https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jan/27/poetry.schools

“Finally, the acid test: now the process is over, will the students involved be hooked on poetry? “I think so,” Summers says, thoughtfully. “I’m not sure that it’ll have made them into natural-born purchasers of every poetry collection that comes out – I wouldn’t blame them if it hadn’t – but I certainly think it made them see that there is a much bigger world of poetry out there than they’d realised. The generic curse of the way poetry is delivered at secondary level these days is that it’s about appreciation, not readership. The situation these kids found themselves in – three days to read with no pressure on them apart from having to make a few cups of coffee – was a privilege, a luxury. And I don’t think it’s one they’ll forget.” Morrissey agrees: “I think the students felt quite” – she hesitates – “liberated, in a way, by the fact that this was primarily an exercise in enthusiasm, not criticism. There was a power in going off the curriculum and not having to constantly consider and quantify that they responded to. It was really fresh. Hopefully the readers will feel that, too.”

It looks as though they do. A copy of Fifty Strong has been sent out to every secondary school and sixth form college in the UK, and so far the responses have been resoundingly positive. Paul Summers thinks he knows why. “Without them being pushed, they covered everything – from domestic violence to bloody war in the former Yugoslavia to broken hearts and death,” he says “That pretty much sums it up.”

What our teenage reviewers thought

‘A lively and absorbing collection’

There’s a poem for every young person to relate to in Fifty Strong. This mature selection conveys powerful emotions while covering a broad range of topics including love, death, war and adoption. I particularly liked the use of poems from other languages and cultures and found it interesting to see them written in their original to

The advantage of having a poetry anthology selected by teenagers for teenagers is that all the poems reflect aspects of adolescent life. It ensures that the anthology includes not only the obviously teenage poems that deal with unrequited love, betrayal, and loneliness, but also poems that address important wider issues “

Dear All

I was thinking last night that I should give some advice to women about to marry.
Be sure you know your fiancee’s name before you get married.Then put into your phone or address book.Then if you feel so inclined, you can shout it when you make love.Maybe not on your honeymoon as a hotel is not very private.But when you get home it will be satisfying to scream” Sigmund” at midnight unless you are asleep.
Find out how much money you have coming in and decide to spend it as fast as you can as that will spur him on to earn even more.You can still work but why not  retrain as a therapist as  you can share your horror stories with your husband
Psychoanalysts earn a lot but may have to start work at 4 am to fit in  people who want to come before work
When you have a baby, teach your husband how to bottle feed so if he does get up at 4 am he can feed the baby while he listens to his first patient.Then he can write a book about how helpful his patient found this.Or not.
See things in a different way.Marriage is good for you but only if you have achieved object constancy.I have not done so myself so I am never sure if my husband is the same man I married.He seems less a particle and more like a wave as he never keeps still.I find him somewhat annoying in bed.
That reminds me we need a new mattress as not the centre is higher than the sides which means I roll off and so does he.Not to mention our cat Felicity and her 3 kittens.They are very bold as they don’t leave the room when we embrace and also they follow me into the bathroom too.As they don’t understand English I can’t make them go away.I  will not slap them or curse.I am already rather wicked.
I can’t write it here but I am a spy.For whom I have no idea.I keep a journal about everyone in this street and their odd behaviour.I am sure someone will buy it off me soon
I can smell the cloves in my bread and butter pudding.So I will continue later~Cheery bye
Kristy

From  desert sands to burning bush;
Moses  on Mount Horeb learned
The ten commandments ,bold in truth

By Canvey Island, waters rush.
The Hasidic from East London turn
No  desert sands nor burning bush

There are reasons, I’m bemused.
Will God be with the tidal turn?
The ten commandments, hauled in truth

In their memory of  Negev
For  hot spaces they may yearn;
Ache  for sand and burning bush

Sand a-plenty they will have.
On Canvey Isle, their innards churn.
The little children tease with love

Over Canvey, cherubs blush
For they too  have felt the pain,
Ache  for sun and burning bush

Now joyous children freely play
Who would think they’d come this way?
By Canvey Isle,  Thames’ waters rush.
The Lord transplants the Burning Bush.

https://www.theguardian.com/global/2017/oct/08/shalom-canvey-island-haredi-jews-moving-to-essex?CMP=share_btn_link

They love the peace and being by the sea.The locals seem very welcoming as many of them were from East and NE London.After the war the government built new houses there.There is a railway station so commuting is easy

The new Messiah will fly on a great horse
A burning stallion arched in perfect grace
As he crosses Europe he perceives
The scattered remnants of his fellow Jews

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/08/the-story-of-the-jews-belonging-1492-1900-review-simon-schama-fight-to-fit-in

“The first volume of Simon Schama’s mammoth undertaking, The Story of the Jews, ended two and a half thousand years after it began, with the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews from Iberia. The second volume, entitled, with more than a smidgen of irony, Belonging, begins in the Venice ghetto, where many victims of that expulsion found uneasy refuge.

Some had fled from Portugal, where, during the Easter of 1506, about 2,000 “New Christians” (Jews who had been forced to convert) were slaughtered in three days. “The ostensible cause,” writes Schama, “was a vocal comment made by a New Christian in church to the effect that a miraculous illumination on the face of the Saviour on the cross might have been a mere effect of candlelight.”

That incident warrants only passing mention, but it’s a shocking reminder of just how vulnerable Jews have been in Europe over many centuries.

Belonging, which covers the period from 1492 to 1900, is concerned with the Jewish search for security and the efforts – both coerced and voluntary – at assimilation in Europe (there are brief excursions to other settlements, in America, and as far off as China).

Jews have traditionally been caught in a double bind: not trusted as a distinct minority, and trusted even less when they attempt to adopt the majority culture/religion.

It’s a position that has led to repeated cycles of persecution, expulsion, confinement and a ceaseless hankering to be accepted. That, in essence, is the story of the Jews and Schama lays it out in rich, complex and fascinating detail.

Although this is an ambitious doorstop of a book, Schama is not interested in history writ large. His signature method is to recount the plight of individuals against the swirling backdrop of events. It’s a high-wire approach that can leave the reader wondering if the extended anecdotes – a tragic conman in 16th-century Venice, rumours of a Jewish sex cult in 18th-century Moldova – will ever reach the firm ground of historical import.

I am here, in this air, walking through the bodies
Of the ghosts who still converse, read  the news and eat
I walk straight through  them, their life goes on
Am I a ghost or is it them?
And the two old ladies who lived here
The spaces between the particles
Inside the particles
Are where such ghosts may live
So close, yet so infinitely distant,
From the other people on  the earth
I see you but it is a film
It’s running backwards
So we might wave as we cross over
Or are we looking the other way?
Looping around we travel in this funfair of novel life
On the big dipper, we fly off  like freed  flowers
Embellishing the air with faint colour as we leave a trace behind

Dear all
Well at this rate, I’ll not be finished with this until next year so I am sending another instalment.The problem is, I have become intoxicated by musing on the difference between evocation and explanation.I do too much of the latter and not enough of the former.However, I apologise as I know you are not likely to care about such things.Well, that’s unkind of me to assume you are all intellectually  feeble, as it were.After all, you have all those children to worry about.
Unfortunately, I have not got grandchildren at Cambridge to boast about although my mother’s cousin was once the Head of Preston Technical College which is now part of a University.And my mother did go to a Secondary Grammar School which was hard to get into then as it was fee paying and only gave one scholarship a year.She was very bright
My one and only son has emigrated to Transylvania as Brexit made him ill.Or was it Australia? Anyway he emails me every week and I see his wife is very tanned so maybe they are in Sydney , after all.
I feel so disappointed as I wished him to be within easy reach.However, he does not feel the same way as I do
.An over-scrupulous, over-articulate, man-mad she-wolf was just one label he liked to repeat.But I still adore him.My daughter is more attuned to me and we speak on the phone every five years or so.She lives next door so at least I see her through the window.She must be ambivalent about me.
My intellectual knowledge is no help with such difficult problems.A pity my husband was always busy practising psychoanalysis and never had time for me.I did get into one of his books  under other names.”Difficult Doris” and ” Alice and the Paranoid-Wits-Sold position ” or something similar
When we used to enjoy sex, he never mentioned that position to me once.I would have been happy to do anything he fancied except speak to him.He said he wished I would call out his name instead of screaming like a cat having a nightmare.
I could not tell him I had forgotten his name and I was even unsure if he was the  same man I had married, but politeness restrained me.
After all, another man would have been pretty similar in his needs.So why bother asking for more information.He was earning a lot of money so that was ok.I had a mock fur coat and two real plastic handbags.And three pairs of odd shoes.
Well, I am afraid I have eaten  my bread and butter pudding so I must go and get some more.
I hope you have a great Jewish, Muslim,post-Christian and Atheistic New Year whenever it comes.I can’t remember all that anymore.Every day is new to me.
Cheers,Kristy

I seem to live in two worlds at on time
In one the normal rites of marriage  carry on
This present me’s a  solo ghost confined.

As a ghost, I do not feel resigned.
I remember when I was the married one.
I seem to live in two worlds at one time

Now my man  is reading out my rhymes
We laugh and murmur till the dinner’s done
In the glass, I watch that ghost confined.

I wonder if there’s any tool designed
To take away the ghost that’s catching on
Do I live in two worlds but one time?

Can I persuade the ghost she should resign
For am I not the real, the only one?
In the glass, I see a ghost confined.

See how that married woman seeks to con.
She is not a person, she is dumb.
I long to live in two worlds at one time.
This present me’s a  soloist arraigned

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

“History

William of Ockham, a Franciscan friar who studied logic in the 14th century, first made this principle well known.^[1] In Latin it is sometimes called lex parsimoniae, or “the law of briefness”. William of Ockham supposedly (see below) wrote it in Latin as:

• Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.^[1]

This translates roughly as:

• More things should not be used than are necessary.

This means that if there are several possible ways that something might have happened, the way that uses the fewest guesses is probably the right one. However, Occam’s razor only applies when the simple explanation and complex explanation both work equally well. If a more complex explanation does a better job than a simpler one, then you should use the complex one.

Occam’s razor is a principle, not an actual razor: the word ‘razor’ is a metaphor. Occam’s razor gets rid of unnecessary explanations just like a razor shaves off extra hair.^[2] This description is a violation of Occam’s razor.”

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.815879

 
“The problem with the Trump-is-actually-clever theory is that his outlandish statements and unfounded assertions don’t just harm America’s international image or divide its own population – they often do the most damage to Trump himself. The U.S. president has shot himself in the foot so regularly that it is only natural to assume he may not be the sharpest pencil in the box. He fired FBI Director James Comey, a move which Steve Bannon described as the worst presidential mistake ever, but then made things much worse for himself by admitting, contrary to the official line, that he did so because of the investigation of his ties to Russia. Trump made sure that even if Special Counsel Robert Mueller didn’t collect enough evidence on the alleged collusion, he would always be able to nail Trump on obstruction of justice. The same is true of Trump’s ham-handed effort to concoct a cover story for his son Donald’s hitherto unreported meeting with a Russian lawyer with close ties to the Kremlin, which fell apart within hours. Or the time he undermined administration efforts to claim that his Muslim ban was anything but by confirming that this is exactly what it was. And so on and so forth.
Intelligence is no guarantee of success, of course. Jimmy Carter had an IQ of 176, but most Americans consider him to be the worst U.S. president in modern times. Trump came to the White House with less useful or general knowledge than his predecessors, but his uniqueness lies with the fact that he seems uninterested in learning. He disdains the mainstream media, doesn’t trust his intelligence briefings and seems to rely on Fox News and even loonier right-wing news sites for his basic information about the world. He has admitted that he often makes decisions without knowing the facts, not a trait usually associated with the astute.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo wrote an article about Trump’s suspected dimness, which spawned the term “Trump’s Razor” after “Occam’s Razor,” of which Netanyahu is fond. Whereas Occam’s Razor stipulates that where there are several possible explanations for something, the simplest one is usually correct, Trump’s Razor says that where there are several possible explanations for something Trump has said or done, the stupidest is always the right one. But even if we assume that Trump is far from stupid, and definitely not a “moron,” most people would agree that both his election and his presidency are an insult to America’s intelligence, as well as the world’s.

read more: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.815879

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50537/love-and-friendship

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gallery/2016/jan/12/your-thoughts-how-do-you-stay-happy

Photograph: Simon Bleasdale/Guardian Witness

Looking through the window at the crowd
Anxious faces, tense  like sad, wild birds
I saw this city covered in a shroud.

I heard a violinist play with head unbowed
Yet all her  ears  could find was wild discord,
Why listen to the Nazis’ fathers now?

I  have felt the future disallowed
Communities turned into shuffling hordes.
I see my London bows down in her shroud.

A few can see, but they are not the proud
It’s  getting late, who saves their vision rare?
I’m looking through the windows at the crowd

The sun is bright so highlights black and blood.
Male politicians stroke their nuts and swear.
The shroud  in Selfies makes a  big, sweet cloud

How do they have the nerve, how do they dare
To sell to us the means to film despair?
Looking through the door at Friday crowds
I  touched their flames, red, urgent; hellish clowns

“That summer, Litvyak finally got her chance at combat. She flew defensive missions over the port city Saratov, an important strategic location on the Volga. Having succeeded in those, she and some of the other women in 586 Regiment were transferred to a male regiment within the vicinity of Stalingrad, during the early stages of the infamous six-month struggle for the city. On September 13, she entered a dogfight against Germany’s Jagdgeschwader 53 unit, among the most lethal fighter pilots on earth. Litvyak came through unscathed and brought down her first Nazi plane, piloted by Erwin Maier, who was immediately captured by the Soviets. Later that day, Maier’s captors introduced him to Litvyak. It took a long time to convince him that this tiny blonde woman—little more than a girl—had been the one to end his war.

Over the coming weeks, Litvyak flew further successful missions and gained the dubious distinction of being the first woman in history to kill enemy combatants in the air. Her legendary exploits spread to Germany where outlandish tales turned her into a vampish figure, a warrior femme fatale with a delicate white rose painted on the side of her killing machine. The flower was actually a lily, a reference to her first name, though she did keep a picture of a rose with her in the cockpit, as well as bunches of wild flowers, which she got up early in the morning to pick, and sometimes spread on the wings of her stationery aircraft in preparation for a mission.

Litvyak impressed everyone with her calmness and skill in the maelstrom of combat. ”

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/tag/white-rose-of-stalingrad/

I have never heard before about Soviet women who became pilots in the fight to defend Stalingrad in the air against the highly skilled German Nazis aerial bombardment.

Seminar cancelled

I am waiting for  the Royal male
The hawk wants to pray
The cat is eating the pigeons
My husband needs a gold meddle.
I’ve lost my seminary.
I’ve  lost my voice.
I feel permanently detached
The owl needs glasses
Durham is flooded
I don’t know
Move to Yawk?

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter
Near the Peaks and Pennine landscapes high
I have a wife abroad, I   have just texted her

I married but never yet had sex with her
For she is cold and frosty ,can’t say why.
I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter

She said that she was moving down to Exeter
She’d changed her gender, good grief so must I.
I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

Since I turned a woman.I’ve detested her
She’s a  man but tell me, does he lie?
I dreamed I escaped  back  to Uttoxeter

I got my  phone  and  told her, so bizarre
I’m a woman, hot with sultry thighs.
I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I rarely tell the truth unless I lie.
In  the Peaks I love the  Blakean sky
I want to liven up  Uttoxeter
I have a wife, I feel  too stressed with her

Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/god_quotes.html#BkwYu7fSI8cKIX11.99

Mary wore her new garnet red winter coat to go to the dentist and doctor who were in the same building.Unfortunately, it was shorter than  her  wool skirt , which had a  quite few moth holes  in it
First , she had to see the doctor.
Hello dear, how are you getting on without your husband? Can’t you afford a new skirt?
He calls now and then.He told me he has bought me a house in Ealing.
Did he give you the address?
No, but if I am living in Ealing I shall have to change doctors.
You can change here if you want to.
But I like and respect you, doctor
Thank you so much.Very few people ever praise me.And unlike you, many people come here in dirty old clothes.
I just got this new coat.I may not have needed it, but ,to me, it is a symbol of wishing to return to life again.
That’s a good one.I’d better not tell my wife!
Is she quite extravagant?
Not really.I suppose there is no absolute level of spending which defines extravagance.What is normal for Princess Kate would not be for my wife.It is I suppose a way of dressing so you look ok for the life you lead and does not get you into debt.
Surely you like your wife to look good?
As long as she feels good, I don’t mind.
Anyway, why did you wish to see me?
Well, you don’t come very much so I wanted to see how you were getting on
I had a panic attack in the waiting room just now.I got vertigo
Are you frightened of me, my dear?
No,I really  love you, doctor.
Shush, that is not allowed
I just meant in a Christian sense although you are a Hindu.But when it comes down to it all religions are about compassion and love if we look carefully.
That is hard to believe nowadays.
I know.I suppose it’s an ideal to aim for.
All I can do is do my job well and look after my family and my patients.
Find God in the little things.See how small an acorn is and wonder.If I swallowed one would an oak tree grow inside me?
No.it would have to grow by the sewer
Imagine under the ground may be thousands of oak tree growing
Only if silly idiots swallow acorns!
I’m sorry.I have this vivid imagination.Can I have it removed and put a plastic one in?
Not yet but no doubt it will happen.Go outside and walk about a lot
Why?
Because I have decided you are ok and we’ve talked enough.
Thank you so much, doctor.
And so say all of us
Then Mary picked up her red coat which the doctor had not seen and she went into the dentist waiting room.The kind receptionist got her some water as Mary did not understand the machine.Uncountable infinity, yes.Water machines, no.
This dentist was a most beautiful young woman darting about like a  coloured fish in the deep ocean.
The filling is still here!The tooth broke.I shall repair it for you.
Thank you, Mary told her.It is almost a pleasure to come here.
Almost? the dentist replied.
It’s a day out for me,Mary told her.I don’t meet  intelligent young women like you so much.
Oh ,my.I forgot to feed Emile.Hi , can you send a cab, please? I must go home or my cat will never forgive me.
A handsome young man appeared with a silver car.It almost seemed like a dream.How would Mary know?
He was a  Muslim and his wife a Christian.
And both are good to us.

Converse with men makes sharp the glittering wit,

But God to man doth speak in solitude.

Read more at http://www.notable-quotes.com/g/god_quotes.html#PDB1WdIvOIiCAaCT.99

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/now-we-have-tasted-hope

• 

  Muckefuck

  Before you start letting your imagination run wild, Muckefuck is much more banal than it sounds, and refers to coffee substitutes

• made from barley malt or chicory.It is said that the word derives from “mocca faux,” French for “fake coffee,” as it was used during the Franco-Prussian War. However, we think that the name comes from the verbal response provoked by drinking the stuff.
• From
• http://www.dw.com/en/the-best-unpronounceable-german-words/a-36760286

Wear some narrow black trousers under a black and blue robe under which put  the T-shirt of your choice to peep out at the throat and a giant scarf tossed over your shoulder
Wear white trainers and a long denim jacket with a hood

Now you can go into any public convenience if there are some left in Britain.Otherwise, it seems phone boxes are used by the desperate.Wear a mask!:
Get a disabled badge or carry a card saying:

I just can’t wait.

Get them from Bladder UK//

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=spanish+jokes+for+adults&safe=active&tbm=isch&source=iu&pf=m&ictx=1&fir=dWMZyc1_DOWsMM%253A%252Cd1kHY_e1br3oMM%252C_&usg=__Uu-nxUHfhMtvn5HtQ-SdXI9xpJg%3D&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMgODTttfWAhUEAsAKHfchDsMQ9QEITTAE#imgrc=RmX0e2nk7YY3fM: