I know a young lady called Heather
Who likes to dress in leather.
Her good friend Rose
Does poetry compose
About girls who dress in leather …
There was a young lady called Heather
Who wore one single feather.
My good friend Rose
Goes without clothes
In every kind of weather …
My thanks to Olivia, for allowing me to post on her blog about one of my favourite poets, ernest Christopher Dowson. Kevin
I am in the process of arranging for my latest collection of poems, “The Writer’s Pen and Other Poems” to be recorded and made available as an audio download. (“The Writer’s Pen” is currently available, as an e-book in the Kindle store and can be found here, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GD1LBMV/).
I hope that my collection will be available, to purchase from audible.co.uk and audible.com by Christmas 2018.
My previous collection, “My Old Clock I Wind and Other Poems” is available, as an audio download from audible.co.uk and audible.com, and can be found here, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077VZTM3V/.
Currently I am in the process of deciding whether to record “The Writer’s Pen” myself or whether to assign that task to a professional actor or actress.
Once “The Writer’s Pen and Other Poems” is available in audio format I shall, of course post a link here.
Kevin
“The A Team”, by Ed Sheeran, is a moving song about a young woman addicted to Crack Cocaine. The gentle melody is in stark contrast to the words of the song. It is, surely one of Sheeran’s best songs.
There is a young lady called Irene
Who I have never seen.
She has a son named Mike
Who looks very like
Me, and that young lady I’ve never seen …
I know a young lady named Moore
Who all the men adore.
She works in a club
Called the Back Rub
And the police they bang on the door …
I am a big fan of humorous verse, particularly the limerick so was interested to read this post on Interesting Literature.
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the eighteenth-century origins of nonsense literature
When did the tradition of English nonsense literature arise? Who invented nonsense literature? Although Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear are the names that immediately spring to mind, several eighteenth-century writers should get a mention in the history of nonsense writing. One is Henry Carey, who among other things coined the phrase ‘namby-pamby’ in his lambasting of the infantile verses of his contemporary, Ambrose Philips; another is the playwright Samuel Foote, known as the ‘English Aristophanes’, who lost one of his legs in an accident but took it good-humouredly, and often made jokes about it.
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As a child I took the acorn
From where it lay
On the forest’s lawn
As by way
Of the woodland path I went
Content
In my harmless play.
Shall I take
The acorn today
And break
The shell
I know so well?
The truth forlorn
Is that many an acorn
Have I broken in play.
According to the author of this article, (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/14/yuval-noah-harari-the-new-threat-to-liberal-democracy) “free will” is a “myth”. While we can choose who to vote for, our choices are, for the most part products of our biology and societal influences (E.G. family upbringing). The author contends that governments and corporations will, in the future be able to “hack” us and know us better than we know ourselves for, in his view we are “hackable animals”.
The author is right that we are not free in some respects. For example there is considerable evidence that one’s sexual preferences are biologically determined (I.E. gay people have a natural/biological attraction for the same sex, while straight people have a natural/biological attraction to people of the opposite sex). For this reason it is, in my view cruel to try to change a gay person, by religious or other means into a straight individual. It doesn’t work and one is forcing them to adopt a way of life which goes against their natural inclinations.
I do, however fundamentally disagree with the author’s assertion that “free will” is a “myth”. Take, for example the young man attracted to a pretty girl. It can be argued that he lacks “free will” in the sense that he can not help being attracted to the beautiful woman. However where that same man to pester that young woman for sex or, god forbid sexually assault her, can we really say that he lacked “free will” and his actions where predetermined? We can not, for the overwhelming majority of men attracted to beautiful women do not make inappropriate advances or force themselves on the object of their desire. Where there no such thing as “free will” the number of sexual assaults would increase massively. It is moral precepts and the existence of “free will” that makes us human.
The author is correct that corporations and individuals can (and do) try to (and sometimes succeed) in influencing our behaviour. For example a person who frequently searches for news stories with a particular political bias may well find himself confronted by only those kinds of articles. However the educated person does (in my experience) go out of their way to find stories which challenge their preconceptions and its through education that we can help to combat the danger of “echo chambers” in which people only find themselves exposed to views that reinforce their existing view of the world.
With the growth of artificial intelligence, we do need to think seriously about the hacking of humans (the author is undoubtedly right here). However his view of “free will” (the lack thereof) is, in my opinion wrong and dangerous.
(My thanks to my friend Brian for drawing the above article to my attention).
Each night
I turn out the light
To sleep.
But in does creep
Miss White,
Every blooming night!
My thanks to Sue Vincent for publishing my guest post.
In his fine poem (one of my favourites), “Tell me not here, it needs not saying”, A. E. Housman beautifully expresses his love of nature while (in the final verse) acknowledging that Mother Nature is, when all is said and done “heartless and “witless”:
“Possess, as I possessed a season, the countries I resign, where over elmy plains the highway would mount the hills and shine, and full of shade the pillared forest would murmur and be mine.
For nature, heartless, witless nature, will neither care nor know what stranger’s feet may find the meadow and trespass there and go, nor ask amid the dews of morning if they are mine or no”. (Poetrybyheart.org.uk).
Nature is (as Housman says) both “heartless” and “witless”, for she is a myriad of processes and natural forces which proceed with no “concern”? for we humans for, in the final analysis nature is…
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