Tag Archives: poetry

Julie Taylor

Sunday poetry

By Julie Taylor | Sun 10th November 2019 - 2:00 pm

Boris is playing mind games

Cummings is showing him how

The chaos theory of conquest

Is up and running now

 

We’re now aware of their tactics 

We must band together to fight

Demonstrate the strength of the British 

Backing all MPs doing right

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Posted in Op-eds | 4 Comments
Stuart Laycock

Up

By Stuart Laycock | Mon 14th December 2015 - 12:49 pm

Yeah,
we’re down now
but we’ll get up.
Hey, let’s face it
we’ve been
down before.
Not the first time.
Probably not the last.
You don’t become
a Lib Dem
because you
lust LOVE power,
long to clasp it
sweatily to you
knuckles sprung tensed.
Really no.

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Posted in Poetry | Leave a comment
Paul Walter

Tim’s new chief of staff and a hangover after a late spring evening drinking with friends

By Paul Walter | Fri 23rd October 2015 - 11:40 am

It’s not what you think.

Tim Farron recently introduced his new Chief of Staff, Ben Williams, on these pages:

Ben was the standout candidate and brings a wealth of experience at all levels of the party from council campaigner to Head of Liberal Democrat Whips’ Office and latterly a Special Adviser. Everyone who has worked with him knows his skills and how brilliantly he works under pressure. There were many points over our years in government when I saw Ben, at first hand, make sure the government kept delivering liberal policies under tremendous pressures. He is exactly what our party needs – someone who can help me to help our party grow and thrive.

Ben Williams also has, according to self-publishing website Lulu.com, “always harboured a secret passion for writing.”

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Posted in Books and Humour | Also tagged | Leave a comment
The Voice

What’s your favourite liberal poem?

By The Voice | Thu 8th October 2015 - 2:47 pm

It’s National Poetry Day today so we thought it might be worth asking you to nominate your favourite poem with a liberal message. What poem has moved you or made a liberal point in a unique way. Let us know in the comments.

We also thought you might like to see  this piece from 2012 in which Edis Bevan looked at the poetry of Denmark’s Piet Hein. We are nothing if not good Europeans.

In a mad world, remember Denmark’s Piet Hein. Theoretical physicist, poet, wartime resistance activist, mathematician and simply a human being in all its warmest glory. His short poems (Grooks) have a haiku-like quality, reflecting on the simple complexities of life, and as a consequence of real politics as it hits real people. I have cherished these gems for a long time, and wonder if other Liberal Democrats might find them helpful.

His first ever Grook was published in the newspaper Politiken under the Nazi occupation of Denmark. It was

Losing one glove
is certainly painful,
but nothing
compared to the pain,
of losing one,
throwing away the other,
and finding
the first one again

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 7 Comments
Sue Sherwood

LDV Poetry: Moving forward

By Sue Sherwood | Mon 31st August 2015 - 9:39 am

Devastating

 gruelling

what a cruel night

and so unexpected.

Friends and colleagues

dismissed

so much expertise

discarded

as if on a whim.

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Posted in News and Poetry | Also tagged | 16 Comments

Opinion: The Dark Satanic Wells of Fracking

By Andy Boddington | Wed 7th August 2013 - 9:03 am

Like many enthusiasts, I’m looking forward to the bombastic Last Night of the Proms, one month today. And I bet I’ll not be alone in bellowing out the words of England’s most popular anthem, Jerusalem.Blake Newton Fracking

Two centuries ago, William Blake began writing his epic poem Milton, including perhaps Jerusalem, while living in Felpham, Sussex. A few years later, he was back in London where the streets were being illuminated for the first time by gas lamps. The coal gas of Blake’s era gave way in the late 1960s to the cleaner supplies from the North Sea. Now we are witnessing the third coming of gas – hydraulic fracturing of shale. And this takes us directly back to Sussex, where protesters are mounting a blockade against fracking at Balcombe.

Green campaigners’ passions flare at any mention of fracking. The Campaign to Protect Rural England seems less certain that fracking is out of order, at least as a temporary energy fix. But it is at one with the Financial Times in believing that Balcombe is far from the best place to start. The drilling site is within the protected High Weald area of outstanding natural beauty and, even though the blockade is being led by eco-activists, most villagers say they are opposed to fracking in their parish.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 25 Comments
Edis Bevan

Poetry for harassed Liberal Democrats

By Edis Bevan | Tue 28th February 2012 - 4:17 pm

Call us quirky, but a touch of culture, and a moment to reflect never does any harm. So, when Liberal Democrat Voice received this contribution, we wondered where it fitted. But then, why should a political website be entirely serious?…

In a mad world, remember Denmark’s Piet Hein. Theoretical physicist, poet, wartime resistance activist, mathematician and simply a human being in all its warmest glory. His short poems (Grooks) have a haiku-like quality, reflecting on the simple complexities of life, and as a consequence of real politics as it hits real people. I have cherished these gems for a long time, …

Continue reading »
Posted in News | 6 Comments
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