Strike Day, June 30th, 2011

This is a photographic record beginning with a picket in the morning and a march and rally at 1pm. The only low point of the day for me was the appearance of gnarled folk singers on the stage in Victoria Square.

The atmosphere was great: a real sense of solidarity; enough numbers to really make it matter.

If you're a trade unionist or a strike supporter please feel free to use any of the images.

Work in progress

Around eight years ago, I created a couple of chapbooks with the name Stumm. These were collections of texts that could be given the name poetry; I was heavily influenced by the writers that gathered around the journal, L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E. This was writing as research - serious play - where a volatility in language (what Mina Loy describes as "the radium of the word") was hunted out, recovered and thrown to the surface.

The chapbook I'm currently working on takes the same name but is a different creature altogether. It's messier, for a start. I'm not so concerned with results or deliberate outlines. What I'm making is a thing; I'll be done with the making at some point. However, it isn't closed. There are burst blisters and abrasions all over.

I like what I am doing now. I like the magic of it, the urgency that has me scrawling and collating and writing and the time spent staring at these oddments, wondering at their otherness. An old tutor taught me that it's never worth aspiring to a level of competence. I'm beginning to know what this means in practice.

Pictures from a Peace Vigil outside the UAV factory in Shenstone on June 2nd

Gathering

Warren opens the vigil

Words from Isaiah

Keeping silence

Trying to deliver the letter

Anybody home?

Apparently not!

The tradesmen's entrance

The shutters come down

Anne Farr: Live and Dangerous

The end of the conversation (we slipped the letter under the door)

Protest as prayer

Witness

Holding on to the truth

Coming to a close