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English Resources
Dust
George was writing at the kitchen table. He watched his pen climb steathily upwards towards the top of letters , trying to guess what the pen was trying to say.… Read More »Dust
Dylan Thomas: Especially when the october Wind
Especially when the October wind With frosty fingers punishes my hair, Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire And cast a shadow crab upon the land, By the… Read More »Dylan Thomas: Especially when the october Wind
Put yourself in your own story!
”One day without really thinking about it, I put myself in the story for the first time..” In Chapter four of David Almond’s graphic novel, The Savage, the young… Read More »Put yourself in your own story!
Thomas Hardy: The Oxen
Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We… Read More »Thomas Hardy: The Oxen
Dylan Thomas: From A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
Bring out the tall tales now that we told by the fire as the gaslight bubbled like a diver. Ghosts whooed like owls in the long nights when I dared… Read More »Dylan Thomas: From A Child’s Christmas in Wales.
Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book
Chapter One How Nobody Came to the Graveyard There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and… Read More »Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book
What I regret by Nina Cassian
What I Regret By Nina Cassian . . . never having heard the voice of the Dodo bird . . . . . . never having smelled the Japanese cherry… Read More »What I regret by Nina Cassian
The caterpillar that brought miracles by Clara
I was in my garden next to my well and i saw a catapillar that was clinging on for his small little life. So, i got my hand and picked him up… Read More »The caterpillar that brought miracles by Clara
Kent Keith's Truly marvellous paradoxes via Michael Neill!
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.Do good anyway. If you are successful, you win false friends… Read More »Kent Keith's Truly marvellous paradoxes via Michael Neill!
A Streetcar Named Desire at the Bolton Octagon. Directed by David Thacker.
Felt physically sick at the end of this three and half hour version of Tennessee Williams most famous play. Blanche was terrfic: progressively feverish, wild eyed and gut wrenchingly terrfied… Read More »A Streetcar Named Desire at the Bolton Octagon. Directed by David Thacker.
The Enneagram : Eights
Peter McNab and his colleague Mario Sikora are editing an exciting new book on the Enneagram provisionally called The Ennagram from the Inside. The inspiration for the book emanted from… Read More »The Enneagram : Eights
Michael Neill: Daily Advice
1. Be authentic2. Do what you love, do only what you love, and don’t do what you don’t love3. Embrace whatever happens as a result! How many of us… Read More »Michael Neill: Daily Advice
Eat, Pray and Love versus Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No contest!!
This weekend I had the luxury of watching two fims at the cinema in Cine World’s very comfy seats I might add! Julia Roberts’ new film has the emotional repetoire… Read More »Eat, Pray and Love versus Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No contest!!
Seamus Heaney: ‘Had I not been awake’ in Human Chain
Seamus Heaney’s latest collection opens with an admission which reminds us all of our cognitive fragility : Had I not been awake I would have missed it, A wind that rose and… Read More »Seamus Heaney: ‘Had I not been awake’ in Human Chain
Carol Ann Duffy, Virginia woolf and A L kennedy.
A long time agao, indeed so long ago, it feels like once upon a time, I read Virginia Woolf’s The Waves and even though I felt it slipped away from… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy, Virginia woolf and A L kennedy.
Disgrace from Mean Time
But one day we woke to our disgrace; our housea coldness of rooms, each nursinga thickening cyst of dust and gloom.We had not been home in our hearts for months.… Read More »Disgrace from Mean Time
Benjamin Franklin
“Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?”
John Keats: This Living Hand
This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and… Read More »John Keats: This Living Hand
A Humble Remonstrance by Robert Louis Stevenson
( Henry James) “I have been a child, but i have never been on a quest for buried treasure.” Here is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if he has never… Read More »A Humble Remonstrance by Robert Louis Stevenson
William Blake's Tyger and The Mentalist( last episode season two).
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of… Read More »William Blake's Tyger and The Mentalist( last episode season two).
granite
They lived at the top of the lane in a cottage small enough to make friendship special. I knew they were my friends of my heart because when I went… Read More »granite
The Bins, the bins!
This morning my head feels disconnected from my body- Like some alien weight plonked on my shoulders by some one hurrying for an appointment with the gods. I went to… Read More »The Bins, the bins!
Rapture's 'Text'.
TextI tend the mobile nowlike an injured bird We text, text, textour significant words. I re-read your first,your second, your third, look for your small xx,feeling absurd. The codes… Read More »Rapture's 'Text'.
Carol Ann Duffy's You from Rapture: Commentary
This poem, ‘You‘ begins Carol Ann Duffy’s sequence of love poems, unambiguoulsy called Rapture! Aliosn Ridyard’s commentary on this blog is excellent and discusses the techniques by which Duffy communicates… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's You from Rapture: Commentary
Pursuit
Somehow I had become a fan of choirs and the old Gothic hall overflowed with gowns and sounds that drifted smokily I think to a wooden roof . Murmuring her way… Read More »Pursuit
Poetry
POETRYI couldn’t see Guinnessand not envisage a nun;a gun, a finger and thumb;midges, blether, scribble, scrum. A crescent moon, boomerang, smirk,bone; or full, a shield, a stalker,a stone. I couldn’t… Read More »Poetry
Pastiche: A hard boiled trip to Tesco?
This was life in the slowest lane of them all. Thirty six aisles of monotony peopled by these spectres without any trace of courage at all. Duty and ties married… Read More »Pastiche: A hard boiled trip to Tesco?
margaret mead
“Art is the language that is the language of the heart, that is the language of the emotional structure.”