Commonword Blogs

Hi Pete,

I'm really beginning to see the logic behind writing something centred around a single photograph or a combination of photographs for myself now. I got a lot of inspiration from the Artland Gallery's current exhibition "The Space Between" which I've attended a number of times now.

Photography really exudes a power that cannot always be captured solely with words.

I love your observations! Well done!

My advice to anyone who might want to write about rape, depravity, hopelessness, degradation, confusion and anger is, simply, to flog themselves, catch a bus, tear their chests open & hold their beating, bleeding hearts in their hands until they die out.
What I mean is: Get a job that guarantees to deliver a quality beating daily. One that will leave you with unresolved AND unresolvable, feelings of anger or violence. You'll already have downloaded lots of sad love songs to play on the bus from said work. Forgiveness is not a writerly trait. Download the songs you used to play with her/him/them [!] before your heart got broken. James Blunt's 'Goodbye My Lover' is essential material. Listen to the songs in the midst of your anger. Let it all blend in, soak into your tired body and mind. Make sure you've chosen a window seat. Long bus journeys are best. Look for a job out of town. As you travel, you'll find that the eye becomes a action camera. It'll capture fleeting things, if only for a moment. A street name sign. Pebbles on a driveway. Uneven pavements. Rain. Moss growing on bricks. Because of your mood, it will veer towards whatever worsens your mood - Thin people, Fat people, Black people, White people, People with hair, People in love, People in poverty, People swimming in money, injustice everywhere. As you View this, the voices singing in your ear will be tearing apart the stitches on your chest stitch by stitch, using one finger. All those hurts that had healed or were forgotten - the betrayals, the anger, all of it must be brought up to the surface.
Get off the bus two stops early if the bus leaves you too near home. Especially when its raining. Get rained on. Step into uneven pavements & find them full of murky water. See the trail of dogs faeces nearby, gently sliding into the pool. Feel the water rushing into your shoes & socks as your head gets drenched. Watch the guys in the range rover hover by effortlessly. Look now @ the pregnant mothers pushing prams, their hair wet, their children wet, and continue walking. Now then, the final ingredient - Men, stare, at women's breasts, stare, at women's asses, whatever tickles your fancy, stare at it. Women, well, whatever tickles your fancy. Awaken the lust in you, & continue walking. It is important to not have a spouse or booty-call waiting at home. Ideally, you'll have taken some sort of vow, or better still, caused yourself to be rejected recently. Watch now, as the people in the range rover stop in front of you & scoop the good looking chics. Feel the jealousy, the anger, the utter powerlessness, your toes swimming in dogs poo inside your wet shoes, the hopelessness of it all...
If u do these things, as I did before I found my faith, you will find that you might have a voice for those characters you left in the middle of a gang rape last night, that drunken man who was undressing a little girl, that rape victim years later, that rapist, the morning after, the little boy who was watching, is now grown & is hounded by all this lust, anger, confusion & depravity in him.

G