It was National Poetry Day on 2 October, so we’re celebrating it over a long weekend of irreverent, irritated and irate doggerel! Here’s ‘Artists Knowledge’ to help you put your reflective socks on for a lazy Sunday!
It’s been written in response to the challenge many of us face when trying to justify the value of arts in education and research.
Artists Knowledge (Close Encounters of the Third Kind)
Knowledge of the first kind
is the stats, the dates, the measurements.
The what, the when, the where.
Knowledge of the second kind
is the interpretations, the rational analysis of observable events.
The scientific, analytic, predictive.
The regulatory, the politic.
The how, the whether.
Artists knowledge is knowledge of the third kind.
Sensory and sensitive,
Intuitive and imaginative,
Magical and miraculous.
Generating meaning and stories
which bestow ownership of knowledge of the first kind
and give purpose to the knowledge of the second kind.
The what-if? The why? The If-not, then why-not?
There’s No Such Thing as an Englishman
There’s No Such Thing as an Englishman is an anthology of poetry from an irritated England and marks the many sources of irritation faced by the average Englishman or woman these days – everything from the railways to referenda via what ever it is the young call music these days.
It was launched on 31 January 2020 – the day when the UK left the European Union and when the phenomenon known as Brexit finally, we liked to think, finally evaporated and all those years of frustration, anger, sheer disbelief and irritation all come to rest. But as Chairman Mao once said about what he thought the effects of the French Revolution were, it was way too soon to tell.
But its two authors – Nick Owen and Janice Owen – have become accomplished at becoming irritated at many facets of life in England over the years and hope that you, dear reader, will find some solace in knowing that you are not alone when it comes to feeling frustrated, pissed off, angry or just good old fashioned irritated.
Being English though, means we’ve just reached a level of irritation and aren’t quite ready to riot. Yet.