Judith Wright on the champing jaws of the political and corporate elite

Judith Wright's poem At a Public Dinner laments an Australian political and corporate elite interested in personal gain, power, status and profit.  As we enter a new year Wright's poem is more relevant than ever before.

At A Public Dinner
Judith Wright

No, I'm not eating. I'll watch the champing jaws,
solemnly eating and drinking my country's honor,
my country's flesh. The gravy's dripping red,
a nourishing stew for business. She's a goner-
crucified in fat speeches, toasted in wines
the colour of blood. And wounded past recall.
Let this occasion be her memorial.
It was all there in the first step onto land,
the flag raised, the guns fired.
No one but Harpur called here the land of equals,
the new Utopia...Go away, we're tired;

we're tired of being asked about tomorrow.
Today the profit. Today the hideous old,
the rising price of uranium, beef and gold.
Today, for the dreamers, the totally useless sorrow.

"The ticking explosives of reproach and challenge": The poetry of Dennis Brutus

You have to decide which side you are on: there is always a side. Commitment does not exist in an abstraction; it exists in action” Dennis Brutus, 1975

Thanks to all those who have been interested enough to read my pieces on Dennis Brutus. Here are some of his poems (from Poetry and Protest: A Dennis Brutus Reader).
 
I must lug my battered body
garbage-littered
across the frontiers of the world,
recite my wear-shined cliches
for nameless firesides
and fidget, a supple suppliant, for papers,
in a thousand wooden-ante rooms;
wince, in the tense air of recognition
as the clean-limbed, simple and innconent grow hostile;
-in my baggage I bear the ticking explosives
of reproach, and threat and challenge.
Dennis Brutus
Epping Sydney 1970

Forgive me comrades
if I say something apolitical
and shamefully emotional
but in the drak of the night
it is as if my heart is clutched
by a giant iron hand:
"Treachery, treachery" I cry out
thinking of you comrades
and how you have betrayed
the things we suffered for.
Dennis Brutus
August 23 2000, 3.05am 
I
Some voices must be silenced
they threaten the structures
of seemingly safe respectable lives
their clear vibrations
may shelter the crystalline shelters
that encase us from reality
shielding us from unbearable truths

but some may choose not to be deaf
they beat with broken palms
against the smooth impenetrable glass
of lies and comfort and power
and beg to hear the piteous cries
rising from the smoke and fire:
some voices must not be silenced
II
The smooth impenetrable glass
of indifference and caring
is cool and pleasant to the touch
like the stone heart of power
that conceals the rotteness within
III
In the night anger
burns like fire
along the veins
in the brain
and at the core
of the anguished
unavailing heart
Dennis Brutus
extract from Sequence for Mumia Abu Jamal 2005

The comments below encapsulate the significance of Dennis Brutus's poetry and are from the blog I Muse which focuses on African culture;

One of the most profound and lasting ways in which Brutus carried this torch of experiences was through his poetry. In his poetry, Brutus returned powerfully to his traumatic experience of punishment and isolation on Robben Island. They contain some of the most harrowing descriptions of daily prison life, a season in hell that left a lasting mark on Brutus both physically and mentally. To use poetry as a means of fighting back against the forces of oppression and exploitation was not just an intellectual choice, but an existential cry from the heart for social change. These autobiographical writings not only provide unique documentation of the cruelties of an oppressive system; they also help us understand Brutus' determination to convey the lessons of the past to those who are struggling for a better future.

Robert Fisk: exposing brutality and hypocrisy in the Middle East

photo of families whose relatives vanished during the Algerian civil war (1990-98) demand to know what happened to their loved ones during a recent demonstation in Algiers (photo courtesy of AFP/Getty)

There is no better chronicler of the brutality of Western and Arab governments in the Middle East than Robert Fisk, the Middle East Correspondent for the UK Independent.

Fisk uncovers and exposes the hypocrisy of the West and its ally Israel, but is equally critical of the leaders, political elite and leadership of the Muslim world. And Fisk knows history well.

In his latest piece Robert Fisk writes of recent celebrations in Algeria to commemorate 50 years of freedom from French rule. Fisk points out that the generals and politicians who were out in full force making speeches against colonial tyranny were themselves responsible for the deaths of an estimated 25,000 Algerians during the Algerian Civil War of 1990-1998.

While the families of the dead and civil society groups seek justice for those who died during the Algerian civil war of 1990-98, Fisk reminds us that the security forces and army responsible for many of those deaths are still in control in Algeria. Only now they are allies of the USA in the fight against "terrorism".

Remembering Dennis Brutus and all he stood for

"If you have a sense that there is this global struggle going on, where one is winning little victories in a number of places, then the real question in my mind should be how do we combine all these successes and develop them into a powerful voice. But it certainly seems to me that the mere fact that one is occasionally winning a few victories, however small they be, is one way to keep going" Dennis Brutus 2008

Twelve months have passed since Dennis Brutus- South African poet, political activist, environmental and social justice activist and freedom fighter- passed on.

Brutus's achievements were many, notably his poetry, his anti-apartheid activism and his leadership of the anti-apartheid sports boycott campaigns, which played a key role in ending apartheid. As a tribute to Dennis Brutus's legacy the excellent US online publication Truth Out has published Beverley Bell's euology for Dennis Brutus, A Small Tribute to a Giant Man. Bell reminds us of Brutus's humility and compasssion and his profound commitment to the struggle against injustice. She writes that Brutus's message was:

" .. in the humility with which he carried himself, the kindness with which he treated others, and the wisdom and clarity of his words. His message, and his life, lay also in the strength of his convictions and the energy with which he worked for them whether the cause be liberation form oppressive regimes; reparations to victims of apartheid from corporations that made profits off the system; the dissolution of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation; or control over corporations creating climate change"

There is much we can learn from Brutus's example. Bell points out that Brutus urged activists to direct their anger at unjust systems and policies and not waste it on the individuals behind them. He urged people to keep their eye on the ultimate goal; the principles at play.

Bell tells us that Brutus was tireless and fearless into his 80's and until the day he died he was working and fighting for social, economic and environmental justice. At the time of his death Brutus was fighting global corporations who had propped up and benefited from the apartheid regime.

"He lobbied us all to involve ourselves, to turn out, to unite our voice and strength, to do more than we were already doing".

I have written before about the legacy of Dennis Brutus's life, work and poetry. A piece I wrote on his death in 2009 has been republished on this blog. Other pieces can be found here.

"Wincing at oft repeated lies": in memory of Dennis Brutus (1924-2009)

This piece was first published in December 2009.

"Somehow we survive
and tenderness, frustrated does not wither. Investigating searchlights rakeour naked unprotected contours...boots club the peeling door.
But somehow we survive
severance, deprivation, loss.
Patrols uncoil along the asphalt dark
hissing their menace to our lives,most cruel, all our land is scarred with terror,
rendered unlovely and unlovable:
sundered are we and all our passionate surrender
but somehow tenderness survive.
Dennis Brutus "Somehow We Survive"

There are some people whose lives inspire the rest of us to never lose our voice on social justice and human rights. The South African anti-apartheid activist, poet, social justice campaigner and academic Dennis Brutus is one such person.

Amy Goodman and the Democracy Now team (here, here and here), Dave Zurin, Patrick Bond and the team at Rabble have written fine pieces in tribute to the live and legacy of Dennis Brutus who died in Capetown in the days after Xmas. Brutus, who was recognized as one of Africa's finest poets, died at age 85 after an amazing and inspiring life spent fighting for economic and social justice and human rights. Brutus published over a dozen books of poetry, including, a 2006 compilation of his work, Poetry and Protest. Many of his poems were written secretly when he was avoiding the South African authorities or in prison.

Brutus political activism began as protest against the white domination of sport in South Africa where he pioneered the idea of using sport as a political lever for political change. In 1958 he formed the South African Sports Association and the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee. Brutus believed passionately in the potential of sport to drive political change although as Dave Zirin points out Brutus came to believe that was no longer the case, having recently said

"My own sense is that is that sports has less capacity now to change society than it did before.. sports has become so commercialized.. the other thing that really scares me is the way sport is used to divert people's attention... We must however realize the power and reach of sports is undeniable.. People will hear political athletes because their voice is amplified".

Brutus publicly rejected induction into the South African Sports Hall of Fame in 2007, famously saying at the awards ceremony: "It is incompatible to have those who championed racist sport alongside its genuine victims. It's time - indeed long past time - for sports truth, apologies and reconciliation."

In 1963 Brutus was arrested by the South African government for anti-apartheid activities and spent 18 months on Robben Island at the same time as Nelson Mandela. In 1966 he was exiled from South Africa and went to the US where he lived as a stateless refugee for decades, avoiding efforts by the Reagan government to deport him. Brutus was instrumental in achieving sporting boycotts of South Africa and his activism resulted in the banning of South Africa from the Olympics from 1968 onwards. Brutus returned to South Africa in 1994 where he became a vocal critic of the ANC government.

Up until his death Brutus remained active in global struggles for social justice and economic justice, anti-privatization, corporate exploitation, debt forgiveness and human rights. He had recently protested against the the ways people in South Africa were being dispossessed by development for the 2010 soccer world cup.

In recent years he initiated campaigns against large corporations, such as Barclay’s Bank, Exxon Mobil, BP, Citigroup, General Motors, and Ford demanding reparations for vast apartheid profits. Days before the Copenhagen climate change summit he called the gathering a sham saying:

" We are in serious difficulty all over the planet. We are going to say to the world: There's too much of profit, too much of greed, too much of suffering by the poor.. The people of the planet must be in action"

In December he wrote about the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference where he warned against:

" brokering a deal that allows the corporations and the oil giants to continue to abuse the earth. Better that there is no deal, so that ordinary citizens can make their choices and voices heard, against the marketing excesses for the rich, allowing some to gorge themselves while others starve"

Brutus was asked once by Dave Zurin how he remained so politically active well into his eighties . Brutus replied:

"This is no time for laurels. This is no time for rest"

Dennis Brutus

" When we marched,
Slithered
Through slimy mud past riot shielded cops in Alexander
(This is the ghetto)
While children peered wild-eyed from dark windows,
For some of us these were re-runs of earlier apartheid-burdened days.
But, then, it was defiant resolution that drove our hearts and braced our feet.
Now, sadness at betrayal sat sadly on our hearts.
Our shouted slogans hung heavily over us in grimy air.
We winced at familiar oft-repeated lies
Oft-repeated lies." 

Tom Waits, radical compassion and negative capability

"We all need to be reminded that the folks who need help getting back on their feet are all members of our family" Tom Waits

"I love beautiful melodies telling me terrible things" Tom Waits

Tom Waits's music is not for the fainthearted. His darkly poetic lyrics, his voice and use of instrumentation challenge the listener's assumptions. Waits is both social observer and social commentator.

Tom Waits's songs evoke and reflect a deeply felt compassion, what I call radical compassion- a way of seeing the world and seeing events and experiences from someone else's perspective, with a perspective that encompasses their views of the situation, past, present and future. Radical compassion is neither feigned nor manufactured and involves the imperative to act in the face of injustice and suffering.

The song Never Let Go appears on Waits 3 CD set Orphans. Released in 2006 Orphans contains 30 new songs and 24 rare songs. Never Let Go is one of many gems on the CD and like many of Waits songs, is grounded in the fragility and cycles of everyday life.

The song starts out as a slow ballad with piano introduction and Tom Waits singing in his characteristic growl: 

Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Now the ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll loose everything
But I won't let go of your hand

But the song morphs into something more fierce as a snare drum and rolling bass kick in, turning a slow ballad into a plaintive dirge, a song of grace in the face of the mysteries of life and the grit and grime of the world we inhabit.

Waits's song speaks to the mysteries of love and evokes the devotion we all feel for those we love and have loved, those who have touched our lives and those who have passed on.

The song, like much of Tom Waits's music, seems to exemplify what the poet John Keats described as negative capability:

"when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason"

Negative capability describes a capacity for accepting uncertainty and the unresolved. It requires the ability to suspend judgement and allow the mysteries and realities of daily living to be present, whilst also being able to walk in the shoes of others. It is associated with a profound capacity for empathy and lack of self consciousness.

Intellectual endevour and artistic and creative expression- in the form of a photograph, a book, a movie, a poem, a song, an idea, an object- all have the potential to be vehicle for expression of negative capability.  The song Never Let Go, like so many songs on the Orphans CD, is such a vehicle.

Waits understood the power of the song Never Let Go when he allowed it to be used in a campaign to raise awareness of the extent of hunger among children and families in the US (see the quote that starts this piece). Waits has always steadfastly refused to allow his music to be used in any commercial or product advertisement. Never Let Go was the exception. A clip of the song can be found here.

Never Let Go
Well, ring the bell backwards and bury the axe
Fall down on your knees in the dirt
I'm tied to the mast between water and wind
Believe me, you'll never get hurt
Now the ring's in the pawnshop, the rain's in the hole
Down at the Five Points I stand
I'll loose everything
But I won't let go of your hand
Now, Peter denied and Judas betrayed
I'll pay with the roll of the drum
And the wind will tell the turn from the wheel
And the watchman's making his rounds
Well, you leave me hanging by the skin of my teeth
You can send me to hell
But I'll never let go of your hand
Swing from a rope on a cross-legged tree
Signed with the one-eyed Jack's blood
From Temple and Union, to Weyley and Grand
Walking back home in the mud
Now, I must make my best of the only way home
Marley deals only in stones
I'm lost on the midway, I'm reckless in your eyes
Just give me a couple more throws
I'll dare you to dine with the cross-legged knights
Dare me to jump and I will
I'll fall from your grace
But I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand
I'll never let go of your hand

Written by: Tom Waits and Kathleen Waits-Brennan
Published by: Jalma Music Inc. [?], © 1992

Sunday's poems by Nazim Hikmet

Poems for Sunday- Boxing Day- written by Turkey's greatest poet Nazim Hikmet.

Many of Hikmet's poems were written in Sultanahmet Jail in Istanbul where he was imprisoned for many years for his political beliefs. Sultanahmet was the first jail built in Istanbul in 1918. It is now a luxury hotel.

Today is Sunday.
For the first time they took me out into the sun today.
And for the first time in my life I was aghast
that the sky is so far away
and so blue
and so vast
I stood there without a motion.
Then I sat on the ground with respectful devotion
leaning against the white wall.
Who cares about the waves with which I yearn to roll
Or about strife or freedom or my wife right now.
The soil, the sun and me...
I feel joyful and how.

Translated by Talat Sait Halman
(Literature East & West, March 1973)

Invitation

Galloping from Far Asia and jutting out
into the Mediterranean like a mare's head
this country is ours.
Wrists in blood, teeth clenched, feet bare
and this soil spreading like a silk carpet,
this hell, this paradise is ours.
Shut the gates of plutocracy, don't let them open again,
annihilate man's servitude to man,
this invitation is ours..
To live like a tree single and at liberty
and brotherly like the trees of a forest,
this yearning is ours.

The lies we are told on a daily basis

Wikileaks continues to lay bare the lies told to us about Australia's involvement in the war on Afghanistan. A report in the Age today, based on cables published by Wiklileaks, shows how Australian Governments, military officials, diplomats and the corporate media deliberately and repeatedly lied about unfolding events in Afghanistan.
The Age story reports:

We squabbled with our allies, yet in public we talked of close co-operation. We frustrated the Americans with unfulfilled promises. Our politicians big-noted in public but dithered in private. Our bamboozled bureaucrats tried to make sense of the details. All along, the public was kept in the dark.

Not any longer.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have an insight into the diplomatic skirmishes behind the war in Afghanistan, now in its ninth year and which has cost 21 Australian lives.

Leaked US diplomatic cables expose friction between Australia and its allies, undermining the public veneer of coalition solidarity. 

And as Antony Loewenstein writes, Wikileaks also exposes the hypocrisy and decit of corporate journalists who collude with the political, military and diplomatic establishment to hide the real truth about Australia's involvement in Afghanistan.

Here is the real reason Wikileaks is being pursued with such vigor. It exposes the lies told to us on a daily basis by those who hold the reigns of power.

Naomi Shihab Nye: Thoughts for Xmas

"Every year when the holidays threaten to roll around again, I feel utter dismay. I hope they will miss me. People will start asking “Are you ready for Christmas?” again. I have never known what that means. No, I say now. I will never be ready for Christmas in a world of war. I hope, every year, to find a better answer, or to travel to a Buddhist country for December again, or to find a sweeter sensation to keep me afloat during the horridly counted-down days, the obsessively-worried-about-what-to-give-everyone days. I hope for a way to vote more strongly and loudly for peace, and sense, and responsibility, a way to help people who are barely ready for regular days much less heavily-decorated ones, a way to say — Jesus would just hate the fact that someone spent 2 thousand dollars on cutesy lit-up cottages but can’t pay her own utility bills, or, our absolutely broke country seems to be able to find plenty of money to spend on weapons, and smart people continue to defend war, and so forth. It’s such a sad joke, how everybody abuses Jesus and his so-called birthday when people didn’t even celebrate birthdays in his part of the world. Anyway, good luck with your own sack of hopes. Mine are pretty thin this time of year. And some people think I’m an optimist"
 Naomi Shihab Nye

Music over Xmas

Xmas Reading

Christmas Thoughts: Judith Wright and stumbling after the incessant pace

"We are caught in the endless circle of time and star/
that never chime with the blood; we weary, we grow lame,/
stumbling after their incessant pace
that slackens for us only when we are/
caught deep in sleep, or music or a lover's face"

Judith Wright, The Moving Image from Collected Poems

Wikileaks: Revealing "Imperialism's dreadful apparatus of oppression"

All those rogues who strut and swagger/
Take the road and seek other pastures/
To carry out their wicked schemes/
No more will our fine young men/
March to war at the behest of jingoists and imperialists/
So come all you who love freedom/
Pay no attention to the prophets of doom/
In your house all the children of Adam/
Will be welcomed with food, drink and hospitality/
All the flowers will blossom/
And Black Africa will bring crashing down/
All Imperialism's dreadful apparatus of oppression/.

 English translation of The Freedom Come-All-Ye by Dick Gaughan (copyright)
Hamish Henderon (1919-2002) was a Scottish intellectual, political activist, songwriter, poet and anthologist of Scottish political and cultural traditions. His epic song The Freedom Come-All-Ye is an powerful indictment of the imperial impulse: the desire of rich and powerful nations and corporations to exploit for their own interests the resources of other nations.

Henderson's song laments the role that the Scottish nation and the Scottish people played in the imperial project of the British Empire. The song was composed in the 1960's and renounces the tradition of the Scottish soldier who acted as both cannon foddder and colonial oppressor for the Britsh empire. It reflects Henderson's vision of a global order which is just and multi-racial and which opposes imperialism and exploitation by powerful nations.

Scottish singer songwriter Dick Gaughan recorded a version of Henderson's song (considered by many to be an alternative Scottish anthem) on his 1996 CD Sail On. Gaughan's version, supported by the haunting pipes of Fred Morrison, is a remarkable tribute to Henderson's profound political vision. Dick Gaughan's English translation of the lyrics can be found on his website.

Henderson's song concludes with the hope that there will be a time when people rise up to: 

".......Bring crashing down/All Imperialism's dreadful apparatus of oppression."

Henderson's evocative final line is precisely what makes Wikileaks so powerful and such a threat to the established political and corporate order.

Wikileaks is driven by the desire to bring crashing down "imperalism's dreadful apparatus of oppression", to use Henderson's term. The great power of Wikileaks is that it exposes for us all to see just how that  appartaus of corporate and military empire operates and how its workings are hidden from "we' citizens by the political and corporate elite.

And this is precisely why Wikileaks and its spokesperson Julian Assanage are being pursued with such ferocity.

Why every act of rebellion against corporate and state power matters

US writer, journalist and author Chris Hedges writes that no act of rebellion is ever wasted.

"Any act of rebellion keeps alive the embers for larger movements that follow us. It passes on another narrative. It will, as the rot of the state consumes itself, attract wider and wider numbers. Perhaps this will not happen in our lifetimes. But if we persist we will keep this possibility alive. If not it will die"

Wendell Berry and "radicalism"

In an interview in the US Progressive Magazine Wendell Berry, the acclaimed poet, novelist, author, farmer, ecologists and activist talks about why he is more radical the older he gets.

" The term “radical” has the same meaning in politics as it does in mathematics or in the word “radish.” It simply means “root.” So a radical would be a person who wants to address the root causes of a particular problem. In the proper sense of the term, I think I’ve probably become more radical."

The fuel that feeds you: The poetry of Naomi Shihab Nye

"I call my father. We talk about the news. It is too much for him. Neither of his two languages can reach it. I drive into the country to find sheep, cows. To plead with the air. Who calls anyone civilized? Where can the crying heart graze? What does a true Arab do now?"
Naomi Shihab Nye

Naomi Shihab Nye writes profound poetry about daily life and daily experience from the perspective of an Arab-American women who has lived in the US, in Ramallah in Jordan, in the Old City in Jerusalem, and in San Antonio, Texas. Born to a Palestinian father and an American  mother, Shihab Nye writes poetry that springs from an Arab heart living in America. This interview with Bill Moyers provides an eloquent insight into the work of Naomi Shihab Nye .

The Art of Disappearing

When they say Don't I know you? say no.
When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
When they say Don't I know you? say no.
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.
If they say we should get together.
say why? It's not that you don't love them any more.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees.
The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished. When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.
Walk around feeling like a leaf. Know you could tumble any second. Then decide what to do with your time.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Half-And-Half

You can't be, says a Palestinian Christianon the first feast day after Ramadan
So, half-and-half and half-and-half.He sells glass. He knows about broken bits,
chips. If you love Jesus you can't love
anyone else. Says he.
At his stall of blue pitchers on the Via Dolorosa,
he's sweeping. The rubbed stones
feel holy. Dusting of powdered sugar
across faces of date-stuffed mamool.
This morning we lit the slim white candles
which bend over at the waist by noon.
For once the priests weren't fighting
in the church for the best spots to stand.
As a boy, my father listened to them fight.
This is partly why he prays in no language
but his own. Why I press my lips
to every exception.
A woman opens a window—here and here and here—
placing a vase of blue flowers
on an orange cloth. I follow her.
She is making a soup from what she had left
in the bowl, the shriveled garlic and bent bean.
She is leaving nothing out.

Hidden
If you place a fern
under a stone
the next day it will be
nearly invisible
as if the stone has
swallowed it.
If you tuck the name of a loved one
under your tongue too long
without speaking it
it becomes blood
sigh
the little sucked-in breath of air
hiding everywhere
beneath your words.
No one sees
the fuel that feeds you.

poems courtesy of Naomi Shihab Nye

Veronica Brady's biography of Judith Wright

".....for Wright the truth of existence does not consist in reflection on commitment to it, but is to be found in the commitment itself: for her humanity and nature also are not and never have been something general, but are individual and singular. They demand personal response and commitment. That, I believe, is why her life has been so deeply involved with the pain of the world and of people but also why few have written so powerfully as she has done about the intensities and splendours of love, child-bearing and relationships with others and the living world around us. That, I suspect, is also one of the reasons why she has had such affinity for Aboriginal people and their culture"

Veronica Brady from an article on writing the life of Judith Wright

On flights to Broome and Kalgoorlie this week I re-read Veronica Brady's masterly biography of Judith Wright. Brady does a wonderful job of telling the story of Judith Wright, considered by many to be Australia's finest poet.

I am always deeply moved by this book. One reason is Judith Wright's profound and beautiful poetry which is quoted extensively in the book. Partly it is also the inspirational life of Judith Wright- her social and environmental activism, her integrity, the dignity and humility with which she lived her life, her commitment to the ideals of justice and her uniquely Australian world view.

But my enjoyment of this book is also attributable to Veronica Brady, who in telling the life story of Judith Wright's displays deep understanding, reverence and respect for the life and work of her subject.

Earlier blog pieces on Judith Wright can be found here.

Ken Sprague and the power of images

Just days after posting this piece on UK artist and political activist Ken Sprague I read  in this article that one of Ken's images is being used on postcards and T-shirts as part of a campaign by British Trade Unions against the Budget cuts imposed by the Cameron Government. Ken would be pleased.

T shirts and post cards featuring the image can be ordered through the Ken Sprague Foundation.