Six Tenets of Social Leadership

Just came across this, I want to use the wisdom therein in my organisation The University of the Third Age.

Julian Stodd's Learning Blog

Social Leadership is a style fit for the Social Age: it’s about building social authority, reputation based leadership that is consensual by the community. It’s complimentary to formal leadership but vital at a time when formal authority delivers a diminished return. Here are six tenets that any social leader will adhere to:

Be curious: question everything. Just because ‘this is how we have always done it‘, don’t assume that’s how you should continue to do it. Solve for today, remain curious as to tomorrow. Curiosity, a willingness to question and the permission to challenge (and be challenged) is key.

Try, Learn, Try: new technology, new ways of working, new ways of sharing, new approaches, new techniques, new mindsets. Try, learn, fail, learn. Agility is about always being willing to stretch, and to support others as they find their…

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Christmas

In my previous post I had written a rather rough, naive and raw diatribe about how Christmas is exploited and now focuses more on greed and avarice, gluttony and general over indulgence. The poem was written from the heart but I know myself it is not as it should be.

I’ve now rewritten it as below

 

It feels a little better but still needs some work for it to be of any satisfaction. However, now that the Christmas season is over, I think I will leave it in the cupboard with the left over wrapping paper until next year. By then it will have had time to settle and like the carefully packed away Christmas lights I can untangle it and hope it lights up.

Mrs Grinch’s Christmas

This is my last upload for this module for the moment. I’ve put together a ‘seasonal’ piece. I’ve called it Mrs Grinch. It’s very much a work in progress, but any comments would be welcome. The formatting isn’t as I would wish but I’ve struggled long enough to get it to do as it’s told. The final piece will have the first six stanzas in column with the last stanza holding up the two pillars – could be seen as chimney pots. That is, of course, unless I change the whole thing completely which is likely. If you are reading this, I hope you have as good a Christmas as you would wish for and may the New Year bring new promises.

Reversing down the road

I came across a ‘Reverse’ poem some time ago which fascinated me. It’s a poem that when read backward gives it a totally different meaning. The one I found was called Refugees by Brian Bilston and can be found here

I thought this was a challenging and fascinating method and when read both forward and backward can give a powerful message to the reader. It certainly drew me in, I was somewhat incensed at first reading but then at the end taking the invitation to read in reverse I was inspired to try my own.

Found Poetry

Happy poets who write found poetry go pawing through popular culture like sculptors on trash heaps. They hold and wave aloft usable artifacts and fragments: jingles and ad copy, menus and broadcasts — all objet trouvés, the literary equivalents of Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans and Duchamp’s bicycle. By entering a found text as a poem, the poet doubles its context. The original meaning remains intact, but now it swings between two poles. The poet adds, or at any rate increases, the element of delight. This is an urban, youthful, ironic, cruising kind of poetry. It serves up whole texts, or interrupted fragments of texts.” — Annie Dillard

http://www.foundpoetryreview.com/about-found-poetry/ accessed 27.11.2017

This week we were given the challenge of writing a poem from within the text of an act of Antigone a Greek Tragedy written by Sophocles apparently first performed in 442 BC

Here is my first effort:

Symbiosis

Last week, I attempted a ‘Sonnet with a difference’. The idea was to try to link last month’s ‘Ophelia’ storm with Hamlet’s tragic Ophelia who starts life innocent and chaste, then rises in temper – or madness – then dies. The sonnet form just didn’t work for this, I found the restrictions obscured the ideas I wanted to impart. I’ve now lifted those restrictions and, using some of Shakespeare’s own words among mine, I hope I’ve created a symbiosis that works rather better.

 

A sonnet – with a difference

This week we have been tasked with writing a sonnet. Easy yes? Iambic Pentameter with 10 syllables using a rhyming sequence. Well, not so easy.

In order to make this more challenging, we were asked to write a ‘cross rhyme’ where the word at the end of a line rhymes with a word in the middle of the preceding or following rhyme. (Gilbert, Dan. The Poet’s Cookbook: Details for over 50 forms, types of meter, structure, rhyme and over 100 writing exercises. (Kindle Location 289). Hewson Books. Kindle Edition.)

A sonnet in the traditional sense should as I said have 10 syllables with the traditional Shakespearian form having an  a b a b c d c d e f e f g g, other sonnet forms may differ slightly such as in Italian or Petrachan -a b b a a b b a c d e c d e

Gilbert, Dan. The Poet’s Cookbook: Details for over 50 forms, types of meter, structure, rhyme and over 100 writing exercises. (Kindle Locations 863-864). Hewson Books. Kindle Edition.

In the first draft of this attempt, I’ve differed again from those in that I have a format of aabbccddeeffgg. Which may be seen as more of a couplet than a sonnett. As I said, a first draft, it’s been interesting to work on but needs some serious editing.

I’ve used the theme of the recent October storm Ophelia, linking it to Hamlet’s Ophelia in an oblique way.