.jpeg" width="290" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>12th Night! Heat up the Wassail! Drink 12 pints of it! At this reflective time of year, just when we are at our weakest, and fattest, here comes Carol Jane Wilson to unleash a skilful and poignant villanelle on us. <div><span></span><br />Carol Jane Wilson has written poetry and short stories over many years, whilst pursuing a varied working life, including lock keeping on the Thames, training people working with domestic violence, comedy improv, face painting, life modelling and working with asylum seekers. Born in Oxford, she came on holiday to Ireland in 1991, and forgot to go back.<br /><br />In 1998, she won the North West Radio short story competition, and has had work published in a variety of places. Carol is a member of the Hermit Collective in the West of Ireland and performs regularly with them. Over a year ago, she was told she had a few months to live, so she had her coffin made, and painted with whales swimming. It’s still sitting in the garage, as she is too busy living to use it yet..</div><div><br /></div><div>Here she reads 'Fat Women Dreaming':<br /><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0DLiXn65axw" width="320" youtube-src-id="0DLiXn65axw"></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><br /><br />FAT WOMEN DREAMING<br /> <br /><br />Fat women also have their dreams <br />that fill the sky by night and day, <br />spinning in beauty, power and grace. <br /><br />Fragile and delicate as lace, <br />strong, mysterious, stark and fey, <br />fat women also have their dreams. <br /><br />Fettered by flesh, to you it seems, <br />yet thoughts soar lightly as they may, <br />spinning in beauty, power and grace. <br /><br />The eye of the mind dictates us reams <br />of fire, joy, passion, to sing and say, <br />fat women also have their dreams. <br /><br />Ideas are sewn with fairy seams, <br />fantastic costumes in which to play, <br />spinning in beauty, power and grace. <br /><br />Blinkered is he who, righteous, deems <br />Flesh must weight thoughts, to sluggish lay. <br />Fat women also have their dreams, <br />spinning in beauty, power and grace. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Tahoma",sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"> </span></p></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-24856907783537747102021-01-02T02:37:00.001-08:002021-01-02T04:01:10.009-08:00The Festive Backroom: Kirkpatrick Dobie<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVd2H8LIucvvFfVU1ns2YSNLbeyEWZpGY3nYl07Ez-bxrrGR2xOf2n5HJZbLvq-cduTnXUrfq2QrbRPyMr7xJ6puhJX7x9KzUYIM0YzcfhB_9fIHE8DDw1Gldd7HyDi8-0is1sUQBk0mk/s640/michael+crump.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="479" data-original-width="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVd2H8LIucvvFfVU1ns2YSNLbeyEWZpGY3nYl07Ez-bxrrGR2xOf2n5HJZbLvq-cduTnXUrfq2QrbRPyMr7xJ6puhJX7x9KzUYIM0YzcfhB_9fIHE8DDw1Gldd7HyDi8-0is1sUQBk0mk/s320/michael+crump.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator"><br /></div>Striding up Laurieknowe in Dumfries here in 1984 is poet, Kirkpatrick Dobie. From his birth to his death at the age of 91 he stayed, worked and wrote in the town of Dumfries. Born in 1908 his life spanned a century in that ‘provincial town’ where as he said ‘no one, it seems, stands out’. A committed though not unquestioning Christian and a member of the small town bourgeoisie- he inherited and ran a seed merchant business- his poetry can be seen at times as a bit starchy but obsessed as he was with the vagaries and contradictions of the human condition he is never anything less than interesting and is always perceptive. He is an example of how the universal can be found in the local, even the parochial. And he displays both intuition and careful craft.<br /><br />Usually self published locally - often in that excellent print shop on the High St of Dumfries, Dinwiddies - he found late acknowledgment in a Collected Poems by Peterloo in 1992, 'Poems from a Provincial Town', and an appreciation in the first ever edition of Gerry Cambridge’s excellent magazine 'Dark Horse'. His poems also appeared in ‘The Independent’ and were anthologised in the Forward Book of Poetry in 1993. However, unlike others, he neither sought nor coveted fame or appreciation. He was his own person, dignified, a trifle stolid, a small-town philosopher and intellectual in the age when small towns could be hotbeds of integrity, even genius, as well as microcosms of every other human vice and virtue.<br /><br />Here he is recalling his father. In the background you can also hear another muse, his dog. <div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aJ_M3CYKYwQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="aJ_M3CYKYwQ"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>My Father<br /><br /><br />My father was a man for stopping horses.<br />To screams and yells<br />preceded by a rattling rising roar<br />the beast appeared,<br />head reared,<br />eye rolling black-blobbed swum in white,<br />battering the cobbles with a bounding cart;<br />frenzied to freeze the heart.<br /><br />But at the sight my father's spirit rose<br />and as the echoes rang<br />he ran and sprang<br />high at the rampant head<br />and bore it down; with all of fourteen stone<br />muscle and bone<br />hung! and hung on!<br /><br />I've never visited his grave.<br />I could not stand and moralise<br />or seem to take his size.<br />What I remember doesn't lie<br />in any cemetery.<br />I have his stick<br />rough-handled, thick,<br />and now in my own wintry weather,<br />stumble or slip,<br />I feel his grip.<br /><br /><br /><br />Mrs Betty McGeorge</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Betty, brought home from nursing home to die-</div><div>an old woman- still would cry</div><div>for home.</div><div>"It isn't home" she'd say,</div><div>her fingers plucking at the overlay.</div><div><br /></div><div>"Sure! Sure it is! There is the tree</div><div>you planted. You can see </div><div>the top, and just beyond it's the first tee</div><div>at Nunfield.</div><div>Listen, and you can hear them at their game."</div><div><br /></div><div>And she would look and listen,</div><div>keenly, but always came</div><div>that odd disturbing disavowal;</div><div>"It's like it, but it's not the same."</div><div><br /></div><div>(From Dark Horse, Summer 2000)</div><div><br /></div><br />This film, and the longer section below, exist as a result of a brilliant project initiated by teachers Pat Kirkby and Gregor Ross in 1984 to record the existing poetical talent in the area.<br /><br />The longer film on Crump here:<br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ThnDhW-LEPE" width="320" youtube-src-id="ThnDhW-LEPE"></iframe></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-58986797761240885322020-12-30T12:04:00.000-08:002020-12-30T12:04:06.106-08:00The Festive Backroom: Catherine Strisik<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_VnCKKTpSzKePJd92QaqoCq3e1aku3STni7XZ1Dm2RaDvbZ42Pe8IlXY-NvJDE2SKD51_MdHwRfSuLOFhIoBEXRyXQZCseFbr5fSG91HJ2_X0-shIDpieT6ScR5pg5uy6TdchMdblIqQ/s204/Cathy-Strisik-Author-Photo-200x204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_VnCKKTpSzKePJd92QaqoCq3e1aku3STni7XZ1Dm2RaDvbZ42Pe8IlXY-NvJDE2SKD51_MdHwRfSuLOFhIoBEXRyXQZCseFbr5fSG91HJ2_X0-shIDpieT6ScR5pg5uy6TdchMdblIqQ/s0/Cathy-Strisik-Author-Photo-200x204.jpg" /></a></div><br /></div>I'm delighted to feature a remarkable poet in the Backroom today. Catherine Strisik is a poet from New Mexico of Greek background. Her poetry is full of rich imagery, weaving together present and past to create a commentary on her life and on the issues that concern her. She is currently Poet Laureate of Taos, New Mexico. Taos became a haven for a community of artists and writers in the early 20th Century, DH Lawrence writing his novel 'The Plumed Serpent' there. A foundation now organises a huge range of artistic ventures across the whole of New Mexico and beyond. <p></p><p>Catherine is a recipient of 2020 Taoseña Award as Woman of Influence based on literary contribution; is author of 'Insectum Gravitis' (finalist New Mexico Book Award in Poetry 2020); 'The Mistress' (awarded New Mexico/AZ Book Award for Poetry 2017); 'Thousand-Cricket Song', and a recently completed manuscript 'And They Saw Me Turn To Hear Them' which is currently a semi-finalist in the Philip Levine Prize in Poetry, 2021. She has poetry translated into Greek, Persian, and Bulgarian. She is co-founder of the 'Taos Journal of International Poetry & Art'. Catherine’s poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been awarded numerous grants and residencies, and scholarships from Vermont Studio Centre, Lakkos/Crete Artist Residency, and Squaw Valley Community of Writers.</p><p>Here she works with motifs of femininity, heritage and memory to create a marvellous, sensual mosaic of a poem:</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/cbN5QzDSnLg" width="320" youtube-src-id="cbN5QzDSnLg"></iframe></div> <br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p>I Wake in Heraklion with Lady Beetles</p><p><br />I am soft with healing after<br />I am luxuriant with good fortune after <br />I am cloaked by lady beetles a scent of salted olive, my nature after <br />all means spacious means rhododendron and a pretty mouth.</p><p>If I give the impression of canopied with black spots after <br />my sorrow believe me when I say I am in pursuit of myself and a kiss and might after <br />I be a ridge on Mount Ida might local winegrowers and cicadas might my hollow after <br />deep between my thighs be my greeting braced ̶</p><p>There’s femininity a softening <br />I’d forgotten. <br /> <i> I’d cherish the softening</i> <br />Holy is the body <br /><br />its roundness the flesh <br />its brine a sweet <br /><br />secret at age 58 <br />a shuttered</p><p>body <i> a cherished</i> resumé. <br />There’s so much song even in heartache and my heart the female body after <br />bird melody my simple request after <br /><br />the seeded bread I’d bought at the base of Lasíthi flavored with orange rind. <br />I am a Greek woman’s body I was told in the marketplace after <br />buying a potato and sea bream <br />the morning planes flew overhead celebrating Saint Minas when two vendors <br />said <i>you are one of us you look like us</i> the earthy
<br /><br />Polite. Greek. <br />Fluid. </p> And the lady beetles they mean I am composed of a million single cries.<div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Catherine's website here:</div><div><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Mangal; mso-bidi-language: HI; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"><a href="https://www.cathystrisik.com/">https://www.cathystrisik.com</a></span></div></div><div><br /></div><div>An Interview here from 'Poeticanet':</div><div><a href="https://www.poeticanet.com/conversation-between-catherine-strisik-vassiliki-a-284.html?category_id=92">https://www.poeticanet.com/conversation-between-catherine-strisik-vassiliki-a-284.html?category_id=92</a></div><div><br /></div><div>More poems from 'Drunken Boat 18'</div><div><a href="http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db18/catherine-strisik.html">http://d7.drunkenboat.com/db18/catherine-strisik.html</a></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-86780910384310929662020-12-24T10:42:00.001-08:002020-12-25T01:02:16.087-08:00The Festive Backroom 9<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCfhSk3PnajtCMmLgzvQBPn30xpRV01oB0MMF9whJnEEMuLMhpTVjp86_NEAN3khDzxbIycX6F-NA_gbKip7yUv0u33reDisp-ce0cYvLh0Z6eGFkt9o78Do62gCBu01P3JyJvmkbKI5w/s2048/B25CB723-3847-436A-BEFC-6FEE4485FFDA.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1425" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCfhSk3PnajtCMmLgzvQBPn30xpRV01oB0MMF9whJnEEMuLMhpTVjp86_NEAN3khDzxbIycX6F-NA_gbKip7yUv0u33reDisp-ce0cYvLh0Z6eGFkt9o78Do62gCBu01P3JyJvmkbKI5w/s320/B25CB723-3847-436A-BEFC-6FEE4485FFDA.jpeg" /></a></div><br /> Merry Christmas to all and a better New Year! <br />Thanks to all who have supported the #plague and all those who choose to spend time reading and writing poetry. It’s the best way I know of defining and trying to make sense of ourselves in this, or any other, time.<p></p>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-60567119470865437692020-12-24T03:36:00.001-08:002020-12-24T03:36:39.921-08:00The Festive Backroom 8: Liz Berry<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEGgt6jMUgjAKlKGYcv-JvwY1rtnMnbe1gDH-gQZV-x91w0bTTjMS0Mms58m9IfXMhcrtZ1Pd3mF1q-pcaNWn0thtGPmlFrhqv2pR2pyCoya-sHD6imtXieHR4lj4rTci06_fhKZvNBIE/s267/lizb.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="189" data-original-width="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEGgt6jMUgjAKlKGYcv-JvwY1rtnMnbe1gDH-gQZV-x91w0bTTjMS0Mms58m9IfXMhcrtZ1Pd3mF1q-pcaNWn0thtGPmlFrhqv2pR2pyCoya-sHD6imtXieHR4lj4rTci06_fhKZvNBIE/s0/lizb.jpg" /></a><br /></div><p></p><p>Liz Berry's first book of poems, 'Black Country' (Chatto 2014), described as a ‘sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands’ (Guardian) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2014. Liz's pamphlet 'The Republic of Motherhood' (Chatto, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice and the title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2018. A new book of her collaboration with photographer Tom Hicks will be published by Hercules Editions in 2021. </p><p>'Blue Heaven' is what we need this morning and every morning, a prayer to the past but also a poem to the bustling, vibrant, tragic, temporary blast that is the human spirit, that is love. Liz Berry is a fine poet (she wouldn't be in the Backroom, otherwise) but she is also an ecstatic poet, so let us enjoy this moment of fierce reflection and joy, inspired by one of the photographs in her new collaboration.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nUiXwZkyr6U" width="320" youtube-src-id="nUiXwZkyr6U"></iframe></div><p></p><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: center;">Blue Heaven </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Our poem which art in blue heaven, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">give us this morning, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">daffodils spilling Spring's song like yolk, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">moss sporing on the guttering, snug </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">for wet-the-beds; jenny-wren and weeping birch </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">watching over us, our unanswered emails </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and half-built Lego palaces, milk cups </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and toast crumbs, photographs of us </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">in the nineties, drunk and so in love </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">we look like children. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Give us griefs and small kindnesses, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">wunce apon a time in clumsy boy's hand </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">on the back of a phone bill, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">library books and Germolene, sanitary towels </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">soaked with clotted rubies, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">pyjamas shed beneath the bunkbeds </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">like adder skins, money spiders, stories, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">the nights we touch in darkness </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">with that wild honeymilk of recognition. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Tenderise our hearts to all that is holy: </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">the dog and her blanket, the playgroup collage, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">and forgive us our trespasses - </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">pulling tight the shutters on our hearts </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">when others are knocking, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">cussing in the night when we stumble to the cot. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">Teach us to love each other as the tree loves the rain, </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">never wasting a drop. </div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div>Liz's Website:</div><div><a href="https://www.lizberrypoetry.co.uk/">https://www.lizberrypoetry.co.uk/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Liz on Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast:</div><div><a href="https://play.acast.com/s/frankskinner/e120b01e034c2ea4928b2fc49b6c1ec0">https://play.acast.com/s/frankskinner/e120b01e034c2ea4928b2fc49b6c1ec0</a></div><div><br /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-41068574420552578892020-12-23T03:59:00.003-08:002020-12-23T15:28:36.306-08:00The Festive Backroom 7: Eoghan Stewart<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5vA5tQS0JQ6lzKYymF2bDSVjUCzYD7iJoLY3z7jcCAZfB7E8bYLVE9Fk5_AJH0P_y-8ua4WHSMwoVvGvZKpqgoLzM3SFTN166aBdznE809_AbbjGgXYCfUJCg6kuJP4V4UHuhJ3Y9XOI/s1440/eoghan.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1439" data-original-width="1440" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5vA5tQS0JQ6lzKYymF2bDSVjUCzYD7iJoLY3z7jcCAZfB7E8bYLVE9Fk5_AJH0P_y-8ua4WHSMwoVvGvZKpqgoLzM3SFTN166aBdznE809_AbbjGgXYCfUJCg6kuJP4V4UHuhJ3Y9XOI/w200-h200/eoghan.JPG" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br />Fantastic to squeeze another young Gael Into the Backroom, proof of the language’s continued vitality. Here’s Eoghan Stewart introducing himself and his poems:<div><br /></div><div>“ Here's a wee pair of poems, both improvised whilst out walking, they kind of sit together in my mind. I'm not really one for writing in response to "These Times" but what the alast few months has given me is the opportunity to explore far an wide around the formerly indigenous Gaelic speaking areas of the Aird between Beauly and Loch Ness, so I've got a lot of mileage of seeing the Gaelic words come alive. I hate using the twisted anglicized spellings so I'd rather do an awkward ENGLISH gloss where I can. That's probably where the first poem Indigenous Summer comes from, a proper "Indian Summer" day and seeing those broken spellings on the map. The second one is just about the joys of being in the Highlands on a cold winters day even in a crappy world. Anyway bud hope you like this stuff. What can I say about myself, I reckon I'm pretty much the late noughties early 2010s Arsenal of Gaelic Poetry, polling consistently 2nd or 3rd in most poetry prizes, but never winning the big deals most of the time, just playing this game for the sheer love of writings, not taking it too seriously and just loving the craic, in Northwords Now mostly. I'm a Gaelic teacher and broadcaster who loves the shinty, been brought up all over the Scotland but I'm an indigenous voice with a big interest in land rights and indigenous language rights. Should have my first collection Beum-sgeithe out next year on Acair fingers crossed."<br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yX44fJzsx1Y" width="320" youtube-src-id="yX44fJzsx1Y"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Samhradh Tùsanach<br /><br />chaidh mi a-mach <br />taobh Ach a’ Phobuill<br />ach bha an geata glaiste<br />ag ràdh ‘rathad prìobhaiteach’<br /><br />air Slighe a’ Ghlinne Mhòir<br />lorg mi slighean eile<br />’s thàinig mi gu Coire Foitheanais<br />tuathanas - baile - air fhàgail<br /><br />ghabh mi an rathad<br />a dh’ionnsaigh<br />Baile a’ Chreagain<br />‘s lorg mi <br />poit-stil fhuadan<br />ann an caochan fìor<br /><br />bha mi air m’ iùl<br />tron a’ mhonadh<br />le sanasan air an cur<br />le daoine saor-thoileach<br />dìcheallach<br />agus mapa an airm<br /><br />ràinig mi mullach Càrn na Leitire<br />thug mi sùil a-mach air tìr<br />a tha air a cur an cèill<br />le faclan cam cèin<br /><br /><br />Indigenous Summer - I went out by (THE FIELD OF PEOPLE) but the gate was locked saying ‘PRIVATE ROAD’ on the GREAT GLEN WAY I found other ways and came to (CORRIE OF MEANING OBSCURE) an abandoned farmstead I took the road toward (THE TOWN OF THE ROCKY PLACE) and I found a mock up black still in a true (STREAM HIDDEN BY BRACKEN)I was guided through the mountainside with signage planted by diligent volunteers and the Ordnance Survey map I reached the (STONY HILL OF THE HILLSIDE) and looked out upon a land expressed in crooked alien words<br /><br /><br /><br />Geamhraidhean Gallta<br /><br />an-diugh<br />shuas mu Bhlàr na Seann Chrìche<br />far am bi an crodh ’s na preachain<br />eadar Innis a’ Chatha ’s Mam a’ Chatha<br />agus A’ Chaiplich Mhòr<br />’s eu-coltach e <br />ris na geamhraidhean gallta<br />a chosg mi air sràidean gruamach<br />ann an Glaschu, Dùn Èideann, Lunnain<br /><br /></div><div>an-diugh <br />shuas mu Bhlàr na Seann Chrìche<br />tha an t-àile glan ’s tha an iarmailt glas<br />thoir dhomh an talamh cruaidh<br />thoir dhomh an talamh iarainn<br />thoir dhomh an deigh, an reòthadh, an fhuachd<br />thoir dhomh an t-siorraidheachd uaine seo<br />agus gealladh geal a’ gheamhraidh Ghàidhealaich<br />’s ceò mo bheatha ag èiridh mu mo choinneamh </div><div><br /></div><div><br />Lowland Winters - today around the PLAIN OF THE OLD BOUNDARY where the kye and the kites are between THE MEADOW AND THE PAP OF THE BATTLE and THE HORSE PLACE it is so dissimilar from the lowland winters I spent on grim streets in glasgow, edinburgh and london<br />today around the PLAIN OF THE OLD BOUNDARY the air is clean and the sky grey give me the hard earth give me the iron earth give me the ice the frost the cold give me this green eternity and the white promise of the Gaelic winter and the mist of my life rising before me<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-40273790340209130742020-12-21T17:20:00.011-08:002020-12-21T17:52:15.504-08:00The Festive Backroom 6: Elizabeth Jacobson<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnzS_2c6uBjYqfzDb0BWvbRJoNb_61NgzaHY71CrPxqhZvYpjFxeTkPa8wHFxibDejB1R2TpyZ55QzHohqzfKglgIo6TVSvcrvx8Mdhq-gO4H9P2WYMmsy4PJaS8Z7E9H87EFKedE6bM/s248/liz3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="203" data-original-width="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqnzS_2c6uBjYqfzDb0BWvbRJoNb_61NgzaHY71CrPxqhZvYpjFxeTkPa8wHFxibDejB1R2TpyZ55QzHohqzfKglgIo6TVSvcrvx8Mdhq-gO4H9P2WYMmsy4PJaS8Z7E9H87EFKedE6bM/s0/liz3.jpg" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">I am so pleased to feature another brilliant voice from across the Atlantic today, a poet from New Mexico. Elizabeth Jacobson is the Poet Laureate of Santa Fe, New Mexico and an Academy of American Poets Poet Lauerate Fellow in 2020. Her most recent book, 'Not into the Blossom and Not into the Air', won the New Measure Poetry Prize, and the 2019 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for both New Mexico Poetry and Best New Mexico Book. Her other books include 'Her Knees Pulled In' (Tres Chicas Books, 2012). She is the founding director of the WingSpan Poetry Project, a not-for-profit which from 2013-2020 conducted weekly poetry classes in battered family and homeless shelters in New Mexico. Elizabeth is the Reviews Editor for the on-line literary journal Terrain.org and she teaches poetry workshops regularly in the Santa Fe community.</span></div></div><p></p><p> Here she reads two wonderful poems about our interactions with the natural world, interactions which reveal of course as much about ourselves: 'Curator of Insects' and 'Canyon Road'. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LcAuycEv_MA" width="320" youtube-src-id="LcAuycEv_MA"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><br />Curator of Insects <br /><br /><br />I started asking questions about how human bodies held together. <br />Already I was of a certain age, <br /><br />and not seeing any usual patterns. <br />My mind had become fuzzier, <br /><br />mirroring the now fuzzier vision of my eyes. <br />I read about hymenoptera vision, <br /><br />how paper wasps and honeybees <br />can remember the characteristics of a human face. <br /><br />And since a dragonfly had remembered me, <br />I knew that this is true for them as well. <br /><br />Some insects live only a few hours <br />or a few weeks, <br /><br />30 days for a fruit fly, <br />2 months for a horse fly. <br /><br />I saw the age of the body <br />might never again match the stretch of its will, <br /><br />and like Keats, who remarked on the fading animation of his hand <br />at the end of his life, <br /><br />there grew a sadness for this former vivacity, <br />yet unlike Keats, I had joy in its release. <br /><br />Some of the things I do seem to move backwards. <br />Others feel as if they have a spherical momentum. <br /><br />As I grow older, it all appears to taper, <br />yet there is also a broadening, <br /><br />and although this is illogical, <br />this is what happens to people. <br /><br />The dropping away leaves space, <br />which quickly floods with small things <br /><br />like blue-eyed dragonflies in flight, <br />facing me in the early morning, <br /><br />or saving an ant from drowning <br />in a puddle of warm rainwater. <br /><br />I cultivate flowers and trees for a small variety of bees, <br />offer them aspen and willow for when they are ailing. <br /><br />They scrape the resin off the leaves <br />and secure it to their back legs. <br /><br />A box elder bug has been resting on the base of the desk lamp for days, <br />his tender black limbs secured around the cord. <br /><br />He is close to death, and waiting. <br />All my life, I tell him, I have been told I should not see the things I see, <br /><br />the way I see them. <br />It is too late for all that now. <br /><br />He turns his head and thorax toward my voice, <br />his opaque bead eyes red with inquiry. <br /><br /><i><br />From Not into the Blossoms and Not into the Air by Elizabeth Jacobson. (c) 2019 by Parlor Press. Used by permission. <br /></i><br /><br /><br />Canyon Road <br /><br /><br />Driving on black ice— <br />I braked too hard, <br />spun into a 360 <br /><br />and then two more. <br />Like a boom of a sailboat, <br />the back of the car <br /><br />slammed a dog. <br />In the midnight darkness <br />I got out to find a coyote, <br /><br />his abdomen torn open. <br />The canine held my gaze <br />as I cradled his head, <br /><br />one palm above his brow <br />the other on his snout, <br />and hugged him to my thigh <br /><br />until the chasm <br />of his breath closed. <br />An aloneness, <br /><br />not loneliness <br />came from the animal— <br />yellow flecks inside his eyes <br /><br />flashed for an instant <br />before they turned to ice. <br />I tucked the coyote’s cooling body <br /><br />under pine brush, <br />covered it with snow. <br />Nothing is made less by dying. <br /><br />Walking the next morning, <br />in the early fog, <br />I watched a Cooper’s hawk <br /><br />fly up and up, above the road <br />to scan the world for prey, <br />then spiral down, effortlessly, <p></p><p>as if it were a single feather— <br />hollow shaft travelling <br />toward the white frost. <br /><br /><br /><i> Canyon Road first appeared in Zocalo Public Square </i></p><br />Her Profile and more poems in Academy of American Poets:<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">https://poets.org/poet/elizabeth-jacobson</a><br /><br />Her Website:<br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">https://poets.org/poet/elizabeth-jacobson</a><br /><p><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span></p><p></p>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-73175820522143669252020-12-21T03:44:00.006-08:002020-12-21T04:50:21.406-08:00The Festive Backroom 5: Michael Crump<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcncpB3WNXlBA_nfO2iICMnYZ3vbUPUSPbU_kvLDINVQSE9vkfDUsru4AvW5d8UM5dHyY34e_fNGobobuKNuKi87QrC2KDSBo5iyvrPX3GzEgnkCkyX8ItPwxv5d49_peCHWDizm3GuCI/s507/auchenstroan.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="507" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcncpB3WNXlBA_nfO2iICMnYZ3vbUPUSPbU_kvLDINVQSE9vkfDUsru4AvW5d8UM5dHyY34e_fNGobobuKNuKi87QrC2KDSBo5iyvrPX3GzEgnkCkyX8ItPwxv5d49_peCHWDizm3GuCI/s320/auchenstroan.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p>A great treat for you today folks! Many people have said how delighted they were to come into contact with poets in the course of the #plague with whom they are unfamiliar. Well I bet very few folk know this one.<div><br /></div><div>We have made much quite rightly of the doughty Josephine Neill, the Dumfries and Galloway Scots language poet of great renown now in her 85th year but she is not the oldest surviving Makar from these airts. That honour goes to Michael Crump, a poet who is unknown virtually nowadays, partly because he appeared only in a small number of places, in locally published pamphlets such as ‘like track of birds’, and partly perhaps because of the scant regard paid to poets from the south west in the past. Crump was an English teacher and hill farmer who lived near Thornhill and his poetry is a beautiful and image-full exposition of people and place. His poetry flows from the landscape and its seasons like a bright clear unstoppable mountain stream. He is 87, and now lives in Edinburgh.</div><div><br /></div><div>Auchenstroan which he reads here beautifully,(unfortunately the first line is lost in the recording) and 'heron' which he reads like a mid Nithsdale Ted Hughes, are only two of a mesmerising body of poetry which deserves to be much better known..<br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fmxJiwk05W0" width="320" youtube-src-id="fmxJiwk05W0"></iframe></div><br /><br />Aucnenstroan</div><div><br /></div><div>Half a moon and a midnight mist</div><div>whiten the walls of the cottage.</div><div>The tall ash is still. A dream ago</div><div>witches were cursed, gages given,</div><div>priests killed, bad bargains driven;</div><div>but now this night lies like loam</div><div>about the coffined past.</div><div>I stand here under the hill</div><div>on the very edge of the real world.</div><div>Wraiths rise outside the gloom</div><div>and finger our fate without spite</div><div>coldly. There is no wind, no sound.</div><div>The nether rock is held</div><div>by the weightless gravity of silence</div><div>and from the tunnel of the air</div><div>no star shines. This is the grey</div><div>crystal ark of the present.</div><div>The house, the tree, the grass,</div><div>tremble only in the moonlight of my mind. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>This film, and the longer section below, exist as a result of a brilliant project initiated by teachers Pat Kirkby and Gregor Ross in 1984, to record the existing poetical talent in the area. Already featured here has been Willie Neill and the Dumfries poet Kirpatrick Dobie is still to come.</div><div><br /></div><div>The longer film on Crump here:</div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nis0S-StvE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nis0S-StvE</a><br /><br /><br /></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-26133726096234134092020-12-20T03:17:00.015-08:002020-12-20T03:33:51.380-08:00The Festive Backroom 4: Jim Ferguson<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5hF7fYyKkhTsl9yYyKFCLLHrZoWsQ5JcZlapAAl0dbmDbKv4WxnXN04unmAc3I9x7iwwmzfiz4gAZ93vRDrcZDbPMa3AWp7k8-S1UaNsCBF3stZEt4DSckui8VhuUD1K7cUCfQcJwwVI/s280/jim2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="207" data-original-width="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5hF7fYyKkhTsl9yYyKFCLLHrZoWsQ5JcZlapAAl0dbmDbKv4WxnXN04unmAc3I9x7iwwmzfiz4gAZ93vRDrcZDbPMa3AWp7k8-S1UaNsCBF3stZEt4DSckui8VhuUD1K7cUCfQcJwwVI/s0/jim2.jpg" /></a></div><br />Jim Ferguson is a veteran of the written and spoken word scene in the West of Scotland. If the poetry scene was inclusive and democratic and not a cross between a bear-pit and the Prefects room, folk like Jim would be getting awarded the Queens medal for Poetry just so he could turn it down. He's an example of what keeps poetry going and what makes it worthwhile, people who write and organise for the joy of the word and its communication. He's still waiting for his invite to the Makar to Makar sofa but we're delighted to feature him and his poetry here. <br /><div><br /></div><div>Jim Ferguson is a poet, pamphleteer, novelist and critic based in Glasgow. Born in 1961, Jim has been writing and publishing since 1986 and is a Creative Writing Tutor at Glasgow Kelvin College. His poetry collection 'the art of catching a bus and other poems' is published by AK Press Edinburgh. Two other collections of poetry 'When feeling fully at home in the drifting living room of time' (2018) and 'For Eva' (2017) are published by Famous Seamus Publishing. In 2011 he was the 'Poet Laureate' of the Scotia Bar, Glasgow. He has also written a short monograph on Robert Tannahill: 'Tannahill: The Soldier’s Return.' This was based on his PhD thesis 'A Weaver in Wartime.' Jim has worked as a Creative Writing Tutor in Preisthill, Govan, Lochwinnoch and Easterhouse.<br /><br />Ferguson's work has appeared in anthologies, on-line publications and in numerous journals and literary magazines, such as: Edinburgh Review, Common Sense, Minted, New Writing Scotland, Northwords, Cutting Teeth, Scottish Child, Nerve, Echo Room, Rebel Inc., West Coast Magazine, The Wide Skirt, Variant and Air.<br /><div><br /></div><div>Here are his notes that accompanied the video.<br /><br />" I made this video on the morning of Wednesday December 9th 2020. I got out of bed put on a woolly jumper, tea-cosy-hat on my head, and proceeded to film myself doing three poems from a new collection called ‘Weird Pleasure’. Unfortunately, with my gibberish between poems and being in the process of eating breakfast, the whole thing went on much longer than the three or four minutes I was asked to do. I therefore had to do some basic editing and remove the middle poem completely. The poems I originally recorded were, ‘Song of the Deep-fried Dug’, ‘Wiseblood’ and ‘If I was Pablo Picasso, or The Porridge Song."<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eN9gsFFm35M" width="320" youtube-src-id="eN9gsFFm35M"></iframe></div><br /> <p></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm; mso-outline-level: 1;"><a name="_Toc40195255"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">song of the deep-fried dug</span></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm; tab-stops: 3.0cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry i could eat a deep-fried dug<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">(deep-fried dug)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">it’s my west of Scotland working-class
poverty narrative<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and i hope that you won’t think me too
pejorative<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">when i say:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">those West of Scotland toffs are much
too greedy<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">with their brats in private schools
they’re oh so needy,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">while our weans love white bread and
food-bank beans<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">—our obese, diabetic, future does not
gleam<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m so hungry i could eat a deep-fried dug<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">(deep-fried dug)<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><a name="_Toc40195222"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc40195222;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc40195222;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc40195222;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">wiseblood</span></b></span><span style="mso-bookmark: _Toc40195222;"></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><br />
</span></b><br /><br />pin-point of light<br /> do you think that it’s easter<br /> the angels can't dance for you anymore<br /> they can't dance for you anymore...<br /> <br /> pin-point of light<br /> do you think that it’s easter<br /> nothing comes back<br /> and no one can help you<br /> <br /> in the cold river clyde<br /> where sanity drowned<br /> there’s a hole in your head<br /> to let in the sun<br /> <br /> pin-point of life<br /> you’re a pick and an axe<br /> the tip of a needle<br /> and the angels in boots<br /> <br /> can’t dance for you anymore<br /> they can’t fly for you anymore<br /> feet swollen fat and marble lungs<br /> and the box never floats<br /> <br /> it just carries you off<br /> back to atoms and flame<br /> as burst stomachs look on<br /> pus dripping down cheeks<br /> <br /> pin-point of light<br /> peeping out your black coat<br /> the pus all pours in<br /> closes everything down <br /> <br /> closes it all down forever<br /> closes it all down forever <br /> <br /> pin-point of light<br /> do you think that it’s easter<br /> the angels can't dance for you anymore<br /> they can't dance for you anymore... <br /><br /> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3cm;"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm; mso-outline-level: 1;"><a name="_Toc40195240"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">if i was Pablo Picasso</span></b></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">(<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or The Porridge Song</i>)
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 63.8pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 63.8pt;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">if i was Pablo Picasso<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’d be smaller and balder and Spanish<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">but turns oot i’m taller and Scottish<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">cause huge bowls of porridge i eat<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i have porridge at dawn for my breakfast<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i have porridge soufflé for my teas<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and after a good porridge curry<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i go for long runs on my knobbly auld knees<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">if i was Pablo Picasso<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’d have porridge tae the end of my days<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i would be not lonely or sad<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">and i’d smile as i go on my way<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">but i am not Pablo Picasso<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i’m just some auld dude farting words<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">i have nothing to say that is royal:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 3.0cm; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 3cm;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">can’t wait to be dancing in mud.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 193.05pt; margin-right: 0cm; margin-top: 0cm; margin: 0cm 0cm 0cm 193.05pt; text-indent: 22.95pt;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 193.05pt; text-indent: 22.95pt;"><span style="font-family: "Baskerville Old Face",serif; font-size: 14pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri;">or
burnt to a crisp in a box.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 193.05pt; text-indent: 22.95pt;"><br /></p><br />Link to Jim's Website here; <br /><a href="http://www.jimfergusonpoet.co.uk/home/4560210585">http://www.jimfergusonpoet.co.uk/home/4560210585</a></div><div><br /></div><div>A Chat with Jim here;</div><div><a href="https://jimandpatwestendchat.podbean.com/e/jim-ferguson-glasgow-poet-pamphleteer-and-novelist-chats-to-pat/">https://jimandpatwestendchat.podbean.com/e/jim-ferguson-glasgow-poet-pamphleteer-and-novelist-chats-to-pat/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Some more Poems:</div><div><a href="https://jacket2.org/poems/poems-jim-ferguson">https://jacket2.org/poems/poems-jim-ferguson</a></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-20463758848666370192020-12-19T04:23:00.003-08:002020-12-19T04:23:56.532-08:00The Festive Backroom: Dr Hannah Lowe<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOfhLJncC0QFEgvoLQFqfklYNlE_zTFYZhOzgWv6acrv6euiiOhFDqKS8h7btsL36pegkJGi2Y2WRpAAYd7rS3Ee7lmNT_N0RxQ_GM1UgMRkgrtLzNitOsYlk0lTKkuu1A-pU4FMfKsI/s448/hannah+lowe.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKOfhLJncC0QFEgvoLQFqfklYNlE_zTFYZhOzgWv6acrv6euiiOhFDqKS8h7btsL36pegkJGi2Y2WRpAAYd7rS3Ee7lmNT_N0RxQ_GM1UgMRkgrtLzNitOsYlk0lTKkuu1A-pU4FMfKsI/s320/hannah+lowe.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>How great to find a poet who writes about Muzzy, a major character in that great series of language instruction CDs. I remember them barking constantly in the background as my daughters played, in the hope that they might learn Spanish by osmosis. One of them has gone on to be a linguist at university, mind you, though in a completely different language. Hannah's poem here is not about Muzzy, though, but about definitions of loneliness, or peoples' ideas of loneliness. It's fantastic to feature Hannah here in the Festive Backroom, she is a thoughtful, edgy and very contemporary poet. <br /><br />Dr Hannah Lowe is a Lecturer in Creative Writing whose work draws on first hand account, memoir and history, particularly post-colonial history. Her PHD used historical research "to narrate the 1947 journey of the SS Ormonde, the immigrant ship predating Windrush." Her current research is on Chinese arrival and settlement to the UK.<br /><br />Her first book-length collection 'Chick' (Bloodaxe Books, 2013) won the 2015 Michael Murphy Memorial Prize, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry, and was selected for the Poetry Book Society’s Next Generation Poets 2014 promotion. Her second full-length collection, 'Chan', was published by Bloodaxe in 2016, and a third, 'The Kids', is due from Bloodaxe in 2021. She is former poet-in-residence at Keats House, London.<br /><br />Here she reads Nĭ hăo:<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0GSuVFUDyc8" width="320" youtube-src-id="0GSuVFUDyc8"></iframe></div><br /> <br /><br />Nĭ hăo <br /><br /><br />In bed this morning, reading Adrienne Rich, <br />Rory beside me watching a lime green monster <br />called Muzzy on his Ipad. Muzzy is teaching <br />my son Chinese. Nĭ hăo, the boy says, over <br />and over. Outside the birds have been saying hello <br />for hours, and the early sky has finally bloomed <br />to blue. Someone somewhere playing a piano. <br />Every man I bring into this bedroom <br /><br />says Books! regarding the shelves, the jamboree <br />of books in every colour, stacked two rows thick, <br />who knows how many words, not all of them read. <br />But this April morning, it’s Diving into the Wreck <br />and I think, is this what aloneness is? A warm bed, <br />my books, this small boy flowering beside me?<div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Hannah's Website:</div><div><a href="https://hannahlowe.me/">https://hannahlowe.me/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>More Poems here:</div><div><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hannah-lowe">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/hannah-lowe</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Her author page foor Bloodaxe:</div><div><a href="https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/hannah-lowe">https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/category/hannah-lowe</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-39041016693634883362020-12-18T00:56:00.010-08:002020-12-18T02:44:12.715-08:00The Festive Backroom: Ceitidh Campbell<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeVgUfmeS8ZcS_cNWKED5_I22QPae1cgvX4Wj3pBfEk9PVNVA_6SuCmui0mvDXoBjzvhT_gy_wbNPNSEhZRcY8rPGPWc3800ooPnNtGJtNJwHsUSMLMJg4RiJxEi-PmGEiv8MqKyL175I/s976/Ceitid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="549" data-original-width="976" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeVgUfmeS8ZcS_cNWKED5_I22QPae1cgvX4Wj3pBfEk9PVNVA_6SuCmui0mvDXoBjzvhT_gy_wbNPNSEhZRcY8rPGPWc3800ooPnNtGJtNJwHsUSMLMJg4RiJxEi-PmGEiv8MqKyL175I/s320/Ceitid.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />We have Ceitidh Campbell in the backroom today, our first woman Bard, I'm ashamed to say. Ceitidh is one of the current 'Champions' of the Scottish Poetry Library, commissioned to choose emerging Gaelic poets for the SPL's digital platforms. She is also responsible for addressing a glaring oversight in the SPL's list of Scottish poets by promoting the inclusion of Mary MacDonald, the poet from Bunessan, Mull, whose life spanned, just about, the whole of the 19th century, and at whose memorial my mother always insisted on stopping in the old days, whenever we were on the island of her own birth. During Mary's lifetime, another woman, Janet MacKenzie, of South Rona, having lost her husband, son, a brother and two brother in laws at sea, was given a pension by the Admiralty after making sure that, every night, a light showed in her window to guide ships. Ceitidh's poem here tells us that story. It's a striking image, and one very much for all times: </span><span>a light in the window while the storm rages.</span></div>Ceitidh Campbell has connections to Raasay, Lochalsh, Inverness and Penicuik and started writing Gaelic songs and poems whilst at the School of Scottish Studies. She gained an honours degree in Scottish Ethnology and Celtic Studies with a focus on Gaelic song and poetry and its historic significance. She achieved 3rd place in the Oran Ùr do Mhuile song writing competition in 2008 and as part of Fèisean na Gaidheal’s An Taigh Oran project in 2012 produced a series of new songs with other Gaelic writers. In 2018 she won the Gold Medal at the Royal National Mòd and regularly performs both traditional songs and her own work. A Gaelic teacher at Millburn Academy in Inverness she is currently developing work for her first collection. <div><br /></div><div>Here she reads Moladh Bean Rònaidh:</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4SCQ3a64zKc" width="320" youtube-src-id="4SCQ3a64zKc"></iframe></div><br /><br /></div><div><br />Thàinig am bàs air an t-sluaigh, <br />tubaist na mara a bha cho chruaidh. <br />Bhàthadh maraichean sa chuan <br />air beulaibh Bean thùrsach Rònaidh. <br /><br />Ged nach b’ i ach banntrach bhochd, <br />gach oidhche las i solas còir. <br />Gun ìmpidh, gun ghearran, le earrann bheag ola. <br />Moladh Bean bhuadhach Rònaidh. <br /><br />Fad còrr is fichead bliadhn’ ’s a trì <br />dheàrrsadh solais na mnà gun dìth, <br />chumadh na seòlaidearean bhon strì. <br />Taing, A Bhean thuigseach Rònaidh. <br /><br />Fhuair ceannard an nèibhi litir bheag <br />bhon chaiptean a’ Chomet is thuirt e ris, <br />“Feumaidh sinn airgead a chur dhi.” <br />“Cò i?” “Bean shuicheanta Rònaidh.” <br /><br />Eadar an taigh ’s an Acarsaid Mhòr <br />thall a Phortrìgh chaidh sòlas an ròis. <br />Gu bràth, bidh cuimhn’ againn air Seònaid. <br />Moladh Bean uasal Rònaidh. <br /><br /><br /><br />Death ravaged the people, <br />maritime disasters that were so severe. <br />Sailors drowned in the sea <br />in front of the distressed woman of Rona. <br /><br />Although she was only a poor widow <br />every night she lit a gentle light. <br />Without persuasion, without complaint, with a little store of oil <br />Praise to influential woman of Rona. <br /><br />For over twenty-three years <br />the woman’s light shone without fail, <br />keeping sailors from danger. <br />Thanks, to the understanding woman of Rona. <br /><br />The Lord High Admiral got a missive <br />from the Captain of the Comet which said <br />“We need to give her some money.” <br />“To whom?” The iconic woman of Rona. <br /><br />The light from the peninsula shone between the house in Big Harbour <br />and over to Portree. <br />Forever, we will remember Janet </div><div>And praise the noble woman of Rona. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Hear the 5 Gaelic poets chosen by Ceitidh as part of the Champions project here:</div><div><a href="https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/champions-2020/">https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/champions-2020/</a></div><div> <div><br /></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-27026584583726692832020-12-16T12:56:00.001-08:002020-12-16T17:04:15.301-08:00Poetry as the Struggle for Truth: Dareen Tatour<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdNWGkYosIhdkIeFJbkPAeLds56OgsloSOk21ktEzhxBbe3kES7zXg_vvujsh69iZkybhEZD3I6zTnbabI6Fysu2HGfyWMBHOHBIvRJ3JjNMeThE7AaGDwM37ksj_cyopT4VdBEAR4_BA/s300/dareen2.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="202" data-original-width="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdNWGkYosIhdkIeFJbkPAeLds56OgsloSOk21ktEzhxBbe3kES7zXg_vvujsh69iZkybhEZD3I6zTnbabI6Fysu2HGfyWMBHOHBIvRJ3JjNMeThE7AaGDwM37ksj_cyopT4VdBEAR4_BA/s0/dareen2.webp" /></a></div><div><br /></div>At a time when so many poets are still recovering after dangerous months of walking the dog and fighting for a Tesco Home Delivery slot, it’s salutary to remember there are writers who risk imprisonment or worse for bearing witness and telling their truth.<br /><br />After a three-year ordeal of prosecution, jail and house arrest Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour was sentenced in August 2018 to five months in prison for a handful of social media posts and a poem titled ‘Resist them my People, Resist Them’. She was convicted by an Israeli court of “incitement to violence” and “support of terrorist organizations.”<br /><br />Tatour, supported by PEN International, defended her poetry as a protest against Israel’s persecution of her people. After her release she was awarded the 2019 OXFAM Novib/PEN award for Freedom of Expression.<div><br />I am delighted to say that Dareen has recorded a poem for #plagueopoems. She is a strong woman determined still to use poetry as a weapon against discrimination and injustice, no matter the consequences. When I asked her about the role of poetry in today’s world, she answered<br /><i><br /></i></div><div><i>“ Through poetry we can break all boundaries and exchange cultures and feelings.<br />I feel that the world without poetry and poets is a dry world that contains nothing. Poetry, particularly political poetry that comes through the poets, is a basis for change, and the way to say no to all aspects of dictatorship.”</i><br /><br />Strength and support to the thousands of poets worldwide who are risking life and liberty to express themselves.<br /><br /><br />Here Dareen reads 'Don't Stay Silent':</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0PPzlj1Eq7E" width="320" youtube-src-id="0PPzlj1Eq7E"></iframe></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Don’t stay silent!</span></p><p class="MsoNormal">(Translated by: Mohammed Mousa)</p>You, daughter of existence!</div><div>Don’t stay silent. <br />Ask them: </div><div>Who burnt the olive branches in the face of peace? </div><div>Who turned off the colours in the eye of daylight? </div><div>Who injected misery into the laughter of kids? <br />Who shackled the melodies in the canary’s song? <br />Don’t stay silent ! <br />In your suppressed voice, a wail and a dying. <br />Don't be ashamed! <br />Don’t weaken! <br />Rather, shout! <br />Don’t acquiesce, but resist! <br />Ask them: <br />Who made damage live in our lives? <br /><br />Don’t stay silent! <br />In your wounded voice, a killer rejoices. <br /><br />Don’t stay silent! <br />Silence is a killer and your voice is the deterrent. <br />Spread the word and resist. <br />For they fear your rebellious writing. <br /><br />Don’t stay silent! <br />Silence is a crime. <br />Rape is a crime. <br />Occupation is a crime. <br />These crimes are against you. <br />The effortless gestures of so called men. <br /><br />Don’t stay silent. <br />Don’t be afraid! <br />Break up the chains . <br />Break up your fears <br />And melancholia. <br />Be the echo! <br />The bird was never afraid of the grip of the oppressor. <br />Chains never silenced the songs of canary. <br />Bars never stopped it from playing the melody of life. <br />Don’t bend down! <br />Be the poem, be the story, be the phrase, </div><div>be the words <br />Oh, my friend, <br />don’t stay silent. <br />Be like the bird — <br />Unafraid of the cage. <br />Be the sun in the sky with its brightness. <br />No need for a star that does not light up <br />Destroy fatigue <br />Be suns! <br />I know the sun always shines with good news <br />Don’t stay silent! <br />In your slaughtered silence an oppressor smiles/ <br />Walk with me— <br />For a revolution. <br />Forever! <br />And throw a stone in the face of the oppressors. <br />You are the civilization! <br />The beautiful sights! <br />And hope. <br />Revolt against all the injustices. <br />The scruples <br />Tribes <br />And distress. <br />Revolt against beliefs that come from idols <br /><br />Don’t stay silent — <br />for silence ruptures the heart like a dagger <br />Makes the meanings and images bleed. <br />Don’t stay silent— <br />Resist <br />for the voice despite its pain will be victorious.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="break-after: avoid; direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-outline-level: 1; mso-pagination: lines-together; page-break-after: avoid; text-align: center; text-indent: 22.7pt; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a name="_Toc536701305"><b><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 23pt; mso-ansi-font-size: 21.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-font-kerning: 16.0pt;">لا</span></b></a><b><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 23pt; mso-ansi-font-size: 21.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-font-kerning: 16.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> </span></b><b><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 23pt; mso-ansi-font-size: 21.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-font-kerning: 16.0pt;">تَصْمِتي</span></b><b><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 23pt; mso-ansi-font-size: 21.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-font-kerning: 16.0pt; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 118.35pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 118.35pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَنْتِ،</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بِنْتَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الوُجودْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قولي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لَهُمْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مَنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَحْرَقَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الزَّيْتونَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَجْهِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">السَّلامْ؟</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مَنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَطْفَأَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الأَلْوانَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مِنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">عَيْنِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">النَّهارْ؟</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مَنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَدْخَلَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الآهاتِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ضَحِكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الصِّغارْ؟</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مَنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كَبَّلَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الأَلْحانَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صَوْتِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الكَنارْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><a name="_Hlk46285504"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></a></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صَوْتِكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الـمَكْتومِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَيْلٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱحْتِضارْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَخْجَلي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَضْعُفي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">فَٱصْرَخي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَرْضَخي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قاوِمي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قولي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لَهُمْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مَنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ذا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الَّذي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قَدْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَسْكَنَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">العُمْرَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الدَّمارْ؟</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صَمْتِكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الـمَجْروحِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يَفْرَحُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قاتِلٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الصَّمْتُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">سَفَّاحٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَصَوْتُكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">رادِعٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بُثِّي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الكَلامَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَقاوِمي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">فَٱلكُلُّ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يَخْشى</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">حَرْفَكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلـمُتَمَرِّدْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">هٰذا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">السُّكوتُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">جَريمَةٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلاِغْتِصابُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">جَريمَةٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلاِحْتِلالُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">جَريمَةٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كُلُّ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلجَرائِمِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ضِدّكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span dir="LTR" lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مِنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">إِشارَةَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَبْدَأُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مِنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ذا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلـمُسَمَّى</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بِالرَّجُلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَرْهَبي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَجْزَعي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قُدِّي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">السَّلاسِلَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلـمَخاوِفَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلكَمَدْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كوني</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الصَّدى</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لَمْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تُرْهِبِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلعُصْفورَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قَبْضَةُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ظالِمٍ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لَمْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تُسْكِتِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلأَقْفاصُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَغْريدَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلكَنارْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لَـمْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَثْنِهِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلقُضْبانُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">عَنْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">عَزْفِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَلْحانِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلحَياهْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَنْحَني</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صيري</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلقَصيدَةَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلحِكايَةَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلجُمَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صيري</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلكَلامْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَرَفيقَتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كوني</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كَما</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلعُصْفورِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَخْشَيْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">قَفَصْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كوني</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلغَزالَةَ</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/New%20User/Desktop/dareen%20tatour.docx#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><sup><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 19pt; mso-ansi-font-size: 21.0pt;"><span dir="LTR"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 21pt; line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></span></sup></a><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">السَّماءِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَنورَها</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">حاجَةٌ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لِجَوْنَةِ</span><sup><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;">(<a href="file:///C:/Users/New%20User/Desktop/dareen%20tatour.docx#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span dir="LTR"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><sup><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 21pt; line-height: 115%;">[2]</span></sup><!--[endif]--></span></a>)</span></sup><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تُبْرِقُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بيدي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الكَلَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كوني</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الشُّموسْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">إِنَّ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الشُّموسَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">عَرَفْتُها</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كُلِّ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صُبْحٍ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">بِٱلبَشائِرِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تُشْرِقُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مُنْذُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الأَزَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">صَمْتِكِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلـمَذْبوحِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يَسْعَدُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ظالِمٍ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 70.55pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">سيري</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">مَعي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ثَوْرَةٍ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">حَتَّى</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلأَبَدْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; tab-stops: 70.55pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱرْمي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلحَجَرْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَجْهِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَشْباهِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلبَشَرْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">أَنْتِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلحَضارَةُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلـمَعالِمُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلأَمَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ثوري</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">عَلى</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كُلِّ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلـمَظالِمِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلوَساوِسِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلقَبائِلِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَٱلكَدَرْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ثوري</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">عَلى</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">هُبَلٍ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يُسَيِّرُهُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">هُبَلْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">فَالصَّمْتُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يَعْبَثُ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">في</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلفُؤادِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">كَخِنْجَرٍ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يُدْمي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلـمَعاني</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">وَالصُّوَرْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">لا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">تَصْمِتي</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ثوري</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">فَإِنَّ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">الصَّوْتَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">رَغْمَ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">ٱلآهِ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" dir="RTL" style="direction: rtl; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-indent: 22.7pt; text-justify: kashida; text-kashida: 10%; unicode-bidi: embed;"><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">حَتْمًا</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"> </span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 21pt;">يَنْتَصِرْ</span><span lang="AR-SA" style="font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; font-size: 21pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoFootnoteText"><a href="file:///C:/Users/New%20User/Desktop/dareen%20tatour.docx#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""></a><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="AR-SA" style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Sakkal Majalla";"><span dir="RTL"></span>(</span><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">[2]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span><span dir="RTL"></span><span dir="RTL" face=""Arial",sans-serif" lang="AR-SA" style="mso-ascii-font-family: "Sakkal Majalla"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-hansi-font-family: "Sakkal Majalla";"><span dir="RTL"></span>) الجونَة: الشَّمْس.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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</div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>An interview with Dareen by Salon Magazine:</div><div><a href="https://www.salon.com/2016/08/10/dareen-tatour-palestinian-poet-imprisoned-by-israel-for-social-media-posts-shares-her-story/">https://www.salon.com/2016/08/10/dareen-tatour-palestinian-poet-imprisoned-by-israel-for-social-media-posts-shares-her-story/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Two more poems by Dareen:</div><div><a href="https://pierrejoris.com/blog/new-poems-by-dareen-tatour-under-house-arrest-in-israel/">https://pierrejoris.com/blog/new-poems-by-dareen-tatour-under-house-arrest-in-israel/</a></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Overview of work by PEN International:</div><div><a href="https://pen-international.org/who-we-are/our-impact/the-impact-of-pen-work">https://pen-international.org/who-we-are/our-impact/the-impact-of-pen-work</a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-86425048554570391442020-12-11T01:15:00.004-08:002020-12-11T01:19:57.066-08:00The Festive Backroom: December 17-25<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgioJXOX5Fhlf068nNYP1qGbkH53M-t8cTMPo6VLus4w45mqD_gKzA36XqSY4t_0dL391lx63EeMTI48Fbq8Pui3kRt8_mR8vbDhe0JBaYAQAPD2wDA2QkcQg223JsohDPmLpV3mtPjPHs/s640/%2523festiveplague.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="369" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgioJXOX5Fhlf068nNYP1qGbkH53M-t8cTMPo6VLus4w45mqD_gKzA36XqSY4t_0dL391lx63EeMTI48Fbq8Pui3kRt8_mR8vbDhe0JBaYAQAPD2wDA2QkcQg223JsohDPmLpV3mtPjPHs/s320/%2523festiveplague.jpg" /></a></div><br /><br /><br />#festiveplague<br />#plagueopoems <br /><br />From Thursday 17th December, #plagueopoems will platform an outstanding poet every day with a profile, poem and specially filmed video. We travel from the Highlands to the US via the Middle East then back to Dumfries and Galloway in time for Mince Pies. Still run using a mobile phone, a dodgy laptop and the enormous good will from brilliant poets world-wide. No sofas or subsidies in sight.<div><br /></div><div>Festive plague doctor above by Hugh Bryden<br /><br /><br /><br /> </div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-10218084511176019942020-11-23T04:34:00.065-08:002020-11-24T16:37:34.430-08:00The Occasional Backroom: Chris Dolan<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs3RNR_0HMhlGlxVvjvOyXuzG3Uz7I8kr_pBpMX6mMWNWxhxZcISG8Rd8dVozG7p1odLnmdziMgNE4rGYQK2vqXVU76a_jbaxBRkAtCYu0BaJvYL_394he9PL4aXWpZERI26Mq36oClvs/s225/chris+d.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjs3RNR_0HMhlGlxVvjvOyXuzG3Uz7I8kr_pBpMX6mMWNWxhxZcISG8Rd8dVozG7p1odLnmdziMgNE4rGYQK2vqXVU76a_jbaxBRkAtCYu0BaJvYL_394he9PL4aXWpZERI26Mq36oClvs/s0/chris+d.jpg" /></a></div> Saraband's blurb for Chris Dolan's new book 'Everything Passes Everything Remains' immediately attracted me. "<i>It's a kind of travelogue, over time, and through some lesser-known parts...but mostly it's about how the past plays merry hell with the present." </i>Chris' new book is a memoir of his times in Spain but it sounds like it's also a journey through his own memory and his own head, a wee bit like my own <i>McMillan's Galloway</i>. I believe these books should be twinned, especially as I'd be bound to sell more on Chris' coat-tails as he is a hugely wide ranging and successful writer, straddling a whole range of forms. <p>Chris' books include <i>Aliyyah</i> (2015), <i>Redlegs</i> (2012), and <i>Ascension Day</i> (1999) which won the McKitterick Prize. His first collection of short stories, <i>Poor Angels</i>, was shortlisted for the Saltire Award and a story from it won the Scotland on Sunday prize. </p>His stage plays include: <i>The Pitiless Storm</i> (2014) and <i>The Cause of Thunder</i> (2017), both for David Hayman. <i>Sabina </i>won a Fringe First in 1998. He has written over 70 hours of television, including popular series like <i>Taggart</i>, and <i>River City</i> and drama-documentaries like <i>An Anarchist’s Story</i> (BBC 2007). He has written and presented TV docs including <i>Barbado’ed: Scotland’s Sugar Slaves</i> (BBC), and <i>The Scots Who Fought Franco</i> (STV). His films include <i>The Ring</i> (BBC), <i>Poor Angels</i>, and the Imax production, <i>Mistgate</i>. He has written over 20 radio plays, including adaptations of Stevenson’s classic Kidnapped and books by many authors including García Márquez, Umberto Eco, and Balzac. His original plays include 2014’s <i>The Strange Case of Dr. Hyde</i>.<div><br /><div>He was Writing Fellow at the University of Strathclyde, 2011 -2012 and founded and taught the Taller de Escritura, Pamplona. He is currently Programme Leader of MATV, the only dedicated television scriptwriting masters in the UK. He is Honorary President of the Ullapool Book Festival and is active on the boards of both Aye Write (Glasgow) and Wordplay (Shetland) book festivals. <br /><br />Just about the only thing we've got over him I hear you mutter is poetry, but unhappily he's good at that too. His poetry takes inspiration as it should from ordinary life and he's volunteered here a cheerful and accessible piece, particularly welcome at this drab and cheerless time when its hard to keep the spirits up. People have always turned to poetry when the emotional heat is on, and we look to it for consolation, ceremony and the boosting of morale. This poem 'Greedy Me' is just bursting with life: </div><br /><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5bGJRHgRxMs" width="320" youtube-src-id="5bGJRHgRxMs"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>GREEDY ME <br /><br />I want my choice on the menu. And I also want yours <br />I love the disease, and seek out the cure. <br />I wanna dance, dance, dance the whole night through. <br />And go to bed early with an improving book. <br /><br />I’m going to train so hard for that perfect PB. <br />And have myself a dram when I finish this beer. <br />Gonna climb that mountain. And stay in my bed <br />Have my cake and eat it, if even force-fed. <br /><br />I get up early and I like a long lie <br />An independent mind, I take both sides. <br />I’m a nature boy, and prowl the city at night. <br />The Tay and the Tyne; Bonnie and Clyde. <br /><br />I’m hail-fellow-well-met, but leave me alone! <br />Keep myself to myself, and yak all night on the phone. <br />I talk to God, but proclaim that He’s gone. <br />I’m a follower of Marx, a fan of Proudhon. <br /><br />Oh so many things I can be <br />Professor of hermeneutical bibliology <br />Fix your car, a molecular engineer <br />Pen smash hits, or a slim volume of poetry. <br /><br />I’m perfectly suited for today. But also the jazz age. <br />I want to stay as I am, and quickly turn the page. <br />I see every point of view, but I’ve got my own crusade <br />I say, hey Peace man, as I’m building the barricades. <br /><br />I’m teacher and learner, United and City <br />I wanna be your lion, and your cuddly kitty. <br />I lead from the outside, but I’m on the committee <br />I’m self-possessed, but feel I deserve your pity. <br /><br />I want prizes and baubles, and I want to refuse them <br />I’ll shout the odds, while in secret collusion. <br />I want facts and figures, and believe nothing is proven <br />I have no conclusions, but I know how to use ‘em. </div><div><br /></div>I’m an example to children, and a scandalous old rogue <br />I’m a Mod and a Rocker. I’ll be young when I’m old <br />Give me southern warmth – and the crystal north cold <br />I’ll be the dragon. And also St. George. <br /><br />I know that I’m right, but welcome corrections <br />A happy lost soul who still hopes for redemption <br />I always hit deadlines but demand an extension. <br />Rub my tummy and head in different directions. <br /><br />Fighter, lover <br />Bach and The Who <br />Tarkovsky and Corrie <br />Steak and tofu. <br />I wanna be me and I wanna be you. <br /><br />I can be real, I can pretend <br />Save my pennies, and spend, spend, spend! <br />Not give a toss – and repent, repent! <br />Give me it straight, give me a blend <br />Stranger in your midst, and all things to all men. <br /><br />I want to be useful. I want to be dreamy <br />I want to find everything that maybe is in me <br />It’s never ‘or’ but always ‘and’ with me <br />I want it all, the A to the Zee, so gimme, gimme, gimme!<br /><br /><br />More Info about Chris here:<br /><a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/chris-dolan">https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/chris-dolan</a><br /><br /> An Interview with Chris here: <a href="https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/1703431/024pjno0711mag1_a_4/">https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/1703431/024pjno0711mag1_a_4/</a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>Everything Remains: a Song inspired by his Spanish journey and Memories <br /><a href="https://vimeo.com/463207290/2af8d0d584"> https://vimeo.com/463207290/2af8d0d584</a></div><div><br /></div><div>A Link to 'Everything Passes Everything Remains': </div><div><u style="color: #0000ee;"><a href="https://saraband.net/sb-title/everything-passes-everything-remains-freewheelin-through-spain-song-and-memory/">https://saraband.net/sb-title/everything-passes-everything-remains-freewheelin-through-spain-song-and-memory/</a></u></div><div><br /> <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><p></p></div></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-19379285132979954172020-11-14T02:32:00.000-08:002020-11-14T02:32:53.965-08:00The Occasional Backroom: Mandy Haggith<div class="separator"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwJn3Tptc-DzSokBG0a3agiJWDwfI3mwf1Qnbnq-UpLC3o6QA6d01SYPpT8udyPVWvONwWf8cfZhDmRhfX2zyA2ZPufmTetaZIo1olsrlJLAt-fpse3n9PXWD2qkBuMiZ33ONmmUKPyY/s628/mandy.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="444" data-original-width="628" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVwJn3Tptc-DzSokBG0a3agiJWDwfI3mwf1Qnbnq-UpLC3o6QA6d01SYPpT8udyPVWvONwWf8cfZhDmRhfX2zyA2ZPufmTetaZIo1olsrlJLAt-fpse3n9PXWD2qkBuMiZ33ONmmUKPyY/w320-h226/mandy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div>In the midst of new lockdowns, we are well overdue a laugh. I have been long inclined to use humour in poetry to lever the door open for some important truths, and so does today's guest in the Backroom, Mandy Haggith. Her serious issues are ours' and will prevail long after Covid. Are we all really going to reboot our relationship with nature when all this is over, or was that all just lockdown wishful thinking to keep us whimsically occupied while we gear up top start again exactly as before? <div><br /></div><div>Mandy Haggith has been a passionate environmental campaigner all her life. She lives in Assynt and teaches Literature and Creative Writing at the University of the Highlands and Islands where she runs a project about tree poetry called A-B-Tree, inspired by the Gaelic tree alphabet. Her first novel won the Robin Jenkins Literary Award for environmental writing in 2009 and she has been poet in residence at the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens and Inverewe Gardens. Her books include four poetry collections, a poetry anthology, a non-fiction book and five novels. Her 'Stone Stories' trilogy are based on Iron Age history and published by Saraband. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here she reminds us why we should never take the piss out of a walrus. Great rhyming couplet at the end!<br /><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JNjPWDZ-v2s" width="320" youtube-src-id="JNjPWDZ-v2s"></iframe></div><br /></div><div><br /></div>You wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus <br /><br /> <br />Cos his head’s like a dustbin with three foot tusks <br />He’ll kiss you to bits with his suction lips <br />His whiskers’ll tickle till you lose your grip <br />His penis bone’s like a walking stick <br />And he won’t feel your punches, his skin’s so thick. <br />He is two tonnes of blubber and built like a bus, <br />No you wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus <br /><br />He farts like a rocket and he belches pepper spray <br />He flaps his flippers like he’s practicing for flag day <br />He’ll scratch you with his nails if you try to pin him down <br />Or push you down the sandy beach and roll you till you drown <br />If you grab him by the flippers he will squash you with no fuss <br />No, you wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus. <br /><br />He can hang out under water, he’s a deep sea diver <br />He’s like jaws with claws, has no sense of humour either <br />He looks kind of cuddly when he gives you a wave <br />But taking him on is neither big nor brave <br />He’s got 20 of his pals lying out there on the isthmus <br />No, you wouldn’t want to wrestle with a walrus. <br /><br /><br />Yichang<br /><br /><br />in from the riverside<br />where the putter of boat engines dulls<br /><br />you practise scales<br />by a low pool among trees<br /><br />long slow notes climb up your flute<br />as rain drops ring<br /><br />young sad notes<br />almost as still as the leaves<br /><br />sweet green notes<br />tugging at the sleeves of ghosts<br /><br />pulling over the water<br />like a kind of grieving<br /><br />reeling us in<br />to stand in the rain<br /><br />listening</div><div><br /></div>(From Castings (Ullapool: Two Ravens, 2007)<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div>Her website here:</div><div> <a href="https://www.mandyhaggith.net">https://www.mandyhaggith.net</a><br /><br />Buy her books here:<br /><a href="https://www.mandyhaggith.net/shop.asp">https://www.mandyhaggith.net/shop.asp</a></div><div><br /></div><div>Podcast about the Stone Stories Trilogy</div><div><a href="https://scotswhayhae.com/2020/07/03/step-back-in-time-the-swh-podcast-talks-to-mandy-haggith/" target="_blank">https://scotswhayhae.com/2020/07/03/step-back-in-time-the-swh-podcast-talks-to-mandy-haggith/</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br />Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-74222714318320179802020-11-02T08:11:00.007-08:002020-11-05T01:33:26.839-08:00The Backroom Archive: Willie Neill Poet of Galloway<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwbxGbJ9sZReQ2oPqGmNoxKWLQXHv7GvXdPxd1Q_LEVTbamPBBCaUtij5APq1NkzGesPwXmHVojz8pZ0_Q2RhQgWddIfCwDv_0MdXcImCexYWvd-J6E9nQv_tH3R7ZIcdKbZ9F9wj1pXY/s226/willie.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="226" data-original-width="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwbxGbJ9sZReQ2oPqGmNoxKWLQXHv7GvXdPxd1Q_LEVTbamPBBCaUtij5APq1NkzGesPwXmHVojz8pZ0_Q2RhQgWddIfCwDv_0MdXcImCexYWvd-J6E9nQv_tH3R7ZIcdKbZ9F9wj1pXY/s0/willie.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;">Willie Neill is probably the south of Scotland’s finest poet since Burns. He was unique in speaking fluently the three languages of Scotland, English, Scots and Gaelic. Although he was an adult when he learned Gaelic, he won the Gold Medal at the 1969 Mod. He was fiercely proud of the history and language of south west Scotland and unlike many writers from the region ‘stayed put’, an act through which his national reputation probably suffered. He was contemptuous of those who courted success in the poetry ‘centres of power’. He saw his poetry as ‘standing up for the small tongues against the big mouths’. He is really the poetic soul of Galloway, his poetry ranging through its history, its people and its language. <br /><br />In this video, Neill is reading ‘Duilleagan’ in Gaelic, and the translation ‘Leaves’ is read by Gregor Ross. Linked at the foot of the page is a small program in which Neill reads more and is interviewed on his poetry and use of Gaelic and Scots. He makes a particularly impassioned defence of Scots as the living language of the common people.<br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/aoBgAM23rNw" width="320" youtube-src-id="aoBgAM23rNw"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Duilleagan</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Falleadh foghair na mo chuinnean</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">cubhras eader beatha 's bas:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">aodach sracte craobh an t-samhraidh</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">lar-bhrat iomchaidh do mo chas.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Duilleagan na h-oige 'r tuiteam</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">ranaig mo reis fhein gu foghair:</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">duilleagan nam bliadhna fodham</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">feadhainn dathte, feadhainn odhar.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">Leaves</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">The smell of Autumn in my nostrils</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">a scent between life and death;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">the torn garments of summer</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">carpet fitting for my feet.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">The leaves of youth have fallen</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">my own time reaches autumn;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">the leaves of the years beneath me</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;">some coloured, some plain. </span></div><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;"><br /><br />William Neill was born in Prestwick, Ayrshire in 1922. He joined the RAF on leaving school, and having seen many parts of the world, left the forces in the 1960s, and studied Celtic literatures as a mature student at the University of Edinburgh. He then taught English in Galloway, before retiring to the village of Crossmichael where he died in 2010. <br /><br />His first collection of poems was published when he was in his fifties; Selected Poems 1969-1992 was issued by Canongate in 1994, and Caledonian Cramboclink by Luath Press in 2000. William Neill’s impressive body of work includes translations from various European languages, often exploring other ‘minority’ European languages and attitudes to them. He translated The Odyssey into Scots. <br /><br /><i><b>The footage in this small series of videos comes from 'Poets of the South West', an innovative series of 5 small programs supported by the Dumfries and Galloway Education Department for use in schools. These were filmed on VHS in 1984 and were the brainchild of two teachers, Pat Kirby and Gregor Ross, whose prescience meant that we now have unique footage of five regional poets. In the case of two of these, it is the only existing footage. In the case of one, Willie Neill, it comprises a large part of the existing primary visual material.</b></i><br /><br />A Link to the whole program:</p><p style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0cm 0cm 18pt;"> <br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Opff3zwIAek" width="320" youtube-src-id="Opff3zwIAek"></iframe></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-41782584789375748202020-10-26T13:34:00.018-07:002020-10-27T07:43:22.789-07:00The Occasional Backroom: Sasha Dugdale<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCsWPD8_FR8VZ2p9Pz20JujV1GthZaGugJiA76pBt8bGHNFv-dGWHwLbES1lVvmbbw9Z5aUZJ6kitJZ7zstY-MS4PvcNG6jWbDm-32Ok3I1NqQbbWAMUP61TeKZFvzX17qVVkL1FZgMdQ/s1200/sasha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCsWPD8_FR8VZ2p9Pz20JujV1GthZaGugJiA76pBt8bGHNFv-dGWHwLbES1lVvmbbw9Z5aUZJ6kitJZ7zstY-MS4PvcNG6jWbDm-32Ok3I1NqQbbWAMUP61TeKZFvzX17qVVkL1FZgMdQ/s320/sasha.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photograph by Zima Zima</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>Great delight to see Sasha Dugdale in the Backroom today. There have been so many good poets in here, I've had to redecorate. I haven't seen Sasha since the time soon after the launch of 'Oxford Poets 2002' when she put me right on the spelling of Felix Dzerzhinsky. Since then she has gone from strength to strength. She is a wonderful, questioning and uneasy poet. Her latest book, 'Deformations' for instance includes a section of poems on Eric<span> Gill, a wonderful artist who sexually abused his kids and his dog, and slept with his sister. The poems don't come to the obvious conclusions, or are even based on the obvious questions. Based on Gill's own notes and diaries the work is a kind of ghostly journey through his life and our own reactions to what we know. Because of that, every sentence and every scene, mundane, innocent or otherwise, takes on a resonance we put there ourselves. We help create the poetry in a sense. The book also contains a Homeric homage called 'The </span>Pitysad' which sets the Odyssey in a contemporary landscape. 'Deformations' has been shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize. There's a link to the Carcanet book below. And you should also put a fiver on her to win- I have. </div><div><br /></div><div>Sasha Dugdale has published five collections of poetry. She won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for 'Joy' in 2016 and a Cholmondeley Award in 2017. Most recently 'Deformations' (Carcanet, 2020) has been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize. She is a translator of Russian poetry and prose and in 2020 she won a PEN Translate Award for her translation of poetry by the Russian poet Maria Stepanovathe. Sasha Dugdale is current writer-in-residence at St John’s College, Cambridge. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here she reads Dawn Chorus, a great antidote to all these poems about the romance of birds at dawn.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/80BGojYX3v4" width="320" youtube-src-id="80BGojYX3v4"></iframe></div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Dawn Chorus<br />March 29, 2010<br /><br /><br />Every morning since the time changed<br />I have woken to the dawn chorus<br />And even before it sounded, I dreamed of it<br />Loud, unbelievably loud, shameless, raucous<br /><br />And once I rose and twitched the curtains apart<br />Expecting the birds to be pressing in fright<br />Against the pane like passengers<br />But the garden was empty and it was night<br /><br />Not a slither of light at the horizon<br />Still the birds were bawling through the mists<br />Terrible, invisible<br />A million small evangelists<br /><br />How they sing: as if each had pecked up a smouldering coal<br />Their throats singed and swollen with song<br />In dissonance as befits the dark world<br />Where only travellers and the sleepless belong.<div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Red House (Carcanet, 2011)<div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Headland<div><br /></div><div>Waxy sporadic grass knitting the sand…<br /><br />A loudspeaker on a car proceeds slowly up the far quay<br />and a wedge of sandpipers lifts in fright from the shore:<br />The circus king is back for one last stand!<br />Last performance of the season – tonight!<br /><br />His old gardening jacket hangs like a phantom behind the door<br />I have a febrile energy for undoing endings<br />tying the old twine to new twine, so when he came to me in a dream<br />and asked to come back I was surprised<br />to find myself rejecting him one last time<br /><br />pouring myself a solitary drink of seawater<br />and reminding him of how we saw the old vessel of his body<br />and it was no longer fit-for-purpose<br />could not be recycled or rewound<br />like string, or green glass or driftwood.<br /><br />The whole place reeks of him, who in life smelt of railways<br />sugar soap and the commuter tang. Sand, salt,<br />thrift and rotting wrack, and stubbornness:<br />a vast firewood stack, a few elderly tools revived<br />with rags and oily fingers to massage working parts,<br /><br />string tied into rolls of barbed wire.<br />I am walking today on the hollow old dune<br />September chill, the children are off buying shoals<br />of pencils and the circus cut-outs on the sand bank<br />are blanketed up for the year.<br /><br />What are years? They last no longer than the tide.<br />I read the tables, I pore over them and seem to find relief<br />in the mathematical appearance of water<br />and how by degrees it creeps upon us,<br />another ten metres to swill around the back gate.<br /><br />Last performance of nostalgia out here, where it burns<br />with an acrid smell. Throw on an armful of regret, it fires up<br />odd-flamed like rubber or plastic flotsam<br />or household chemicals glugging themselves empty.<br />My fingers smell like his.<br /><div><span face=""Segoe UI", "Segoe UI Web (West European)", "Segoe UI", -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #201f1e; font-size: 15px;"><br /></span></div><br /></div><br />This poem, reprinted from the SPL website, was written as part of ‘The Blue Crevasse’ project, marking the centenary of W.S. Graham in 2018. <br /><br /><br />More poems here:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sasha-dugdale<br /></a><br /><br />A Profile and interview of Sasha here:<br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/i-have-come-admire-poetry-generous-wise-unafraid</a><br /><br /><br />Link to 'Deformations':<br /><br /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781784108984</a>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-26164750323686997562020-10-19T08:55:00.016-07:002020-10-20T06:39:56.440-07:00The Occasional Backroom: Jeanette Lynes<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCRp-KJgDS-QSbx_pNcwKCDTjfBs2C7SHXhYsRoHVyHy3LmEk4X2iBHSIK_3Z1Xs0MGKomvEpFOE7Qg2w3YvDlz8OkNUNYZjNJKMt_OnamxNYpSYJDXpWZLfAoZ728858zlUf1h4k2nw/s800/eanette+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="800" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeCRp-KJgDS-QSbx_pNcwKCDTjfBs2C7SHXhYsRoHVyHy3LmEk4X2iBHSIK_3Z1Xs0MGKomvEpFOE7Qg2w3YvDlz8OkNUNYZjNJKMt_OnamxNYpSYJDXpWZLfAoZ728858zlUf1h4k2nw/w320-h256/eanette+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"> I'm sure the last time I saw Jeanette Lynes was at a Burlesque show in Edmonton where we were both reading erotic poetry. I have so little erotic poetry that I had to borrow someone else's, but in the generally louche but febrile atmosphere I don't think anyone noticed.</span></div><p>Jeanette Lynes is deprecating about her work- as you can hear in the video- but she is a superb writer, edgy, opinionated and witty I was about to say, but her humour goes beyond cleverness to be a weapon to leaven, dilute or reangle our examination of some serious issues. It's a path I have always been drawn to myself: I think anything that makes poetry less boring, more affecting and more accessible in the process of delivering a message is ok by me. The poem she reads here, 'John Clare in Love' is a case in point. It's hilarious. But serious.</p>Jeanette Lynes is the author of seven books of poetry and two novels. Her third novel is forthcoming from HarperCollins Canada in 2021. Jeanette was recently a Visiting Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. She directs the Master of Fine Arts in Writing at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. She has won many accolades and awards. For instance her most recent novel, 'The Small Things That End The World', won the Muslims for Peace and Justice Fiction Award at the 2019 Saskatchewan Book Awards. Her most recent book of poetry, 'Bedlam Cowslip: The John Clare Poems', from which the featured poem here is taken, won the 2015 Saskatchewan Arts Board Poetry Award.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4cV42eYl6Aw" width="320" youtube-src-id="4cV42eYl6Aw"></iframe></div><p><br /></p>John Clare in Love<br />(1818)<br /><br /><br />He first saw her from afar –<br />tramping across the field, a kind of moving statue,<br />a girl heavy in good places.<br /><br />He scrambled up a pollarded tree to mark her shape<br />and direction. He’d fallen from trees before. This time<br />despite the ale, he hung on.<br /><br />Even from a distance he knew she’d look<br />fine milking cows. Her sturdy form, those hands<br />would draw the milk, would work the teats.<br /><br />High in the tree, he was more besotted than a bird,<br />and happier. His eyes followed her vanishing<br />over the grassed horizon. He climbed to earth,<br /><br />penned two poems to her beauty. Anyone in love<br />will recognize this, the heart’s highest moment, this ledge<br />of clock before the beloved’s mouth<br /><br />opens and awry things go and go until the end of time.<br />But there’d be buckets to fill with wildflowers,<br />the greensward to harvest, before that befell them,<br /><br />her name to discover. Could she love a lime-burner?<br />Like any decent girl she’d send him away.<br />But he’d return. Until then, in his choking<br /><br />shifts at the kiln she’d cross that pasture in his mind<br />a thousand times and what he began to think was,<br />she walked like someone who could read. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>What Editors Don’t Want<br /><br />She gazed out the window. She was an astute gazer.<br />She smiled with dazzling teeth into the day’s<br />drizzle which stirred within her a vague<br />premonition some dire event would soon befall them.<br />‘Foreshadowing’, she thought, suddenly. She smiled,<br />pleased with her own window-gazing acuity.<br />She stared more probingly into the yard<br />cluttered with rusted racing cars.<br />Rickenstock had not cut the grass all summer,<br />obvious from the tall insolence of the weeds.<br />Metaphor! She laughed. Metaphors made her laugh.<br />(Tall insolence of the weeds, not bad,<br />she thought). She was a quirky, intelligent woman<br />with a enduring reverence for tropes.<br />The yard was rampant with neglect & falling action.<br />She raised her arm & flicked her blonde bangs. She smiled.<br />She lit a slender menthol cigarette. Suddenly she knew –<br />Rickenstock! Rickenstock was the killer!<br />‘Climax’, she thought! Denouement. She smiled.<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Jeanette's Website Here, with examples of poems, reviews etc:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://jeanettelynes.wordpress.com/">https://jeanettelynes.wordpress.com/</a></div><div><br /></div><div>More biographical information, poetry, videos and reference:</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.stu-acpa.com/jeanette-lynes.html">http://www.stu-acpa.com/jeanette-lynes.html</a></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-2019150400250707192020-10-01T01:26:00.001-07:002020-10-01T01:26:19.492-07:00The Occasional Backroom: Aurélia Lassaque <div class="separator"><div style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitJhmRpFSHnM5vj-nEEr6nNl7K_2w-_XN7vcxMO08x92lPi7_MJcloLOd9PlYt3mz_mS7cQuH8ya_oqHz9YlEgVp4OrdjsEjFPAXCcv7ekHvxrAfnuQJQ685U5IkVIkfSTgoYQD0t-8Ro/s320/%2528c%2529Rapha%25C3%25ABl+Lucas.jpg" /></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Delighted to feature Aurélia Lassaque in the Backroom today. Aurélia is a poet who writes in Occitan, the language of the medieval troubadours, spoken in the south of France, Monaco, Val D'Aran in Spain, and the Guardia Piemontese in Italy. Collectively, these regions are sometimes referred to as Occitania. Occitan is an ancient romance language with a connection to Catalan. Like Scots with English, Occitan is often thought of as a dialect of Catalan, though, like Scots, the language has the historical and linguistic right to be thought of as at least the equal to its neighbour. Occitan is hampered by the fact that less than 10,000 still speak it, and that it lacks a standardised vocabulary. It is beautiful, though, isnt it? <div><br /></div>Aurélia Lassaque (b. 1983) is a bilingual poet and performer who writes in French and Occitan. She is interested in the interaction between various forms of art, and often cooperates with visual artists, videomakers, dancers and particularly musicians. She accompanies her readings with short songs from the Occitan folklore tradition. She has performed all over the world, in Europe, Northern and Latin America, Africa, Scandinavian countries, Indonesia, India and China. <br /><br />Her work has been translated into over twenty languages including Asturian, Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Polish and Spanish. Her collection 'Pour que chantent les salamandres' (Editions Bruno Doucey, 2013) has been translated in many different languages and received critical attention from, among others, Her second French/Occitan collection, 'En quête d’un visage', a prescient dialogue between Ulysses and Elle/Ela (She), was published in France by Editions Bruno Doucey (May 2017). She has also collaborated as a screenwriter for the cinema with director Giuseppe Schillaci: Transhumance (co-screenwriter, actress), a short film poem, presented at the 76th Venice Film Festival (MaTerre 2019, Cantiere Cinepoetico Euromediterraneo).<div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Here she reads an excerpt from 'En quête d’un visage', a dialogue between 'She' and Ulysses. The English translation is supplied by Madeleine Campbell, a Canadian writer, researcher and translator who teaches at the University of Edinburgh.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2YGr5IxW7Cc" width="320" youtube-src-id="2YGr5IxW7Cc"></iframe></div><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ela <br /><br /><br />Dona-me un nom, Ulisses <br /><br />dona-me un nom que te posquèsse esperar <br />serai aquí, i aurà lo miralh <br />e parlarem de tu, ieu e l’autra al dedins del miralh <br />la rejonharai aquí, sempre de galís, al ras d’una cadièra, al biais dels aucèls <br />amb la dolor dins ma cuèissa per me pas perdre d’aquel costat del miralh <br /><br />lo matin portarai mos pendents d’aurelhas <br />los servarai emai benlèu al lièch se me deviás susprene al mitan de la nuèch <br /><br />mas s’ai pas de nom cossi saupre quala d’entre ela o ieu velha ? <br /> <br /><br />She <br /><br />Give me a name, Ulysses <br /><br />give me a name so that i can wait for you <br />i’ll be here, the mirror, there <br />and we’ll speak of you, i and the other in the mirror <br />i’ll join her there, a little slant, on the edge of a chair, the way birds do <br />the ache in my thigh keeps me from losing myself to that side of the mirror <br /><br />in the morning i’ll wear my earrings <br />i may even wear them to bed should you surprise me in the night <br /><br />but if i have no name how will i know which of us, her or me, is waiting? <br /> <br /><br />Ulisses <br /><br />Te donar un nom ? <br /><br />Te donar un nom quand balas dins lo negre dins de carrièras desèrtosas amb de grands gosses ? <br /><br />Te donar un nom quand vas a la rivièra en tenguda de nuèch jos lo naut solelh en ignorar los òmes que se son perduts en te cresent sasir ? <br /><br />T’ofrirai d’iranges <br />e per las pelar un cotèl pas mai grand que lo poce <br />un cotèl d’ivòri qu’aurai raubat aprèp la batalha <br />lo present d’un defunt a una autra femna <br />e te caldrà pensar a ela, a sos lençòls freds, al trauc dins sa pòcha a la plaça del cotèl <br /><br />t’ofrirai de brots d’èrbas qu’aurai servats longtemps jos ma sòla <br />que creisson aquí ont repausan los còsses <br />e se quilhan coma de sentinelas al quite punt ont s’acaba la fugida <br /> <br /><br />Ulysses <br /><br />Give you a name? <br /><br />Give you a name when you dance in the dark with great hounds in empty streets? <br /><br />Give you a name when you stroll to the river dressed for night in the glaring sun, spurning <br />the men who were doomed the moment they thought they possessed you? <br /><br />I’ll offer you oranges <br />and to peel them a knife no bigger than a thumb <br />an ivory knife I’ll steal when the battle is over <br />a dead man’s gift to another woman <br />and you’ll be bound to think of her, of her cold sheets, of the hole in her pocket <br />traded for the knife <br /><br />I’ll offer you blades of grass that cling to the soles of my feet <br />from shoots that grow there, where the bodies lie <br />standing tall as sentinels at the precise point their retreat ended<div><br /></div><div><br /><div><br /></div><div>More Information on her Work here:</div><div><br /></div><div><div>https://www.versopolis-poetry.com/poet/58/aurelia-lassaque</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-22266438838555248752020-08-20T01:28:00.003-07:002020-08-20T15:09:40.070-07:00Poems from the Backroom: Gerry McGrath<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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One lesson of the #plagueopoems is that Scotland seems jam packed with poets. There are loud poets and there are douce poets, poets who have a big social media presence and poets who just work at writing poetry. I think Gerry McGrath is an example of an outstanding poet who just gets on with stuff and leaves the shouting about it to others. There are others, Angus Martin for instance, who let the poems do the talking. Poems often talk quietly, however, it is their persistent power, so Gerry is not as weel kent as he should be, despite his impressive body of work.<br />
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Gerry McGrath was born and raised in Helensburgh, Scotland. He attended Strathclyde and Glasgow universities in the 1980s and worked for several years as a teacher before quitting for reasons of ill health in 2000. To date, he has published two full collections of poetry, both by the ever impressive Carcanet, 'A to B' published in 2008 and 'Rooster' four years afterwards, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Book of the Year in 2013. His poems have appeared in numerous publications, including 'Being Alive' from Bloodaxe and 'New Poetries IV' from Carcanet, 2007. His reviews (mainly of contemporary poetry in translation) have appeared in PN Review. He has published several essays on important figures of global modernism, including Szymborska, Brodsky, Montale & Transtromer. He helped edit 'The Novel: a biography' published by Harvard in 2014. In 2004 He was a winner of the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial award. In 2007 he was awarded a New Writers’ Bursary by the Scottish Arts Council. He continues to write: has completed a third collection, 'Sparkle Horse', and is working on a fourth.<br />
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The poem he reads here 'Belvedere', takes a beautiful dreamy oblique view of a life that no-one's ever quite sure is real. It talks of permanence and transience, our twin controls. Is beauty sustainable? In this poem, at least, it is.<br />
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Gerry's Website Here;<br />
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<a href="http://www.gerrymcgrath.co.uk/">www.gerrymcgrath.co.uk</a> <br />
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His author page with Carcanet:</div>
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<a href="https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=876">https://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=876</a> </div>
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Belvedere <br />
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So they were sitting beside the belvedere, in shade. <br />
And they were drinking, barely exchanging a word. <br />
The sun was shining and words were beyond them. <br />
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Past the low stone wall lay the river. Further off, <br />
lost in the thin blue air, were the island’s three peaks <br />
yet to exist, as if they existed. <br />
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A breeze got up; the world tilted and water, seen <br />
slopping up the side of a glass, pushed the air ahead, <br />
carrying birds, the clink of ice, notes of lemon. <br />
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On the lawn children ran like small dogs, yelping <br />
with a mix of terror and joy, and occasionally <br />
a mother or father appeared to gather them in. <br />
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He thought there must have been days <br />
when people forgot even that they had gone to sleep <br />
and woken, re-born. <br />
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That they had flowed, like the river behind <br />
the wall flowed, huge and still and countless, <br />
grey as all rivers are grey. <br />
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The sun continued to shine and the breeze blew fresher <br />
and he drank again and thought <br />
in the eyes of small dogs days like this will come again.</div>
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Among the Blue<br />
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Somehow I wish I could say<br />
it was indifference not love<br />
that found the co-ordinates<br />
for cormorants among the blue<br />
the blue-white gulls<br />
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tell you that we have lived once<br />
and will not come this way again<br />
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say to you that as long as art<br />
teaches language of recovery<br />
eternal reminders of morning<br />
will grow on our sweat, spume,<br />
tick softly on our lips, on our lips.<br />
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Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com37tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2161080692117549637.post-17119886124866770252020-08-12T16:40:00.000-07:002020-08-14T16:54:11.461-07:00Party in the Backroom: Hugh Bryden at 70!!!<div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1j0tR0DNw7fuzq71v5slmp9Vdt9p7is6tdbupgcesfviyuUJNYDq_1ZA7aXSOEWa8b0_l3KSM3dXW5QogTHtZkai8HWbZGY98QOSgTkDdrnoUSUvCwcDrg88YS8reKZ_rb2RlWhUqHEo/s1600/shugangel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="757" data-original-width="1600" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1j0tR0DNw7fuzq71v5slmp9Vdt9p7is6tdbupgcesfviyuUJNYDq_1ZA7aXSOEWa8b0_l3KSM3dXW5QogTHtZkai8HWbZGY98QOSgTkDdrnoUSUvCwcDrg88YS8reKZ_rb2RlWhUqHEo/s320/shugangel.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Hugh Bryden's in the Backroom today, or maybe he's not. Or maybe he is and he doesn't know it. I don't know: it's hard trying to arrange a secret party for folk in these pestilential times. One thing is for sure, and that is that Hugh Bryden is 70 today.<br />
<br />
Hugh Bryden is a dynamo and creative genius whose own art work is exceptional but whose collaborations with a host of poets have received wide recognition and praise, well beyond Dumfries and well beyond Scotland.<br />
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Hugh Bryden was born in Dumfries on August 13th 1950. He was educated in Annan Academy and Edinburgh College of Art, where he was contemporary to an outstanding bunch of talents including Gordon Boyd and Billy Bunting. He graduated from Edinburgh in 1972 and moved back to Dumfries to teach the year after, as Staff tutor in Art for Dumfries and Galloway Region. Hugh had a succession of exhibitions and one man shows including ‘Paintings and Prints’ in Gracefield in 1990, ‘Prime Cuts’ in the Robert Burns Centre in 1993 and ‘Old Places, New Directions’ in the Otterburn Gallery in 1994. In 1996 he exhibited and held workshops in the Netherbow Theatre in Edinburgh, under the title ‘Hugh Bryden Print Makar’. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdKlRIROqRtohBij0dxaGp4XBtIzDnECTfj5wrcpO5Ew4QUSnTf-Qi3msVB9uROpx2UwC6gRFDDEqmi_gV163hWSZt-24XDT-EOCT31fRxUVPUZsmzDvDFYpzjvheoe-vhSnsR8w1fc1M/s1600/ritual.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdKlRIROqRtohBij0dxaGp4XBtIzDnECTfj5wrcpO5Ew4QUSnTf-Qi3msVB9uROpx2UwC6gRFDDEqmi_gV163hWSZt-24XDT-EOCT31fRxUVPUZsmzDvDFYpzjvheoe-vhSnsR8w1fc1M/s320/ritual.jpg" /></a>The poster for this exhibition included Bryden’s beautiful setting of my poem 'Ritual Roads, pictured on the right. I therefore claim precedence in his work with poets, Carafuego Press his innovative and beautiful collaboration with Tom Pow, beginning 3 years later in 1999. Hugh gave me a box of beautiful prints of these poems which I unfortunately left in a Dundee telephone box but I still have one, number 1 from 40.<br />
(See 'POSTSCRIPT' at end)<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="about:invalid#zClosurez" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>His enthusiasm for Artists’ Book led him to lecture in the subject in Rochester New York in 2002, and in 2005 he founded Roncadora Press to pursue the form with a variety of different poets, including myself, and win several prizes. A short list of recent collaborators would be Hayden Murphy, Tom Pow, Graham Fulton, John Burns, Chrys Salt, Rab Wilson, Jean Atkin, Liz Niven, Andrew Forster, Donald Adamson, Willie Hershaw and Donald S Murray. Here are just a few choice testimonials from some of that motley crew.<br />
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<i>What a fine artist you are, and what an honour to have collaborated with you on two limited edition collections – both small works of art in their own right. Both hand stitched, both sensitive responses to my poems, all sold out thanks to the high production values of Roncadora Press</i><br />
- Chrys Salt<br />
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<i> Such a generous man, his attention to detail legendary, his art and sensitivity to the words of others so surefooted.</i><br />
- Jean Atkin<br />
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<i>You’re also left in awe of his artistic skills. He’s incredibly generous with his time and talents and D & G are so lucky to have him in our midst.</i><br />
- Liz Niven<br />
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<i>Bryden is concerned with the artistic merit of a submission. Is it a voice that needs to be heard? Does it have something different and important to say? Does it meet with the publisher’s high artistic standards? These are the things that Hugh thinks about before he considers the writer’s reputation or how many yards of book shelves the work has the potential to shift</i><br />
- Willie Hershaw<br />
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In honour of the man also here is a Tutu from Graham Fulton, a Tanka from Hayden Murphy and a Stonker from Donald S Murray.<br />
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TO HUGH: <br />
<br />
bearded seventy, <br />
safely landed, ship shape. Sage, <br />
Thyme, Rosemary leafing. <br />
Joy-riding with Heaney. Jazz <br />
in the garden of 2020. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv-69sZEN217DIdvMLeBheinQSQKCTdqRtDdygdtyc_v6arh3hxCIIhiL3jA4BwE5EaWgn9Kf_e8jbWPzBWQFpsPK_Df9Wp1hHw1X8bR_r5eGkpt_2Ba095YK67PdZpOWynYiBDwsjJYA/s1600/gratutu.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv-69sZEN217DIdvMLeBheinQSQKCTdqRtDdygdtyc_v6arh3hxCIIhiL3jA4BwE5EaWgn9Kf_e8jbWPzBWQFpsPK_Df9Wp1hHw1X8bR_r5eGkpt_2Ba095YK67PdZpOWynYiBDwsjJYA/s320/gratutu.jpg" /></a><br />
Hayden Murphy<br />
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ACHANALT - for Hugh<br />
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You stepped where I - at that time - never stood,<br />
on that station platform<br />
to sketch memorial headstones,<br />
water, moor and wood<br />
and bring my verse to a different form of life.<br />
Hugh, your drawings provide<br />
return tickets to our inspirations,<br />
a new way to arrive,<br />
say, in that destination en route to Kyle<br />
or Inverness. I marvel<br />
at your artistry, the grace and skill<br />
that makes observers stop and wonder,<br />
shake their heads and smile.<br />
<br />
Donald S Murray<br />
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float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="about:invalid#zClosurez" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>As for me, I've always been in awe of his imagination and creative strength but I love his human qualities more. He drinks a bit, he's really generous and he's a good laugh. I suppose t the greatest strain this assemblage of virtues came under was during our great 'Doors' Collaboration in Dumfries. All Hugh's collaborations with poets amount, of course, to him doing all the work while the poets do eff all but actually building, painting and illustrating 8 life sized free standing doors while I sat and drank coffee or beer was, you would think, an imposition too much. It is to his huge credit that he didn't murder me, even though the strain of that entire operation is why he's 70 today rather than his true age, 55. <br />
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It should not be forgotten that Hugh is an accomplished poet, featuring in the seminal work of Dumfries and Galloway Scots poetry ‘Chuckies fir the Cairn’ published by Luath in 2009 and edited by Rab Wilson, and publishing his own pamphlet ‘If Ah could Talk tae the Artists’ which in 2008 was shortlisted for the Calum Macdonald Prize. <br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2161080692117549637&useLegacyBlogger=true"></a>Hugh’s striking prints and linocuts grace many a wall in D and G and his generous discounting or delayed payments plans have enabled me over the years to make art lovers out of many relatives and friends. It will surprise no-one that Hugh has been spending the period of lock-down due to Coronavirus, on an ambitious project, painting 50 miniature icons and still-lives to exhibit as a celebration of his birthday. Hugh’s hands and brain are never still. He has more ingenuity and vim than anyone I’ve ever known. Let's celebrate a great Scottish Creative! Cheers Hugh!<br />
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Here he is reading <span style="text-align: center;">some of his poems in the series 'If Ah Could Talk tae the Artists' outside the new Bazaar when he was still 69:</span><br />
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His Website Here:<br />
<a href="https://www.hughbryden.com/">https://www.hughbryden.com/</a><br />
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From 'If Ah Could Talk Tae the Airtists'<br />
<br />
<br />
‘Ear Vincent,<br />
there youse were, luggin canvases<br />
aboot the countryside,<br />
lobbin paint ontae thum.<br />
Ah could wax lyrical aboot yer talent,<br />
beat the drum, blow the trumpet, pinball medal on ye.<br />
Yet, maist fowk ken ye fur jist wan thing,<br />
An ah wouldnae lower the conversation bi mentioning<br />
that cartilaginous portion -<br />
or lack o it.<br />
-at least no one earshot!<br />
<br />
Pablo Picasso, a wurd in yer eye.<br />
If ye could see the state o BritArt,<br />
yer nose wud be richt oot o place.<br />
Pickled coos, in unmade beds,<br />
an thets jist the hef o it.<br />
Ah’m no joking, thon urinal o Marcel’s<br />
opent the floodgates,<br />
the stuff’s everywhere.<br />
The Market’s Saatchi rated.<br />
<br />
What’s the crack, Georges Braque,<br />
Ye multifaceted nan?<br />
Those thir never, valued you ever,<br />
cannae hiv seen the sides Ah can<br />
<br />
Egon Schiele, Ah get a feel a,<br />
unease in ma hert.<br />
Whin Ah keek at, aa the geeks that,<br />
populate yer art.<br />
<br />
Ca canny, Edouard Manet,<br />
wi yer luncheons in the grass.<br />
Alfresco dinin’s great, but fave it mate,<br />
this wee lass will freeze hit arse.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
His Faither’s Voice<br />
<br />
<br />
Ah woke huntin fur ma deid faither’s<br />
voice, siftin ma mind’s sound Giles<br />
<br />
Ah could see him clearly, smile<br />
tugged squint bi a cigarette<br />
<br />
felt ma bairn’s face flinch<br />
frae his stubble embrace<br />
<br />
smelt the oil thick tobacco<br />
slick o his workshop<br />
<br />
tasted his salty porridge<br />
texture tied aroon ma tongue.<br />
<br />
Still Ah couldny find the sound o him.<br />
Fa’in back tae slumber, tho, Ah heard<br />
<br />
<i>Boy, is it no aboot time you wir getting up</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<br />
*POSTSCRIPT! ANXIOUS IRISH POET SECURES BRAGGING RIGHTS!*<br />
<br />
Hayden Murphy's lawyers have been in touch to make sure that everyone knows that estimable Irish poet's association with Hugh Bryden, their excellent and long lived Bloomsday collaboration, began in fact in June 1992, yonks before everyone else's. The man is quite right. I have settled out of court.<br />
<i><br /></i>
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Shughttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03595952760142971192noreply@blogger.com3