Rights, Light and Language

Here's a few recent internet discoveries:

Novelist Clare Dudman discussing David Crystal and the evolution of language on the internet.

Poet Dick Jones describing how he helped gypsies to establish land rights with a first post describing the ethnic origins of gypsies and a second post about the romantic impulse that caused him to introduce himself to the gypsies living near his home in Surrey. And finally, a fine poem called 'Beebee Helen's Merripen' that translates from Anglo-Romani as 'Aunt Helen's Death'.

Poet Todd Swift on the Economist magazine's view of Paul Muldoon. Todd concludes: "The Economist seems to want as unrestricted access to the "meaning" of a poem as it does to markets."

Poet Gerry Cambridge's long poem 'Light up Lanarkshire' which meditates on the nature of coal:

And what is coal? Coal is a terse black language
You could translate to the rustling tongues of money.
It is stilled fire. It is a sunbird locked in an ebony cage.
It is light made solid.

The poem recalls Gerry's grandfather who worked in the Lanarkshire coal mines and contains some wonderful metaphors for hope and despair is such conditions.

Martin Stannard is back with his updated Exultations and Difficulties web site which he writes, these days, from China.

FInally, I draw your attention to The Green Integer Review which features new poems by Joe Ross whose recent book I reviewed here.