Ours is an interesting world
Containing much confusion
Threads of indifference
Oh to return to the future
Be repelled by unkindness
Essence overcoming injustice
Rained minds, reeled from pain.
October 14th marks the birthday of unconventional American poet Edward Estlin Cummings, popularly known as e.e. cummings, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1894.His father, Edward, was a professor
at Harvard University and later the nationally known minister of Old
South Church in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Rebecca, who loved to
spend time with her children, played games with Cummings and his sister,
Elizabeth. It was Cummings's mother who introduced him to the
joys of writing.
Cummings began writing
poetry at the age of 8, developing a signature style of using grammar
and syntax to give his work a distinct physical and oral shape which
broke with poetic conventions of the time. Cummings was educated at Cambridge
High and Latin School, and from 1911 to 1916 he attended Harvard. Cummings became an aesthete, he began
dress unconventionally, and dedicated himself to painting and literature.At Harvard, he roomed
with John Dos Passos; befriended Lincoln Kirstein; read Latin, Greek,
and French; earned two degrees; discovered alcohol, sex, fast cars, and
burlesque at the Old Howard Theater; and raged against the school’s
conservative, exclusionary upper-class rule.
When the United States entered the war in 1917, Cummings made the
decision to avoid the draft and volunteered to serve with the
Norton-Harjes Ambulance Service in France. He was excited by the
prospect of adventure and felt this service would best match his
pacifist nature and intellectual upbringing. Perhaps because of his experimental artistic personality or his
political beliefs, Cummings did not seem to fit in well with his unit
and tension began to develop. Cummings freely spoke of his distaste
for the other men in the unit, and wrote numerous letters of complaint
to his family back in the US. French authorities censored the letters
of both Brown and Cummings and they soon found themselves under the
heavy scrutiny of authorities. After being interrogated and refusing
to turn his back on Brown, Cummings was detained and eventually interred
in a French Prison Camp
at La Ferté-Macéfor three months.Later, he found out he had been accused
of treason, but the charges were never proven.
He was glad to escape the regimentation of army life for the artists'
playground of Greenwich Village, which he would call his home for the rest of his life, Never enamored of the moneyed class or celebrity or
authority, here he threw himself into writing,
painting, and sexual adventure. (Cummings would run through two
marriages and many love affairs before settling down with the former
model Marion Morehouse, his companion for the last 30 years of his
life.)
His first major literary success came with the publication of his prose memoir, The Enormous Room (1922), an account of his imprisonment in France. This was followed by
collections of verse, Tulips and Chimneys (1923),
which contrasted the evils of war to the 'sweet spontaneous
earth', and XLI Poems (1925).
In his poems Cummings often expressed his rebellious attitude
towards politics, and conformity,He was sardonic about organized religion, but maintained an almost
transcendentalizing faith in human beings. He championed individuals
against the power of the state, as with "i sing of Olaf glad and big,"
and as a result was drawn to the radical Left early on, even translating
Louis Aragon's poem "Red Front" from the French, but a visit to the
Soviet Union turned him against communism, Eimi (1933), his
experimental diary recounting his Soviet experience. By temperament, he was in
some ways more an anarchist ( ironically with somewhat politically conservative leanings) but a certain irreverance remained fundamentally central to his character.
There is the the question of Cummings’s anti-Semitism, which his biographer Susan Cheever
contrasts with Ezra Pound’s more virulent prejudice, and while nothing
is excused away, quite the contrary ,Cheever argues that in Cummings’s
case it speak more to a prevailing disgust with the world rather than a
disgust centered on one group in it:
Cummings was an
equal opportunity hater. He hated Hitler and he hated the Jews. He hated
Roosevelt and he hated Stalin, he especially hated Stalin. He hated
the critical establishment and he didn’t like the new restaurants on
Tenth Street. He made fun of other poets who had once been his friends.
He had a somber side that craved privacy
and what he called an "after breakfast" side that enjoyed running with
the crowd. He never ran after the crowd. He could spend days isolated
with his work, yet he loved travel. In the twenties Cummings made
several trips to Europe and there met with Ezra Pound, Hart Crane, Ford
Maddox Ford, Archibald MacLeish, and others. During visits to France,
Spain, Tunisia, Mexico, Russia and Italy he enjoyed visiting the
museums, attending concerts, viewing stage shows, or just watching the
passing parade.
his body of work includes almost 3,000 poems, two autobiographical
novels, four plays and several essays, as well as numerous drawings and
paintings, and was the recipient of many literary awards, Cummings was awarded the Academy of American Poets fellowship, 1950; he
received a Guggenheim fellowship, 1951-52; and he was the Charles Eliot
Norton Lecturer at Harvard, 1953. as well as earning an
honorary professorial seat at Harvard.
Throughout his career he
paid a great deal of attention to the visual appearance of the poem on
the page, probably due to his painters eye. But Cummings is perhaps best known for his unorthodox usage of both capitalisation, punctuation and typography. “Grammatical anarchism” was his way of
protesting the conformity of mass society. He varied text alignments, spaced lines irregularly, and used
nontraditional capitalization to emphasize particular words and phrases.
In many instances his distinct typography mimicked the energy or tone
of his subject matter. He also revised grammatical and linguistic rules to suit his own
purposes and experimented with poetic form and language to create a
distinct personal style.He frequently used colloquial language and material from burlesque and the circus and ignored conventional punctuation and syntax
in favor of a dynamic use of language, even inventing his own words by
combining common words to create new meanings.
Yet despite the
nontraditional form of his poems, Cummings gained widespread popularity. His style may have been avant-garde, but his themes were more traditional: love, childhood, nature, his moods were alternately satirical and
tough or tender and whimsical, combining powerful appreciations of the individual soul.
Edward Estlin Cummings died on Sep. 3, 1962 of a brain hemorrhage His literary style marked him as one of the most
revolutionary and innovative poets of the twentieth century.Cummings will be remembered as one of the more lasting poets America has produced. An extraordinary poet who simply rebelled in the act of noticing. An artist who never cowered from being his unconventional self, in the words of his most incisive biographer he "despised fear, and his life was lived in defiance of all who ruled by it"
His body of work encompasses approximately 2,900 poems, two
autobiographical novels, four plays and several essays, as well as
numerous drawings and paintings.
The following is a selection of some of my favourite poems by him.
i sing of Olaf glad and big
i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or
his wellbelovéd colonel (trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but-though an host of overjoyed
noncoms (first knocking on the head
him) do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments-
Olaf (being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds, without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"
straightaway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)
but-though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skillfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat-
Olaf (upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"
our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died
Christ (of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too
preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in)
carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
Humanity I Love you
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than enquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
Seeker of Truth
seeker of truth
follow no path
all paths lead where
truth is here
you said is
you said Is
there anything which
is dead or alive more beautiful
than my body,to have in your fingers
(trembling ever so little)?
Looking into
your eyes Nothing,i said,except the
air of spring smelling of never and forever.
....and through the lattice which moved as
if a hand is touched by a
hand(which
moved as though
fingers touch a girl's
breast,
lightly)
Do you believe in always,the wind
said to the rain
I am too busy with
my flowers to believe,the rain answered
the mind is its own beautiful prisoner
the mind is its own beautiful prisoner.
Mine looked long at the sticky moon
opening in dusk her new wings
then decently hanged himself, one afternoon.
The last thing he saw was you
naked amid unnaked things,
your flesh, a succinct wandlike animal,
a little strolling with the futile purr
of blood;your sex squeaked like a billiard-cue
chalking itself, as not to make an error,
with twists spontaneously methodical.
He suddenly tasted worms windows and roses
he laughed, and closed his eyes as a girl closes
her left hand upon a mirror.
i have loved let us see if that is all - e.e cummings
i have loved, let us see if that’s all.
Bit into you as teeth, in the stone
of a musical fruit. My lips pleasantly groan
on your taste. Jumped the quick wall
of your smile into stupid gardens
if this were not enough (not really enough
pulled one before one the vague tough
exquisite flowers, whom hardens
richly, darkness. On the whole
possibly have i loved….you)
sheath before sheath
stripped to the Odour. (and here’s what WhoEver will know
Had you as bite teeth;
i stood with you as a foal
stands but as the trees, lay, which grow
o sweet spontaneous - e.e.cummings
o sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked
thee
, has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy
beauty . how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)
since feeling is first
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
– the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Further Reading
e.e. cummings : A life by Susan Cheever, Pantheon 2014
e.e. Cummings: The Complete Poems, 1904-62 edited by George James Firmage
Liveright,, 2013
John Giorno, legendary American poet, LGBTQ+ activist, visual artist, and originator of Spoken Word and performance poetry, has died at the age of 82. Giorno’s death was confirmed on October 12 in an Instagram post from his friend musician Lee Ranaldo, who posted photos on Saturday in
memory of the artist. He wrote, "Sad to note the passing today of dear
friend John Giorno, such a sweet, beatific person.
Born on December 4, 1936 in New York, NY, Giorno studied at Columbia
University before briefly working as a stockbroker. When John Giorno was 14 he experienced what he called “a blissful
feeling” towards poetry, which in life is what you are supposed to
follow when you have these positive feelings, he said. Going down the
poetic path John Giorno met Andy Warhol and the whole pop art scene in
1962
during an opening at Stable Gallery in New York. The two became close
friends and occasional lovers, and Giorno was the star of Warhols movie Sleep (1963).
In the film, which lasts for five hours, Giorno is depicted sleeping nude for the entire length of the movie.Shortly after the filming, Giorno and Warhal ended up parting their ways.They rarely saw each other until 1987 (the year Warhol died) when they had a few encounters.
A Still from Sleep (1963)
After leaving Warhol, Giorno went on to become very influential in the underground arts scene of New York, and became known as a leader in the development of poetry as a
performance and entertainment medium. He did this through his own
performances and also with his non=profit Giorna Poetry Systems, which he founded in 1965, an artists' collective and
record label that aimed to relay poetry to a wider audience using
innovative means of communication which subsequently led to
Dial-A-Poem which he created in 1968 that extended poetry into the medium of
mass communication, in which he sought to extend the
frontiers of poetry and to free it from its elitist repertoire. The service allowed members of the public to call a number to call a number
(+1 641-793-8122 ) — which is still active now — and hear a live
recording of a poem from poets like Frank O'Hara, David Henderson, John
Ashberry, Laurie Anderson, John Cage, Anne Waldman and the likes of Brion Gysin and more. Giorno said that the idea of “Dial-a-Poem”
came from a conversation he had with his friend, the great William S Burroughs, after a a call with him in the late 60s, Among the dialable texts were poems by Allen Ginsberg, but also
parts from Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries or William S Burroughs' novel
Naked Lunch, read by Frank Zappa. Among the texts was also an extract of
a speech delivered by Bobby Seale, one of the founders of the Black
Panther Party, and the poem Revolutionary Letters by Diane di Prima,
which included a practical instruction of how to build a Molotov
cocktail. As well as speeches and
texts on civil rights and opposing the Vietnam War, Giorno
Poetry Systems released over forty LPs and CDs of poets working with performance and music, numerous cassettes, poetry videos and film.
Though too young to be part of the first wave of Beat poets, Giorno was a
close friend and collaborator of William S Burroughs from the late 1960s
onwards. He was with Burroughs the night Burroughs died in 1997. Giorno’s early poems explored the use of found images,
appropriated language, collage, and was introduced to sound poetry by Brion Gysin. When composing his own poetry, Giorno imagined an audience in front of him.
"Spoken word " he wrote. " using breath and heat, pitch and volume, and
the melodies inherent in the language, risking technology and music,
and a deep connection with the audience, is the fulfillment of a poem.
It's the entertainment industry ( you got to sweeten the deal) -
transmitting an awareness of ordinary mind."
Giorno was a pioneer in shaking poetry free from the page, performing
his work with verve and gusto, rather than just reading it aloud
politely.Taking on issues of sexuality, death, psychedelic drugs, and his life in
New York, Giorno’s text-based work and poetry often employs
appropriation and performance to evoke memories and feelings of
transcendence. His books included The American book of the Dead (1964),Balling Bhudda (1970), Cancer in My Left Ball (1973), and You Got to Burn to Shine: Selected Poetry and Prose (1993).
His recorded albums and CDs numbered Biting off the Tongueof a Corpse (1975) and ( A Diamond Hidden in the Mouth of a Corpse ( 1985).
A pervading macabre sense of humour underlied his work and a strong
outsider Queer sensibility.His confontational work and his energy has been an influence on
other performance poets since and rock bands have been quenched and
influenced by his ideas.It was also William S Burroughs with whom Giorno toured through the United
States in the 70s and 80s. Together, they entered the stages of
rock-clubs and presented their texts as performances. Giorno was to develop an amplified, confrontational performance poetry that was highly influential on what became the Poetry Slam scene. "Poems are instruments of wisdom. It awakens something in one’s mind.”
he once said and when he performed, people had an enormous emotional response, which
Giorno felt was because his words allow them to see themselves. :
He had also been a long time practitioner of
the Nyingma tradition of Tibetan Bhuddism. In 1971, inspired by a post-LSD conversation with Allen Ginsberg, Giorno
traveled to India to study Buddhism. There, he met HH Dudjom Rinpoche,
the supreme leader of the progressive Nyingma school of Tibetan
Buddhism, and became a devoted student.
Strongly shaped by his political engagement. For example, he protested sgainst the Vietnam War and provided
money from the Giorno Poetry Systems for lawyers or bail-outs for
political activists.In 1984, under the impression of the AIDS crisis,
Giorno founded the AIDS treatment project: He visited infected people in
the hospital, handed out cash, but also took time for intensive
dialogues. Starting with small amounts of money, the project soon
expanded and, to this day, provides large amounts of money for the daily
needs of people living with AIDS. In his poem "AIDS monologue", written
in 1992, Giorno subsumes the spirit of the project in just one line: to
treat a complete stranger as a lover or close friend.The Paris Reviewquotes
Giorno saying, "My intention is to treat a complete stranger as a lover
or a close friend; in the same spirit as in the golden age of
promiscuity, we made fabulous love with beautiful strangers, and
celebrated life with glorious substances. 'God please fuck my mind for
good!' Now that their life is ravaged with AIDS, we offer love from the
same root, in the form of boundless compassion."
In 2015 he was the subject of a major retrospective ‘I Love John
Giorno’ byhis husband, the acclaimed Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone at
Palais de Tokyo in Paris, and in various venues throughout Manhattan in
2017, in celebration of the poet’s 80th birthday. Giorno’s work was
included in the collections of prominent venues worldwide. At the time of his death, Giorno had been exhibiting
new work at the Sperone Westwater gallery in New York City. The
exhibition, titled “Do the Undone,” is due to be exhibited until October
26. The press release for the show refers to Giorno living and working out of his studio in the Bowery in Lower Manhattan for over 50 years.
His contributions are significant to many culturally defining moments:
the Beat generation, Pop Art, Punk, the Pictures Generation, and the
hip-hop era. Giorno's work was innovative and provocative in all respects. Friends, colleagues, and admirers have taken to social media to express their grief and to pay tribute to John Giorno, a rare a poet of spontaneity and vitality, who on all accounts had an astonishing presence and a warm humanity, that saw in his time and brilliant life him at the crossroads between
poetry, visual arts, music and performance, directing his work
toward a broad public, redefining the capabilities of poetry and
linguistic form, releasing words of great imagination, labors of love and passion, utilising intensely rhythmic and philosophical poetry.
It was some of these qualities that led the former singer for R.E.M Michael Stipe. to cast Giorno in We All Go Back to Where We Belong,
a film he made for the band’s 2011 song of the same title. Shot in the
spirit of Warhol’s screen tests — black-and-white, portrait-style — the
film captures Giorno in close-up, a blank stare on his face, until the
end, when he erupts in laughter.
REM - We All Go Back To Where We Belong , John, 2011
Here is a video from 2014 where he looked back at his first meetings with poetry, his great
influences, the importance of performing without a book, and where
poetry is headed in the future, and I will end with a few of his amazing poems. A truly remarkable individual, and iconoclast of our times.“Poetry
never dies. You can’t kill poetry.” Rest in Power, beautiful spirit John
Giorno.
' You Gotta Burn To Shine.'
John Giorno Interview : Poets are Mirrors of the Mind
Life is a Killer
Everyone says
What they do
is right
and money is
a good
thing
it can be
wonderful.
Road
drinking
driving
around
drinking beer,
they need me
more than
I need them,
where are you guys from,
stumbling off
into the night
thinking
about it
stumbling off into the night
thinking about it.
When I was
15 years old
I knew everything
there was
to know,
and now that I'm old,
it was true.
I got dragged
along on
this one
by my foot,
if I wasn't so
tired
I would have
a good
time
If I Wasn't so tired
I'd have a good time
If I wasn't so tired I'd have
a good time.
Tossing
and turning,
cause there's
a nest
of wasps
coursing
through your
bloodstream
cause there's a nest of wasps
coursing through your bloodstream.
If you think
about it
how could
it have come
to this
if you think about it
how could it have come to this,
it's coming
down the road
the red
lights,
and it's
there
and it's there
and it's there
and it's there.
Try your
best
and think
you're good,
that's what
I want
being inside you
that's what i want
being inside you
that's what I want being besides you,
endless
thresholds,
and you hope
you're doing
it right.
How are you
feeling good
how are you
feeling
good
how are
you feeling
good
how are you feeling
good
how are you feeling good,
you need
national
attention.
Cause essentially
all you
ever accomplshed
was snort
some smack
and sit
on a zafu
watching
your breath.
How the hell
did I end
up doing
this
how the hell did
I end up doing this
for a job?
I can't say
I don't need
anybody
cause I need
the Bhuddas,
and there's nothing
I can say
about them.
Everyone is at
a complete
disadvantage,
you're being taken
to dinner
at La Coter Basque
and you're eating
9 lives
liver,
and drinking
wine,
the women
they are taking
prisoners.
I'm not going
nowhere, I ripped up
my suitcases
I ripped up my suitcases.
Crank me
up
and keep me
open
crank me up
and keep me open
and keep me open
crank me up and keep me open,
nothing
recedes
like success.
Whatever
happens
it will seem
the way
it seems
now,
it doesn't matter
what you
feel,
how perfectly
correct
or amazing
the clarity,
everything
you think
is deluded
everything you think
is deluded
everything you think is deluded,
life
is a killer.
Just Say No to Family Values
On a day when
you're walking
down the street
and you see
a hearse
with a coffin,
followed by
a flower car
and limos,
you know the day
is auspicious,
your plans are going to be
successful;
but on a day when
you see a bride and groom
and wedding party,
watch out,
be careful,
it might be a bad sign.
Just say no
to family values,
and don't quit
your day job.
Drugs
are sacred
substances,
and some drugs
are very sacred substances,
please praise them
for somewhat liberating
the mind.
Tobacco
is a sacred substance
to some,
and even though you've
stopped smoking,
show a little respect.
Alcohol
is totally great,
let us celebrate
the glorious qualities
of booze,
and I had
a good time
being with you.
Just
do it,
just don't
not do it,
just do it.
Christian
fundamentalists,
and fundamentalists
in general,
are viruses,
and they're killing us,
multiplying
and mutating,
and they destroying us,
now, you know,
you got to give
strong medicine
to combat
a virus.
Who's buying?
good acid,
I'm flying,
slipping
and sliding,
slurping
and slamming,
I'm sinking,
dipping
and dripping,
and squirting
inside you;
never
fast forward
a come shot;
milk, milk,
lemonade,
round the corner
where the chocolate's made;
I love to see
your face
when you're suffering.
Do it
with anybody
you want,
whatever
you want,
for as long as you want,
any place,
any place,
when it's possible,
and try to be
safe;
in a situation where
you must abandon
yourself
completely
beyond all concepts.
Twat throat
and cigarette dew,
that floor
would ruin
a sponge mop,
she's the queen
of great bliss;
light
in your heart,
flowing up
a crystal channel
into your eyes
and out
hooking
the world
with compassion.
Just
say
no
to family
values.
We don't have to say No
to family values,
cause we never
think about them;
just
do it,
just make
love and compassion
Thanks 4 Nothing
I want to give my thanks to everyone for everything,
and as a token of my appreciation,
I want to offer back to you all my good and bad habits
as magnificent priceless jewels,
wish-fulfilling gems satisfying everything you need and want,
thank you, thank you, thank you,
thanks.
May every drug I ever took
come back and get you high,
may every glass of vodka and wine I've drunk
come back and make you feel really good,
numbing your nerve ends
allowing the natural clarity of your mind to flow free,
may all the suicides be songs of aspiration,
thanks that bad news is always true,
may all the chocolate I ever eaten
come back rushing through your bloodstream
and make you feel happy,
thanks for allowing me to be a poet
a noble effort, doomed, but the only choice.
I want to thank you for your kindness and praise,
thanks for celebrating me,
thanks for the resounding applause,
I want to thank you for taking everything for yourself
and giving nothing back,
you were always only self-serving,
thanks for exploiting my big ego
and making me a star for your own benefit,
thanks that you never paid me,
thanks for all the sleaze,
thanks for being mean and rude
and smiling at my face,
I am happy that you robbed me,
I am happy that you lied
I am happy that you helped me,
thanks, grazie, merci beaucoup.
May you smoke a joint with William,
and spend intimate time with his mind,
more profound than any book he wrote,
I give enormous thanks to all my lovers,
beautiful men with brilliant minds,
great artists,
Bob, Jasper, Ugo,
may they come here now
and make love to you,
and may my many other lovers
of totally great sex,
countless lovers
of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless fabulous sex
countless lovers of boundless
fabulous sex
in the golden age
of promiscuity
may they all come here now,
and make love to you,
if you want,
may each of them
hold each of you in their arms
balling
to your hearts
delight.
balling to your hearts
delight
balling to
your hearts delight
balling to your hearts delight.
May all the people who are dead
Allen, Brion, Lita, Jack,
and I do not miss any of you
I don't miss any of them,
no nostalgia,
it was wonderful we loved each other
but I don't want any of them back,
now, if any of you
are attracted to any of them,
may they come back from the dead,
and do whatever is your pleasure,
may they multiply,
and be the slaves
of whomever wants them,
fulfilling your every wish and desire,
(but you won't want them as masters,
as they're demons),
may Andy come here
fall in love with you
and make each of you a superstar,
everyone can have
Andy.
everyone can
have Andy.
everyone can have Andy,
everyone can have an Andy.
Huge hugs to the friends who betrayed me,
every friend became an enemy,
sooner or later,
I am delighted you are vacuum cleaners
sucking everything into your dirt bags,
you are none other than a reflection of my mind.
Thanks for the depression problem
and feeling like suicide
everyday of my life,
and now that I'm seventy,
I am happily almost there.
Twenty billion years ago,
in the primordial wisdom soup
beyond comprehension and indescribable,
something without substance moved slightly,
and became something imperceptible,
moved again and became something invisible,
moved again and produced a particle and particles,
moved again and became a quark,
again and became quarks,
moved again and again and became protons and neutrons,
and the twelve dimensions of space,
tiny fire balls of primordial energy
bits tossed back and forth
in a game of catch between particles,
transmitting electromagnetic light
and going fast, 40 million times a second,
where the pebble hits the water,
that is where the trouble began,
something without substance became something with substance,
why did it happen?
because something substance less
had a feeling of missing out on something,
not
getting it
was not getting it
not getting it,
not getting it,
imperceptibly not having something
when there was nothing to have,
clinging to a notion of reality;
from the primordially endless potential,
to modern day reality,
twenty billion years later,
has produced me,
gave birth to me and my stupid grasping mind,
made me and you and my grasping mind.
May Rinpoche and all the great Tibetan teachers who loved me,
come back and love you more,
hold you in their wisdom hearts,
bathe you in all-pervasive compassion,
give you pith instructions,
and may you with the diligence of Olympic athletes
do meditation practice,
and may you with direct confidence
realize the true nature of mind.
America, thanks for the neglect,
I did it without you,
let us celebrate poetic justice,
you and I never were,
never tried to do anything,
and never succeeded,
I want to thank you for introducing me to
the face of the naked mind,
thanx 4 nothing.
The Death of William Burroughs
William died on August 2, 1997, Saturday at 6:01 in the
afternoon from complications from a massive heart attack
he'd had the day before. He was 83 years old. I was with
William Burroughs when he died, and it was one of the best
times I ever had with him.
Doing Tibetan Nyingma Buddhist meditation practices, I
absorbed William's consiousness into my heart. It seemed as
a bright white light, blinding but muted, empty. I was the
vehicle, his consciousness passing through me. A gentle
shooting star came in my heart and up the central channel,
and out the top of my head to a pure field of great clarity
and bliss. It was very powerful - William Burroughs resting
in great equanimity, and the vast empty expanse of
primordial wisdom mind.
I was staying in William's house, doing my meditation
practices for him, trying to maintain good conditions and
dissolve any obstacles that might be arising for him at that
very moment in the bardo. I was confident that William had
a high degree of realization, but he was not a completely
enlightened being. Lazy, alcoholic, junkie William. I didn't
not allow doubt to arise in my mind, even for an instant,
because it would allow doubt to arise in William's mind.
Now, I had to do it for him.
What went into William Burroughs 'coffin
with his dead body:
About ten in the morning on Tuesday, August 6, 1997,
James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg came to William's
house to pick out the clothes for the funeral director to put
on William's corpse. His clothes were in a closet in my
room. And we picked the things to go into William's coffin
and grave, accompanying him on his journey in the
underworld.
His most favorite gun, a 38 special snub-nose, fully loaded
with five shots. He called it, 'The Snubby.' The gun was my
idea. 'This is very important!' William always said you can
never be too well armed in any situation. Of his more than
80 world-class guns, it was his favorite. He often wore it on
his belt during the day, and slept with it, fully loaded, on
his right side, under the bed sheet, every night for fifteen
years.
Grey fedora. He always wore a hat when he went out. We
wanted his consciousness to feel perfectly at ease, dead.
His favorite cane, a sword cane made of hickory with a
light rosewood finish.
Sport jacket, black with a dark green tint. We rummaged
through the closet and it was the best of his shabby clothes,
and smelling sweet of him.
Blue jeans, the least worn ones were the only ones clean.
Red bandana. He always kept one in his back pocket.
Jockey underwear and socks.
Black shoes. The ones he wore when he performed. I
thought the old brown ones, that he wore all the time,
because they were comfortable. James Grauerholz insisted,
'There's an old CIA slang that says getting a new
assignment is getting new shoes.'
White shirt. We had bought it in a men's shop in Beverly
Hills in 1981 on The Red Night Tour. It was his best shirt,
all the others were a bit ragged, and even though it had
become tight, he'd lost a lot of weight, and we thought it
would fit. James said," Don't they slit it down the back
anyway."
Necktie, blue, hand painted by William.
Moroccan vest, green velvet with gold brocade trim, given
him by Brion Gysin, twenty-five years before.
In his lapel button hole, the rosette of the French
government's Commandeur des Arts et Lettres, and the
rosette of the American Academy of Arts and Letters,
honors which William very much appreciated.
A gold coin in his pants pocket. A gold 19th Century Indian
head five dollar piece, symbolizing all wealth. William
would have enough money to buy his way in the
underworld.
His eyeglasses in his outside breast pocket.
A ball point pen, the kind he always used. 'He was a
writer!', and sometimes wrote long hand.
A joint of really good grass.
Heroin. Before the funeral service, Grant Hart slipped a
small white paper packet into William's pocket. 'Nobody's
going to bust him.' said Grant. William, bejeweled with all
his adornments, was traveling in the underworld.
I kissed him. An early LP album of us together, 1975, was
called Biting Off The Tongue Of A Corpse. I kissed him on
the lips, but I didn't do it... and I should have.
Everything gets lighter
Life is lots of presents,
and every single day you get
a big bunch of gifts
under a sparkling pine tree
hung with countless balls of colored lights;
piles of presents wrapped in fancy paper,
the red box with the green ribbon,
and the green box with the red ribbon,
and the blue one with silver,
and the white one with gold.
It's not
what happens,
it's how you
handle it.
You are in a water bubble human body,
on a private jet
in seemingly a god world,
a glass of champagne,
and a certain luminosity
and emptiness,
skin of air,
a flat sea of white clouds below
and the vast dome of blue sky above,
and your mind is an iron nail in-between.
It's not
what happens,
it's how you
handle it.
Dead cat bounce,
catch
the falling knife,
after endless shadow boxing
in your sleep,
fighting in your dreams
and knocking yourself out,
you realize everything is empty,
and appears as miraculous display,
all are in nature
the play of emptiness and clarity.
This week there has been shock and anger as Donald Trump withdrew US troops from northern Syria and the support it was providing to the Kurds in northern Syria, who
have been instrumental over the past four years in defeat of the Islamic
State (also known as ISIS or Daesh), but which are viewed with deep hostility by the government in Ankara. This has given the oppressive Tayip Erdogan regime the green light to unleash a wave of barbaric bombings leaving innocent civilians dead.
Between 25 and 35 million Kurds inhabit a mountainous region straddling
the borders of Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Armenia. They make up the
fourth-largest ethnic group in the Middle East, but they have never
obtained a permanent nation state. Today, they form a distinctive community, united through race, culture
and language, even though they have no standard dialect. They also
adhere to a number of different religions and creeds, although the
majority are Sunni Muslims.
In the early 20th Century, many Kurds began to consider the creation of a
homeland - generally referred to as "Kurdistan". After World War One
and the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the victorious Western allies made
provision for a Kurdish state in the 1920 Treaty of Sevres.
They lost out on their dreams of independent
statehood in the remaking of the Middle East that followed the end of
the first World War, when the Treaty of
Lausanne, which set the boundaries of modern Turkey, made no provision
for a Kurdish state and left Kurds with minority status in their
respective countries. Over the next 80 years, any move by Kurds to set
up an independent state was brutally quashed. The kurds one of the indigenous peoples of the Mesopotamian plains and the highlands were partitioned between Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. These four states
were founded on the oppression of the kurds.
Decades later, having
joined an uprising against the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq,
with the overt encouragement of the US, they saw their aspirations for
freedom crushed as Saddam used helicopter gunships, with the tacit
approval of US forces, to put down the rebellion. Thus Trump’s betrayal
of his Kurdish allies follows a long and dishonourable pattern of
western duplicity in the region. Betrayal leaves a bitter taste as the Kurds are abandoned by western allies yet again. An old kurdish proverb reflects a history of dissapointments ' we have no friends but the mountains' now is the time to show them this is not the case.
The key Kurdish actors
in Syria are the People’s Protection Units or YPG, the dominant element
in an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias known as the Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF), and the military wing of the Kurdish Democratic
Union Party (PYD).
Over
the course of eight years of civil war in Syria, Kurdish forces have
captured tens of thousands of square miles of territory in the northeast
of the country, close to the Turkish border.In so doing, they have
established a de facto autonomous region, sometimes referred to as 'Rojava', meaning “the land where the sun sets.” which is home to significant Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian populations. that has captured the imagination of people across the world, inspired by the achievements. of the kurdish led movement in particular, the gains in womens liberation, LGBTQ liberation struggles, experiments in direct democracy and campaigns for ecological justice.
The YPG has borne the
brunt of the campaign against Islamic State in Syria. It played a major
role in the August 2014 evacuation to safety of 50,000 Yezidis
threatened by an Islamic State campaign regarded as genocidal by the
United Nations, and in the recapture of Raqqa, the one-time capital of
the Islamic State caliphate, in October 2017..In all, the YPG suffered losses of up to 11,000 fighters in the conflict. However, regardless of its role in the fight against Islamic State, for Turkey, the YPG is no more than an extension of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), which has fought a fierce campaign for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey since 1984.. Not for the first
time, the mad impetuous nature of US president Donald Trump’s foreign
policy making has taken the world by surprise.
The ideological inspiration for the Rojava project is Abdullah Öcalan,
the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). For
Öcalan, capitalism was an “inherent component” of the nation-state.
What was needed, he argued, was “democracy without the state.”
Many Kurds in Rojava consider Abdullah Öcalan a national hero.Today, it is nearly impossible to drive down a street in the Kurdish
parts of Syria without seeing Öcalan’s face smiling through a bushy
mustache. He is stenciled on walls, plastered on billboards, and stuck
on cellphone cases.
In 1980, Öcalan fled his home in Turkey for Syria. The Assad regime
was repressing the rights of its Kurdish population, but it allowed
Öcalan to form training camps on Syrian soil. From there, his guerrillas
directed attacks against Syria’s enemy Turkey in pursuit of
establishing an independent Kurdish t state. In 1997, the United
States labeled the PKK a terrorist organization, and the following
year Hafez al-Assad kicked out Öcalan. With help from the CIA, Turkish
intelligence captured him in Kenya in 1999.
The Kurds are so serious about devolving power to the local level that Rojava’s charter
requires each of its three regions to have its own flag. And within
each region, local elected councils are in charge. They organize garbage
collection, adjudicate disputes and manage public health and safety.
Confederalism sets the Kurds apart from almost every other government in the Middle East.
Across the region, power is concentrated at the top. Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, is an authoritarian leader who has ruthlessly crushed his opponents in the country’s eight year civil war, Egypt has a military government. Saudi Arabia has a king. But Rojava would be an exceptional society almost anywhere.
Rojava’s charter guarantees freedom of expression and assembly and
equality of all religious communities and languages. It mandates direct
democracy, term limits and gender equality. Men and women share every position in government. Kurdish women have fought the Islamic State in Syria as soldiers in an all-female militia.
In a region where religion and politics are often intertwined, the
Kurdish state is secular. Religious leaders cannot serve in politics.
Rojava’s charter even affirms the right of all citizens to a healthy
environment.
Surrounding countries,including Syria , also have constitutions with eloquent endorsements of political and human rights. In Rojava, however, the constitution is actually in effect. Syrian Kurds have realized the dream of the 2010-2011 pro-democracy uprisings across the Arab world,
Many internationalists came to join the YPJ from around the world,
and many were martyred. These include comrades Heval Avsin ,Jac Holmes, Eric Scurfield, Heval
Legerin and eight Britons who have died fighting with the YPG among them the incredibly passionate Anna Campbell from Lewes , Sussex https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/03/anna-campbell-death-of-freedom-fighter.html
Anna Cambpell
The withdrawal by Trump dishonours the memory of all who travelled to Syria to join anti-ISIS militias but lost their lives. The democratic system founded by the peoples in north-eastern
Syria is an oasis of freedom and democracy for all the Middle Eastern
peoples, it is the breath of peace and fraternity. In this respect,
Arabs, Turks, Persians, Azeris, Armenians, Syriacs and all peoples, and
all faiths, should protect this oasis of freedom, as an attack against it
would be an attack against all peoples’ desire for freedom and
democracy.The Rojava project is now in imminent peril. Here is a link to an international call to defend Rojava .https://riseup4rojava.org/call-international-call-riseup-defend-rojava/
President Erdogan has been threatening a Turkish assault on the Kurdish-controlled
territories for some time. Last December, Trump and Erdogan discussed
the latter’s threat to launch a military operation. Any uncoordinated US withdrawal
has the potential to lead to a military free-for-all in which SDF,
Turkish and Syrian troops become involved with potentially disastrous
humanitarian consequences. The attack by Turkey clearly threatens not
only the SDF, which has made it clear that it will respond by whatever
means are necessary, but also hundreds of thousands of Kurdish and other
civilians..
The situation is
further complicated by the fact that Kurdish forces are currently
guarding 11,000 Islamic State prisoners, including some 2,000 foreign
fighters. There are another 70,000 people in al-Hawl refugee camp, which
has been described as an incubator for the re-emergence of Islamic
State.
There are already thousands of people fleeing the area looking for a safe place to go. Many are on the move for the third time in recent years after previously fleeing Aleppo and other Syrian cities ravaged and flattened from the unrelenting war. Turkish forces invaded Afrin in Syria in 2018, following the
withdrawal of US troops, in operations that saw them accused of
“indiscriminately shelling civilians” by international human rights
groups.
The Turkey assault is facing international condemnation . The European Union has warned that Turkey' hostilities would " further undermine the stability of the whole region."Campaign Against Arms Trade’s (CAAT) Andrew Smith also warned that an
invasion of northern Syria “could have devastating consequences.” He said: “By arming the Turkish military, the British government is making itself complicit in how those weapons are used.
“The UK must stop aiding Turkey’s human rights abuses with arms sales and political support.”
Since 2014, Britain has licensed £1.1 billion worth of weapons to be sold to Turkey.
Labour shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry said: “As a matter
of urgency, the government must demand firstly that Kurdish
representatives are brought into the newly constituted Syrian
constitutional reform committee.
“Secondly, Turkey must not increase its military presence in northern
Syria or its support for Syrian militias operating on its behalf.
“Thirdly, there must be no attempt by Turkey to use this announcement
as a green light to return non-Kurdish Syrian refugees into northern
Syria in an effort to change the region’s ethnic composition.”
These actions of the US and Turkey will spark a new humanitarian disaster in a country that is already on its knees.
On Thursday, thirteen of the biggest UK unions urged Prime
Minister Boris Johnson to condemn Turkey’s invasion of Syria – and act
to avert ethnic cleansing and potential genocide.
Together with Thompson’s Solicitors, they have demanded that Johnson
uses the UK’s influence to prevent a humanitarian disaster and potential
genocide as a result of the Turkish invasion of north and east Syria.
The unions include Unite, GMB, CWU, ASLEF, TSSA, USDAW, BFAWU, PCS, NEU, RMT, Prospect, EIS and GFTU.
They warned that President Trump’s ‘appalling’ abandonment of the
fragile region will see Turkey seek its own military and strategic
advantage which will undoubtedly lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide
of the Kurds as well as a resurgence of ISIS in the region.
The unions say that the UK must show its clear and
utter condemnation of Turkey’s invasion, calling for a no fly zone and
international force deployment. The UK right now must immediately distance itself from Washingtons forein policy madness and Ankara's antipathy and hostility towards the kurds What a travesty this whole torrid episode is, and what a tragedy for the kurds.
The people of Rojava have called for the diplomatic isolation of the
Turkish state, and also for the institution of a no-fly zone above Northern and
Eastern Syria and solidarity from all those that ally themselves with
the struggle for freedom and equality. As Internationalists (both inside
and outside North-East Syria) we must meet their call for help in
whatever way we can. Here’s what you can do to defend democracy:
Boycott goods and services provided by the Turkish state and the companies which supply it. Find out who is arming them
and make the business of supporting fascism all the more difficult for
them. Contact trade unions that represent the people that work for these
companies, urge them to follow in the footsteps of the Scottish Rolls Royce workers that defied Pinochet, and prevent the manufacturing and selling of weapons to the fascist Turkish state:
Here is a link to 15 aid organisations calling for aid and for attacks on civilians to stop. https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/15-aid-agencies-warn-humanitarian-crisis-north-east-syria-civilians-risk
Don't be like shameful Donald Trump, please let the Syrians and the Kurds know they haven't been a abandoned and help provide medical relief and support. Solidarity should be shown at this grave moment in time and we should raise our collective voices against this attack on the kurdish people, because if left unchallenged this crisis is only going to grow and the human cost will rise quickly and horrifically.
Misty Buswell, Middle East policy director at the International
Rescue Committee (IRC), expressed deep concern about the impact Turkey's
assault will have "on civilians, including our own staff members and
their families, and the destabilizing effect this will have on a
population that has already borne the brunt of the eight-year-long
conflict in Syria."
"Many of these people have already been displaced multiple times and
suffered horribly under the brutal rule of ISIS," said Buswell, "only to
be facing yet another crisis."
Here is a link to an emergency appeal to do what you can to help.To give you an idea of what emergency supplies cost a mobile medical pack for an aid worker is £135 . A basic hygeine pack for people fleeing is just £10. Give whatever you can.
Kurds and their friends in Kurdistan,and all around the world are currently mobilising and taking to the streets in protest at the Turkish incursion into northern Syria. Please consider joining emergency rallies to stop the Turkish invasion,
SATURDAY, 12th October, 12 noon – 4pm
CARDIFF, Nye Bevan statue (Queen Street)
Cardiff and Wales will be joining a Global
Day Of Action against the Turkish Occupation and ethnic cleansing of
Kurds in North-East Syria. They will be be meeting at noon at the Nye Bevan
statue (Queen Street) to hand out leaflets and stand in solidarity with
the Kurds and all the people of North-East Syria.
I would encourage all to express their solidarity directly to the kurdish people in defence of their human rights by raising awarenress of the atrocities committed by Erdogens government. Our solidarity can defeat tyranny.
Long live kurdistan
Biji Rojava! Biji SDF! Biji Karkerên!
Today, most of us are aware, we are currently in the grips of a mental health crisis. An epidemic. killing indiscriminately, especially the young .One in four people in the UK will experience a mental health problem each year. Today is World Mental Health Day, which occurs annually on October 10 and aims to educate and raise awareness of mental health issues.
We should not forget that mental illness doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in
every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders
and doctors, reality stars and footballers. and within the monopoly-capitalist nations, mental-health disorders are the
leading cause of life expectancy decline behind cardiovascular disease
and cancer.
In the European Union, 27.0 percent of the adult population between the
ages of eighteen and sixty-five are said to have experienced
mental-health complications.
Recent estimates by the World Health Organization suggest that more
than three hundred million people suffer from depression worldwide. And it is important to note that most of the medications currently available fail to manage symptoms at all.
Approximately eight hundred thousand individuals
commit suicide globally each year.
In the UK in 2018, there were 6,507 deaths by suicide (a rate of 11.2 deaths per 100,000 people).
Suicide and suicide attempts can have lasting effects on individuals
and their social networks and communities. The causes of suicide are
many, and it is important to understand the psychological processes that
underlie suicidal thoughts, and the factors that can lead to feelings
of hopelessness or despair.
In recognition of this, the 2019 theme for World Mental Health Day (as set by the World Federation for Mental Health) is “Mental Health Promotion and Suicide Prevention”.
Suicide behaviours are complex, there is no single explanation of why
people die by suicide. Social, psychological, and cultural factors can
all interact to lead a person to suicidal thoughts or behaviour. For
many people, an attempt may occur after a long period of suicidal
thoughts or feelings, while in other cases, it may be more impulsive.
Despite some excellent media guidelines produced by Samaritans and
Mind, journalists often still revert to outdated language and
stereotypes when reporting suicide. There is a difficult balance between reporting known facts and
introducing elements of the story into the public domain which may
encourage others to emulate what they have read, as is described in the
Werther effect - so called because of the spate of imitational suicides
that were said to have taken place after the publication of Goethe’s
novel The Sorrows of Young Werther. Research carried out across the
world over the last five decades shows that when specific methods of
suicide are reported – details of types and amounts of pills, for
example – it can lead to vulnerable people copying them.
Young
people in particular are more influenced by what they see and hear in
the media than other age groups and are more susceptible to what is
often referred to as suicide contagion.
We should not describe a suicide as ‘easy’, ‘painless’, ‘quick’ or
‘effective’, and we should remember to look at the long-term
consequences of suicide attempts, not forgetting the significant
life-long pain for those left behind when someone does take their own
life.
It is also important to bear in mind that reports of celebrity deaths
carry greater risk of encouraging others to take their own lives, due
to the increased likelihood of over-identification by vulnerable people.
A recent study, which examined news reports covering the suicide of US
actor Robin Williams, identified a 10% increase in people taking their
own lives in the months following his death. This emphasises the
responsibility that we all have when it comes to talking about suicide.
We often read speculation about the cause of suicide, linking a death
to a previous event such as the loss of a job, the break-up of a
relationship or bullying. It is impossible to say with any certainty why
someone takes their own life. As Samaritans state: ‘there is no simple
explanation for why someone chooses to die by suicide, and it is rarely
due to one particular factor.’
Suicide is often the culmination of a complex set of factors,The aim today for this Mental Health Foundation is simple - to send out a message of hope, #YouBelongHere. Hope is like oxygen for our mental health. It is the vital ingredient in supporting people to hold on
In support of World Mental Health Day, the green ribbon, an international symbol of mental health The Mental Health Foundation simultaneously organised projections of the green ribbon
onto the buildings across Britain in Glasgow, and Edinburgh’s St Andrews House.
There was also up to 100 mental health advocates and people affected by
suicide gathered in Trafalgar Square London, to form a human green
ribbon.
Let us today think of people suffering untold mental anguish leading them to
take this step. and the relatives and friends who are bereaved their
lives often left in tatters. The mind is a very delicate place, It's
good to talk or to be listened to.
Mark Rowland, Chief Executive of the Mental Health Foundation said:
"We should not be so scared of suicide that we can't talk about it.
Suicide is a devastating and gut-wrenching tragedy that ends a life and
shatters countless others. But we also know that we can all help
prevent such deaths, as individuals and as a society. We are not
powerless. Far better to say something that feels awkward than to stay
silent, whether you're worried about another person or needing help
yourself. Sometimes we need to talk about suicide."
I will end by saying that the alleviation
of mental distress is only possible in a society without exploitation
and oppression. All members of society are affected by the inhumane nature of
capitalism, and for many who suffer it is the consequence of concrete inequalities and hardships that are a direct product of our economic system . As the basis on which society’s superstructural formation is erected, capitalism is a major determinant of poor mental health leading to discontent and alienation. As the Marxist professor of social work and social policy Iain Ferguson has argued, “it is the economic and political system under which we live—capitalism—which is responsible for the enormously high levels of mental-health problems which we see in the world today.”
But, slowly and determinedly, the fight is being to end this led most
explicitly by the most oppressed and exploited. So lets keep fighting and spreading awareness, and be kind to the people that are around us, but for fucks sake don't just tell anyone to simply cheer up. Much love. Need to talk? Samaritans – offers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week support service
116 123
Shout Crisis Text Line
85258
C.A.L.M.
Available helpline (5pm – midnight) and webchat to support men
Papyrus – (dedicated service for young people up to the age of 35)
0800 068 4141
Support After Suicide Partnership offers practical and emotional
support on their website for people bereaved and affected by suicide.
Mary Anne (Sometimes Marian) Evans who was better known by her pen name George Eliot.was born at Chilvers
Coton, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England. An acclaimed English novelist, philosopher and poet, who as a woman was ahead of her time,in the way she defied the sexual, religious and social rules of her day.
The daughter of an estate manager known for his conscientious work
habits and staunchly conservative political views.Not much is said about George Eliot's mother except that she died when
Mary was 17 years old. This
caused Mary to leave Mrs. Wallington's School at Nuneaton where she had
attended from 1832 to 1835. She left to help care for her father and
keep the house. It seems her mother's death was sudden but there is no
available cause of death listed. Recognized at an
early age for her intelligence, Evans gained access to the estate’s
library. At school, as an adolescent, she was allowed considerable
freedom in what she read; she devoured books, including Sir Walter
Scott’s novels.
Evans was strongly touched by Evangelicalism in
her later teenage years, and devoted several years to taking religion
and religious study seriously. During that time, she disapproved of
frivolities such as the theater and novels. However, her theological
ardor eventually cooled and she found herself reading all of Byron,
Shelley, Coleridge, Southey and, especially, Wordsworth, among others.
In
1841, she and her father moved to a house near Coventry where Mary Anne came under different intellectual influences. There was clearly
something in the social air as well, including no doubt the impact of
the Chartist movement and the depression of 1841-1842, that made her
susceptible to new ideas, among them those advanced by Charles and
Caroline Bray, who became her close friends. Charles Bray was a ribbon
manufacturer and a free thinker. He was an acquaintance of, among other
figures, Robert Owen, the utopian socialist, and Ralph Waldo Emerson,
the American philosopher, to both of whom he introduced Mary Anne, who
had by now stopped attending church. She “was quickly brought,” as biographer Gordon S. Haight writes, “from
provincial isolation into touch with the world of ideas.”
Formidably knowledgeable across a range of subjects:
Mary Anne was able to speak several languages including German, Hebrew,
and Greek, she translated two books into English that were central to
the rejection of Christianity by the intellectual avant-garde: David
Friedrich Strauss' Life of Jesus (1846) and Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity (1854). These translations lead to Eliot's atheism and her eventual renunciation of the Christian faith, that led her tp to develop a sense of
secular humanism, which is the belief that humanity is capable of
morality and self-fulfillment without belief in God. After her fathers death in 1849 when she was 30 she travelled extensively abroad in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and France. After settling in London in 1850, from 1851 to 1854 she served as
a writer and editor of the left wing journal Westminster Review. In London she met she met George Henry Lewes, a
journalist and advanced thinker. Lewes was separated from his wife, who
had had two sons by another man, but had been unable to obtain a
divorce. In a step daring for Victorian times, Mary Ann Evans began
living openly with Lewes in 1854, in a union they both considered as
sacred as a legal marriage and one that lasted until his death in 1878. The fact that they publicly acknowledged their relationship rather than
hiding it brought them disapproval from the rest of society. Her brother
Isaac ceased contact with her.
Many people over time have made comments about George Eliot' appearance. She did not adhere to what consensus society considered beautiful, but beauty is after all skin deep, but what Eliot was gifted with was a radiant, luminous intelligence,, and emphatic tenderness that more than outshone many others on the planet, that did not prevent many admiring her'and before her immensely happy, 23 year liaison with George Henry Lewes, she had attracted the attentions, of several personable and distinguished men.
With Lewes’s encouragement, Mary Ann Evans wrote her first fictional work, “The Sad Fortunes of the Reverend Amos Barton,” for Blackwood’s Magazine
in 1857, when she was 37, it was followed by two more stories published under the
pseudonym George Elliot, partly in order to avoid her work being judged in relation to
her scandalous domestic situation., and "George” because it was Lewes’s name and “Eliot”
because, she said, it was good mouth-filling, easily pronounced word.” It also gave Eliot a shield against a society that despised her decision to
question the church, speak her mind and live, for 25 years, with a
married man.
At the age of thirty-nine she used her memories of Warwickshire to
write her first long novel, Adam Bede (1859), it
caused such a sensation on its publication in February 1859 and, tired of
the intense speculation surrounding the author’s identity, she revealed
her real name in June of the same year. It established her as the foremost woman novelist in her day. Then came The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), and Romola (1863). Her masterpiece and one of the greatest English novels, Middlemarch, was published in 1871.Her last work was Daniel Deronda
(1876).
From the outset of her career as a novelist, she was convinced that a
writer's first obligation was a moral one and she would use her words to write with a politically astute pen, and understood and wrote about the daily life of people at all levels of English society with great empathy and passion.
From Adam Bede to The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, Eliot
presented the cases of social outsiders and small-town persecution.
Felix Holt, the Radical and The Legend of Jubal were overtly political,
and political crisis is at the heart of Middlemarch,in which she
presents the stories of a number of denizens of a small English town on
the eve of the Reform Bill of 1832; the novel is notable for its deep
psychological insight and sophisticated character portraits, the roots
of this realist philosophy in her review of John Ruskin's Modern
Painters in Westminster Review in 1856.
Readers in the Victorian era particularly praised her books for their
depictions of rural society, for which she drew on her own early
experiences, and she shared with Wordsworth the belief that there was
much interest and importance in the mundane details of ordinary country
lives.
In her own works she
emphasized two major doctrines - that of renunciation and that of
retribution. She chose the novel as the best medium for moral teaching
because it was the popular literary type of the age. Her moral
principles were not those of any particular religious creed, but were
the universal ideals of reason, love of mankind, and renunciation of
mean and selfish aims.She said that the “inspiring principle” that gave her courage to write
was that of “so presenting our human life as to help my readers in
getting a clearer conception and a more active admiration of those vital
elements which bind men together and give a higher worthiness to their
existence”. She took satisfaction in having produced work that would
“gladden and chasten human hearts”
What is important to remember is Eliot wrote with neither an exclusively male nor an exclusively female sensibility, but from a well-rounded human perspective. She mixed with some of the greatest intellectuals of her day, including Charles Darwin, Karl Marx and Charles Dickens. Proselytizing however was not her thing though, because she knew that her scandalous
liaison with Lewes could only make her discussion of controversial matters a liability, but she thought of
herself as an a activist, "teaching the world through books." Thinking that she could more
forcefully present her views by maintaining the persona of a neutral observer in her fiction,
she objected to the role of political activist, who presents ideas in her own person. Finally,
as a shy woman who cared only for her husband and her writing, who was often ill, and
who hated publicity, she had neither the taste nor energy for public life, but who can fail to admire her rebellion against Victorian conventions by living with a married man in spite knowing it would cause a scandal.
And despite causing both scandal and outrage in Victorian English society, love for her work would eventually overwhelm many of the prejudices that she encountered. From being an outcast, she even enjoyed royal approval. Queen Victoria was an avid reader of all her work, and by the time of her death , she had become the richest and most successful, self-made women in the country with her celebrated across the world.
After Lewes’s death in 1878, George Eliot found comfort with and married John Walter Cross on 16th May 1880.
He was forty; she was sixty-one, and this again opened her to gossip because of the age difference, but this legal marriage helped at least to reconcile her with her brother. They moved to Chelsea but George Eliot fell ill with a throat infection.
She was already suffering with kidney disease and she died on 22nd
December 1880.
Before her death, she had been recognized by her contemporaries as the greatest living writer of English fiction and her thoughts, writings and books have since become renowned for their psychological insight and realism, touching boldly on timeless issues such as gender, justice, love, morality. politics and religion. None of her characters are perfect, and come with flaws as do most people.
Due to her unconventional lifestyle and atheist principles, she was refused internment at Westminster Abbey. Instead, she was buried in the area reserved for religious dissenters or agnostics alongside her beloved George Lewes at Highgate Cemetery. In 1980, 100 years after her death, a plaque was erected in Poets' Corner in recognition of George Eliot's literary achievements and lasting reputation. She lives on through her written works , and to quote George Eliot herself :"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them"
I will end with the following lovely quote written in a letter written to her teacher Maria Lewis in October, 1841, in which she reflects on autumn :
"Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love —
that makes life and nature harmonize. The birds are consulting about
their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues
of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one’s very footsteps may
not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that
is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very
soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth
seeking the successive autumns.
Another world is possible
Beyond days of sleeping
Unsolved dreams can become a reality
Fulcrums of necessity
Flaming passion
Burning with fire
Released by comrades
Into the timeless bones of the universe.
Enjoying freedom
Wings of liberty
Unleashing stardust
Sweetness that contains mercy
Not bound by cages or prison walls
Through solidarity all made stronger
Breaking borders, spreading internationalism
Transforming with arms unrestrained.
The love we share
Can be a mover against injustice
Adjusting and shaping
Making waves that carry all
A communal roar spreading light
Against chains of command
Reinforcing pride with eyes glistening
Still gripping to the rays filled with hope
On this day on October 4, 1936, Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists attempted to march through East London. They were met by over 100,000 local residents and workers who fought with the fascists and the police in order to protect their community, which forced the march to be abandoned. The people of the East End inflicted a massive defeat on Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists that could never be forgotten.
During this time Britain was facing very serious economic problems, with a climate of mass unemployment and economic depression, and far right forces were intent on using this in order to exploit division and stir up hate. Oswald Mosley, a former
member of Parliament known for his public speaking skills, founded the BUF in 1932, and within two years membership had grown to
50,000. Mosley's fascists held vile anti-semitic views and tried to blame Jews for the cause of the country's problems. Throughout the mid 1930s, the BUF moved
closer towards Hitler’s form of fascism with Mosley himself saying that
“fascism can and will win in Britain”. The British fascists took on a
more vehemently anti-Semitic stance, describing Jews as “rats and vermin
from whitechapel” and tried to blame Jews
for the cause of the country's problems. Mosley’s blackshirts had been harassing the sizeable Jewish population
in the East End all through the 1930s. By 1936 anti-semitic assaults by
fascists were growing and windows of Jewish-owned businesses were
routinely smashed. Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’ The notorious Daily Mail
headline is just one chilling indication of the very real threat Oswald
Mosley’s British Union of Fascists posed in the mid 1930s.
On Sunday Oct. 4, 1936, Mosley planned to lead his Blackshirt supporters on a march
through the East End, following months of BUF meetings and leafleting in
the area designed to intimidate Jewish people and break up the East
End’s community solidarity.
Political leaders in the East End petitioned the Home Secretary Sir John
Simon to ban the march; however, their request was denied. On 2nd
October, the Jewish People’s Council presented a second petition with
100,000 signatures to request that the march be banned on the grounds
that the “avowed object of the Fascist movement in Great Britain is the
incitement of malice and hatred against sections of the population.” Despite these efforts, the British government allowed the march to
proceed as planned and assigned 7,000 members of the police force to
accompany it. They were not to be welcomed, instead they were
met by protestors, waving banners with slogans such as
'They shall not Pass'( no pasaron, famous republican slogan from the
Spanish Civil War) , 'No Nazis here' and 'East End Unite.' A mighty force had assembled prepared to defend their streets and neighbourhoods and their right to live in them.
Even though uniformed policemen on horseback were employed to allow Mosley's march to pass through, anti-fascists blocked the route by barricading the street with rows of domestic furniture and the police were attacked with eggs, rotten fruit and the contents of peoples chamber pots. Local kids rolled marbles under police horses hooves. A mighty battle ensued, leaving many arrested and injured.
Cable Street is rightly remembered because it saw thousands of people, from many walks
of life, women, children, local jews, Irish groups, communists,
socialists, anarchists standing firm as one in an incredible display of
unity who worked together to prevent Mosley's fascists from marching
through a Jewish area in London.Together, they won a famous victory and put the skids under Britain’s first fascist mass movement.The fascists did not get to march and they did not
pass, and were left in humiliation so today we look back on this living
history in celebration and pride. Significantly, for some people
that were involved in the protest, Cable Street was the
road to Spain, and many would go on to volunteer as soldiers for the
Republicans there, this year also marks the 80th anniversary founding of
the International Brigades. The legend that was Cable Street became the
lasting inspiration for the continuing British fight against
the fascism that was spreading all across Europe and would eventually
engulf the planet in a terrible world war, the event also launched movements for tenant rights,
against economic injustice, and in defense of immigrants.
In 1979, artist Dave Binnington started painting a large mural commemorating
the battle on the side wall of St George's Town Hall. In 1982, the
still uncompleted mural was vandalised with right-wing slogans, after
which Binnington abandoned the project in disgust. It was
subsequently finished by Paul Butler, Ray Walker and Desmond Rochfort,
and officially unveiled in 1983. It has subsequently been vandalised,
and repainted, several times. The mural depicts the events of a very physical confrontation between police and protestors iin stunning detail, anti-fascist protestors proudly carrying banners, punches bing thrown, a barricade of furniture and an overturned vehicle across Cable Street manned by residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a chamber pot being thrown under the hooves of horses being ridden by baton-wielding police, and fascist with a startling resemblance to Adolf Hitler, looking very alarmed in just his underwear and socks.
There is much to learn from the Battle of Cable Street about the power
that individuals and groups wield in the face of intolerant policies and
behaviours when they unite against racism and discrimination. Hopefully
by engaging with this history, we can think critically about the
choices made by the East End community and its allies in 1936 and then
consider choices available to us as agents of change in the face of
prejudice and discrimination in our society and communities today. We might like to think those days are
behind us, but
anti-semitism, racism and intolerance is on the rise.
The far-right, and the forces of fascism are growing throughout Europe. See for instance the likes of Tommy Robinson and his acolytes. And following the divisive and
anti-immigrant rhetoric surrounding Brexit there have been reports of a fuel in the rise of
racist hate crimes.The foul winds that blew across Cable Street ago still exist today, we must
remain vigilant to this. And, to be sure, the terms of the demonisation of Muslims today mirror
the terms of the demonisation of Jews in the 1930s – i.e. they’re not
like us; their culture and religion is primitive and barbaric; they
refuse to assimilate; they’re not loyal to this country or its values;
they’re a threat, dirty, backward; they are children of a lesser God. More sinister, still, is the way the normalisation of anti-Muslim
bigotry has found its way to the top of the Tory Party, with Boris
Johnson’s carefully calibrated attack on the small minority of women
within the Muslim community who wear the burqa/nikab. Johnson knew
precisely what he was doing. Moreover, the fact that this particular
demand came soon after the former foreign secretary and now very unpopular prime
minister enjoyed a face to face meeting with Trump’s erstwhile white
nationalist brain, Steve Bannon, not a point we can afford to skate over
either. As we again
face racism, violence, and division today, waves of intolerance we must never forget the battle of Cable Street and remember the community
solidarity that turned Mosley and his mob of fascists away. Teach your kids about it. Today and tomorrow we must still rally around the cry of No Pasaran - They shall not pass
Video Ghosts of Cable Street, set to the music of Men they couldn't hang
Cable Street - The Young 'Uns
On the fourth of October 1936 I was only a lad of sixteen. But I stood beside men Who were threescore and ten And every age in between.
We were dockers and teachers, Busmen, engineers, And those with no jobs to do. We were women and children Equal in union — atheists, Christians, and Jews.
And we had so much to lose.
For with Hitler in Germany, Franco in Spain, We knew what fascism meant. So when Mosley came trouncing, Denouncing the Jews, To the East End of London we went.
For I’d met refugees, who had fled o’er the seas, Germans, Italians, and Jews. And I knew their despair For what they’d seen there And I couldn’t let them be abused.
We had so much to lose.
Now 3,000 fascists — their uniforms black — Had set out to march on that day. And 6,000 policemen Intended to greet them By making clear the way.
But we were there ready — Our nerves they were steady — One hundred thousand en masse. And we planted our feet along Cable Street And we sang: They shall not pass!
We sang: They shall not pass!
Then all us young lads, We were sent to the side streets To stop the police breaking through. And with swift hands we made strong barricades Out of anything we could use.
And they came to charge us, But they couldn’t barge us, With fists, batons, and hooves. With as good as we got, we withstood the lot, For we would not be moved.
We would not be moved.
And, yes, there was violence. And, yes, there was blood. And I saw things a lad shouldn’t see. But I’ll not regret the day I stood And London stood with me.
And when the news spread the day had been won And Mosley was limping away — There were shouts, there were cheers, There were songs, there were tears, And I hear them all to this day.
And we all swore then we’d stand up again For as long as our legs could And that when we were gone, Our daughters and sons Would stand where we stood.
Was the first time I’d heard two tiny words Said by every woman and man. Now I say them still And I always will: ¡NO PASARÁN!
