February 14, 2004 at 9:32 am · Filed under history, web2.0
Once upon a time
There was a man
Running for his life.
This was his fate.
It was a hard fate.
But Fate is Fate
He had to keep running
He began to wonder about Fate.
And running for dear life.
Who? Why? And was he nothing
But some dummy hare on a racetrack?
At last he made up his mind
He was nobody’s fool.
It would take guts
But yes he could do it.
Yes yes he could stop.
Agony! Agony!
Was the wrenching
Of himself from his running
Vast! And sudden
This stillness
In the empty middle of the desert.
There he stood -stopped.
And since he couldn’t see anybody
To North or to West or to East or South He raised his fists
Laughing in awful joy
And shook them at the Universe
And his fists fell off
And his arms fell off
He Staggered and his legs fell off
It was too late for him to realise
That this was the dogs tearing him to pieces
That he was, in fact, nothing
But a dummy hare on a racetrack
And life was being lived only by the dogs
Ted Hughes
This has been my favorite poem since 1989.
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AMA citation:
Bellamy C. Ted Hughes: The Existential Song. craigbellamy.net. 2004. Available at: http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/14/ted-hughes-the-existential-song/. Accessed July 25, 2008.
APA citation:
Bellamy, Craig. (2004). Ted Hughes: The Existential Song. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from craigbellamy.net Web site: http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/14/ted-hughes-the-existential-song/
Chicago citation:
Bellamy, Craig. 2004. Ted Hughes: The Existential Song. craigbellamy.net. http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/14/ted-hughes-the-existential-song/ (accessed July 25, 2008).
Harvard citation:
Bellamy, C 2004, Ted Hughes: The Existential Song, craigbellamy.net. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from <http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/14/ted-hughes-the-existential-song/>
MLA citation:
Bellamy, Craig. "Ted Hughes: The Existential Song." 14 Feb. 2004. craigbellamy.net. Accessed 25 Jul. 2008. <http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/14/ted-hughes-the-existential-song/>
February 12, 2004 at 8:11 pm · Filed under history, web2.0
Ross Gibson’s Seven Versions of an Australian Badland is about a horror stretch of road in Queensland. It is packed full of interesting ideas but the narrative seems hurried and thus the ‘cognitive capital’ of the author diminished. What I mean by this is that it is too fragmentary and lacks authorial discipline. There are too many chapters and too many themes and the book is too small to carry them. It also on occasions seems tainted by the prose of the post colonial theorists when these ideas could have been rendered more colourfully through evocative story and metaphor. But the idea of an Australian Badland free from the useful narrative of European colonialism is a wonderful one but I wish that this book had have unpacked the stories and embellished them with more fatty beef (obviously not from the badlands).
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AMA citation:
Bellamy C. Ross Gibson: Seven Versions of an Australian Badland. craigbellamy.net. 2004. Available at: http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/12/ross-gibson-seven-versions-of-an-australian-badland/. Accessed July 25, 2008.
APA citation:
Bellamy, Craig. (2004). Ross Gibson: Seven Versions of an Australian Badland. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from craigbellamy.net Web site: http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/12/ross-gibson-seven-versions-of-an-australian-badland/
Chicago citation:
Bellamy, Craig. 2004. Ross Gibson: Seven Versions of an Australian Badland. craigbellamy.net. http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/12/ross-gibson-seven-versions-of-an-australian-badland/ (accessed July 25, 2008).
Harvard citation:
Bellamy, C 2004, Ross Gibson: Seven Versions of an Australian Badland, craigbellamy.net. Retrieved July 25, 2008, from <http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/12/ross-gibson-seven-versions-of-an-australian-badland/>
MLA citation:
Bellamy, Craig. "Ross Gibson: Seven Versions of an Australian Badland." 12 Feb. 2004. craigbellamy.net. Accessed 25 Jul. 2008. <http://www.craigbellamy.net/2004/02/12/ross-gibson-seven-versions-of-an-australian-badland/>
