Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Gossips

She never!            She did! Well blow me            A right carry-on What a palaver             It’s always something More out than in so they say             You could have knocked me down with a feather Well I should say so          …

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Stroll, Soodle or Stroam

Soodle – it means means to walk in a slow or leisurely manner; to stroll, saunter. With so many alternatives to the word ‘walk’ it seems superfluous to promote more. But “soodle” just seems so right especially for this time of the year when it takes effort to move at all when the heat is high and the humidity stifling.…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

For When it Snows Part One

No snow where I am at the moment but here’s a poem to enjoy now and also tuck away to use on snowy days.  And on the topic of words for snow and Eskimos it’s good to read about The Great Eskimo Words for Snow Hoax that’s been perpetrated on several generations of the educated. I was fed it in…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Bumbarrel, Mumruffin and Poke Pudding

It was Clive Bennett who got me traveling down this particular track. He’s a real birder and maintains a wonderful blog – Art in Nature – where he writes of his adventures in the hedgerows and fields and where he celebrates birds and the artists who paint them.  In a comment on a post about kennings he listed some wonderful…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

An Invitation

What use is poetry? …. We have poetry  So we do not die of history. – Meena Alexander I like poems you can tack all over with a hammer and there are no hollow places. – John Ashbery    An Invitation to Poetry Come on in. Jump! You can do it. It belongs to you too. Paddle, splash about, swim, dive,…

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Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Brexit, Beowulf and the Bum Trumpet

The day after the Brexit referendum our dear leader – then candidate for the presidency – was on his way to Scotland to re-open a golf course. As soon as he landed he tweeted:  The response was fast and furious – an impressive torrent of inventive invective and obscenity that kept Twitter amused for days as the true significance of…

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Food, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Why Rhubarb?

Rhubarb, Rhubarb Words A definition of rhubarb – the noun – is  meaningless background noise. This meaning is attributed to the mid 19th century practice of the theater company of Charles Kean at the Princess Theater, London. In crowd scenes actors repeated the word “rhubarb” to mimic the sound of indistinct conversation. Rhubarb was chosen because it has no harsh-sounding…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

In Parenthesis: Part 1

This writing has to do with some things I saw, felt and was part of. The period covered begins in early December 1915 and ends in July 1916. – David Jones, in the preface to In Parenthesis 1937 In Parenthesis is a poem-novella in seven parts that culminates in the dramatic attack on Mametz Wood at the Battle of the…

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Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Appeal to the Grammarians

The temperature’s rising. Time to think about eating outside and settling in at a sidewalk cafe to watch the world go by. But beware! Dangers lurk everywhere and we need new punctuation to express our outraged reaction to a whole range of disasters. I love Paul Violi’s list in this poem. And –  when you do venture out, sit down…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The #Resistance is #TheMajority

One of the great pleasures of the age of instant and ubiquitous access to information is being able to re-connect with thinkers you once read but have lost touch with. Instead of remaining that-person-who-wrote-that-book-you-liked it’s possible to continue the connection with their thinking in effortless ways. And even they don’t have a blog or a twitter account you can be…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The Double-Down False Equivalency of the Eviscerated Dog Whistle Pivot

Every election cycle has its themes and a language all its own. Words and phrases rise up to capture the attention of the moment. Here are a few from this season. Doubling Down This comes from the world of gambling and is apparently what Trump does after saying something outrageous and being called out for it. The first outrage, insult…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Explorers and Navigators

Science teacher Jonathan Heiles sent a link to all of us about the international public campaign to name the surface features of Pluto and Charon. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly past Pluto in July and that far off world and its moons for the first time.  Together with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the New Horizons team will assign names…

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Education, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

Modern Learning and the Shock of the New

Here’s something terrific for free: It’s an E-book of great articles from the always useful Educating Modern Learners, an online source with which I am proud to be associated. I’m still working my way through the content – and in some cases re-reading – but no disappointments. These people write well about important and useful topics. See the list below.…

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