https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/13/iris-murdoch-100-books-full-passion-disaster

Short extract:

A crucial idea in Murdoch’s fiction is the reality of others, a material fact that we are confronted with daily but, in our innermost selves, seem hardly able to grasp. We glimpse them in continually evolving contexts inflected with our own agendas, which may also remain mysterious to us. That situation, often manifesting itself in the form of a dilemma, struck her as the novel’s primary concern. An essay she wrote in 1959 argues: “Prose literature can reveal an aspect of the world which no other art can reveal … and in the case of the novel, the most important thing to be thus revealed, not necessarily the only thing, but incomparably the most important thing, is that other people exist.”

To write a novel, Murdoch continues, is to quickly discover that “however much one is in the ordinary sense ‘interested in other people’, this interest has left one far short of possessing the knowledge required to create a real character who is not oneself. It is impossible, it seems to me, not to see one’s failure here as a sort of spiritual failure.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/leo-abse-and-his-brother-dannie-l8kb0k5nn8b

Extract

Dannie had a different relationship with his wife. They worked together, they wrote books together, he never went anywhere without her. They were completely and utterly bound together. He was driving the car when she was killed, and although the accident wasn’t his fault, he has to deal not just with loss but with survivor guilt. It was difficult, God knows, for me to cope with my loss, but for him it is too much to bear.

The important thing is that he keeps writing. I’m terribly worried he’s given up, and that really is fatal. With courage, pain can be transmuted into something positive. It’s hard, but then just to live requires courage, particularly when you’re in your eighties. You are kept alive by work and love, and there are years of work left. Dannie can overcome this. He must transmute his grief, his pain, his tragedy into poetry and it may make him an even better poet. As it is, I suffer with him because my feelings for Dannie will always be paternalistic. To me, he’s still the kid brother.

Ancient nests of starlings  still remain
How  beautiful the instinct and the form
Although the birds will never come again

In Somerset they glide  above low lanes
Circling  like one being, god alone.
Ancient nests of starlings   here remain

Eternal life  is by the group attained
When one dies another one is born
Although the starlings won’t  come here again

The dead birds have no funeral  nor blame
The living birds will procreate  in time
Ancient nests of starlings   here remain

Their migration  is no children’s game
The  style and beauty of their flight ‘s  sublime
I’m sad those starlings won’t  come here again

And  so it is with  our possessions fine
They’ll be  discarded  when we cross the line
Ancient nests of starlings  still remain
And I shall never see those birds  again

My own photo.Copyright

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20190301-how-to-stop-digital-gangsters-stealing-your-time

Extract:

He says you can get back your time and concentration with a certain amount of personal effort. And he says it’s up to individuals, because “our government is not going to save us, and neither are the tech companies”.

He has a four-step plan to stop getting distracted by technology.

Step 1 – Manage your internal triggers: When we’re distracted, we’re normally looking to escape from something uncomfortable. Try to work out what it is and manage it.

Step 2 – Make time for distraction: Set aside time in your day to be distracted – that way it won’t feel like your time is being invaded. Give yourself a set hour that’s ‘social media time’.

Step 3 – Remove the external triggers: Turn off your notifications and the rings, pings and dings that tell you what to do.

Step 4 – Make pacts to prevent distraction: Get a technology app that tries to limit the amount of time you spend on your phone. The key factor is self-awareness: once you realise you’re being distracted by your phone or tablet, you start putting it down.

I have got PTSD.My husband hit me on the head with a wok
At least he didn’t cut it off!
So sympathetic
Tell me more
It’s getting complex
Like numbers?
How are numbers complex?|
When they are half imaginary
In a sense they are 100 per cent imaginary
But some are  more imaginary than others
Such as?
The square root of minus 1
Yet mathematicians are mainly atheists while believing  more numbers are irrational than not
Yet we are taught to value rationality
Value  lies in meaning.
Or is meaning gives us value?
Will you leave your husband?
Where?
Behind
Where am I going?
Ask God
How?
That’s what we all say
Does it get us anywhere?
How?
Was  that how or houch?
I am confused.
I blame numbers myself
Numbers of men?
No just numbers
They have no minds!
Just like the British people.
I prefer numbers especially aleph one
What does it denote?
The infinity of all real numbers
But we just agreed they are not real
What is “real” ?

oan

Copyright 2019 E.Limbrey

All I can say is ;find a video on You Tube

https://lithub.com/poetry-like-witchcraft-and-magick-is-an-act-of-transformation/

“When I write poems, I am a saint. I am unattached from the body of the world and living only in its breath—and every passing moment in between each breath is an immortal joy. I don’t write to capture this beatification; I write to find my way into it. What’s left on the page afterwards is perhaps not even a trail, or the spell itself, but the ashes left from the burning. The incense of my annihilation.

When I seek new poems by others or return to my favorite works, I am looking for this same experience. In this way the act of poetry is at root, a form of radical worship. Through its creation the creator is also changed—elements of the spontaneous, which are a hallmark of effective poems—contribute to a transformative rawness, or honesty. This in turn cultivates a sense of possibility.

The redemption of the self is a valid way of approaching the redemption of all. One should never utter the poem without concentration, but instead sanctify it, know it, and reflect.”

Poetry, Like Witchcraft and Magick, is an Act of Transformation

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/sep/30/how-poetry-can-light-up-our-darker-moments-mental-illness

Sorry I can’t answer the phone

I thought I was dead
I speak an unknown language.I can’t even understand it myself
I hate talking too much
I am in a bad place.The  Bank……..
My bed has no legs on it and I am  making some

The cat is dying
The dog has eaten my handbag
My  late husband is angry with his mother, who is dead
I went out and  have not got back yet
I am sure I am not here
I am  synthetic
I love God  but not  the Pope
I want my husband to  be resurrected
Why not write  me a letter?
No, I am not a Government aide
I am not alive till 11 am
Leave your phone  number and I’ll work out your horoscope
I am dumm and can’t spill
If you are deaf please  hang up now
If not, play Suzanne to my answering machine

How to pack a suitcase when  you never wear a suit
However did we pack ,when we had no kindle books?
How to go on holiday on the perfect route

I sometimes wore a sandal,  my  sister liked a boot
We were not so worried  by  perfection and our looks
Nor how to pack a suitcase when  we never wore a suit

If you play a cello then never take a flute
Don’t take any sandwiches unless you have a cook
How to go on  field trips  when the  your  anger  is acute

If you feel  the stress of life,  why not become mute?
If you have a caravan, is it overlooked?
How to pack a  suitcase when  you never sawed a suit

If you only take one bag,, you  seem to me astute
Don’t take any rifles it’s illegal  to shoot rooks
How to go on holiday on the perfect route.

Make  sure you wear your wellingtons if you walk through a brook
Take some stolen credit cards  if you are a crook
How to  wear a suitcase when  you never wear a suit
How to   grow on holiday on the perfect route

This is well worth reading

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69080/the-politics-of-poetry

Extract

It’s also how democratic politics is sometimes thought to work, at least when we’re thinking of “politics” in its more abstract incarnations. Here, for instance, is how Franklin D. Roosevelt viewed the job to which he devoted much of his life:

The Presidency is not merely an administrative office. That’s the least of it. It is more than an engineering job, efficient or inefficient. It is pre-eminently a place of moral leadership. All our great presidents were leaders of thought at times when certain historic ideas in the life of the nation had to be clarified.

To say that you’re personally necessary in order for “certain historic ideas in the life of the nation . . . to be clarified” is only a few hyperventilating breaths short of calling yourself “a mirror of the gigantic shadow which futurity casts upon the present.” The link again is the concept of totalizing vision. And this concept—dramatic, romantic, wildly generalizing—is one that politics and poetry don’t share to the same degree with activities like neuroscience (which focuses on particulars) or television writing (which tends to emphasize craft). Indeed, the only other areas of American life that have similar inclinations are probably religion and philosophy. Religion is no longer attractive for many poets for reasons that are historical and beyond the scope of this essay. Philosophizing remains a popular endeavor in the poetry world, but only so long as it’s a poetic sort of philosophizing (Nietszche, Heidegger) and not complicated, logic-y stuff that involves formulations like ◊∃xφ→∃x◊φ. Since Anglo-American philosophy has been dominated by the latter sort of thinking for decades, it’s no surprise most poets don’t go in for it.