Marnetz Wood: In Parenthesis by David Jones, Artist, Soldier, Poet, ( 1/11/1895 -28/10/74)

           
                                David Jones as a young private

During the First Battle of the Somme, one of the most brutal battles of the First World War, the 38th (Welsh) Division was given the job of attacking Mametz Wood on 7th July 1916 a 100 years ago today, but were forced to retreat because of the intensity of German machine gun fire from the wood.
They were ordered to regroup and attack for a second time on the 10th July and succeeded in reaching the wood. By the 12th July the Germans and their machine guns had been cleared out of the woods but the Welsh Division had lost more than 4,000 men. Whole Welsh communities reeled from losing their young men in this slaughter and it came to symbolise the futility of war.
The poet-artist David Jones, a Londoner of Welsh extraction the son of a Welsh father and an English-Italian mother who had trained as an artist in Camberwell School of Art, Jones joined the newly formed London Welsh Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in January 1915 and, after a prolonged period of training, much hampered by a lack of equipment, finally embarked for France the following December. After a period in and out of the Line in the La Bassee sector, Jones marched south for the Somme in the summer of 1916 serving as a private. Here, he took part in the attack on Mametz Wood on the 10th/11th July, was wounded in the thigh and was subsequently returned to England to convalesce. On his eventual return to the Line, his unit had been moved to the Ypres salient. Jones would have taken part in the initial stages of the prolonged Passchendale offensive, had he not been held back as part of the battalion’s reserve ‘nucleus’.It would have a profound effect on him  because of it's scarring effect. In all Jones spent 117 weeks at the front,longer than any other war poet and in his adult life he suffered severe bouts of depression, nervous breakdowns  and inactivity which could be traced back to his war years in what today would be considered post traumatic stress. In World War 1 the enemy became the war itself in dehumanised form.
His epic prose poem ‘In Parenthesis’ is virtually unique in First World War literature, evoking the horrors, carnage, camaraderie and heroism of the ordinary soldier, his hopes and fears, laughter and tears. The poem covers the progress of a unit from December 1915 to the Somme offensive in July 1916.  At it's most basic level it is a fictionalised account mirroring his own service as a foot-soldier in the First World War. In Parenthesis though graphic in its depiction of the horrors of war, of the mindlessness of much of the violence resulting from nationalistic pride, it also manages to speaks with an aesthetic voice and wonders if some beauty can be found even in the very instruments of human destruction. Jones is skeptical that this will be possible but sees the attempt as part of his responsibility as a poet in the twentieth century, an age that now must live with “increasingly exacting mechanical devices; some fascinating and compelling, others sinister in the extreme. Jones’s poem speaks with a profoundly humanistic voice, transcending the grotesque suddenness of individual deaths in battle and finding in history a common thread connecting all soldiers to the nobility of being a man or a woman.He focuses on the lives of bottom ranking soldiers, adding a dimension to his heroic epic that both elevates the lowly and critiques the lofty.  In Parenthesis deals with powers that tap into the life force itself, the incomprehensible energies that bring humans into existence and dispatch them just as quickly. The poem might be said to be basically religious,using the war as a metaphor for life itself—to Jones, each is a parenthesis.Throughout the prose poem he applies religious terminology and symbolism to his characters, and makes frequent references to religious rituals, holy days and biblical allusions.He also  has numerous allusions  to what we’d consider of  as medieval romances: Malory’s Morte d’Arthur is often referred to, as is the Welsh poetry of the Mabinogion and Y Gododdin.
His poem suggests that war helps people become more aware of that larger parenthetical condition called life, a condition ultimately as sudden and individually. Despite what he has witnessed throughout he remains alert to the flashes of humanity that light up the wasteland of war. Complex in organization, rich in vocabulary, In Parenthesis demonstrates the rich intricacies of Jones’s work.
In it's climax, Part 7 the protagonist John Ball along with his unit attacks Mametz Wood. As he goes forward, he watches as most of his fellows around him being ripped apart, but Ball somehow makes it through unscathed until that evening. When ordered to take part in a subsequent, follow-up attack, Ball is knocked down, hit in the legs by machine-gun fire, and is greviously wounded begins his long crawl back to some place of safety - as Jones himself did. Along the way he discards most of his equipment (except for his gas mask, which he thinks might come in handy). However, his rifle has special meaning: as any soldier knows, a warrior and his weapon are one: it defines who he is, lose it and he loses his identity. As he retreats, Ball carries on a conversation with himself: should he leave the rifle? He hears the voices of his drill instructors driving home the importance of care of arms, the individuality of each soldier's weapon, the intimacy that he should share with it. . 

The assault on Mametz Wood took three days and the British forces succeeded in pushing back the enemy lines — but at huge cost. Jones's battalion alone lost a third of its men, killed or wounded. 

The poem watches them as they fall. A private who married his sweetheart when last on leave is pierced through by a razor of shrapnel. One man, even as he bleeds to death, still fumbles with the wretched straps of his uniform, trying to loosen the choking buckle of his tin hat. Not far from his prone body lies the severed head of a private grinning "like the Cheshire cat". It was images like this, grotesque, absurd and brutal, that would haunt Jones for decades.

The poem ends with Mametz Wood, but for Jones the war went on.On his eventual return to the Line, his unit had been moved to the Ypres salient. Jones would have taken part in the initial stages of the prolonged Passchendale offensive, and so the routine of sandbags and shelling continued.  In mid-February 1918, Jones came down with trench fever and was evacuated to a base hospital with a 105-degree temperature. There he came closer to death than he ever had in the field. He would not return to the front. Nor would he recover from those three years. Though he never called it shell shock, Jones was diminished and unmanned by all that he had seen. Jones was evacuated and saw out the rest of the war in Ireland. He never saw action again and was released from the army in the January of 1919, aged 23.

After the war Jones would have a conversion to Roman Catholicism and joined a small community of Catholic artists headed by craftsman Eric Gill, first at Ditchling, East Sussex then resettling at  Capel-y-ffin, near Hay-on-Wye among the Black Mountains in Wales, where he began to develop a unique concept of art and the function of the artist. The monastery where he stayed I have been fortunate to visit after numerous visits to the area where Jones took comfort from the singularity of the place as his weakened lungs drew in the mountain air. While resident at the monastery there he painted and illustrated prolifically and later reflected that the landscape had allowed deeper understanding of his Welsh identity.

                                          Capel-Y-Ffin , 1926-27- David Jones

Jones never married, never had children. He lived a monkish existence in a series of guest rooms and bedsits, which he referred to as his "dug-outs". His prints, paintings and poems brought a small income but financially he relied on his parents and then on the generosity of friends and patrons. To the end of his life the clatter of a tea-tray or a foggy day would rend his nerves. Each July the horrors of the Somme and Mametz Wood would return, triggering debilitating insomnia. It is more than likely he was still suffering from shellshock, which today we would call Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which leaves many ex soldiers with nightmares, flashbacks and feelings of dissociation or intense anxiety, afflicted by an inner wound from which they never recovered. David Jones remembers breaking down : '‘all gone to pieces and not pulling himself together not making the best of things’and was himself unable in fact to write In Parethesis until many years later. Many soldiers like Jones were not able to settle back into their home life afterwards or make sense of their experiences. Some people carrying this mental ‘shrapnel’ in their minds committed suicide. 

If In Parenthesis was an attempt to exorcise these demons, it failed. The completion of the poem in 1932 brought a shattering nervous breakdown. It took five years for Jones to summon the courage to have it published. T.S. Eliot, who oversaw its publication by Faber, called it "a work of genius". He would retire to Harrow and devoted himself mainly to calligraphic inscriptions in the Welsh language and continued painting until his death in May 1974, a few months after he had been made a Companion of Honour. Often overlooked nowadays, I would urge people to discover this book it, it remains a work of great vision,it remains forever a profoundly moving piece of work. A masterpiece of First World War poetry and literature that we should not forget.  

                                             sketch by David Jones

From In Parenthesis, part 7
   
And to Private Ball it came as if a rigid beam of great weight
flailed about his calves, caught from behind by ballista-baulk
let fly or aft-beam slewed to clout gunnel-walker
below below below.
When golden vanities make about,
you've got no legs to stand on.
He thought it disproportionate in its violence considering
the fragility of us.
The warm fluid percolates between his toes and his left boot
fills, as when you tread in a puddle--he crawled away in the
opposite direction.
It's difficult with the weight of the rifle.
Leave it--under the oak.
Leave it for a salvage-bloke
let it lie bruised for a monument
dispense the authenticated fragments to the faithful.
It's the thunder-besom for us
it's the bright bough borne
it's the tensioned yew for a Genoese jammed arbalest and a
scarlet square for a mounted mareschal, it's that county-mob
back to back. Majuba mountain and Mons Cherubim and
spreaded mats for Sydney Street East, and come to Bisley
for a Silver Dish. It's R.SM. O'Grady says, it's the soldier's
best friend if you care for the working parts and let us be 'av-
ing those springs released smartly in Company billets on wet
forenoons and clickerty-click and one up the spout and you
men must really cultivate the habit of treating this weapon with
the very greatest care and there should be a healthy rivalry
among you--it should be a matter of very proper pride and
Marry it man! Marry it!
Cherish her, she's your very own.
Coax it man coax it--it's delicately and ingeniously made
--it's an instrument of precision--it costs us tax-payers,
money-I want you men to remember that.
Fondle it like a granny--talk to it--consider it as you would
a friendöand when you ground these arms she's not a rooky's
gas-pipe for greenhorns to tarnish.
You've known her hot and cold.
You would choose her from among many.
You know her by her bias, and by her exact error at 300, and
by the deep scar at the small, by the fair flaw in the grain,
above the lower sling-swivel--
but leave it under the oak.
Slung so, it swings its full weight, With you going blindly on
all paws, it slews its whole length, to hang at your bowed neck
like the Mariner's white oblation.
You drag past the four bright stones at the turn of Wood
Support.
It is not to be broken on the brown stone under the gracious
tree.
It is not to be hidden under your failing body.
Slung so, it troubles your painful crawling like a fugitive's
irons.

At the gate of the wood you try a last adjustment, but slung
so, it's an impediment, it's of detriment to your hopes, you
had best be rid of it--the sagging webbing and all and what's
left of your two fifty--but it were wise to hold on to your
mask.
You're clumsy in your feebleness, you implicate your tin-hat
rim with the slack sling of it.
Let it lie for the dews to rust it, or ought you to decently
cover the working parts.
Its dark barrel, where you leave it under the oak, reflects
the solemn star that rises urgently from Cliff Trench.
It's a beautiful doll for us
it's the Last Reputable Arm.
But leave it--under the oak.
Leave it for a Cook's tourist to the Devastated Areas and crawl
as far as you can and wait for the bearers.

 
From In Parethesis, David Jones:  London: Faber & Faber. 1937 part 7, pp. 183-86.

                                                    Picture of David Jones in later life 

                                                Animals going to the Ark - David Jones

The Greatest Poem of World War 1: David Jones's In Parenthesis

Poet Owen Sheers will be tracing the story of David Jones poem  tracing its inspiration from  the English military parade ground to the carnage of the Somme, on a programe on BBC 2 Wales this, Saturday July 10th at  from 9.00 pm to 10.30 pm.

This will be followed at 10.30 by  In Parenthesis: The making of the Opera


 Further reading :-

 Tate Gallery, David Jones (1981)

 David Jones: Vision and Memory - Ariane Banks and Paul Hills, Lind Humphries 2015

 David Jones: The Maker unmade, Jonathan Miles and Derek Shiel, Seren, 1995.

David Jones also makes a cameo in the poet and writer Owen Sheers book; Resistance, and Owen Sheers himself  wrote a poem called Mametz Wood a link I enclose here  :-
 http://www.sheerpoetry.co.uk/gcse/owen-sheers/mametz-wood

Link to Poetry Foundation article on David Jones, that explores his life in more detail :-

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/david-jones

The Chilcot inquiry seems not to be a whitewash. Tony Blair is utterly damned.

Blair is currently being decimated thank goodness after the much delayed report by the Chilcot Inguiry into the Iraq war has finally been released
.The UK went to war in Iraq before all peaceful options for disarming Saddam Hussein were exhausted, the long-awaited official report has concluded.The invasion was not the "last resort" presented to MPs and the British public, chair Sir John Chilcot said.The 2003 invasion was based on "flawed intelligence and assessments" that "were not challenged", it argues.
Tony Blair underestimated the impact it would have on Iraq and the wider region despite "explicit warnings", it adds. It seems in no doubt that yes Tony Blair was and remains a war criminal at large and needs to be bought to justice for all his victims, for us now to truly move forwards. He and and all that were compliant with him need to be held accountable and tried for their crimes for all the horror and pain that they wrought, an enduring painful legacy that many still suffer the impact from many years on. 
Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said: "It's a tragedy that politicians and their advisers failed to properly assess the human rights consequences of such a massive military operation, including the horrible sectarian violence it helped unleash, and it's also a tragedy that the horrors of Abu Ghraib and cases like Baha Mousa all followed."Hundreds of thousands of people died in Iraq, during the invasion and its extended aftermath, including UK service personnel. It's therefore vital that lessons are learnt after Sir John Chilcot has so comprehensively pointed towards what some of those are."One way of showing that the Government has tried to learn lessons from Iraq would be for it to ensure that all credible allegations of unlawful killing, torture and unauthorised detention at the hands of the UK armed forces in Iraq are properly investigated."Unite union general secretary Len McCluskey said: "Chilcot confirms what millions of us knew in 2003 - the case for war had not been made. It was an unnecessary conflict, launched on the basis of flawed intelligence, secret diplomacy and with no sound legal basis."It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and made both the Middle East and the wider world less secure."Today our thoughts must be with those who lost loved ones, and with the people now living in the wretched insecurity that followed this war, but it is long past time that those responsible were held to account."
 By the most scientifically respected measures available, the war killed 1.4 million Iraqis, saw 4.2 million injured, and 4.5 million people have become refugees. The 1.4 million dead were 5% of the population. The invasion included 29,200 air strikes. An Iraqi who helped topple a statue of Saddam Hussein in 2003 echoed majority Iraqi opinion this week when he said he'd rather have Hussein back than continue with the catastrophe that the U.S.-led war created. The U.S. and its allies targeted civilians, journalists, hospitals and ambulances. They used cluster bomds, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, and a new kind of napalm in urban areas. Birth defects, cancer rates, and infant mortality have soared. Water supplies, sewage treatment plants, hospitals, bridges, and electricity supplies were devastated, and not repaired. .
It seems that the many millions like me  who demonstrated and marched for peace were right and we have been vindicated in ways that we have always dreamed off.  It seems that Blair  with his colluders have been found guilty as charge.Our patience and persistence seems to have borne fruit.
This post dedicated to Reg Keys and Rose Gentle and all others who never gave up their pursuit of justice and campaigned tirelessly to prove the war was illegal and to all those who suffered and were killed because of Blair's lies. No apology will be enough from his hollow breath at this moment in time for the pain he clearly caused to the bereaved families that he continually chose not to listen to.
 Never again must so many mistakes be allowed to sacrifice British lives and lead to the destruction of a country for no positive end.
Blair will probably be getting the oxygen of publicity today that he always seems to bask in despite any criticism, always seems to carry on, regardless with that irritating smile off his, may he get the karma that he so deserves.

                                     
                                          Rose Gentle and Reg Keys

 
Here is a link to the website of the Iraq war inquiry :-

http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/ 

The NHS turns 68 today, happy birthday.

Nye Bevans legacy came into the world 68 years ago this morning,when he opened Park Hospital in Manchester at a time of rationing and shortages, when we were nearly bankrupt, a jewel  that the war generation left us with, a proud legacy, for us to all to continue to share. It offered for the first time a free healthcare system for all, and has since  played a vital role in caring for all aspects of our nations health. My own father served it well for nigh on 40 years. It has become a source of national pride and is envied around the world.
Remember we paid for it, so it is owned by us, it is our precious commodity, it must survive, we must tear the vultures hands from it. We  cannot reach the day again where people make a profit out of our sickness.It is  one of the pillars of UK society. From helping us when we are in need, to providing employment to over 1.7m people (one of the largest employers in the world), the NHS is the result of what can be possible when we work together for the common good.
But our NHS is currently under attack, facing a massive threat from the Tories and is in grave danger. Dedicated, compassionate staff under increased pressure, leading to low moral. Recent figures have emerged that 2/4s of hospitals have been warned about dangerous staff shortages.
This combined with creeping privatisation, major budget cuts and attacks on staff pay and pensions,..
We should however be proud, that since 1948 that we actually have one of the best health systems in the world, regardless of age, social status, ethnic background or belief. It is ours, and belongs to us,  from the cradle to the grave. We own it and pay for it,providing local medical cover, available free to all, but slowly the Tory's are ripping it from our grasp. In the long term those that need it most, the chronically ill, people with mental health problems,the vulnerable and those from lower socio economic groups and older people will be the ones losing out.
We must defend  and protect it with all our might, so that it can  continue to care for us,that puts people first not profit. We must stop this valuable resource from being plundered in front of our eyes.
In the words of Nye Bevan " It will last as long as there are folk left with faith to fight for it."
I went to a rally last night for Jeremy Corbyn in Swansea was pleased to see so many there,packed to the rafters, young and old who I am sure will not only defend their leader, their movement, when the time comes I have faith that people like this will continue to fight for our NHS too.
Jeremy Corbyn this morning  paid tribute  saying that Labour "will never abandon the NHS, patients or the staff that work in it." I have taken to the man, and believe in the sincerity of his words.

Trespassers

(  dedicated to Boris Johnson among others)

Trespassing over our days
casting splintered division,
vulgar voices of opportunity
transmit conscious ideology,
to pull tomorrow's hope down
abandoning us as days get harder,
because they cannot play out
the role that they promised,
dreams within our reach they steal
taking back all that they see,
storming off with plotted intention
lining grubby pockets with silver,
vacuous morality exposed
wearing gilded smiles,
entrenched deeply
in their deceit and lies.

Sir Geoffrey Hill ( 18/6/32 - 30/6/16) - Poet of complexity R.I.P

Have just heard the sad news that British Poet Sir Geoffrey Hill has died at age 84, on Thursday
Hill, who had often been referred to as the “greatest living poet in the English language”, leaves behind him an extensive amount of poetry extending back into the Fifties that is both inspired and inspiring. Oxford University’s Professor of Poetry from 2010-2015, Hill was also a respected critical essayist, winning the Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism in 2009 for his Collected Critical Writings. I first became aware of his work from the edition of Penguin Modern Poets8, which he shared with the poets Edwin Brock and Stevie Smith.
He  has been described as a difficult poet, a  reputation he gained because he used his intellect to make a continuous engagement with the English language often in his work there are references to fairly obscure people, equally obscure texts  plus his facility for Latin and half a dozen European languages which at tmes can seem daunting. His obsession with violence and corruption in history and politics, he was drawn to the life of martyrs, the saints and poets whose word became their bond, their baptism in blood: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Charles Péguy, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Simone Weil. and this combined with his darkly Christian sensibility made him somewhat unfashionable, his foreign phrases and allusions were resented by some yet his interest and strong attachment to words placed him among a long intellectual tradition. Anyway what the hell is s actually wrong with being clever, and whatever a poet chooses to do with their skill is in the end up to them. Has not much of the greatest poetry throughout history been difficult? Is it  not the the poets duty to make us think, scratch our heads, question? Is not life  difficult and complex? Do we not try and reflect this in our work? Anyway the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, described him as “in poetry, a saint and a warrior who never gave an inch in his crusade to reach poetic truth”.
Hill had a fantastic range though  from dark meditations on morals, philosophy, religious faith and political violence to rapturous evocations of the English landscape of his native Worcestershire and wonderful poems about love. He was an uncompromising visionary and his work reveals his towering intellect and an emotional complexity that was unrivaled by many of his contemporary's.
Geoffrey William Hill was born in Worcestershire, England in 1932, to William, a police constable, and Hilda Hill, and grew up in the nearby village of Fairfield. where he grew up in constant view of the landscape that is Housman’s Shropshire. He identified himself as working class After earning a first degree in English at Oxford, entering the world of academia meaning a family tradition of joining the police force was closed to him because of deafness in one ear, the result of a childhood illness. he taught for many years, entering first at the University of Leeds for more than twenty years, then at Cambridge.He had married Nancy Whittaker in 1956, and had four children with her. The marriage was dissolved in 1983.He left for for Boston University in 1988, where he remained on the faculty of the University Professors Program. In this year he married Alice Goodman, 26 years his junior.Since 1998, he had also served as codirector of that university’s recently founded Editorial Institute. He made his home in nearby Brookline, returning each summer to England, where he kept a cottage in Lancashire. He eventually moved back to Britain in 2006 and settled in a rectory near Cambridge. He received a knighthood in  2012 in the New Years honors list..
Something I shared with him was his struggle with chronic depression and anxiety, which first emerged for him when he was at Cambridge. It was not until he moved to  Boston University that he was able finally to seek treatment for his debilitating depression with the use of lithium and Prozac which he described as a ' signal/ mystery, mercy of these latter days.' His political views though could not be further than mine he has described himself as a 'hierarchical Tory, his views were  idiosyncratic but you don't need to share these in order to get a lot from his work, his poetry is immensely varied in form and subject matter (he was also our most accomplished nature poet). One of the key features of Hill's politics is his patriotism and his nostalgia for a Britain that never actually existed. His Toryism doesn't sit well with his anger at the poverty of his grandparents which demonstrates a keen solidarity with those who are impoverished by the forces of Capital.
Hill's aesthetic has proved to be controversial owing to the use of violent language, but he maintains that the controversy he creates is unintentional: "I don't ... write poems to be polemical; I write to create a being of beautiful energy."
He is survived by his wife, their daughter, and three sons and a daughter from his previous marriage.
Geoffrey William Hill R.I.P a shining light of fierce intelligence who immersed himself in the complexities and richness of the world, a voice of moral imagination.
Some final words from Hill  and King Offa from Mercian Hymns, 1971

"He divided his realm. It lay there like a dream. An ancient land, full of strategy. Ramparts of compost pioneered by red-helmeted worms. Hemlock in ambush, night-soil, tetanus. A wasps’ nest ensconced in the hedge-bank, a reliquary or wrapped head, the corpse of Cernunnos pitching dayward its feral horn."

I will end with these three that I particularly appreciate :-

 On seeing the Wind at Hope Mansell - Geoffrey Hill

Whether or not shadows are of the substance
such is the expectation I can
wait to surprise my vision as a wind
enters the valley: sudden and silent
in its arrival, drawing to full cry
the whorled invisibilities, glassen towers
freighted with sky-chaff; that, as barnstorming
powers, rammack the small
orchard; that well-steaded oaks
ride stolidly, that rake the light-leafed ash,
that glowing yew trees, cumbrous, heave aside.
Amidst and abroad tumultuous lumina,
regents, reagents, cloud-fêted, sun-ordained,
fly tally over hedgerows, across fields.

 Ovid in the Third Reich - Geoffrey Hill

non peccat, quaecumque potest peccasse negare,
solaque famosam culpa professa facit.

Amores, III, xiv

I love my work and my children. God   

Is distant, difficult. Things happen.   

Too near the ancient troughs of blood   

Innocence is no earthly weapon.

I have learned one thing: not to look down

So much upon the damned. They, in their sphere,   

Harmonize strangely with the divine

Love. I, in mine, celebrate the love-choir.

Turtle Dove - Geoffrey Hill

Love that drained her drained him she’d loved, though each

For the other’s sake forged passion upon speech,

Bore their close days through sufferance towards night

Where she at length grasped sleep and he lay quiet

As though needing no questions, now, to guess
what her secreting heart could not well hide.
Her caught face flinched in half-sleep at his side.
Yet she, by day, modelled her real distress,

Poised, turned her cheek to the attending world
Of children and intriguers and the old,
Conversed freely, exercised, was admired,
Being strong to dazzle. All this she endured

To affront him. He watched her rough grief work
Under the formed surface of habit. She spoke
Like one long undeceived but she was hurt.
She denied more love, yet her starved eyes caught

His, devouring, at times. Then, as one self-dared,
She went to him, plied there; like a furious dove
Bore down with visitations of such love
As his lithe, fathoming heart absorbed and buried.

The senseless tragedy and horror of the Somme

 Today marks the centenary anniversary of the battle of the Somme. At a conference held in December 1915, the decision for a new offensive on the Western Front had been taken jointly by French commander-in-chief, Gen. Joseph Joffre, and his British counterpart, Gen. Sir John French (replaced on Dec. 19, 1915, by Gen. Sir Douglas Haig). It was to be part of a larger strategic offensive by the Allies attacking simultaneously on several fronts to prevent the Germans from switching resources.
The Somme was the first major offensive mounted by the British. By the end of the 18-week-long battle, British and French forces had penetrated only 12 kilometres into German-held territory in one of the bloodiest military operations in history. The British never even reached their first-day objectives. The battle continued long after it had achieved its stated and limited aim of drawing off German forces from Verdun.
Many of the units that went over the top on July 1, 1916 were Pals Battalions, volunteer units raised the previous year from men who lived, worked and socialised together in the same cities, towns and villages across Britain.  The 1st of July 1916  was a bright summer’s day in Picardy, N. France. At 7.30am the sun was well up. Suddenly whistles sounded. Soldiers rose from the trenches and the Battle of the Somme began and and one of military history's greatest disasters and one of the most devastating and bloodiest moments in British history had unfolded before the disbelieving eyes of the Allied High Command. In the next 141 days of horror, although reliable figures are hard to confirm, at a conservative estimate more than a million and a quarter men became casualties of all types on the Somme: perhaps 420,000 British Empire, 195,000 French and 650,000 German. Canadian losses numbered 24,000, nearly 8,000 of them fatal in the middle of a protracted hell. In the opinion of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the Somme was “the most gigantic, tenacious, grim, futile and bloody fight ever waged in the history of war.”
 For some of the thousands killed on the Somme, the battle lasted for mere seconds. For their loved ones, the pain lasted a lifetime.  The following was said by a Canadian nurse who  treated the wounded at the Somme :- " Some terrible cases, oh so much the better dead. One young lad with eyes and nose all gone - one blur of mangled flesh - and body whole and sound ... All are so brave, and yet those who are not badly wounded are so tired of the war, tired in such a hopeless way." 

An aerial view of the shell pocked landscape surrounding trenches on the Somme, fall 1916.                        

All this alone should counter the argument now taking hold among some historians, politicians and media commentators that the Somme centenary commemorations should be used to glorify this pointless mass slaughter as a necessary "sacrifice".
So why did Haig persist, especially in the face of such huge losses? Haig’s detractors—of whom there are many—accuse him of being an unimaginative commander who could see no other alternatives to costly battles of attrition. One of his own justifications for the Somme was that the enemy’s strength had been considerably worn down, a conclusion that was neither accepted at the time nor afterwards. Today, the Somme is generally regarded as a costly failure, and one for which Haig must bear the lion’s share of responsibility.
The Battle of the Somme  finally ended in late November, when rain, snow and sleet made operations impossible. It was difficult to tell victor from vanquished.The Battle of the Somme should be remembered today for epitomising the horror and waste of the Great War.
Following his bestseller No Glory: The Real History of the First World War, historian Neil Faulkner's new pamphlet, Have You Forgotten Yet: The Truth About the Somme, sets the record straight and stands with the victims of imperialism and war – with the workers and peasants of Europe, and with the colonial people of Africa and Asia. It argues that the Somme, by any rational assessment, represents a world gone mad.
It is our duty to remember the futility and tragedy of this occasion, and to remember those who died so senselessly, sacificiced on the altar of imperial stupidity to ensure that the lessons learnt live with us forever. Sadly No time for glorification  time to focus on the horrible realities and the many lives that were affected by this horrific event in the years that followed it. This battle that has come to symbolise the horror, waste and futility of war, it's pity and enduring tragedy this pornography of violence should not be used as propoganda for todays wars..

Siegfried Sassoon  -  Aftermath

 Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

Tories out, Corbyn in

First things first I used to be a member of the Labour Party, but  left about 86/87when the witchhunt on friends and comrades made my membership untenable. I have not been a member of a party political party since. I have often looked at the Labour Party to see if it offered to me any glimmers of hope, become again a party of the people, representing real socialist values. Alas have only seen flickers. 

I wonder what labour could be and have done with those 172 disloyal MPs from the PLP fully behind Corbyn. Could they have put social justice back at the centre stage again, where it should always have remained. True socialists work for the people and not the highest bidder,lobbyists and Blair.  Serve the real people that voted them in. It looks like there will be a Labour Party split, and the fault does not lie at Jeremy Corbyn's feet it lies in the hands of those treacherous self serving careerist M.Ps, so aloof from the mood of their members as they wish to go back in time, to the days of Blair, and become yet another watered down party without an ounch of passion that refuses to take up the mantle of opposition and simply does the Tory Party's work for them.

Just before the  chilcott report their timing is bloody impeccable, they want to return us to  New labour even  though it disempowered  and weakened us. In a divided Britain it is unity that we should be witnessing not cowards grouping together in disloyalty against an individual of rare integrity and decency, espousing proper left wing politics, and expressing sentiments that the years of Blairite centerism had swept away; someone who wouldn’t support the government in sweeping through their austerity measures, who would oppose trident, and would vote against launching the UK into yet another war. and where were all the Labour resignations when Tony Blair led the party into an illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis?
Politics is in crisis at the present time and the repercussions from the result of the referendum are being felt socially, politically and economically. For many people, it feels like the country is being torn apart.  A time I would have thought when politicians would  put people first instead of throwing their toys out of the pram, having their tantrums in public perpetuating divisions instead of the call of solidarity and unity. In the current political chaos the forces of the right are asserting themselves across the political terrain,and the sheep what do they do, they want to silence a man who has tried his best to push an agenda of fairness and equality,against the rising tide of hate, the mind truly boggles at times.
The plotters actions cowardly  messy and unnecessary, they could have waited for their conference in autumn, but no they can't wait and will do anything that is possible to wreck the democratic process against a democratically elected leader who still has massive support from the party membership. A coup aided and abetted by a frenzied right wing  media and the establishment, who at the end of the day have never been on the people's side.
So the bottom line is I support Jeremy Corbyn, recognise him as a man of  principle, aside from the cult of personality issues, I cannot though in my heart simply rejoin the Labor Party in its present state, how can I support a party whose own MP's don't listen to its members. Now is the time to keep looking for alternatives, a radical direction, against austerity not a time to get out the knives. If the Labour Party splits which I think it will, I hope a strong Left wing party arises from the embers, that puts people first, returns to the radical socialist policies that could help us create a better world. The effing Tories must be jubilant at this moment of crisis when instead of attacking their policies the Labour Party appears ready to tear itself apart in public. In time of rising racism and xenophobia this is not a time to play silly games, the plotters risk letting the Conservatives of the hook, when they could be stopped in their tracks but will now  be allowed to carry on regardless unleashing damage on our lives and communities.Yes change is needed in this divided country of ours, a change in politics that does not forget the feelings and sentiments of ordinary people that inhabit it.
I will end by saying that under his leadership Jeremy Corbyn has at least delivered moments of popular political engagement that has demanded our attention, given rise in political optimism lending strength to where it is needed most by spreading his honest radical message. Hope lies with the people I guess and self-organised movements that enpower  people to change their own lives. building resistance that keeps out profit making establishment blarites building a credible oppostion to cruel Tory policies that at the bottom line are actually killing people.Instead of moving back into fatalism and conformist tired old agendas of division, we need voices right now pushing forward a radical message about fairness and equality for the people, repesenting the voiceless who seem to be being drowned out in this current political climate The battle should be against the false ideology of austerity not against someone who has unflinchingly  shown his defiance and opposition, time and again, which has given him credibility in the eyes of the people. So Tories out Corbyn in. Power to the people.
The battle for the soul of the Labour Party is now reaching a climax, here is a link that provides you with the opportunity to provide support :-

 http://stickittothetories.org.uk/product/tories-out-corbyn-in/

 Red Flag lyrics in case the plotters have forgotten them
 

The people's flag is deepest red
It shrouded oft our martyred dead
And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold
Their hearts' blood dyed to every fold

Chorus:
Then raise the scarlet standard high
Beneath it's folds we'll live and die
Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer
We'll keep the red flag flying here

It waved above our infant might
When all ahead seemed dark as night
It witnessed many a deed and vow
We must not change it's colour now

Chorus

It well recalls the triumphs past
It gives the hope of peace at last
The banner bright, the symbol plain
Of human right and human gain

Chorus

It suits today the meek and base
Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place
To cringe beneath the rich man's frown
And haul that sacred emblem down

Chorus

With heads uncovered swear we all
To bare it onward till we fall
Come dungeons dark or gallows grim
This song shall be our parting hymn

Words: jim connell

'Women's boat to Gaza' , direct action against the blockade of Gaza.

                    
                         The Marianne of Gothenburg preparing to set sail for Gaza, June 2015.                                                    
The Women’s Boat to Gaza (WBG) is a Freedom Flotilla Coalition initiative.By launching a women’s boat, women from all over the world aim to highlight the undeniable contributions and indomitable spirit of Palestinian women who have been central within the Palestinian struggle in Gaza, the West Bank, inside the Green Line and in the diaspora.Women in Gaza often fill the role of caring for and sustaining life of struggle and dignity. Among the rubble of demolished houses, women in Gaza gather the remains of household goods, a broken stool, a dented pan, sometimes a bottle or a school notebook… and rebuild it -they know how to rebuild because they have had to learn. They bake bread and rice every day and console their children when they cry every night because they fear the planes will return. Gaza women are bastions of resistance and life. They do not allow their spirits to be destroyed, in spite of ongoing devastation.Palestinian women are an inspiration and an example for us , women and men who dream of a better world, it is important to make their voices heard, even more so during periods of extreme injustice.
Gaza has been under Israeli blockade for the past decade, during which time Israel has also launched countless attacks against the besieged population, turning their life into a nightmare and a continuous struggle.The Israeli occupation consistently both violates International Law and disregards UN Resolutions with impunity. A United Nations report states that Gaza will be uninhabitable by 2020. Homes, schools and hospitals have been destroyed. 97% of water is not drinkable and electricity is reduced to a few hours per day. Through Freedom Flotillas and other naval missions, we have brought international attention to their suffering and their resistance.

The WBG seeks not only to challenge the Israeli blockade, but to also show solidarity and bring a message of hope to the Palestinian people.The Women’s Boat to Gaza will set sail mid-September of this year and plans to dock at a number of Mediterranean ports along its route and arrive Gaza on October the 1st. The FFC’s fourth mission (FF4) will be sailed by an all women crew and will carry aboard, notable women from all over the world in order to highlight the undeniable contributions which have been made by Palestinian women to the resistance movement. Confirmed delegates who will be on the Flotilla include; Nobel Laureate (1976) and peace activist from Northern Ireland, Mairead Maguire and Green Party New Zealand Member of Parliament Marama Davidson. Further delegates will be announced in the coming weeks.

Part of their goal is to highlight this struggle and the devastating effects it has had on women, often left alone, sifting through rubble to take care of their families when their husbands are imprisoned or murdered. To stand with these brave and resilient women, so will be sending the  Women's Boat to Gaza to let them know they are not alone.The flotilla is not only aimed at breaking the siege but also at bringing hope to the Palestinian people with the support and endorsement of civil society institutions, women's and human right's organizations and international activists from all over the world. let's hope they achieve their goals
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has asked for the support of members of the European Parliament for the Women’s Boat to Gaza and will seek assurances from all governments that they will protect and not obstruct its peaceful mission of solidarity to the besieged Palestinian people of Gaza.
 
Please visit: www.womensboattogaza.org     for more information

A Song for Emma Goldman's Birthday. ( (27/6 -1869 – 14/5/1940)

" I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful things," so said Red Emma, without adjectives, who sought a way of being free, who would rather roses on her table, than diamonds on her neck. Edgar Hoover once described  her as the most dangerous woman in America. Who simply chose to cling on throughout her life to her deep ideals,a beautiful ideal for a better world. She told us " Ask for work, if they don't give you work, ask for bread . If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread."
Emma Goldman was born today on June 27, 1869, Kovno, Russian Empire. She became one of the most outspoken and well-known of American radicals,political organising lecturing and writing on anarchism, women’s rights and other political topics. Convinced that the political and economic organization of modern society was fundamentally unjust, she embraced anarchism for the vision it offered of liberty, harmony and true social justice. For decades, she struggled tirelessly against widespread inequality, repression and exploitation. She served prison terms for such activities as advising the unemployed to take bread if their pleas for food were not answered, for giving information in a lecture on birth control, and for opposing military conscription, this led to an eighteen-month imprisonment before the First World War In 1908 she was deprived of her U.S. citizenship. She emigrated to Russia and then to Europe, where she travelled and lectured in many countries.She came to Wales, Emma's itinerary of speaking dates during her stay in the UK shows that the most extensively toured area was the south Wales coalfield. During two weeks in 1925 she spoke to audiences from Swansea to the Rhondda, commenting in her letters that the coalfield was a "splendid field" to spread anarchist ideas.  She subsequently joined  the Spanish Revolution, backing the Spanish Anarchists, as they tried to restructure society, while battling fascist, Stalinist threats.
 As an orator Emma Goldman was fiery and brilliant, drawing crowds of thousands to hear her speak. She is known for her extraordinary energy and appetite for life. Many of us associate her with the quote: "If I can’t dance, it’s not my revolution."which Emma Goldman herself saying herself she  never literally spoke those famous words. In her autobiography Living My Life (1931) she describes how she was once admonished for dancing at a party in New York and was told “that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway.” Goldman speaks furiously  the occasion here;
 “I became alive once more. At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal” I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement should not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it.” This episode was later paraphrased and transformed into the famous quote.
 Goldman’s biographer and feminist writer Alix Shulman explained that in  1973, he  befriended printer who asked him  for a quotation by Goldman for use on a t-shirt. Shulman sent him the passage from Goldman’s autobiography, but the printer rephrased the passage into “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution”. As Shulman recounts, the citation subsequently found its way onto millions of buttons, posters, T-shirts, bumper stickers, books and articles: I still think it's lovely when I wake to  know where the sentiment and quote that greets me in the bathroom actually derives from.
Today no rant from me I celebrate Emma Goldman's birthday who continues to inspire and be warmly remembered for the anarcho-feminist, anti-militarist and internationalistic contributions she made to the social revolutionary struggles in life. In troubling times, her words and deeds continue to inspire as we come together and believe in better days. Beyond the panic of our current predicaments and journeys  their our those who will keep on fighting for a fairer society, that continue to champion her pursuit of universal justice towards a more humane, fair and fulfilling world. Her dream lives on.
Here is a rather nice song by Anne Feeney simply called Emma Goldman. Enjoy.

Mixing it up with George Orwell post referendum

George Orwell was born this day in 1903. I wonder what he would make of us voting for Brexit,
In 1941, as the Luftwaffe rained bombs on London, the former Eric Blair reminisced in the essay “ England Your England "  about the period after World War I, when the returning English working classes “brought back a hatred of all Europeans, except the Germans, whose courage they admired.” . Orwell tended to use “England” as his catchall for the United Kingdom.:-
“In four years on French soil they did not even acquire a liking for wine,” Orwell wrote. “The insularity of the English, their refusal to take foreigners seriously, is a folly that has to be paid for very heavily from time to time.”
“But,” he continued, “it plays its part in the English mystique, and the intellectuals who have tried to break it down have generally done more harm than good. At bottom it is the same quality in the English character that repels the tourist and keeps out the invader.”
The same kind of mystique has been fully on view in the often-angry, sometimes-entertaining debate over Thursday’s referendum. British politicians who favor leaving the bloc have invoked Hitler, and the U.K.’s tabloids, long skeptical of the political bloc based in Brussels, have been typically vocal: “Who will speak for England?” the Daily Mail blared; “BeLeave in Britain,” said the Sun, which even reported the “Queen Backs Brexit,” a headline Britain’s Independent Press Standards Organization ruled as “significantly misleading ” given that the queen has stayed publicly neutral on the matter. I am sure he would comment on  the atmosphere in the aftermath of the referendum, the sulphurous whiff not just of inequality, but a kind of misshapen class war. After people not usually  inclined to vote, rebelled, the disenfranchised  a section of working class people who have been taken for granted and dispossessed and exploited for decades, whose industries have been eviscerated and who have been palmed off with a 'race to the bottom' culture. Cruelly, they were engaged by false promises and lies about how things are, and these are beginning to be exposed already by those who perpetrated them. Nevertheless, those people of the council estates who voted in such numbers as never before are now a force, one that has not been active for a long time and they are a key driver in the volatility of now. Those who are at present mounting their coup against Jeremy Corbyn a principled man, who seems to speak to many with with integrity and honesty calling  for social justice are exactly the same dull Blairites who have been part of mounting a slow coup against the council estates for a generation, the same unimaginative centrists who have nothing to offer those people and who seek to use a new force to empower their tired old politics. I hope they fail. in their orchestrated treachery. Resignations on the hour by the future  Blair tribute party self-indulgent games as  jobs are in new peril and just when we need  the Labour Party should be be uniting against the inevitable Tory party rampage to write their fanatical hard-right agenda into the very fabric of society. Anyway I hope a radical politics continues to prevails and in the coming year,I hope to see a radical, anti-racist, pro-working class, pro-diversity, internationalist politics carrying strength as we face the seismic changes to come. which will probably see us having a General Election. 
Anyway George Orwell,  wrote his masterful text  The Lion and the Unicorn in another time  when Europe was tearing itself apart, and the UK’s isolation was more a matter of righteous principle than political chaos. England, he said, “resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kowtowed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income....It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts...A family with the wrong members in control – that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.”
-- "The Lion and the Unicorn," 1941


http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/lionunicorn.html


Coming up for Air was written in 1939 while Orwell was in Morocco because of his tuberculosis. . The book is filled with nightmare visions of how it will be after the war; visions that would become Nineteen Eighty-Four.




"But it isn't the war that matters, it's the after-war. The world we're going down into, the kind of hate-world, slogan-world. The coloured shirts, the barbed wire, the rubber truncheons. The secret cells where the electric light burns night and day, and the detectives watching while you sleep. And the processions and the posters with enormous faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering for the Leader till they deafen themselves into thinking that they really worship him, and all the time, underneath, they hate him so that they want to puke."
It is interesting to see that the atmosphere of Nineteen Eighty-Four was already described in 1939, and today it feels that we seem to be hurtling into a Orwellian nightmare of sorts.To paraphrase George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Leave campaigners started  off by saying all people are equal. And now they've got their  way and Britain has decided to leavee the EU, it will soon change to all people are equal - but some are more equal than others. Yes just like George Orwells time we are surrounded again by scary people, facing a very  scary uncertain future.I  hope we can continue however keep on building a future that is notv filled with fear hate and ignorance.
I will leave you in the hands of George , good evening/prynhawn da , - '

In a time of universal  deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

Ingeborg Bachmann (25/6/27 - 17/10/74 ) - Five poems

Born in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, on the 25th of June 1927 Austrian poet and writer Ingeborg Bachmann , the first child of Mathias and Olga Bachmann (née Haas). Her father was a middle-school language teacher and later principal.  Ingeborg Bachmann saw Nazi troops march through her town when she was 12 years old, after the annexation of Austria. a traumatic experience in which she wrote “The pain came too early and was perhaps stronger than anything since. . . the monstrous brutality, one could feel it, the yelling, singing and marching, an attack, the first, of deathly anxiety.”  Like the poet Sylvia  Plath of “Daddy” and “Little Fugue,” this  Aryan poet came to despise her father (in Bachmann’s case a bona fide Fascist) and to identify with the Nazis’ Jewish victims.
During her lifetime Bachmann, was known first and foremost as a poet, but she ceased to write poetry in the 1960s and focused on prose. In these later works feminist themes came to the fore. Bachmann was a reclusive, but socially engaged writer. Most of the fifties and from 1965 onward, she lived in Rome. She studied law at the universities of Innsbruck, Graz, and Vienna, where she completed her doctoral dissertation on the philosopher Martin Heidegger in 1950. During this period she had a love affair with the poet Paul Celan.There close and personal intellectual relationship would endure until Celan's death in 1971.In September 1950 she will mention her first nervous breakdown and tell Celan that she is lost, desperate and embittered. She wrote: "I have such desire for a little comfort " and she entreats him: "Please try to be good to me and hold me tight!"

                                           Bachmann and Celan.

Often in her work she used  death as a motif and with reflections on the hidden forces of violence and oppression in society. She was appalled and yet fascinated by the fact that crimes against humans were being committed on such a large scale also outside of the boundaries of war. "Since long have I pondered the question of where fascism has its origin. It is not born with the first bombs, neither through the terror one can describe in every newspaper … its origin lies in the relations between a man and a woman, and I have tried to say … in this society there is permanently. "

Bachmann worked as a scriptwriter and editor for the radio station Rot-Weisz-Rot plays between 1951 and 1953. Her first collection of poetry, Die gestundete Zeit (1953), was awarded the Group 47 Prize.After meeting the German composer Hans Werner Henze in Niendorf, Bachmann moved to Italy, where she lived with Henze on the Island Ischia,  working on poems, essays and short stories as well as opera libretti in collaboration, which soon brought with them international fame and numerous awards. She also spent some time as a visiting scholar at Harvard University in the United States. While in Italy in 1954-1955, she wrote political columns under the pseudonym Ruth Keller for the Westdeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung. In 1958 she met the Swiss writer Max Frisch in Paris; their relationship lasted until the early 1960s. Following the end of her relationship with him she suffered a nervous breakdown. It would have a big impact on her.

In 1961, Bachmann published her highly influential autobiographical work, The Thirtieth Year, which was awarded the Berlin Critics Prize and the Georg Buchner Prize in 1964. Her first published novel, Malina (1971), deals with a number of feminist issues. Malina, the protagonist of the novel, has a relationship with Ivan, a younger man of Hungarian descent. The relationship becomes psychologically complex as Malina has recurrent nightmares of her father as a Nazi who kills her in a gas chamber, nightmares that seem to contribute to the deterioration of her relationship with Ivan. Malina also confronts the theme of national memory and national identity in postwar Europe. The issues of ego and alter ego and with the subtle influence of the memory of genocide create a powerful combination. The novel was highly praised and remains an excellent representative work of German postmodernism.

From 1962 Bachmann lived  variously in Munich, Berlin, Zürich and Rome, breaking her somewhat reclusive lifestyle with her social and political activities. Bachmann was a member of a committee that opposed atomic weapons, and she signed a declaration against the Vietnam war.

At the age of 33, Bachmann was appointed to the newly created position as chair of poetics at the University of Frankfurt, where she lectured on poetry and the existential situation of the writer. She only published  few poems over a period of almost a decade. In mid-1960s she travelled in Egypt and Sudan. On the invitation of the literature critic and professor Hans Mayer she travelled in 1960 together with Hans Magnus Enzensberger and Walter Jens to the German Democratic Republic.
For her partly autobiographical work Das dreißigste Jahr Bachmann received in 1964 the Berlin Critics Prize. In the same year she also received the prestigious Georg Büchner Prize and was introduced into the West Berlin Academy of Arts. Four years later she was awarded the Austrian National Medal. In the spring of 1973 she gave a series of readings in Poland and visited the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Bachmann's poetry showed the influence of classic antiquity, surrealism, and such diverse writers as Klopstock and Rilke. She often dealt with the difficulties of love, guilt, and mindless forces that can break frail human relationships. The tone of her poems, written in precise and formally elegant style, is mostly somber. Dark, powerful images refer to private anguished experiences, problems of identity, contemporary social events, and mythology. "Great Bear, come down, shaggy night, / cloud-coated beast with the old eyes, star eyes. / Through the thickets your paws break / shimmering with their claws, / star claws." (from Anrufung des Großen Bären) Often she had visions of future catastrophes: "Worse days are coming. / The time allotted for disavowals / Comes due the skyline. / Soon you will lace up your shoes / And drive the dogs back to the marshes." (from 'The Time Allotted')

After 1967 Bachmann almost stopped writing poetry and turned to prose  In her prose works Bachmann moved more on the social level, although her writing were highly introspective and used lyrical elements. Fascist threats, the interplay of ego and alter-ego, and women's experiences in a hostile, patriarchal society, were recurrent themes.
Bachmann died tragically in Rome on October 17, 1973, aged 47 three weeks after she had been badly burned in a fire in her apartment attributed to an unextinguished cigarette,combined with complications to her addiction to prescription drugs. The German tabloid BILD wrote of the news of her death: "She died, as if she had thought it up herself." In 'Curriculum vitae!
Since the publication of her collected poems in 1978 the characterization of Bachmann as a lost poet  has been increasingly challenged by a more politically charged view of social and literary concerns.She would become an inspiration to later feminist writers because her work probed the issues that defined the agenda of women writers. She is considered today one of the mot talented German - Austrian writers of the 20th century. I find her work profoundly moving, delicate that have over the years struck a chord within so on what would have been her birthday here's a few poems from her. Hope you enjoy as much as me.

A Kind of Loss

Used together: seasons, books, a piece of music.
The keys, teacups, bread basket, sheet and a bed.
A hope chest of words, of gestures, brought back, used, used up.
A household order maintained. Said. Done. And always a head was there.
I've fallen in love with winter, with a Viennese septet, wiht summer.
With Village maps, a mountain nest, a beach and a bed.
Kept a calender cult, declared promises irrevocable,
bowed before something, was pious to a nothing

(-to a folded newspaper, cold ashes, the scribbled piece of paper),
fearless in religion, for our bed was the church.

From my lake view arose my inexhaustible painting.
From my balcony I greeted entire peoples, my neighbors.
By the chimney fire, in safety, my hair took on its deepest hue.
The ringing at the door was the alarm for my joy.

It's not you I've lost,
but the world.

Translated from the German by Mark Anderson

To the Sun - Ingeborg Bachmann

 More beautiful than the remarkable moon and her noble light,
More beautiful than the stars, the famous medals of the night,
More beautiful than the fiery entrance a comet makes,
And called to a part far more splendid than any other planet's
Because daily your life and my life depend on it, is the sun.

Beautiful sun that rises, his work not forgotten,
And completes it, most beautifully in summer, when a day
Evaporates on the coast, and effortlessly mirrored the sails
Pass through your sight, till you tire and cut short the last.

Without the sun even art takes the veil again,
You cease to appear to me, and the sea and the sand,
Lashed by shadows, take refuge under my eyelids.

Beautiful light, that keeps us warm, preserves us, marvellously makes sure
That I see again and that I see you again!

Nothing more beautiful under the sun than to be under the sun . . .

Nothing more beautiful than to see the stick in water and the bird above,
Pondering his flight, and, below, the fishes in shoals,

Coloured, moulded, brought into the world with a mission of light,
And to see the radius, the square of a field, my landscape's thousand angles

and the dress you have put on. And your dress, bell-shaped and blue!
Beautiful blue, in which peacocks walk and bow,

Blue of far places, the zones of joy with weathers that suit my mood,
Blue chance on the horizon! and my enchanted eyes
Dilate again and blink and burn themselves sore.

Beautiful sun, to whom dust owes great admiration yet,
Not for the moon, therefore, and not for the stars, and not
Because night shows off with comets, trying to fool me,
But for your sake, and endlessly soon, and for you above all

I shall lament the inevitable loss of my sight.

I step outside myself - Ingeborg Bachmann

 I step outside
myself, out of my eyes,
hands, mouth, outside
of myself I
step, a bundle
of goodness and godliness
that must make good
this devilry
that has happened.

I know no better world  

 Who knows of a better world should step forward.
Alone, no longer out of bravery, not wiping away this saliva,
this saliva worn upon the cheek
as if to a coronation, as if redeemed, whether at communion
or among comrades. The weak rabbit,
the rat, and those fallen there, all of them,
no longer alone, but as one, though still afraid,
the dream of returning home
in the dream of armament, in the dream
of returning home.

Stay

Now the journey is ending,
the wind is losing heart.
Into your hands it’s falling,
a rickety house of cards.
The cards are backed with pictures
displaying all the world.
You’ve stacked up all the images
and shuffled them with words.
And how profound the playing
that once again begins!
Stay, the card you’re drawing
is the only world you’ll win.


 
Earlier post can be found here :- 

 https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/ingeborg-bachmann-25626-171074-every-day.html

Black Friday

I woke up this morning devastated.Since then it's all felt weird and out of sync as I seek to understand and contemplate how  a climate of  fear has beaten that of hope , fiction has beaten fact and our country has been catapulted into the unknown and .deeply regretting  that the  people of Britain have been deceived and manipulated into believing that Brexit will bring about relief from the grinding austerity that is destroying lives and communities. This is the wonders of democracy, that before  the gloaters get carried away  voted 51.9% voted for Leave; 48.1% for Remain.But only 37.5% of the electorate secured the result for Leave. We should remember the 62.5% who did not show their support.for Brexit who will also now have to suffer the consequences.A hollow victory for Murdoch and money men hiding in the shadows .
Yep I'm not very happy, had Noman effing Tebbit on the TV earlier  telling us all to  calm down, but how can oh we, when we have woken to such a fractured country and it seems their are many out there gloating in this situation, taken in by the likes of farage and co, time now to heal, but how, .... as Donald Trump arrives happy as a *** of **** this master of division, and the forces of racism and far right nationalism already bleeting... yes tears have been rolling down my cheeks this morning, a feeling of great shame, so Cameron has resigned whoop whoop, are we supposed to thank him now, after all it was him who engineered all this shit,and his mates in the Bullingham Club still happy as larry, and time to make room for Boris, and poor old Jeremy Corbyn will probably be ousted now, the media will seize their chance and any hope of the Labour Party  to become a party that tries to push for progressive radical change will be lost  as the forces of the right sneakily emerge to take advantage as they certainly will.. Unless their membership stays on course, decide to find someone else geared up for the fight ahead, or  bravely carry on regardless, with principle prepared to continue the fight for social justice,fairness, not just for the  privileged few.
In the meantime lets get ourselves ready for loss of wages, loss of jobs, loss of NHS, loss of Rights and Laws that protected us,the many vital rights at work in the UK that were derived from EU law, guaranteeing things like paid leave entitlements, protections from being forced to work excessive hours, discrimination protections and rights for working mums to be that might now be lost.and will see even more loss of services and even more assets sold of to line their own pockets, get yourselves prepared  for more austerity and other brutal changes that are going to come at us  inn a blink of the eye. But it could now see now Scotland pushing for independence, a vote on Northern Ireland leaving the union to form a unified Ireland, a general election in the UK, a Labour Leadership election and a Conservative Leadership election and .then perhaps Wales too,  might take time to reflect . UKIP  will now though need a name change as the idea of a United Kingdom ceases to exist anymore in this fractured divided country.
Rant nearly over,  though a tad bitter I remain forever an optimist  theirs still glimmers of hope among these days of uncertainty, so here's to those that keep trying to build a better world based on equality and humanity. to another future, a  moment of time that feels safer than now, a place that for many that no longer seems to exist. hope too that the trust of  neighbors can be regained  friends ,who can remind us every day that we have more in common than that which divides us and that a better world is possible..
Hey ho iechyd da, pob lwc x

Jo Cox friend of Palestine

The British Labor Party MP Jo Cox, who was brutally  killed last Thursday in broad daylight, on the streets of Birstall, a West Yorkshire village in her constituency on June 16th was a devoted compassionate friend of Palestine, refugees and immigrants,champion for the less fortunate; for the socially ostracised, for women; and for diversity.who dedicated her life to helping lives of people on the other side of the world, for human rights and advocated for the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. She often spoke against Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinian children and called on Israel to end its practice of detaining young underage Palestinians. Mrs. Cox - whose 42nd birthday would have been today frequently advocated for the rights of Palestinians' to self determination and for enforcing international human right law to protect the rights of young Palestinian children -both in her charity work and as an MP.She said in February that moves by they that moves by the Conservative government to use legal threats to curtail the boycott of Israel were “a gross attack on democratic freedoms. It is our right to boycott unethical companies.”
Jo was a true humanitarian. Who used her own voice to give the voiceless a strong, powerful voice and used hers  to hold governments to their humanitarian obligations a huge loss, the Palestinian people have lost a true friend and defender of their rights.long may we remember her.
In the following link she speaks on the arrest detention and treatment of children in occupied Palestinian territories :-.

http://www.jocox.org.uk/2016/01/07/jo-cox-on-the-arrest-detention-and-treatment-of-children-in-occupied-palestinian-territories/ 

"Parliament held an urgent and thought provoking debate this week about the way in which children are arrested, detained and treated in the occupied Palestinian territories, writes Jo Cox.

Westminster Hall, the overspill venue for backbenchers to hold debates when time pressures on the main Chamber won’t allow, was jammed with MPs keen to contribute and listen to what was a fascinating, deeply troubling discussion.

Israel is the only country in the world that systematically prosecutes children in military court and the differences between how Israeli children and Palestinian children are treated are stark. For example, an Israeli child subject to civil court proceedings has to have access to a lawyer within 48 hours. Yet a Palestinian child can be left without legal guidance for as long as 90 days. This, and many other disparities, underline the existence of a two tier justice system operating in the West Bank. One where Israeli children are subject to the rule of law; Palestinian children are not. This disparity of treatment, along with the estimate that 59,000 Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military since 1967 are likely to have been physically abused in one way or another, is deeply disturbing. It is also a clear and fundamental abuse of basic human rights and international law, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

There are a number of very worrying trends that impact upon these Palestinian children and during the debate I raised the issue that 65 per cent of children report being arrested in what are often ‘terrifying’ night raids by the Israeli military.

Night raids cause a huge amount of distress to children and their families. UNICEF have powerfully argued that “all arrests of children should be conducted during daylight, notwithstanding exceptional and grave situations.” A short lived Israeli pilot scheme, unconvincingly implemented, involved issuing summonses in place of night-time arrests. But these were increasingly served after midnight defeating the intended purpose.

Personal accounts provide an insight to what children are subjected to – they are often arrested in the middle of the night by armed soldiers, their hands are bound, they are blindfolded and taken away on the floor of a military vehicle. There are also reports of them being subjected to physical and verbal abuse throughout.

Another worrying trend is that almost three quarters of children detained report not being informed of their right to silence, the fundamental right afforded anyone arrested on suspicion of a crime. This is to stop the risk of self-incrimination, a particular concern for vulnerable children.  One case documented by the organisation Military Court Watch shockingly reported that a Palestinian child was told by one interrogator that he had the right to silence while a second told him he would be raped if he did not confess.

Thirdly, the issue of transferring detainees en masse from occupied territory is a very serious issue, and is, in fact, a war crime. Yet monthly data released by the Israeli Prison Service shows that almost half of the detained Palestinian children from the West Bank are transferred to prisons inside Israel.

This is a breach of the Geneva Convention. The added human impact is that these unlawful transfers mean families struggle to visit their children often over many months.

Estimates put the number of Palestinians detained since 1967 at 850,0000. Of these almost 100,000 are children. Between 500 and 700 children are prosecuted each year, with stone throwing the most common charge. This often brings with it a sentence of between 10 and 20 years.

And worst of all the number of children involved is increasing. As of last month the number of children in detention was up to 470 – over a 200% increase since last September.

These abuses have been going on for nearly 50 years. As my colleague Sarah Champion MP, who sponsored the debate, said – this situation requires decisive action to ensure we meet our international legal obligations."

Remain

This referendum is about the type of country we want to live in. Been pondering about this for awhile but in past week my mind has firmly been made up
I'm objectively against the concept of the EU. The current leadership in Brussels is dominated by political forces that seek to erode the social gains won in the past. Their is the issue of trade deals like TTIP that would hardwire privatisation and deregulation into our political system.Many of the member states remain wedded to austerity economics and have imposed their destructive policies on the people of southern Europe. I was disgusted by the way it imposed oppressive austerity measures  on the people of Greece and Spain, and it is after all another corporate superstate, hugely undemocratic and unrepresentative,decisions affecting every man, woman and child on the continent are being made in ways it is increasingly difficult to understand and some profoundly reactionary interests dominate the EU institutions, aligned with big business and elite interests, the EU is in dire need of reform and more democracy,  it's all a bit of a mess quite frankly. The anti capitalist argument against the EU has a good case  yet at the same time the the EU does an awful lot of protections like workers rights, maternity leave, human rights and environmental safeguards,  health and safety legislation, holidays, regular breaks etc. Things I don't trust the UK to keep up with. Certainly not under Cameron. And do you really trust the likes of Farage and Johnson  when it comes to workplace rights and human rights.In fact, many of the worst EU policies, like TTIP, are precisely the ones that the UK government is most supportive of and would retain, emulate or even expand if Brexit were to occur.
Ideally we wouldn't be at the mercy of the EU or the UK government but whilst they still have such a strong say on the lives of normal people I will always choose the lesser of the evils. At the end of the day whoever we vote for the powerful always seem to get what they want. I will not be voting for the EU, per say but Brexit I don't think is the answer.
What has really consolidated my view is what has been going on recently. The campaign terrain has been marked out by the right wing eurosceptic Tories and by their outriders in UKIP. The British electorate has been told in increasingly strident terms that British “national sovereignty” is at stake.Another, slightly less subtle, message is also being delivered. Unless “Britain” rejects continued membership of the EU, the ethnic and cultural integrity of the nation will be threatened—the argument goes. The UKIP leader, Nigel Farage, has warned us of the dangers of waking up and finding Romanians have moved in next door. The implications, we will be told, are clear: for as long as the country is part of the EU, “the swamping” of the indigenous British population by alien migrants from the other EU countries cannot be halted. The noxiously chauvinist tone that has ­characterised so much of the debate about immigration invariably takes on an openly racist colour particularly when applied to the Roma people from EU states in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Leave campaign have created such a mood of toxicity in the country that resembles the one in Germany when Hitler won his first election. It has increasingly taken on a dangerous edge, warped poisonous and hysterical. It is horrifying to think where Britain will be heading if the Leave win. Every day I thank my lucky stars that I live where I do. I can't imagine how it must feel to be a refugee. To feel rejected and unwanted with no home to go to. I want to live in a country where people truly care about other human beings and who can show compassion. I want us to work together with our neighbours for the good of all people. 
There can be no doubt that if Britain leaves the EU many European regulations restricting working hours and other employment and social reforms will be scrapped. The anti-EU right also demands a rolling back of the powers of both the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) and—more urgently—of the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR). The British Tory establishment has been outraged by some of the rulings of the ECHR in particular,for instance to give prisoners in jail the same voting rights they have elsewhere in the EU. Even more objectionable to the Tories have been ECHR rulings to protect the human rights of immigrants at risk of being deported by the UK. The ECHR is itself outside the remit of the European Union. But the ECJ is bound by the overarching decisions of the ECHR when ruling on matters of specifically EU law. The Tories want a “British” convention on human rights to replace the European convention. Anyone doubting this would deliver a serious blow to civil liberties and human rights in Britain is not living in the real world.
It is possible that the vote on Thursday could produce a democratic fracture in UK politics. It is not the most likely scenario but it is possible. The only thing we know for sure is that after Thursday the winner will have been a member the Bullingdon club. Staying in however we can keep on pushing for change and reform working steadily in solidarity with our European friends as part of a  Europe-wide movement against austerity, racism and xenophobia, not left alone and isolated from our European neighbours.
The above reasons are  why I am voting to remain. We have far to much to lose.
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Halfway there ( a poem for the summer solstice)

      

                  
                        ( in time of rising hate, fear and division, a moment of contemplation)
                                                          happy summer solstice   

Surging through veils,
to enhance, to heal,
recharge, renew, reveal,
time to celebrate,
through spirit, mind, and heart,
the turning of the seasonal wheel,
under the influence,
of a full strawberry moon,
swirl in peace for awhile,
solitary or in company,
kiss goodbye to the last shades of spring,
pay homage to forces of nature we trust,
as earth's darkness returns to light,
and summertime is reborn.