http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber
So much for the well-laid plans of mice and men! Much as I love writing up the blogs, I am taking a break for a few months while I get on with other things, not least because my treatment for prostate cancer makes me feel so tired that it takes me twice as long as usual to get anything done. However, I always planned to drop by from time to time, just not as often. However, I cannot and will not ignore readers who are having a bad time.
Today’s poem hasn’t appeared on the blog since last summer. It is repeated today especially for Nick ‘a 16 year-old living in Canterbury’ who feels 'very isolated ' [as] ‘Canterbury is just so gay-unfriendly.’ [Whatever happened to the gay bar that opened there recently, I wonder?]
It is 40+ years since I was a student at the University of Kent in Canterbury (graduated in 1973), but I still have friends there and will always keep a very special place in my heart for this beautiful old city. I still recall my student years more than a little wistfully. Oh, to put the clock back!
I have to say, it is unusual to find a student city or town that is not gay-friendly, but I know where this young man is coming from as I visit Canterbury fairly often . Moreover, I was born in Kent (Medway) and find the whole county little more gay-friendly now than I did when I was a schoolboy and young man all those years ago. There are parts of Kent that well deserve its name as ‘The Garden of England’ but beauty is only skin deep where some places as well as some people are concerned.
As I have said on the blog many times, young gay people would feel less alienated or threatened if more schools were to discuss gay issues openly and intelligently instead of sweeping them under the proverbial carpet. Until they do, gay boys and girls will go through twice the teenage anxt as others, and homophobia will continue to raise its ugly head more often than not.
Nick might consider contacting the LGBT Society at the University if he has not already done so. It doesn’t (or shouldn’t) matter that he isn’t a student there and it might help to discuss his sexuality with other gay people; ‘keyword ‘University Kent Canterbury LGBT’ for a contact email.
He might also care to explore a site created by two delightful guys working hard at improving the climate for gay people in the Canterbury area and across East Kent; it is well worth a visit anyway, and I'm sure other readers will enjoy exploring it too:
http://www.prideincanterbury.org.uk/
This poem is a villanelle. [To another reader who says he or she loves my villanelles but finds it 'very irritating' that I rarely end stanzas in my poems with a period (full stop). Sorry, about that, but it isn't grammatical laziness. I'm simply not a full stop kind of person, and feel they interrupt a poem's flow. My critics will, of course disagree. (Do I care?)]
A TIMELY REVIEW
Come, gay pilgrims to a 21st century
reassessing tablets of stone,
reviewing a saint’s take on Canterbury
To Augustine’s brief for Christianity,
negotiating layers of translation,
come gay pilgrims to a 21st century
Resisting intimidation by modernity,
the poetry of its past an inspiration
reviewing a saint’s take on Canterbury
Acknowledging a martyr-like quality
empathising with religion,
come gay pilgrims to a 21st century
Among ruins, an enduring spirituality
embracing gay men and women
reviewing a saint’s take on Canterbury
As cathedral gargoyles mimic a bigotry
its hymn to glory would disown,
come gay pilgrims to a 21st century
reviewing a saint's take on Canterbury
[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]
So much for the well-laid plans of mice and men! Much as I love writing up the blogs, I am taking a break for a few months while I get on with other things, not least because my treatment for prostate cancer makes me feel so tired that it takes me twice as long as usual to get anything done. However, I always planned to drop by from time to time, just not as often. However, I cannot and will not ignore readers who are having a bad time.
Today’s poem hasn’t appeared on the blog since last summer. It is repeated today especially for Nick ‘a 16 year-old living in Canterbury’ who feels 'very isolated ' [as] ‘Canterbury is just so gay-unfriendly.’ [Whatever happened to the gay bar that opened there recently, I wonder?]
It is 40+ years since I was a student at the University of Kent in Canterbury (graduated in 1973), but I still have friends there and will always keep a very special place in my heart for this beautiful old city. I still recall my student years more than a little wistfully. Oh, to put the clock back!
I have to say, it is unusual to find a student city or town that is not gay-friendly, but I know where this young man is coming from as I visit Canterbury fairly often . Moreover, I was born in Kent (Medway) and find the whole county little more gay-friendly now than I did when I was a schoolboy and young man all those years ago. There are parts of Kent that well deserve its name as ‘The Garden of England’ but beauty is only skin deep where some places as well as some people are concerned.
As I have said on the blog many times, young gay people would feel less alienated or threatened if more schools were to discuss gay issues openly and intelligently instead of sweeping them under the proverbial carpet. Until they do, gay boys and girls will go through twice the teenage anxt as others, and homophobia will continue to raise its ugly head more often than not.
Nick might consider contacting the LGBT Society at the University if he has not already done so. It doesn’t (or shouldn’t) matter that he isn’t a student there and it might help to discuss his sexuality with other gay people; ‘keyword ‘University Kent Canterbury LGBT’ for a contact email.
He might also care to explore a site created by two delightful guys working hard at improving the climate for gay people in the Canterbury area and across East Kent; it is well worth a visit anyway, and I'm sure other readers will enjoy exploring it too:
http://www.prideincanterbury.org.uk/
This poem is a villanelle. [To another reader who says he or she loves my villanelles but finds it 'very irritating' that I rarely end stanzas in my poems with a period (full stop). Sorry, about that, but it isn't grammatical laziness. I'm simply not a full stop kind of person, and feel they interrupt a poem's flow. My critics will, of course disagree. (Do I care?)]
A TIMELY REVIEW
Come, gay pilgrims to a 21st century
reassessing tablets of stone,
reviewing a saint’s take on Canterbury
To Augustine’s brief for Christianity,
negotiating layers of translation,
come gay pilgrims to a 21st century
Resisting intimidation by modernity,
the poetry of its past an inspiration
reviewing a saint’s take on Canterbury
Acknowledging a martyr-like quality
empathising with religion,
come gay pilgrims to a 21st century
Among ruins, an enduring spirituality
embracing gay men and women
reviewing a saint’s take on Canterbury
As cathedral gargoyles mimic a bigotry
its hymn to glory would disown,
come gay pilgrims to a 21st century
reviewing a saint's take on Canterbury
[From: On the Battlefields of Love by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2010.]
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