Winky on poetry and corrugated iron.
Discussion
So Saturday saw Gordon Brown speaking at the Poetry Live For Haiti event in London’s Central Hall.
Here's the official transcript of his speech.
One thing struck me (apart from how hopeless his speeches are) - so many comments could apply not just to the people of Haiti, but also the people of this country suffering under his leadership. I also find the mention of corrugated iron quite surreal. Anyway, over to Gordon:
"Thank you friends. Let me on behalf of our country thank Carol Ann Duffy and Poetry Live for this amazing event to mobilize at this the most desperate of times, the best of words for the greatest of causes.
Carol Ann you are not only a great and groundbreaking poet, not just our first but I hope the first of many female Laureates, but also a visionary humanitarian who has summoned together words in the service of deeds.
Let me thank you for being perhaps the only person who could have gathered in one room in one day and with one purpose such an amazing array of talent.
Let us the audience thank you and the writers and poets who are here today. You have our unending respect for giving so generously of your time.
For it will be said rightly that: today Britain’s greatest poets have come together to relieve the suffering and repair the devastation of the poorest lands and people in the western world.
The people of Haiti; already devastated by extreme poverty, so recently ravaged by three hurricanes, now today laid low by one of the worst earthquakes, one hundred thousand dead, one million without homes, a beautiful and beleaguered people who have touched and moved hearts here and everywhere on earth.
So we are assembled here because we see no matter the distance, the suffering of others and can’t pass by on the other side.
We are assembled here because helping Haiti is now the test of our humanity and because now is the time for all the world’s compassion to be focussed on Haiti.
And we are assembled here -poets assembled here- because we believe in something bigger than just ourselves.
For some may ask what the proper role of poets and poetry is when the needs and cries of people are so urgent, so visceral. Because of course, people can’t survive by words alone, or shelter in rhymes, or place their children in the cradle of a sonnet.
But the mark of the true poet is the extraordinary extent of your empathy, your calling is to feel and communicate our deepest yearnings and aspirations, to walk in the shoes of others, to show us all that we are not alone. You call us, in the words of another poet laureate, to sail beyond the sunset and all the western stars.
You can never be sure when a line you have written, an insight you have opened, a sentiment you have conveyed will comfort the afflicted or discomfort the complacent– or stir others to care and to act.
And of course you can never be sure when poetry often written in a completely different time and for a completely different place can speak directly to people today.
And we know that poetry does what ordinary words can never by themselves achieve. Instead of narrowing our view of the world poetry broadens and deepens our understanding, recognises the diversity and richness of our experience, and where power can be blind to human needs, poetry can cleanse and inspire.
So today you can take pride not only in the contributions you raise - but the enduring contribution of your profession to the world.
In Haiti there is anguish and agony. But the most awful of the human conditions is suffering without end, sorrow without hope.
And so it is our duty - and the glory of what you do today - to help people reach beyond the ruins and find the will to carry on. Already the British people have raised £58 million.
And in the next few weeks with the hurricane season approaching, shelter for the homeless will save lives. So today I can announce the British government has done something we have never done before - and bought all the corrugated iron available in the whole of Britain, and a boat departs with it this week so ensure that thousands of men, women and children have the hurricane-proof shelter that they need.
Because hope is founded not only on the dream of a better future; but it is also founded on decisions we make. The decision you have all made to raise millions of pounds to help Haiti, the decision you have forced governments to make to send immediate medical and emergency aid, the decision you are summoning governments to make to support the reconstruction of a whole country. Most of all the decisions we are all making to see in people thousands of miles away —- whose names we don’t know and whom we have never met— brothers and sisters and neighbours.
And to say wherever there is injustice, unfairness, suffering and pain there will we be also."
Here's the official transcript of his speech.
One thing struck me (apart from how hopeless his speeches are) - so many comments could apply not just to the people of Haiti, but also the people of this country suffering under his leadership. I also find the mention of corrugated iron quite surreal. Anyway, over to Gordon:
"Thank you friends. Let me on behalf of our country thank Carol Ann Duffy and Poetry Live for this amazing event to mobilize at this the most desperate of times, the best of words for the greatest of causes.
Carol Ann you are not only a great and groundbreaking poet, not just our first but I hope the first of many female Laureates, but also a visionary humanitarian who has summoned together words in the service of deeds.
Let me thank you for being perhaps the only person who could have gathered in one room in one day and with one purpose such an amazing array of talent.
Let us the audience thank you and the writers and poets who are here today. You have our unending respect for giving so generously of your time.
For it will be said rightly that: today Britain’s greatest poets have come together to relieve the suffering and repair the devastation of the poorest lands and people in the western world.
The people of Haiti; already devastated by extreme poverty, so recently ravaged by three hurricanes, now today laid low by one of the worst earthquakes, one hundred thousand dead, one million without homes, a beautiful and beleaguered people who have touched and moved hearts here and everywhere on earth.
So we are assembled here because we see no matter the distance, the suffering of others and can’t pass by on the other side.
We are assembled here because helping Haiti is now the test of our humanity and because now is the time for all the world’s compassion to be focussed on Haiti.
And we are assembled here -poets assembled here- because we believe in something bigger than just ourselves.
For some may ask what the proper role of poets and poetry is when the needs and cries of people are so urgent, so visceral. Because of course, people can’t survive by words alone, or shelter in rhymes, or place their children in the cradle of a sonnet.
But the mark of the true poet is the extraordinary extent of your empathy, your calling is to feel and communicate our deepest yearnings and aspirations, to walk in the shoes of others, to show us all that we are not alone. You call us, in the words of another poet laureate, to sail beyond the sunset and all the western stars.
You can never be sure when a line you have written, an insight you have opened, a sentiment you have conveyed will comfort the afflicted or discomfort the complacent– or stir others to care and to act.
And of course you can never be sure when poetry often written in a completely different time and for a completely different place can speak directly to people today.
And we know that poetry does what ordinary words can never by themselves achieve. Instead of narrowing our view of the world poetry broadens and deepens our understanding, recognises the diversity and richness of our experience, and where power can be blind to human needs, poetry can cleanse and inspire.
So today you can take pride not only in the contributions you raise - but the enduring contribution of your profession to the world.
In Haiti there is anguish and agony. But the most awful of the human conditions is suffering without end, sorrow without hope.
And so it is our duty - and the glory of what you do today - to help people reach beyond the ruins and find the will to carry on. Already the British people have raised £58 million.
And in the next few weeks with the hurricane season approaching, shelter for the homeless will save lives. So today I can announce the British government has done something we have never done before - and bought all the corrugated iron available in the whole of Britain, and a boat departs with it this week so ensure that thousands of men, women and children have the hurricane-proof shelter that they need.
Because hope is founded not only on the dream of a better future; but it is also founded on decisions we make. The decision you have all made to raise millions of pounds to help Haiti, the decision you have forced governments to make to send immediate medical and emergency aid, the decision you are summoning governments to make to support the reconstruction of a whole country. Most of all the decisions we are all making to see in people thousands of miles away —- whose names we don’t know and whom we have never met— brothers and sisters and neighbours.
And to say wherever there is injustice, unfairness, suffering and pain there will we be also."
Edited by fastfreddy on Monday 1st February 18:26
Well i am guessing these sheets will not be made at Corus in Teesside? You know Winky, the PROFITABLE plant, that you let fall to the axe because of back handers supplied to Corus in the name of preventing Climate Change.
Have to laugh at Mandys attack on the Tories today over there economic Policies. Why not tell us how Labour are going to solve the immense mess we are in? Higher taxes or spending cuts? Let the opposition at least put forward a plan they would impliment without automatic attack.
It has been a long day and i need an election now!
Have to laugh at Mandys attack on the Tories today over there economic Policies. Why not tell us how Labour are going to solve the immense mess we are in? Higher taxes or spending cuts? Let the opposition at least put forward a plan they would impliment without automatic attack.
It has been a long day and i need an election now!
I just have to smile at the kneejerk rubbishing of anything Tory by Mandy or any other labour commissar for that matter....
As has been said...if you have a better idea we're all ears!! The sad thing is that there are hordes of people who lap up what Winky and his mates say...and have the "it's all Mrs Thatchers fault" mentality.
s
As has been said...if you have a better idea we're all ears!! The sad thing is that there are hordes of people who lap up what Winky and his mates say...and have the "it's all Mrs Thatchers fault" mentality.
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