Us and Them
A golden shovel based on the final stanza of The Mask of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley. They hold us down but still we rise, deference dies, we bite them down to size. Like Jayaben roars, we are the lions, … Read more
Writing: Golden shovels
A golden shovel takes another poet’s poem (or extract) and uses its words as the end words of the lines of a new poem. So if you read down the right-hand side, just the last word of each line, of the golden shovel, you will be reading the poem that inspired it. The golden shovel expands, develops or even changes the meaning of the original.
testing
History Lessons
after Eventide by the Faith Brothers At the first opportunity, I dropped history – lists of dates of kings, queens and gilded greats, handed out from books by teachers who looked just as down about it as we felt. It … Read more
Video: Ribbons of Scarlet
Ribbons of Scarlet
– a golden shovel after ‘Scarlet Ribbons’, for Cush At the peal of the bell, they don’t tell you there’s a field that not everyone comes back from. The survivor’s been fearing that he’ll never stop hearing the gunfire even … Read more
From a Dragon’s Den in Milton Keynes
After Come to Milton Keynes by Paul Weller Me and the rest of the company grunts, we know for sure that we are being used as fodder for the god of profit, doff the cap to ownership, it seems … Read more
Throwing Stones in 2020
After A Stone’s Throw Away by Paul Weller News just in of last year’s protests starting again in Chile And hundreds of thousands massing in the city streets for women’s rights in Poland Burned-out squatters turning out in Johannesburg … Read more
Not In School Today
After Earth Beat by Paul Weller Her banner has a planet on, she’s carrying resistance and insisting that the government takes action for a new start for a cleaner, greener future from today. Her classmates walk beside her, she’s a … Read more
Reprise Her
After Liza Radley by Paul Weller While others despise her, Liza – that’s short for Elizabeth – Radley, I madly admire her, I see her dance and I yearn for the stance and the world of the girl labelled … Read more