tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76482135608300816282024-03-24T15:56:14.382-07:00Susan LindsayEmmahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18251639166839664522noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-43583373631285655732024-03-17T03:47:00.000-07:002024-03-17T03:47:36.571-07:00CREATIVE WELLBEING. Six Afternoon Tasters Apr - May 2024<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGS_vTmEBTktMCobKHAhjlzFrevJqgOSj3GXvCFczEUp-hdYnOrbI24nakYRU65Y51h4FhVjULepTSlWSaW2J3e-wPP1AhSCrrLmtGscyp675f2rrZCYbw_Ajj0LrIF_5R0E43Fr46aPwlHMSwpM289WyaVximEYErD59ymNb_8X3YGbfmkXLNraNtjBo" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="451" height="737" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGS_vTmEBTktMCobKHAhjlzFrevJqgOSj3GXvCFczEUp-hdYnOrbI24nakYRU65Y51h4FhVjULepTSlWSaW2J3e-wPP1AhSCrrLmtGscyp675f2rrZCYbw_Ajj0LrIF_5R0E43Fr46aPwlHMSwpM289WyaVximEYErD59ymNb_8X3YGbfmkXLNraNtjBo=w648-h737" width="648" /></a></div><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p>Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-32944669362711090562023-09-27T02:07:00.002-07:002023-09-27T02:07:33.806-07:00Launch of Crannog 59 6th October '23, with my poem Tiger Skin included,.6.30pm The Crane Bar Sea Rd., Galway.<p>Looking forward to revisiting The Crane Bar, Sea Road Galway on the Friday 6th October.</p><p>I have so many happy memories of attending launches there before returning to live on the east coast. So extra pleased to be reading my own poem Tiger Skin this time. The poem was inspired by the work of Pam Fleming exhibited in her exhibition in Kinvara in 2022.</p><p>I'm honoured to be included along with other contributors who I am looking forward to hearing on the night and/or to reading their work inside the covers.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p><br /></p>Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-21025966473149339872022-02-12T06:22:00.002-08:002022-02-17T04:05:22.453-08:00UMSL-GLOBAL Reading at University of Missouri - St.Louis alongside Patrick Kehoe. Host: Eamonn Wall
Even if we couldn't actually be in St. Louis, it was a privilege to read for the University last Thursday - 10th February, 2022.
The link below gives you access to a video of the webinair and to the many other great videos on the site. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vno1MG2pSQE&t=13s">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vno1MG2pSQE&t=13s
</a>Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-3031050349796185932021-11-12T02:32:00.000-08:002021-11-12T02:32:11.441-08:00Link: https://cassandravoices.com/current-affairs/comment/in-the-blink-of-an-eye/
To what ought we attend when life changes 'in the blink of an eye?' How can we best make sense and take care - of ourselves, others and the planet in the chaos that is an implicit part of change? Inspired by an article by Jennifer O'Connell in the Irish Times, fuelled by Dan O'Brien's article in The Business Post, encouraged by a grand-parent of family therapy, the late Virginia Satir, and the words of Financial Times journalist Tim Harford in his book How the World Adds Up, this essay explores the question of when and where to best focus while keeping an essentail eye on the ball as we make the best we can of change.
It is available here:
https://cassandravoices.com/current-affairs/comment/in-the-blink-of-an-eye/Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-20088560554033866592020-11-21T01:22:00.000-08:002020-11-21T01:22:36.509-08:00Humanity in Public Faces Unmasked in Alice in Wonderland Politics<div style="text-align: left;"> Watching and listening to RTE presenters give heartfelt
apologies for their lapse in attention to maintaining social distance at a
small gathering we seemed to have moved from
the tragic to the ridiculous. Alice in Wonderland came to mind as possibly the
best read. It was bizarre to see some of them photographed in small groups,
arms around their retiring colleague when, shortly before, attendees had been standing several steps apart and leaning against bannisters on curving stairs in a large vestibule with an apparently harmless drink in hand while listening to a colleague honour a departing colleague, </div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><b>How could they have forgotten or, as the daily faces of
the international news, been so naïve as to believe someone wouldn’t try to
make hay with the images?</b></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal">That, even they, did let their guard down affirms the
importance of what the Professor of Health Psychology and member of the UK Sage
committer, Lucy Yardley, had to say about the importance of recognising how
well people are doing at keeping the virus under control and the need to offer
solutions to the problems they experience that have them lapse. To offer
solutions to the difficulties that lead them to drop their guard instead of
chastising the outriders breaking the rules. </p><p class="MsoNormal">(see my blog of Oct, 18<sup>th</sup>
https://susanlindsayauthor.blogspot.com/2020/10/could-lives-be-saved-by-asking-and.html)<o:p></o:p></p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The RTE lapse beautifully demonstrates the difficulties
inherent in meeting each other. I’d imagine the urge to let go, for a brief
moment to be human again and respond as such to moments in a real and genuine
way will become more and more prevalent. </span></h4><div style="text-align: left;">We have a profound need to
demonstrate that our current strange behaviour is temporary and aberrant and
that, despite all the horror of the apparent cold-shouldering in socially-distanced
attempts to avert the spread of a potentially killing virus, we do actually
care and want to be close again and demonstrate affection and appreciation in a
real way. We want to keep ourselves human, remind each other of how difficult
this is, that we desperately need human contact and to overcome the inhumanity
in withholding it – if only for the brief moment it appears possible and is
relatively safe. In that moment the virus is something to be briefly ignored.
Of course health professionals will rightly remind us that that is the moment the
virus would be waiting for, if it was actually of a waiting-for kind of species
which it isn’t, but it is the moment it can cross from one to another. They’re
right and we need to hold firm.</div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Arguably it is also essential though, perhaps even more
essential for the long term, that we don’t become so adapted to distancing that
we forget what it is to be human and to care and to reach out to touch each
other in ways that have been demonstrated in the past to be as necessary, and
possibly more necessary, than food and drink for our survival</b>. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">If we don’t
recognise this and find solutions for the medium term, psychology and mental
health and wellbeing<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>may have its own
way of demonstrating that far from being the poor relation of medicine it can
take centre stage when ignored too long.<o:p></o:p></p>
<h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">I</span><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">t’s been
a bizarre week. </span></span></h4>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">Debates continued about
the need to further enforce lockdown in this horribly serious international
game with so much to play for or, as the DCU Professor reminded us is more
important, on how to keep each other onside, given that all the research has
shown that it is only the onside public who will win the war in the long-term. Debate
which culminated in this cameo moment in RTE. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">This with
a back-drop of intense media support for opposition ‘scrutiny’ of the
appointment of a supreme court judge who dropped his guard</span></b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;"> and then stupidly tried to blag it out instead
of immediately offering his resignation (at that stage a few months or a year’s
deferral of taking up his appointment would have been fine) suggesting he is
indeed not the judge we’d wish him to be but who nevertheless has not done
anything worthy of the initiating of impeachment procedures that opposition
self-promotion has brought to be considered. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; font-size: medium; line-height: 107%;">Brexit
deadlines appear to come and go like streams that emerge from the mountains</span></b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: medium;">when there’s heavy rainfall. </span><o:p></o:p></b></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">Where once they would
have had us glued to our screens they get minimum ‘scrutiny’ now. Further
evidence too, of the determination of Fianna Fail members of the Dail to do
everything possible to undermine their leader, finally Taoiseach, in their
attempts to appease their lobbying constituents or further their own end games.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">I’ve
never felt as much wish that someone would get behind Michael Martin and give
him a chance</span></b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">. </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">Same
goes for the rest of the government. The Greens were probably right. This is a
time we’d have been better to have a National Government but we are where we
are as we horribly say as in ‘if it was there I was going it wouldn’t be here I’d
be starting from’. This is the place we have to travel on from.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">If even
his own team won’t back Martin in the face of world pandemic and Brexit as the
country faces the worst financial and social challenge of a lifetime when would
anyone?</span></b></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">Everyone in
government are doing a great job, as in probably the best they can, with the
dogs baying at their heels and so are the rest of us – most of the time. It
would be just great if the begrudgers – albeit desperate in their own
particular circumstances – would catch on and start playing for the home team
to the greater good of not only everyone else but, ultimately, themselves too. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: left;"><b><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">The
public have never yearned more for – or appreciated more when it is seen - inspiring,
coherent leaders who keep them informed, whether the news is palatable or not.</span></b></h3>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Trebuchet MS",sans-serif" style="background: white; color: #666666; line-height: 107%;">As my daughter said,
even on public transport when the announcements started telling you why you
were delayed or how long the delay is expected to last and promise regular updates,
everyone relaxes and gets on with doing what they can. Why can’t utility
companies, businesses, the government, back-benchers and the media learn this
lesson too? Thank-you to every one of you who are doing exactly that and trying
to do it better.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-90045048933113531322020-11-04T01:57:00.000-08:002020-11-04T01:57:21.975-08:00Language is power. <div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"> <br /><span style="background: white; color: #050505; line-height: 107%;">The importance of language is particularly striking me this morning as votes are counted in the US election.
Trump's language. His tone, simplicity and evangelical delivery - if only in
the way he delivers promises he seems to imagine are reassuring, and maybe they
are, for his fans. Have we heard as regularly about other White House
incumbents, those who actually deliver on their promises - if/when they do? </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505; line-height: 107%;">A
master at managing the media story and speaking the language of his could-be
and actual followers. Now, when he has ‘promised’ to fight in the courts if
results don’t go his way, it seems we'll spend today speculating as much on
whether/when he'll go to the Supreme Court as on the likely outcome of the US
election. What will we talk about in the months to come if Bidon wins? </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><span style="background: white; color: #050505; line-height: 107%;">One
thing you can say about Trump, hate him or love him, a lot of people have
voted, even if they haven't for a good while. Sexism, racism, hell-raising,
content...? Yes, but if he speaks your language....</span></span></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-41928855878742723102020-10-19T05:55:00.005-07:002020-10-20T04:56:15.972-07:00 Could Lives Be Saved by Asking and Answering A Simple Question in Relation to Covid 19? <p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">You could possibly save yourself from becoming ill and from the embarrassment of
inadvertently spreading the virus to your team-mates, family, friends by asking and answering a simple question.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As well as paradoxically finding that </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal">‘most people believe [that] people should follow the rules yet when it comes to their own behaviour they
don’t follow the rules’, ‘ </p><p class="MsoNormal">‘surveys also show that people have very high levels
of intending to do everything necessary and report trying to do it most of the
time. And where people fail to do it, it’s not really that they’re deliberately
trying not to do it it’s that, often for personal reasons, it’s quite difficult
for them to do it’. </p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">This was Lucy Yardley’s answer to the paradox put to her, above, by
Andrew Marr yesterday morning<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Sunday
morning 18<sup>th</sup> October, 2020) on his weekly show on BBC television.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Professor of Health Psychology at Southampton<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>University, Lucy Yardley OBE is a member of
the Sage committee that advises the UK government in relation to the pandemic. She
continued by saying,</p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"> ‘Sometimes people can’t do it because they can’t afford to
and people have all sorts of other<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>personal reasons where they might have to feel they bend the rules a
little and where people are not following the rules. It’s not necessarily
[that] they’re doing it in a really blatant … risky way. A lot of people are,
for example - when they’re asked to self-isolate, nipping out to do “one last
shop”, because they don’t want to bother people with having to do it for them
and they don’t really think they can get online and do it. It’s not really the
kind of deliberate non-adherence that you might think.’</p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Lucy Yardley thinks that success in keeping the virus
sufficiently under control so that our hospital systems have not been overwhelmed
is down to how well people have being doing - a success she thinks we might be
better focussing on than on our failure to keep to the rules.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">She says, </p><p class="MsoNormal">‘… it might be a question of helping identify
where people are finding it difficult to do<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>infection control and coming up with positive solutions.’</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"><i>The distance between us narrowed in the collegiality of our grief</i></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">I know that, with hindsight, I didn’t keep the social
distance I rigidly adhere to – even outside – on the one occasion I was outside
with neighbours and intent on having a moment to honour, and then wave good-bye
to, the remains of a lively neighbour who had suddenly passed away as result of
an accident abroad. The distance between us narrowed in the collegiality of our
grief. In family, too, I lose sight of my good intention. In the moment it
seems so much more important to connect. <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Happiness is most experienced in moments of forgetfulness.</b> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">Flow experiences researched by author Csikszentmihalyi and described in his
book of the same name make us happy. We may experience them when writing -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>maybe that’s the reason for this piece, it
makes me happy to write it – making music, in sport, being creative and the
other myriad ways we momentarily experience forgetfulness. No wonder we want to
jubilantly hug the fellow supporters of our favourite team or groan together in
despair and leave all thought of the pandemic behind for a moment of respite.
Unfortunately they’re also the moments when the opportunity arises for the
virus to jump the now non-existent gap. Flea-like it can hope merrily from
person to person.<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Here’s the question that could save a life, or keep you from
the ignominy of discovering you’ve inadvertently become a super spreader.</b> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal">What
is your personal let out from following the guidelines? When do you feel your
personal circumstances require you to be a little more flexible? When do you
find you forget to follow your good intention?</p><p class="MsoNormal"> Of course the follow-on question
it would be good to find an answer to is: what could you do differently to both
remind yourself of your good intention in the moment and find a way to stick
with it? <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b>I</b></i><i><b> don’t know how not to forget it all sometimes.</b></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal">I think a lot of us are embarrassed to appear to be
following rules too rigidly. I certainly know I feel embarrassed when I think
people are looking at me a little pityingly. I assume they think I’m afraid,
see my behaviour as an understandable lack of courage in the face of the fear
of being a certain age with a possibly compromised immune system. I can face the
look down. We’re in this together. But I don’t know how not to forget it all
sometimes. Surely it’s not beyond the IT world to add a tone of reminder when
we get too close to others? I'wondering what other remedies we might collectively be
creative enough to put in place so that we can support each other to remember, and act in accord with, our best intentions.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-59273305459014154392020-04-17T15:01:00.001-07:002020-04-17T15:01:17.230-07:00Never Miss the Opportunity a Good Crisis Affords<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Diary. 20th March, 2020<br />
<i>Never Miss the Opportunity a Good Crisis Affords</i><br />
<br />
The title phrase dropped into my mind as I sipped my
morning cuppa and mulled the ideas <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>clearly audible in the river’s flood. It has a
fast pace this morning. I can see choppy waves with white caps. The water is
brown, presumably the bed churned up from activity upstream. There are branches
and twigs in the mill.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the context of a global pandemic my small crisis was only the unfortunate experience of finding my
car clamped in a Greystones car park when I wanted to get home after a Dart
journey. I had paid the parking fee but inadvertently one
of the coins inserted into the meter had been one, instead of two, euro. Or so
I assume, as the ticket indicated my payment was a euro short of that needed to
park there for the whole day.<br />
<br />
The clamping was less shocking to me than the
difficulties incurred in making contact with APCOA Parking, their implacable
response - and fee of over a hundred euro immediately demanded before the clamp
could be removed. Perhaps it was the absolute unwillingness to engage in any
question of justice or the fact they apparently still held out-of-date details
of my credit card and the nature of an officialdom augmented by the simple digital
alternative options of ‘this’ or ‘that’ that led me to feel so assaulted.<br />
<br />
Being
able to make use of such an experience, as I have found before, by feeding it
into a creative endeavour at least ensures no good crisis is wasted and leaves one
feeling less helpless. So this week I followed a link* to renew my learning on haibun – a poem that involves a combination of prose and seventeen syllable haiku - and drew on the experience to have a go.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It was tempting this morning to stay observing the flood in
my quiet meditation. I managed it at the earlier thought of the stick I picked
up on the path while in Beddinge, southern Sweden, when there for a week at a design workshop some years ago, but the
opportunity afforded by a good crisis thrust me to my feet. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In addition to my
personal small crisis, this is a week of global crisis. The onslaught of the Corona Covine 19 Virus that is now
hitting Ireland, too, has led the government to shut schools and ask those
whose immune system might be compromised, by virtue of age and/or former
illness or ongoing medical condition, to socially isolate themselves and stay
mostly at home. The entire population is also asked to practice distancing
themselves from others by a meter or two. Age and radiotherapy treatment ten
years ago technically put me in the ‘compromised’ frame although I’m in pretty
good shape overall right now. Still, never miss the opportunity…. So it is
easier to write and consider new projects whilst virtually ‘self-isolating’.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Beddinge stick lying on the side of a pathway through
trees alongside the sea spoke to me strongly at the time and resides now on the
hearth of my home. The idea of talking-sticks – now often used in business
meetings and other gatherings and not confined to sticks, favoured objects may
be instituted instead – came, as I understand it, from First World People,
Native American tribes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a group meeting the person holding the stick holds
sway. It would be impolite, to say the least, to interrupt. When they have
spoken, or held the attention of the group in silence, the stick is passed on.
We passed a communal talking stick around the circle at our gatherings of people interested deep
imagery and later in my <i>Dancing the Spiral </i>workshops. Other times it was
put down in the centre of the group for whosoever was inspired, or had
something they wanted to say, to pick up. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The stick is shouting to me, My former experience of facilitating workshops, particularly more recent conversations drawing on poetry as a
stimulating resource, has me wondering about doing something similar on wellbeing
and resilience, or developing a network of support for people in later life. Considering what they’d like to do for what might be the next thirty or
forty years could help counteract the idea that they, and I'm one of them, should simply retreat into
silence. I am in thrall to the stick. Totems are powerful.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
It may be, that when the virus is long gone, or is dormant
with only occasional outbursts, this time may come to be remembered the tipping point for a fuller move online. My parking experience does not endear this thought to me. I have
a dread of ‘Surveillance Capitalism’. I’ve resisted the demand of a large firm
of Financial Advisors to fill my financial details into a form provided by
another company with its own Terms and Conditions. I am convinced they must be
selling the composite data gathered to those developing Artificial Intelligence
fields of data. This enables the developers tune their products to appear
‘empathically’ sympathetic to consumer interests, gain trust and ‘nudge’ them
in directions they desire to have their consumers go. I hate this process and
its, literally, mesmerising effects. I’m familiar with the expertise from early
studies in hypnosis - see Bandler and Grinder on Neuro Linguistic Programme or
Milton Erickson’s book, My Voice Will Go With You. But for the first time I find
myself putting all that aside. I’m making more contactless payments, I’ve given
up on the financial advice as the markets crash (no doubt they’ll recover to
some degree at least temporarily). And now I’m considering facilitating
workshops online!<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am not a conspiracy theory devotee. I believe the evidence
that events, for the most part, arise and are often used to further various nefarious and also other, good, purposes
so I am not even considering the possibility the virus is anything other than
the effect of careless inattention to the inevitable disasters that face the
planet. Overwhelmed, for the most part, we just do not line up the dots and
face up to the dangers inherent in the possible consequences of our developing knowledge.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When the virus is no longer newsworthy historians may point
to this moment in time as the time when the internet truly took off with the
primed bed of artificial intelligence warmed by the sun of disaster and the
seeds sprouted. It wouldn’t be likely that the digital business world
would miss the opportunity afforded by a crisis either. In fact it is gifted to
them on a plate. But neither need we refuse the possibilities - not least the opportunity to get creative and transform fears and challenges faced into whatever kind of art appeals. Such endeavours may even be the counter catalyst that ensures 'the human factor' remains sufficiently unpredicable that it remains impossible to predict and ensures our behaviour cannot be too extensively controlled.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<b><u>Related Links - haibun; Surveillance Capitalism; Beddinge retreat 2020.</u></b><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
* <a href="http://www.cattailsjournal.com/definitions.html">cattails: a journal of the united haiku and tanka society</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This website, indirectly brought to my attention by Maeve O'Sullivan, has haibun and haiku details.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/02/age-of-surveillance-capitalism-shoshana-zuboff-review">The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff review – we are the pawns | Books | The Guardian</a><br />
<br />
2020 Retreat at Beddinge combining yoga and creativity<br />
<br />
<a href="http://liznilsson.com/retreats">http://liznilsson.com/retreats</a><br />
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u><b>Related and Relevant previous blogs:</b></u><br />
<br />
Having the Conversation - About... Poetry related converstions see 2017 post:<br />
<br />
https://susanlindsayauthor.blogspot.com/2017/03/join-in-new-conversation-doubt-faith.html<br />
<br />
Dancing the Spiral see 2014 post<br />
<br />
https://susanlindsayauthor.blogspot.com/2014/11/dancing-spiral.html</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-32154811935653572732018-10-23T00:38:00.000-07:002018-11-06T02:22:09.898-08:00Superstition and The Galway Advertiser: Seven Years on – in Galway Library<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJv2IvEuUcsNbXk28rzyjoTBEsWG88JZX4IF51KUKWRSGn2tgdniInBVRy4WOEGCwe-qlwtKFTUkLDem3gwPn7kkCQwHT0qhmLD2_ii9XMtPdTE5s3_5LZBzk81SpnmhgezKIwxYZYMY/s1600/20181023_080408.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzJv2IvEuUcsNbXk28rzyjoTBEsWG88JZX4IF51KUKWRSGn2tgdniInBVRy4WOEGCwe-qlwtKFTUkLDem3gwPn7kkCQwHT0qhmLD2_ii9XMtPdTE5s3_5LZBzk81SpnmhgezKIwxYZYMY/s400/20181023_080408.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
It was a Hallow’een night in my daughter’s home in Sutton.
For a moment I didn’t know where I was as I followed the camera up winding
stairs to the top floor of a New York apartment block.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As Tony Curtis launched my third book from Doire Press at
Poetry Ireland headquarters in Dublin last week I thought of Samuel Menashe, who
lived at the top of those stairs. Curtis spoke of his liking for superstition
and went on to explore the linkages that his research and the pop-ups in his
memory had evoked as he read the poems in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Milling
the Air</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Seven years ago my Hallow’een poem, Francis Bacon and Samuel
Menashe by Strange Coincidence, was mentioned in a review in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Galway Advertiser</i>. Nothing To Lose In Getting Dressed ,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a review of my first
book of poetry<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whispering the Secrets, was written by Kevin Higgins. Subsequent events confirmed that local newspapers
and radio can have powerful reach.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In 2011 the American poet Samuel Menashe was living what
were to be his final months in a nursing home in New York. His friend, the
author and critic, Nicholas Birns saw the review on-line and sought a copy of
my book to give him. The photo of Menashe reading my book, his encouraging
words relayed to me by Birns and the sad news received, one early morning in
August, that Samuel Menashe had passed away during the night having ‘truly
enjoyed’ my poems and had had my book by his bedside in his final weeks and days
remain with me when I write. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We all need encouragement and I love the poems of Menashe –
a winner of the 2004 Most Neglected Master Award from the US Poetry Foundation.
It was watching Menashe reading those poems on the DVD film Life is IMMENSE by
Pamela Robertson-Pearce that, alongside a visit to the Francis Bacon Studio in the
Hugh Lane Gallery - around the corner from Poetry Ireland - had led to the
poem. The film accompanies his New and Selected Poems Edited by Christopher Ricks
(Bloodaxe Books, 2009). Nicholas Birns later wrote a further review of my first
book <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Whispering the Secrets </i>–
something that is hard to get for a first, or any, collections coming from a
small poetry press. I’m still grateful for it and to Kevin Higgins and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Galway Advertiser </i>for that first
review allowing significant connections to be made.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Strangely, I discovered a further coincidence while
interviewing the US Poet Laureate, poet Kay Ryan, for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skylight 47 – </i>that has just launched its Galway 2020 project. She
and Menashe were friends. He had discovered the first poem of hers published in
an issue of a prestigious New York newspaper that was left on a park bench in
Central Park where he liked to walk. He rang her to tell her how<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>much he liked it and invited her to visit him
should she visit the city in future. It was several years later, she told me,
before she could visit but they kept in touch thereafter. ‘Superstition’, or
synchronicity – as the psychologist Carl Jung might call it – ‘strange
coincidence[s]’ abound.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I’ll be reading alongside poets Louis Mulcahy & Maurice
Devitt at Galway City Library on Tuesday 30<sup>th</sup> Octber, at 18.00 (N.B.
6pm). Before that, we'll be reading in Cork City Library 6.30 Tues 23rd Oct and Dublin's Pearse Street library at 6.30pm on Thurs 25th Oct. More on posts below & Come Along!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/new-selected-poems-935">https://www.bloodaxebooks.com/ecs/product/new-selected-poems-935</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://bloodaxeblogs.blogspot.com/2011/11/nicholas-birns-eulogy-for-samuel.html">http://bloodaxeblogs.blogspot.com/2011/11/nicholas-birns-eulogy-for-samuel.html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/previous-issues/#jp-carousel-78">https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/previous-issues/#jp-carousel-78</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/let-the-stories-be-told-project-launch/">https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/2018/10/19/let-the-stories-be-told-project-launch/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-37085361491664545592018-10-17T05:57:00.001-07:002018-10-17T06:40:23.292-07:00Doire Press poets on tour: A Crack in Everything/the Irish Times...It's not everyday the Baldoyle Race Course gets commemorated in the opening lines of poem! A poem that goes on to explore changing landscapes. Thank-you to Ruth McKee wrote the article published in <i>The Irish Times </i>today and to be found at the link below.<br />
<br />
I've only begun to allow myself acknowledge my shocked sense of loss when the UK voted for Brexit. A lifetime of divisions finally healing, now cracking... The ruptured landscapes of a divided island, divided family and divided history known personally and collectively. It's quite an amazing moment to be reading in Belfast Central library tomorrow at 3pm - as they celebrate 130 years of making books available and we verge on the edge of we know not quite what politically... I look forward to having an opportunity to voice what these cracks and memories have meant to me in poems such as When the Bombs Went Off.../ in Paris, New York, Gaza, Yemen.... (I wrote 'the poems went off' in error here first!) 'I thought of Belfast...'. Gather In: the oak tree of the poem; Derry, Doire, Doire Press who organised the visit; Ballinderreen where I wrote so many of the poems - town of the little oak, Requiem 2014, and to hear for the first time my fellow poets - Maurice Devitt and Louis Mulcahy - read from their new books.<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/doire-press-poets-on-tour-a-crack-in-everything-1.3665376&source=gmail&ust=1539866143713000&usg=AFQjCNFJIG6KHvt_AAcixndO7Rmou_Xm3g" href="https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/doire-press-poets-on-tour-a-crack-in-everything-1.3665376" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;" target="_blank">https://www.irishtimes.<wbr></wbr>com/culture/books/doire-press-<wbr></wbr>poets-on-tour-a-crack-in-<wbr></wbr>everything-1.3665376</a><br />
<br />Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-7740812716192323422018-10-14T09:36:00.001-07:002018-10-14T09:38:34.652-07:00On Tour: Belfast Central Library. Thurs 18th . 3pm<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNQPRwkMEoI5Xwk1v87o3J7v_zdCwdNiWK3uRz93AebhjDOZmEvdOhgukZsuyfu01rnhfVH5vp4Au3mCBGnYTmJaygJKOeiZyWVqTSQDAqoOlxoKl7hWXSFwnXPt9HPfBqL2fhRuGP0Y/s1600/All_Invite_2018.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1183" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNQPRwkMEoI5Xwk1v87o3J7v_zdCwdNiWK3uRz93AebhjDOZmEvdOhgukZsuyfu01rnhfVH5vp4Au3mCBGnYTmJaygJKOeiZyWVqTSQDAqoOlxoKl7hWXSFwnXPt9HPfBqL2fhRuGP0Y/s400/All_Invite_2018.jpeg" width="323" /></a></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-48238354572262468972018-09-20T06:37:00.000-07:002018-09-20T06:38:28.847-07:00<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTj-Y8aLeDvMFvekWZ7M0ejdkPcz7IDoc94cbP92Bhvzb7pSZKJIT2oUns7OZhVX_-LJvMixiDwhR3MEb8a584wgJHu8fSsdug3Go5ee1ow260WWAUxtKMapm83i8hyXhUP0GcmrJ4TY/s1600/Breda_Susan_invite.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1600" height="339" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQTj-Y8aLeDvMFvekWZ7M0ejdkPcz7IDoc94cbP92Bhvzb7pSZKJIT2oUns7OZhVX_-LJvMixiDwhR3MEb8a584wgJHu8fSsdug3Go5ee1ow260WWAUxtKMapm83i8hyXhUP0GcmrJ4TY/s640/Breda_Susan_invite.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-22930364872468775652018-02-21T12:16:00.000-08:002018-02-22T23:20:00.050-08:00On the Page or Spoken – the Essence of Poetic Identity <br />
<div style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.poetryireland.ie/content/cache/content/pir/PIR.123-Front.Cover_220_336.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Issue 123" src="http://www.poetryireland.ie/content/cache/content/pir/PIR.123-Front.Cover_220_336.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 353.2pt 355.75pt;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">I wasn’t thinking about my own poem about identity
when I interviewed Maeve O’Sullivan for the current (Feb,2018) issue of </span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The Honest Ulsterman</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">It did help to ensure that I read the
December issue #123 of</span><i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Poetry Ireland
Review</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">, 2017, earlier than I probably would have if I didn’t have a poem
published in it that thereby led to an early copy landing on my doormat. This
ensured I read Eavan Boland’s Preface giving me a context within which to ask
particular questions. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">http://www.poetryireland.ie/publications/poetry-ireland-review/editorial/issue-123</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 9.75pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Inspired by a hissie-fit
reaction to the arrival of my social identity card, needed as a bus pass, my
poem When They Grow Another Me ‘on a petri...’ raises the question, among
others, about what will happen if they lose ‘me’? The questions now appear to have
a parallel in questions being asked about poetry and its authors in a spat, or
spout raised in an essay in <i style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">PN Review</i>. Thankfully
poetry can’t be grown from DNA and we can’t either clone or own its essence but
that doesn’t mean there won’t be those who will continue to try.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="clear: left; float: left; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img height="200" src="https://magazine.thebluenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/issue-23_edited-2-400x600.jpg" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;" width="133" /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><i>The Blue Nib</i></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><i> </i>online literary journal issue launched 20<sup>th</sup> February, 2018 has an article by Jane Simmons examining the split in the poetry world because, she reports, of a searing essay by Rebecca Watts published in <i>PN Review </i>titled The Cult of the Noble Amateur (see http://www.pnreview.co.uk/cgi-bin/scribe?item_id=10090 ) in which she takes issue with award winning work of poets such as Holly McNish, Kate Tempest and Rupi Kaur. Apparently successful because ‘artless poetry sells’. Both Tempest and McNish have won The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, the latter for a work of poetic memoir. ‘From the Judges:</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> Poetry and prose mix well creating an internal rhythm that </span><span style="font-size: 16px;">is conversational and honest'</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/ted-hughes-award/2016-2/" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 16px;">http://poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/ted-hughes-award/2016-2/</span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.pnreview.co.uk/members/pnr239/pnr239.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="PN Review 239" border="0" height="200" src="https://www.pnreview.co.uk/members/pnr239/pnr239.jpg" width="140" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 18.0pt 36.0pt 54.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt 108.0pt 126.0pt 144.0pt 162.0pt 180.0pt 198.0pt 216.0pt 234.0pt 252.0pt 270.0pt 288.0pt 306.0pt 324.0pt 342.0pt 360.0pt 378.0pt 396.0pt 414.0pt 432.0pt 450.0pt 468.0pt 486.0pt 504.0pt 522.0pt 540.0pt 558.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="color: windowtext;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 18.0pt 36.0pt 54.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt 108.0pt 126.0pt 144.0pt 162.0pt 180.0pt 198.0pt 216.0pt 234.0pt 252.0pt 270.0pt 288.0pt 306.0pt 324.0pt 342.0pt 360.0pt 378.0pt 396.0pt 414.0pt 432.0pt 450.0pt 468.0pt 486.0pt 504.0pt 522.0pt 540.0pt 558.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">The critique is apparently as much
because these performance poets received acknowledgement by the UK establishment
as it is about the work itself. McNish’s response is mentioned also. Simmons
invites us to consider our own views.
http://magazine.thebluenib.com/article/poetry-world-split-rebecca-watts-v-hollie-mcnish-jane-simmons-examines-the-split-and-invites-you-to-consider-your-response-to-the-argument/</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 18.0pt 36.0pt 54.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt 108.0pt 126.0pt 144.0pt 162.0pt 180.0pt 198.0pt 216.0pt 234.0pt 252.0pt 270.0pt 288.0pt 306.0pt 324.0pt 342.0pt 360.0pt 378.0pt 396.0pt 414.0pt 432.0pt 450.0pt 468.0pt 486.0pt 504.0pt 522.0pt 540.0pt 558.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 18.0pt 36.0pt 54.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt 108.0pt 126.0pt 144.0pt 162.0pt 180.0pt 198.0pt 216.0pt 234.0pt 252.0pt 270.0pt 288.0pt 306.0pt 324.0pt 342.0pt 360.0pt 378.0pt 396.0pt 414.0pt 432.0pt 450.0pt 468.0pt 486.0pt 504.0pt 522.0pt 540.0pt 558.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p><br /></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 18.0pt 36.0pt 54.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt 108.0pt 126.0pt 144.0pt 162.0pt 180.0pt 198.0pt 216.0pt 234.0pt 252.0pt 270.0pt 288.0pt 306.0pt 324.0pt 342.0pt 360.0pt 378.0pt 396.0pt 414.0pt 432.0pt 450.0pt 468.0pt 486.0pt 504.0pt 522.0pt 540.0pt 558.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<a href="http://humag.co/assets/uploads/images/observatory/blog_44_5a859645080aa-870x440.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://humag.co/assets/uploads/images/observatory/blog_44_5a859645080aa-870x440.jpg" height="100" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt;">In the Preface to
the December issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poetry Ireland
Review</i> Eavan Boland explores the space between the more private space of
the page poem and the public language of performance. These and other
interweaving languages become the context in which she introduces the work of
Stephen Sexton whose poetry is high-lighted in this Dec issue of PIR and
informed the questions I posed to Maeve O’Sullivan as I interviewed her <i>The Honest Ulsterman</i> (Feb, 2018). </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">O’Sullivan is known for her Haiku and Haibun –
many of which appear in </span><i style="font-family: "times new roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Elsewhere</i><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"> (Alba, 2017), </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">launched by Paula Meehan in Dublin in the late autumn. She is a member of the British Haiku Society, was a founding member of the Irish Haiku Society and is also well-known for being a member of The Poetry Divas known for their spoken word performances – with the slogan’blurring the wobbly boundaries between page and stage’. Who better to ask about her experience of straddling what could be seen as the extremes of these genres? The interview can be accessed here </span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://humag.co/features/around-the-world-in-poetry-haiku-and"><span style="color: black; mso-themecolor: text1;">http://humag.co/features/around-the-world-in-poetry-haiku-and</span></a>-</span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="color: black; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">haibun </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; mso-layout-grid-align: none; tab-stops: 18.0pt 36.0pt 54.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt 108.0pt 126.0pt 144.0pt 162.0pt 180.0pt 198.0pt 216.0pt 234.0pt 252.0pt 270.0pt 288.0pt 306.0pt 324.0pt 342.0pt 360.0pt 378.0pt 396.0pt 414.0pt 432.0pt 450.0pt 468.0pt 486.0pt 504.0pt 522.0pt 540.0pt 558.0pt 576.0pt; text-autospace: none;">
<br />
<span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></span><span style="clear: right; float: right; font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
The dispute about terrain may be more interesting
because of the questions it raises that go to the heart of what makes a poem
poetry - who makes that decision and who owns the rights to a particular
language and its identifiers - than because of anything else: questions that
ultimately become questions about identity.<br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"></span><br />
<h4 style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
How and in what way is a poem identified as significant?</span></h4>
<h4 style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium;">
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Significant to whom? Is a poem’s identity decided by
the words ‘assembled’, the author, its title, its place in what has gone before
- and the milieu surrounding it? Do poems belong to us at all? After all a
proportion of poems are acknowledged by their named authors to have arrived almost
fully formed.</span></span></h4>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">
<div>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
</span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">U Tube videos, self-promotion on social media and
the established cannon or not, may quickly become redundant signifiers</span></h4>
in the
issuing of passports to amateur/professional/apprentice would be poets with the further
development of digital block-chain identities – already used by some musicians
to establish their right to ownership of their work. How important will the
critics be when the direct listener/reader to author route further becomes the
norm and established mediators are by-passed? I imagine they will continue to
have their place. It’s a very particular world. But the territory is changing
shape and it can be hard to maintain footing and tenure not knowing how things
will be in any future within sight.<br />
<h4>
In essence...</h4>
<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;">Come to think of it, even were some imagined ‘they’
to grow another ‘me’ not chained-in-block and registered on a web address
linked to an office in Estonia, or wherever else also provides such opportunity,
they couldn’t have my essence. Or could they?</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-33701223361257116642017-09-08T03:40:00.000-07:002017-09-08T03:53:48.044-07:00BOSOM PALS Editor Marie Cadden Launch by Moya Cannon Thurs 14th 5pm UHG <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNEJ2NXHixEB0I2HQD7SduDVQbV99o-27MZzk7vDQXgRuwzKua2wDdikmvvuM4FA6tU2JrlG0L2UQSBwF8K3QYpNadTrUXggrLfTaFyqQEepfSyBhyS-0g3qXA6Jsi9WL_NTNtuuZuEo/s1600/Bosom+Pals+Launch+Invitation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXNEJ2NXHixEB0I2HQD7SduDVQbV99o-27MZzk7vDQXgRuwzKua2wDdikmvvuM4FA6tU2JrlG0L2UQSBwF8K3QYpNadTrUXggrLfTaFyqQEepfSyBhyS-0g3qXA6Jsi9WL_NTNtuuZuEo/s400/Bosom+Pals+Launch+Invitation.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Add captio</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
PLEASE JOIN US AT LAUNCH<br />
of this very special project<br />
from which all proceeds go to<br />
Breast Cancer Research in Galway.<br />
More on radio podcast right.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Marie Cadden </b>is the author of Gynaecologist in the Jacuzzi from Salmon Poetry and co-editor of the poetry paper Skylight 47.<br />
While 'living with cancer', she has put together an inspiring and exciting of collection of poems from fellow scribblers who have also written about their own experiences in relation to the disease.<br />
<br />
<b>Moya Cannon</b>, poet member of Aosdana, born in Donegal, lived for years in Galway and now in Dublin, will launch this publication.<br />
<br />
<br />
Gynacologist in the Jacuzzi see more at http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=391&a=282<br />
Moya Cannon see http://www.moyacannon.org/<br />
Skylight 47 https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/ Issue 9 to be launched November, 2017.Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-33559691800304543252017-08-31T08:37:00.001-07:002017-09-08T03:11:39.027-07:00Business is Poetry and Poetry My Business. I'm taking to air... Fri Ist Sept on Dublin City FM 103.2. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKslzY0V6CWXUlJj6DV3ayOfBVZAIz7gVgDUD5UR9Ph9k79VyUNm79p7D8jkw_cdgZZURakd2IaKdjR16UTRk30DNnvJAwNQr7ctLGLFCsgMq7aaJvYvjE6pb7tuCvfsbqYepGZ_khZo/s1600/%2527Skywhale%2527+over+Galway+July+2015+008.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqKslzY0V6CWXUlJj6DV3ayOfBVZAIz7gVgDUD5UR9Ph9k79VyUNm79p7D8jkw_cdgZZURakd2IaKdjR16UTRk30DNnvJAwNQr7ctLGLFCsgMq7aaJvYvjE6pb7tuCvfsbqYepGZ_khZo/s320/%2527Skywhale%2527+over+Galway+July+2015+008.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<h3>
</h3>
<h3>
with Don Harris </h3>
<h3>
of Talkback Ireland</h3>
<h3>
12.30pm Dublin CityFM 103.2</h3>
<h3>
Friday morning, 1st Sept 2017 </h3>
<h3>
Talk to you there...</h3>
<div>
TO LISTEN BACK </div>
<div>
CLICK INTERVIEW LINK ON RIGHT</div>
<br />
<br />
Photo: Patricia Piccinini's Skywhale, Galway 2015<br />
<br />Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-56989431753820767962017-03-19T07:20:00.000-07:002017-09-02T01:37:20.651-07:00VERSEVENT POSSIBILITIES. - HAVING A NEW CONVERSATION Workshop and READINGS<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">VERSEVENT<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">CONVERSATION WORKSHOPS <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">&</span></b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> <b>POETRY READINGS</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Having A New Conversation – About … <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The extra dimension poetry brings, becomes as much valued
for itself as for what it contributes to the conversation in these facilitated
workshops. It brings new perspective to the topic and a holding ground for the
discussion, with the added benefit of providing a way into discovering poetry -
or a way into further enjoying it with others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No previous experience of poetry, or the topic under
discussion, is needed. <i>About - Faith</i>,
for those of any, or no, religion and <i>About
- Continuing in Confusion; About - Beauty & its </i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Possible Obligations;
About – the Stuff of Life <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>and About Love, Loss
or Death </i>are other possible topics. <i>Having
a new Conversation – About Dreaming</i> was the topic at the Cuirt
International Festival of Literature in 2015.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">Susan Lindsay <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
has been a professional
facilitator for over thirty years. She graduated in Social Science at Trinity
College, Dublin (1975) and practised as psychotherapist, trainer and consultant
to organisations until her retirement in 2013. She was invited to read for
Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series in 2011 and was a founding co-editor of
the poetry broadsheet <i>Skylight 47. </i>Her
poem Gather in was included in the Irish Edition of The Café Review, Oregon US.,
2016. A third Collection of her work is promised from Doire Press in Spring, 2018.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Versevent Spring, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Facilitated conversations mediated by poetry in a variety of
settings including for teams in organisations. <b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
‘Join In A New
Conversation<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Kilcoole, Co.
Wicklow and in Co. Galway<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">Bookings & Enquiries<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Mob +353 86
1671524. <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Mail </i></b><a href="mailto:versevent@gmail.com"><b><i>versevent@gmail.com</i></b></a><b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i>Tweet
@susanhlindsay<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.susanlindsayauthor.blogspot.ie/"><b><i>http://www.susanlindsayauthor.blogspot.ie</i></b></a><b><i><o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-fareast-language: EN-IE;">Books<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Fear Knot<o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Susan Lindsay’s poems are sometimes
enigmatic, often startling. She is a poet acutely aware of the complexities of
language, the levels of meaning a poem can have. When I read one of Susan
Lindsay’s poems for the second time I always discover something quietly
subversive lurking there which I missed first time around. Fear Knot is a
daring collection of poems. A triumph</i>.- Kevin Higgins<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Whispering the
Secrets<i> </i></b>
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>The voice of
experience wrought in lines that are lucid and direct…. this testimony of a
survivor is suffused with joy and passion and a clear eyed appraisal of what it
means to be mortal.</i> - Paula
Meehan<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>…a book of
courage and resolve. She writes of the “Fifth Province”, of confrontations and
renewals, of dreams and shifting identities. … Lindsay writes poems of deep
emotional control which communicate an affirmative celebratory mysticism.</i> – Paul Perry<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>That was
gorgeous. Beautiful writing.</i> –
RyanTubridy, 2005, The Tubridy Show,RTE Radio 1, on win for <i>Carol of Our Times. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-5993670079553360012017-03-18T07:44:00.000-07:002017-04-14T00:30:41.172-07:00Join In A NEW CONVERSATION: DOUBT, FAITH & CONFUSION<ul>
<li><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">Susan, Thank you for the workshop yesterday. I was amazed at how just a couple of poems could stimulate such a variety of reflections, comments and inputs. A far cry from poetry classes for the leaving cert! </span></i><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span></i><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;">I was ... struck by how the whole event lingered on after we had all departed. ...</span></i><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt;"> Dave</span></i></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 14.5667px;">Hi Susan, ... You certainly have not lost the gift of how to facilitate a good session. It showed... no matter what the topic, the possibility for people to become more aware exists. Michael </span></i></li>
</ul>
<i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.6667px;">E-Mails after Conversations on Dreaming at Cuirt International Festival of Literature, 2015. More below.*</i><br />
<div>
<b><i><span style="font-size: 36pt; line-height: 115%;">Doubt, Faith & Confusion?</span></i></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-size: 28pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="font-size: 28pt; line-height: 115%;">Facilitated
by Susan Lindsay <o:p></o:p></span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-size: 28pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: 20pt; line-height: 115%;">For those of no religion or any
religion, who love poetry or think they know nothing about it.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 24pt; line-height: 115%;">Four Tuesdays April 11, 18, 25 & May 2, 2017<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 24pt; line-height: 115%;">Kilcoole
Community Centre 7.30 – 9pm<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 24pt; line-height: 115%;">Co. Wicklow</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 24pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><i><span style="color: #b51a6b; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">In Doubt</span></i></b><br />
<b><i><span style="color: #b51a6b; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b>
<span style="color: #b51a6b;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><b><i>I want to hear about faith</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #b51a6b;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><b><i>about the way you put your feet</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #b51a6b;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><b><i>on the floor</i></b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #b51a6b;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><b><i>each day and rise. Whispering the Secrets (Doire, 2011)</i></b></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><i><span style="color: #b51a6b; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Susan Lindsay is an experienced facilitator. A third book of her poetry
is forthcoming from Doire Press in Spring, 2018. More biography in further Posting belong.</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">BOOK: versevent@gmail.com Mob.086-1671524
PLACES LIMITED.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;">€15 a night, €48 in advance for four. Concession: €12 or €40. <o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: 21.3333px;">WHAT HAS BEEN SAID ABOUT PREVIOUS CONVERSATIONS:</span></h2>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><i> </i></b><b>Comments received
from confidential questionnaires issued to participants</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After two workshops given at the Cuirt International
Literature Festival, Galway 2016 <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
- in Roisin Dubh pub and GMIT library </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
AND at the conclusion of the first of a
weekly, now monthly,</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ongoing Conversation in a local community in Kilcolgan,
Co. Galway <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="background: white; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 46.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><b>4.<span style="font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></b><!--[endif]--><b>Overall</b>: What aspect/s of the workshop particularly
appealed to you, or worked for you?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Theme, different poems, different:
participants; nationalities; voices; perspectives but having a
mediator/facilitator “in charge”.</i></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>All was good</i></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Experience of contrary opinions</i></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Particularly last poem, ’If the Philosopher
is Right by Mary Oliver</i></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Group discussion’. </i></b><i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Exposure to new poems; opportunity for
discussion, how listening is an on-going practice.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>“I enjoyed the non-threatening group
discussion. The depth of the conversation that arose from people in the room –
especially on ‘State of Ireland'</i></b><span style="text-indent: -18pt;">( comment on this poem disputed in a comment about what did not appeal by another respondent).</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Hearing different points of view.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Safety to express different ideas and
opinions.<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b><i>Open conversation.</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>Existential aspect of poems.</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>The social aspect.</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>New to poetry and fascinating to hear poems
being dissected and analysed.</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>Loved hearing everyone’s perspective (to) diversity,
just great!</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;"><i>Joined reflection and sharing.</i></b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">The mix
of gender in the conversation.</b></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin-left: 82.4pt; mso-add-space: auto; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; text-indent: -18pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><b style="text-indent: -18pt;">People
sharing different opinions, stimulating, different views</b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b> </b>WEEKLY (CONTINUING MONTHLY STILL, 2017) COMMUNITY CONVERSATION </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>In Ashes, Having the Conversation – About Faith</b>
<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Questionnaire responses from Spring 2013</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<u>What worked/appealed particularly?<o:p></o:p></u></div>
<ul>
<li><o:p> </o:p><i><b>Exploring others’ ideas, thoughts</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>When a theme was being really explored – the different
interpretations/perceptions which open my eyes.</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>The poetry.</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>The Structure was great and kept us on track …</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>Variety of opinions. Faith as an intro to other concepts.
Listening to all. Easy flow back and forth. Listening and feedback. Inclusion
of the poetry. Conversation aspect and respect. Hearing other people’s ideas,
beliefs.</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>Very sensitive to all participants and giving me the
opportunity – when wished – to talk. Testament to (facilitator) that people
felt sufficient trust to talk honestly.</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>The flow was great, input relevant and very thoughtful and
meaningful.</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>Nourished. Important that it was around faith.</b></i></li>
<li><i><b>Loved the use of symbol.</b></i></li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: 21.3333px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-43368906417098405382017-03-09T08:04:00.000-08:002017-03-09T08:04:50.450-08:00Immaculate Does Not Describe the Conception of the Children in Tuam: A Word To Fathers.<h3>
<br /></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The tragedy of the ‘single’ mothers and
their children - those who made it to happy adoptive homes, those who faced
great challenges and trauma as they grew and those who died whose bodies have
been discovered in what is described as some kind of tank– is rightly the focus
of our attention, grief and rage this week. Occasionally we are reminded that
these women, scourged further by being described once as ‘fallen’, are not the
only parties to the conception of the children but carried the consequence and
blame. Those children have fathers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span><span lang="EN-GB">I find myself wondering about those
fathers. </span></h4>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-weight: normal;">We’ve heard siblings, survivors, some of the mothers themselves. It
almost seems sacrilegious to consider the fathers - their absence and
protection so absolute. Yet, however often I get angry with men for their
mostly unacknowledged position of privilege and the hardship they’ve inflicted
on women - whether actively or by acts of omission – I know that many of those
fathers were also young and given little, if any, choice in how to respond to
hearing (if and when they did) of the consequences of their moments of passion
or early love.</span></h4>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></h4>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB">Did they recognise a surname and age and wonder?</span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">There are still fathers alive, or those who
wonder if they might have been one, watching those names of the deceased
children of Tuam scrolling down our television screens on Monday night. Not
many but there must have been some. Did they recognise a surname and age and
wonder? Did they already know, freeze as they saw that their child had died,
the body despicably disposed of.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB">Shame corrodes and can be impossible to acknowledge.</span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I used to work as a group psychotherapist and leader of workshops exploring issues of gender among others. Two particular challenges the men said they faced remain with me:
little support or recognition for the question of ‘where to put it’ -that is
how to deal with the intensity of their early sexual desire and how to deal
with their sense of, often profound, shame. Shame for actions but also,
frequently, times they’ve been humiliated and shamed by others. How shame
corrodes and how impossible it can be to acknowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span><span lang="EN-GB">To anyone who suspects or knows they are
the father of one of the children born in Tuam or another ‘mother and baby’
institution I want to say: </span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;">don’t pretend it didn’t happen. Do consider whether
there is someone to whom you can tell your story. You may have run when you
ought not to have, you may have betrayed your child and the woman who thought
you cared, but perhaps you did care or you may simply have been callous and
self-serving and your behaviour utterly unacceptable.</span><br />
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></h4>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB"> Sadly, the sense of shame is likely to be greatest
in those who were in the most impossible of circumstances and least to blame </span></h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">.</span>..because you do feel and know your part in what happened. So remember: fathers
are important too, young men often not supported and in those days and times
very few would have supported you to support your partner. It’s never too late
to acknowledge your own story and actions. Shame needs to be given air. Ultimately
acknowledgement heals.</span><br />
<h4>
<b><br /></b><span lang="EN-GB"><b>Many of you could have been and are, to
later children, wonderful fathers. </b></span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">You have a grief and sense of shame to bear
too. There are those who want to hear but talk advisedly and select your
audience carefully. The pain of women is so often overshadowed by the concerns
of men that we won’t have much patience for you now; you haven’t got it for
yourself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Soon, I hope, one or another of you will be
able to stand up and add your story to the unfolding narrative of our
collective shameful past. </span></div>
<h4>
<span lang="EN-GB"><b><br /></b></span><span lang="EN-GB"><b>We need present rather than absent fathers more than
ever </b></span>and fathers need to support each other – not to defend their failures and
absences but to stand together, alongside their sisters, in common humanity and
join in the acts of reparation for what, ultimately, is our collective shame.</h4>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-83969106217144576732016-12-18T04:20:00.000-08:002017-01-08T01:53:22.376-08:00Between Times: Advent<h4>
<br /> I nearly miss it in a sudden rush to get things done.</h4>
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrjavPO2QET7j1Z4v2iclOvqAG-wMjLAtGLWR_4KEh9SeLGTkYAhnscwWHiUS3aTnoiD_qzahCg6dceut7plZQ-EW7iLyekU65g68EN91mjmbPoT79M5Yim6KdK2TW42Z7BTLyZm6g7s/s1600/2009+various+300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkrjavPO2QET7j1Z4v2iclOvqAG-wMjLAtGLWR_4KEh9SeLGTkYAhnscwWHiUS3aTnoiD_qzahCg6dceut7plZQ-EW7iLyekU65g68EN91mjmbPoT79M5Yim6KdK2TW42Z7BTLyZm6g7s/s320/2009+various+300.jpg" width="320" /></a>The quiet low light and deep peace of early December that is Advent in the Christian calendar and my favourite time of year. The rush is less about truly preparing for
the festivities ahead than about panicking that I may not do so in time. Then I
reassure myself: that my Christmas preparations have usually been last minute;
if I’m going to panic it might as well be at the last moment - having first
allowed myself to feast on quietude, low light and forthcoming solstice images
of the sunlight entering the passage tomb at Newgrange.<br />
See <a href="http://www.newgrange.com/winter_solstice.htm">http://www.newgrange.com/winter_solstice.htm</a><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
It is not a recipe for a well-prepared Christmas time and the
conflict is familiar at all times of year. </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Christmas reminds me of the
inspiring Child in the manger of my childhood and the gathering of gifts, going
to church and to grandparents on Christmas day and to the other side of the family the Sunday
before. Then there was the total magic of first visiting Dublin’s Olympia theatre
and seeing sparkling ballet dancers in the pantomime on Boxing Day - more regularly
known in Ireland as St. Stevens’ Day. The conflict in my Irish identity begins
early. I find the material rush and hype from mid-November antithetical to
everything Christmas once meant to me.</div>
<br />
<h4>
I’m a natural
contrarian. </h4>
<br />
I’ve only to know I <i>must</i>
do something to be equally sure there are a thousand reasons not to and while I
like to dream of creating something wonderful, involving myself in the
necessary actions to bring it about is altogether another matter. It’s not
helped by wanting to attend: to listen
and connect - rather than get on with managing, doing and administrating.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<h4>
One year I began my December alone in a cottage beside the
sea and bare trees reading Harry Potter. </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That was a magical time. The sojourn informed
an early poem written in response to a brief piece by the poet Paul Durcan that
appeared in <i>The Irish Times Magazine </i>one Christmas. Despite it being a poem susceptible to evoking cringes, I enclosed it in a letter of appreciation I
wrote to him and he was good enough to reply with a Christmas card wishing me a
flurry of snow that did indeed appear on the big Day. A few years later I made
it to having a permanent home across the field from that magical small house.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">A Woman’s
Prayer for New Year</span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></i></h4>
<h4 style="text-align: center;">
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">After Paul
Durcan</span></i></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Waiting for the tides to turn, I am held by the soft
touch of trees and blessed by holy water from the well in a fairy wood. I dance
on the shoreline and swim in the deep.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">In silent prayer I wait for a compatible man who can
bear the pain of touch. He will be a man of prayer and consideration who loves
to have fun.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My laugher and shouts of joy at the sparkling stars
and the morning sun on the rising tide will rouse him. He will not be afraid to
hold my hand as, with listening and full hearts, we entrust ourselves to the
ocean.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">He will see the way at times when waves submerge me,
carry turf when I’m weary of the burden of understanding. Sometimes he’ll
proffer soothing touch and defer solutions and I will revel in the warmth of
his shining light and be saved by the clarity of its beam touching land across
water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">He will stay awhile before returning to his cave, more
of a home now he’s free to come and go and I will savour solitude the more for
knowing <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">he will return.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
2016 has been all about taking my leave of that home on the
shores of Galway Bay that verges on the Burren.</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The home that Gordon D’Arcy
says in his gorgeous new book, The Breathing Burren (Collins Press 2016), is at the end – or head of
a sleeping giant. I can’t remember which and my books are still, much
lamentedly, in storage while I further make space for them so I can’t
immediately check. But you can buy his book in most bookstores. It would make a
great gift to give – to others or youself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
The year has also been about taking my leave
of so many of the artefacts of family history. </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I moved into the house the year
after my mother died, my father had done so nine years earlier. It became the
repository of so much. I lived there alone yet experienced it as the family
home I formerly yearned. In my last days there it occurred to me it has been a
kind of archetypal family home fulfilling the fissures of earlier desire and
longing and having done so, leaving me free now to enjoy new terrains that
appear more suitable for the next stage of my life.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
As an apprentice verse-maker the process has seen me visited
by Kali</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Goddess Kali is the destroyer but also the other side of the Lord Shiva, the giver, of life
inspiring one of the longest poems I’ve attempted.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<h4>
Today, published in Spontaneity</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see that the poet Aoife Reilly, both a former
fellow Skylight poet and a more recent incumbent of that first magic cottage,
has a poem Spontaneous Love published in the new edition of the online magazine
Spontaneity. There’s one of my own there too. I submitted The Line in response
to an interview with Kate Dempsey talking about her book The Space Between from
Doire Press http://www.doirepress.com/ Doire also published my poetry collections <i>Whispering the Secrets</i> and <i>Fear Knot.</i> </div>
<h4>
<br />You can read the poems Spontaneous Love and The Line in Spontaneity </h4>
and follow the link to Kate Dempsey and enjoy the spectacular artwork and images and follow further Spontaneity links here at <a href="http://spontaneity.org/">http://spontaneity.org/</a> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-87539221169622829802016-09-08T01:27:00.000-07:002016-09-08T01:27:49.620-07:00Open Letter to Deputy John Halligan and Others lobbying for change in the health services.<h3>
<br />You might be most effective backing Consultant's Report and ensuring
Government act on its recommendations.</h3>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Consultant's Report that more staff, back-up and increased
opening hours in the existing cardiac unit in Waterford rather than a new
cardiac unit would most effectively improve the lives of Waterford citizens
probably make sense and could be by far the most effective in bringing about
change in the short term. This should be good news for public representatives
who could now negotiate to ensure such relatively easy-to-implement actions
take place immediately. The Independents are in a strong position, given their negotiating
leverage in the current government.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Building units takes time and involves a range of possible obstructions
down the road when your negotiating position may not be so strong. The National Children's Hospital project might be a warning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
Long term budgets for adequate service provision not capital projects should be paramount</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On a recent course (Spring 2016) with FLIRTFM in conjunction with the community
radio CRAOL Programme - Speaking Up For A Change for over 50’s - it became clear, talking with
retired administrative and social staff and patients who had been at the coal-face of the
HSE over a long time, that when administrators are asked to find cuts - and that’s
pretty much every year - the first budgets cut are those for pay and services.
This could be changed relatively quickly if we had the will. Buildings and
capital expenditure budgets are less easy to cut but also are for projects that
take much longer to provide. The real outcome wanted is for access to good enough service. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
Maximise what we have</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the conversation it became really clear that staff and adequate
resources to maximise the use of the buildings and expensive machines and to make them work
are what continually get cut. This problem could be solved most easily were the
will there to do it - which there isn’t. We say we want improved community care
and to maximise the use of hospital resources and then cut the budgets for
every initiative put in place to make it work. We were talking about mental
health budgets but it was clear the finding was true across the board. We need
long-term ring-fenced budgets for this first and foremost. (The resulting programmes from the Speaking Up for A Change will be broadcast on community radio across the country over the autumn/winter season).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<h4>
Deputies, do you want to cut the ribbon on a new unit or
ensure your constituents get the service they are desperate for? </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
You may be in
a position to choose the best option to get them the service it needs. Deputy
Halligan, it your case it will mean retaining your position to ensure whatever
you can get agreed actually happens.<o:p></o:p></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-2740551902012514292016-09-02T02:29:00.000-07:002016-09-02T02:29:43.529-07:00The New Politics is Looking Good in Ireland this Week So Far<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
An arrow of political accountability was shot across the
bows of an announced ‘government’ decision before it could leave the safe
harbour of the minions at the Department of Finance.</h4>
It scores well for
collective decision-making at cabinet and the right of the elected Members of
Dail Eireann to have their say on an issue that could be particularly important
to Ireland’s future – both economic and political.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Minister for Finance announced Ireland will appeal an EU
decision that makes <i>Apple</i> liable to
pay back tax to the Irish government for particular earnings. The issues
involved are complex. By appealing the decision the Irish Government – if not
the US government who might argue the tax should belong to them instead - could
theoretically be cold shouldering significant funds.</div>
<h4>
<br /> Such funds, as could for example,
house the ‘more than at any time since the Famine’ being made homeless </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
... and described as such by housing activist
Peter McVerry on a late night television
show on Newstalk last night (1.9.2016). These are the citizens who have been and
are being made homeless in the wake of the banking crisis and the nation’s
bailout and the dearth of houses available – even if they could afford them.
This is only part of the underbelly of Ireland’s supposed great economic turn-around.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
For all those who still believe that politics works best
when decisions are made by a central core few </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
– as in the last Irish Dail where
the core triad consulted, it seems, by means of coaching rather than by garnering
the range of views present at cabinet - this has not been such a good week. The
upside of that way of governing may be coherent immediate action but the
downside – the significant dangers that arise from group-think is among them –
can be seen in the actions of the Tony Blair government in the UK before going
to war in Iraq and in some of the decisions the Irish Government made,
apparently in thrall to the EU and unwilling to give the IMF sufficient clout whilst
the Troica managing the Irish bailout were in place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
Independent members of the cabinet made it clear they would
not be rubber-stamping decisions made outside of cabinet. </h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Both the Alliance of
such members and Deputy Katherine Zappone - whose contributions to the
international debate on the need to properly tax global corporations are, reportedly, on the Senate record of her time there - have insisted
on being given time to enable them to be better briefed before a cabinet decision
is made. The Alliance also insisted that the Dail must be recalled and able to
debate and vote on such an important decision.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
Initially I stopped listening to the recurrent reporting of
the known issues on radio and the media bleating about a possible cabinet
crisis.</h4>
Honestly, sometimes I wonder if a proportion of the media are jealous
that their own default role as opposition when the Dail couldn’t debate in any
significant way is the only issue concerning them. Now, however, I am being
better educated on European process and the arguments on taxing Global Corporations
by journalists who are clearly doing their homework. For example, it appears
this morning that the Irish government offered legal alliance to a similar
situation, a Spanish bank’s appeal to the European Courts, a few years ago when
they saw the importance the decision could have for the right of EU member States
to decide their own tax policies. A central issue is whether or not the tax law
applied to <i>Apple </i>can be argued to be
selective – one of the four key questions that are likely to be involved in any
appeal according to a Morning Ireland reporter/expert on RTE1 this morning.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
The critical line between European law and its
interpretation and the political decision- making that goes into making such
law may well be at stake here. </h4>
<div>
<br /></div>
<h4>
Cabinet accountability, as in making Ministers
accountable, and the beginning of a more effective Dail process is kicking into
gear.</h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Those
who long for return to two party politics while simultaneously moaning about both
parties should get over their caoining. (The traditional wailing at Irish
wakes).</span></div>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"> </span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-IE; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><br /></span>This has the potential to be a much
better way of doing things. </h4>
It will not be ideal. It is in continuous danger of
becoming grid-locked by indecision and divisiveness. But it is an opportunity
to develop a much more mature, effective and – crucially – democratic process worthy
of engaging the electorate who have put it in place.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h4>
It offers hope, and hope
and its absence is becoming central to the question of what kind of Europe and
world the next generation will live in. </h4>
To be fair, the politicians who spent
the first couple of months of their tenure putting the new processes in place
have served us well. I’m for giving them sufficient time to at least have a reasonable
go at finding out how to make it work.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-85925553122201215342016-07-16T11:33:00.000-07:002016-07-16T11:33:00.528-07:00Weighing the Odds <h2>
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> - </span></b><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Post the Brexit Vote and Theresa May’s new Cabinet.</span></b></h2>
<h3>
<b>Is the new British
Prime Minister playing an extremely smart long game or does she actually
believe this is her best possible cabinet?</b></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The question I
kept returning to this week, like a rough tooth that a tongue just can’t stay
away from, is whether the new British Prime Minister is playing an extremely
smart long game or actually believes her new Cabinet is the best possible.<o:p></o:p></div>
<h4>
<br /> <b>She acted swiftly</b> <b>to nail her colours to the mast for exiting the EU.</b></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Prime Minister appointed
Boris Johnson and David Davis, strong campaigners for the Against campaign to
positions where they will be to the forefront of negotiating the deal. She has
even included her rival for leadership by appointing her to the Energy and
Rural Affairs portfolio and she has appointed a new Chancellor of the
Exchequer. There is no question then of prevaricating in relation to moving
Britain on and out of the Union, that is the European Union. She has made her
commitment to the other, United Kingdom union, clear: she is Prime Minister of
that Union and has made clear her urgent concern to look after it by visiting
Scotland at the first available opportunity. She doesn’t want a Scexit from the
UK.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She has thus
acted quickly to reassure the majority of the voters who won the Referendum for
Brexit that she will honour their choice while allowing some comfort to the
others, half almost, in the population who know she wasn’t on the side of
exiting herself. She has also offered them leadership by demonstrating a
determination to honour the decision made regardless of what her own preference
would have been. <o:p></o:p></div>
<h4>
<br /></h4>
<h4>
<b> Theresa May has even managed to clearly
acknowledge and state from the beginning her commitment to resolve the
underlying and inevitable sense of injustice at the root of the vote.</b><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> The
inequity of the ever widening gap between the top echelons of society and those
most alienated by their suffering as a result of austerity politics and the
expanding economics of globalisation is currently at the heart of British and
international politics. As David Williams cogently put it in<i> </i>an article in <i>The Sunday Business Post</i> last weekend*10.7.2016, those in power
forget at their peril that every now and then in a democracy the population are
all equal, that is when they exercise the power of their vote. </span></h4>
<h4>
<b> A more Machiavellian perspective on the
new British Prime Minister’s strategy</b>, <b>the
one that that tongue just won’t leave alone, might suggest that the leaders of
the Leave campaign have been given their just deserts by the new Prime Minister</b>. </h4>
<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> Johnson is not getting out of the mess he led the British into by stepping down
from the leadership contest, he is going to have to face the international
leaders – European and way beyond Europe – who see him as having been a main
contributor to the challenges they now have to address and lead the diplomatic
mission to mend and move the broken fences. A quickly masked incredulity was
seen on many of the faces screened as the news broke of his appointment. While
theirs was not so, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t resist an ironic
smile while viewing the appointment from this perspective.</span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It may indeed
instead be encouraging that these Exit campaigners can be certain to work for
the outcome they supposedly desired. But the <i>caveat</i> must be born in mind that commentators have also suggested
it was not in fact their truly desired outcome. Instead their desire may have
been for political power. Well if that’s it, they have it – even if not quite
to the extent hoped. The curse, now it seems falsely attributed to the Chinese
who have never heard of the saying, may apply: may your dreams come true. It
will be interesting to see how they bring about what they desired and what they
learn in the process.<o:p></o:p></div>
<h4>
<br /><b>Nevertheless, if I
was in the Labour Party I’d be worried.</b></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Despite having
other small things to worry about – like how the shadow cabinet and Party
membership are to agree on a leader and direction for the Party -I’d be
worrying just how soon Theresa May is going to call the General Election, that
very possibly her carefully chosen cabinet would best position the Conservative
Party to win. Presumably it won’t be called too quickly – a certain amount of
stability has to be secured first from the initial chaos of the Brexit vote –
but I’d be concerned that it might be as imminent as is decently possible.
Would Boris Johnson and David Davison be re-appointed afterwards? Considering
that future sharpens the tooth that that tongue won’t let alone.</div>
<h4>
<br /><b><i>Angel Merkyl and Theresa May are capable of procrastination when it is
politically expedient</i></b></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was an
interesting piece in <i>The Irish Times </i>on
Friday, 15<sup>th</sup> July, by Derek Scally reporting from Berlin in which he
pointed out that both Angel Merkyl and Theresa May are capable of
procrastination when it is politically expedient. There will be an inevitable
period of stormy weather ahead for Britain and its relationship with the EU. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
<b>I think I’d put money
on the possibility that the Conservatives will form the next Government in the
UK and that, whether or not the EU exit clause is invoked, eventually the
relationship between Britain and the EU may not be all that different from what
it is now however it comes to be described.</b></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, if I was
a gambler - and like it or not we’re all gambling given the world we live in
now, although maybe it was always case even if less evidently than in the past
– I think I’d put money on the possibility that the Conservatives will form the
next Government in the UK and that, whether or not the EU exit clause is
invoked, eventually the relationship between Britain and the EU may not be all
that different from what it is now however it comes to be described. But I
wouldn’t put all my money on it. I’d take a punt against as well. If,
alternatively, the UK can make Brexit work the danger to the European Union
that it would encourage others to try to do the same might be offset by their
example becoming the most effective agent in bringing about the badly needed
change of perspective within the EU. In the longer term one possibility has
still got to be that the Brexit vote could ultimately lead to a better outcome
for both.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p><b>*http://www.businesspost.ie/brexit-dont-underestimate-chavs-carrying-polling-cards-or-the-chance-of-brexit-ii/ <o:p></o:p></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-85345446077006230062016-06-21T03:28:00.000-07:002016-06-21T03:28:31.765-07:00Trust Trumped, Democracy is at Stake.<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Continue to
believe that rhetoric, promises and arguments elect leaders and keep them in
office and you have the lost the ultimate key to the doors to power. Hit by a ball
on the head it dawned on me Donald Trump’s views have become irrelevant. He has
gained the trust of a significantly large number of the electorate who will
vote for the next President of the United States of America. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On Irish radio
the woman defending Trump said that without his golf club at Doonbeg, Co. Clare,
there’d be no jobs, butcher or other shops nearby. That’s important but not
critical. He has earned her trust. No matter what he has said on anything her
vote is now for him. She doesn’t care what views he expresses -about Muslims,
Mexicans or anyone in the United States of America. It’s not new but her point
struck home. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The hole-in-one
was the realisation that the most important thing is: he has earned her trust. In
her case it may indeed be he has earned it by seriously contributing to the local
economy. Having earned that trust she will leave the best approach on other issues
up to him. If he thinks a wall should be built – in Ireland or on the Mexican
border – then either it should be built or he has his reasons for saying so.
The rhetoric of politicians, commentators, friends, neighbours - even the
hurler on the ditch, become irrelevant once allegiance has been won.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lose the trust of
the electorate however, or anyone significant and you are on marshy ground.
Gain that trust, however you do, and you have gained significant advantage. Of
course arguments, promises proffered and delivered play their part but
ultimately the voter is deciding on who they can trust. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Once won trust can
be lost. It takes quite a lot to lose but lost it is much harder to win back
than it was to gain in the first instance. Hilary Clinton has ground to win
back. Church leaders might take note. Brexit campaigners, beware. Enda Kenny
and Micheal Martin should be learning that lesson. They lost the trust and allegiance
they’d long had. A new again politics– we’ve had similar in the past - ensuring
Government is kept accountable to the Dail is the result. The Dail must honour
that trust.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
False promise will
eventually come home to haunt you. To those of you trusted for the first time
and now elected to office don’t think that you, either, will be forgiven if you
don’t keep your eye on the ball of honouring and keeping whatever trust you’ve
won.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Donald Trump may
be winning now but he has set himself up. He’d better deliver or expect a great
fall from grace. Much more importantly: every time trust is betrayed it becomes
harder to trust again. Trust in politics and democracy itself is at stake.
Already a lot of ground has been lost. Tread with great care.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-80871946699756606972016-04-21T03:01:00.000-07:002016-04-21T03:01:36.776-07:00Meitheal Politics for the Second Millennium?<h3>
<br /></h3>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<i></i><div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<br /><i></i></h3>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">
<i>The innate spirit of
generosity and reciprocity that has made up rural life in Ireland is coming to
the fore to balance the cut and thrust of adversarial politics.</i> </h2>
<h4>
<i> </i></h4>
<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<i>Farmers compete at market but they
co-operate to get there.</i></h3>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
Civil war politics may be moving on at last as
we celebrate the hundred year anniversary of the 1916 Rising that also gave
rise to the circumstances of their formation. Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, the
two major Irish political parties founded from each side of that divide, will
not go into Government together to make the only possible cohesive majority in
the Irish Dail. It appears they will, however, support each other in ensuring a
working government can be formed. The Irish Dail is coming together in a Meitheal. It
seems that Micheal Martin, the leader of Fianna Fail, will support Fine Gael’s
outgoing Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, to be the first Fine Gael leader to return for
a second go at the role (even if he steps down mid-term as he has long
proposed) and lead a minority government made up of his own members of the
parliament and a number of independent parliamentarians, Irish T.D.s.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Members of
the Dail are working hard in committee at putting together a framework for a
new way of working in a parliament that will be much more collaborative and in
tune with the spirit of the Meitheal that forms an instrinsic part of the fabric of Irish history, society and psyche. The farmers came together in community Meitheals
to bring the harvests in or to assist in barn or shed building and similar
ventures. A new structure for the Dail aims to allow and support responsible
participation by all members of the House, and enable them to contribute more
through debate and committees to government. The innate spirit of generosity
and reciprocity that has made up rural life in Ireland is coming to the fore to
balance the cut and thrust of adversarial politics. It won’t make the
adversarial nature of politics go away and it should not. But it has the
potential to contribute a long needed balance and so allow for a much better
use of all the members of the Dail by putting their resources at the day to day
service of best possible government. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you haven’t
watched Borgen it’s time to get out the box set. This television series on the
forming and re-forming of minority governments in Denmark has become part of
the national conversation in Ireland, mostly thrown in by politicians, in the
last week. I had thought I was one of a small minority of people watching it
here. Now it turns out the politicians
have been quietly viewing all along - or maybe they’ve only just begun. The
cynics scoff at the notion of a new politics. However, as one member of the
panel on the Late Debate said on radio last night, it may have been Eamon Ryan
of the Green Party who made a great contribution to the discussion on
constructive oppposition, ‘Why can’t we change our mind-set from that
entrenched Irish way of doing things and do what the Scandinavians and others
are doing? We might even find we can do it better.’<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is part of the
wisdom of Fianna Fail, as well as their only real option at the moment, that
they will not go into government with Fine Gael. To do so would be a step too
far - with historical rivalries wagging the tail of the dog. This will
hopefully be a much more desirable first step that will bring about experiences
in working together – already well begun in recent Dail Committees, including the Banking Enquiry
into what happened on the eve of the Bail Out - and do more to fade out the
rivalries of civil war politics than any forced co-operation in a hot-house Cabinet
would do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We are a
creative people. We can do this. It is a time of unprecedented creative
endeavour in Irish Politics. The electorate have forced the change continually
promised but not delivered. Research indicates that human beings are happiest
when they are rising to a manageable challenge and bringing a solution to
fruition as Mihally Csikszentmihaly describes in his book Flow –the Psychology
of Optimal Experience. This is a good time for Irish politics and the journalists
having to catch up as they are coached by those participating in discussions to
change the discourse. ‘Well if you don’t mind, I don’t think that’s the
language we should be using. It is more appropriate just now to talk in terms
of partnership.’ <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s some
floundering going on but that has got to be good language to be moving towards
at the start of a new millennium. There couldn’t be a better memorial to the
leaders who produced a Proclamation to initiate an Irish State than to change
the language of politics to suit the times we live in now and to shift from a
conflict consciousness to the resurrection of the imagination of the Meitheal. Farmers
compete at market but they co-operate to get there. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Yes, it is a time
for rural Ireland to contribute its best while they hold a good hand of cards.
It is argued the rural vote ensured the last government didn’t return. That
thought helps to focus the minds of those elected on putting together a new
kind of government and making sure they don’t return too soon to ask the
electorate to vote again. They might not be forgiven for that. We tend to like
Meitheals.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7648213560830081628.post-8206704816505634442016-04-20T00:06:00.001-07:002016-04-20T00:06:40.954-07:00New Writers Opportunity - West of Ireland, from Clarinbridge Arts<div class="MsoNormal">
Calling
New Writers!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Clarinbridge
Arts, with the support of Galway County Council, are inviting writers to try
their luck in 'QUOTECARDS', a miniature publishing enterprise.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
idea is to give new writers from the west a kick-start. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
"It's
hard to become published," said a spokesperson. "And writing can be
very solitary. So we want to give some writers a chance to meet each other, we
want to celebrate them out in the open - and to micro-publish them!" <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Poets,
journalists, historians, thriller writers: any genre or form is welcome.
"If you love writing, are over 18, live in the west of Ireland, and
have not been commercially published before - you're in!" <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here's
how 'QUOTECARDS' works. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·</span><span style="font-size: 7.0pt;"> </span>Send in one or
two pieces of work (no more!) to <a href="mailto:quotecardswest@gmail.com">quotecardswest@gmail.com</a>
by 15th May 2016.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·</span><span style="font-size: 7.0pt;"> </span>A panel selects 4
- 8 pieces from all the submissions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·</span><span style="font-size: 7.0pt;"> </span>Each piece, or a
line or two from each piece, will be printed on an individually designed
postcard or bookmark. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·</span><span style="font-size: 7.0pt;"> </span>Clarinbridge Arts
print 100 of each card, 50 to go to the author, and 50 to give out free at a
celebration launch of 'QUOTECARDS' in September.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Symbol;">·</span><span style="font-size: 7.0pt;"> </span>The writer owns
the copyright of the card for future use. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
For
further information contact <a href="mailto:quotecardswest@gmail.com">quotecardswest@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></div>
Susan Lindsayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16428114657122478300noreply@blogger.com0