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  Hi there!     Thanks for stopping by. When it comes to putting things on the super information highway that we call the internet, I’m an amateur at best. I’ve also been reluctant to add to the noise and busyness that is both the internet and our lives, which in many ways seem irreparably intwined! In a world where everyone is so eager to smack us in the face with their opinions, I would hate to be another talker who doesn’t listen. Yet here I am. Writing a blog of my written creations: essays, stories, letters. Ironic I know but bear with me.    My favourite author C.S Lewis, once confessed that when he was a child, he read fairy tales in secret, ashamed of his love for them but that when he was appointed a scholar and professor of one of the world’s most prestigious universities, Oxford, he read them proudly and in the open.    What this intellectual giant had realised was that in the midst of the horror of World War 2, when humanity was at its wors...
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Before I Fall Asleep: The Two Minute Poem


Before I Fall Asleep: The Two Minute Poem

Robert Frost once described poetry as “grabbing life by the throat. “To him, its nature was direct, raw, ruthless and real. 

When asked to describe poetry on 10 seconds notice, the first word that my students blurted out were – freedom, emotion, reckless and just the sound arrgh (an emotion too raw to even form a word yet). 

The best poetry I have ever seen exhibits purity of emotion, heart and mind, blurted out onto a page with no rules, regulation or attempts at control. Poetry is the one time our words don’t have to abide by any rules or expectations and in this, provides a much-needed escape for the essence of what we are going through in our lives. Our words get a chance to express who we are unhindered. 

In this untamed, wild spirit of poetry, I challenged my students to complete poems in only two minutes. When the time to process, edit and refine was removed, what came out was life distilled. They were the most vulnerable, genuine, and heartfelt pieces of writing I’d ever seen them produce. 

When challenged to the same task I’d given them – this was my two minute production. 


It’s the last moment

No more chance for atonement

Whatever I did today

Will never go away

I don’t know if I did right

Was it the right plight?

Did I fight the good fight?

Uncertainty

Is all that waits for me

In that last moment

Of the day

The Reformist Princess


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