Words and Music: Kate Tempest

For those of your interested in the spoken word as performance, here is some really powerful Shakespe inspired poetry by Kate Tempest which was posted on Billy Braggs FB page.


"What we came after" by Kate Tempest from RSC Sound & Fury on Vimeo.

She is new to me but apparently fronts a really interesting band The Sound of Rum, if the idea of a north London girl rapping left wing politics over trip hop and Jazz beats doesn't inspire you, then you probably haven't heard it yet.





Let me know what you think :-)

Congratulations!

To the US on chipping away at those draconian and immoral restrictions on gun ownership . . . I hope soon the NRA gets to give away hand guns to kids as part of their citzenship training:
     if you don't have a gun
     you just aint americun!
(I just made that poem up, but seeing as I'm not American myself, the NRA are free to shoot me and pretend they made it up)

And to the prison population of NZ, who are so tough and manly that they are going to riot (throw a tantrum) if anyone takes their ciggies away.

The Beauty of Systematic Theology: Anti-Quote of the Day

Gordon Clark takes issue with Peter Macky's treatment of his work in this article and concludes with,

Mathematics is not my forte either, but it is far more beautiful than poetry.  It is surpassed only by systematic theology.

Which is funny, because I always thought that Systematic Theology is at its best when it was most poetic.  But here we have in Clark a classic cognitive-propositionalist according to Lindbeck's typology (see I told you it would come in handy!) and I haven't yet read enough of Macky to pidgeon-hole him but I suspect he leans towards the experiential-expressivist mode.

The Image of God

Translated from the Spanish of Francisco de Aldana by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Let me know what you think :-)

---

O Lord! who seest, from yon starry height,
Centred in one the future and the past,
Fashioned in thine own image, see how fast,
The world obscures in me what once was bright!

Eternal Sun! the warmth which though hast given,
To cheer life's flowery April, fast decays;
Yet in the hoary winter of my days,
For ever green shall be my trust in Heaven.

Celestial King! O let thy presence pass
Before my spirit, and an image fair
Shall meet that look of mercy from on high,
As the reflected image in a glass
Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there,
And owes its being to the gazer's eye.

Who Am I?

A poem by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, written whilst imprisoned by the NAZIs during World War II. Bonhoeffer was eventually executed by the NAZIs. This poem was use to great effect in a scene in the film Agent of Grace. If you haven't you should watch it. Let me know what you think :-)

---

Who am I? They often tell me I stepped from my cell's confinement
Calmly, cheerfully, firmly, like a squire form his country house.
Who am I? They often tell me I used to speak to my warders
Freely and friendly and clearly, as though it was mine to command.
Who am I? They tell me I bore the days of misfortune
Equably, smilingly, proudly, like one accustomed to win.

Am I really then that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
Struggling for breath,
As though hands were compressing my throat, yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds
Thirsting for kindness, for neighbourliness,
Tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
Weary and empty at praying, a thinking, at making,
Faint and ready to say farewell to it all.

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another? Am I both at once?
A hypocrite before others and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army
Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?

Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Though knowest, O God, I am thine!

Ozymandias

This poem by Percy Shelley (1792-1822) was a favourite of my late Grandfather's. He could recite it from memory.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing besides remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.