Barak Obama – my two penneth

Taking responsibility for our futures and joining together to make things better.

That’s the simple message I take from Obama’s inaugural speech. He seemed to be saying – times are tough, it’s of our own making and within our powers to make it right again. Times have been good and we have the hard work and dedication of our forebears to thank for that. We need to remember that it will take hard work and dedication to make things better again now.

I am too young to remember WWII but listening to the speech certainly evoked the spirit of lets be brave, lets be adult and lets all pull together to get through these difficulties. I might not buy it all, politics is after all about as reliable as quicksand, but I do buy that message and have pulled up my metaphorical socks accordingly. I see this year as one of adulthood, optimism and resilience.

The other thing that struck me about the ceremony was the everlasting power of poetry: to inspire, move or simply to provoke and annoy judging from some forum postings. Interest in, and love for, literature sometimes seems to be on the wane in a fast-entertainment-driven culture. But for me, to see a poet take centre stage and pass on what was, to me, the most important message of the day ‘what if the mightiest word is love?’ was touching. There is it seems a place for poetry and for love in this troubled world, I am thankful for that.

All change

Welcome to my new look website. Over the coming months I will add more pages and news updates as well as creating some blog topics for discussion. Please come back soon.