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John Baker's Blog

Reflections of a working writer and reader

If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn't wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate. Donald Hall

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— June - a poem - a massacre - a torch

June

by Shi Tao

My whole life

Will never get past “June”
June, when my heart died
When my poetry died
When my lover
Died in romance’s pool of blood

June, the scorching sun burns open my skin
Revealing the true nature of my wound
June, the fish swims out of the blood-red sea
Toward another place to hibernate
June, the earth shifts, the rivers fall silent
Piled up letters unable to be delivered to the dead

Translated to English from Chinese by Chip Rolley

Shi Tao, a journalist and the author of this poem was imprisoned by the Chinese Government after forwarding to an overseas website a document from Chinese government censors warning their media not to report on the 15th anniversary of the June 4 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Shi Tao was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment and 2 years’ deprivation of political rights. Although he remains in prison his poem is free and is following the Olympic torch around the world.

International PEN, the worldwide writers’ organisation, are campaigning for the release of around 40 writers currently imprisoned in China. Shi Tao is one of them.

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— We Don’t Want To Go To China

Anne Applebaum at The Washington Post takes a critical look at some Olympic fallacies:
“The Olympics are a force for good.” Not always! The 1936 Olympics, held in Nazi Germany, were an astonishing propaganda coup for Hitler. It’s true that the star performance of Jesse Owens, the black American track-and-field great, did shoot some holes in [...]

— continue reading . . . We Don’t Want To Go To China

— Writers at the Brussells Tribunal

20th March 2003 – 5.30 am: the American army and its allies bombard Baghdad. The War in Iraq has started. The blood and ink flow in abundance. Five years later, we, as writers, are sending a message to the people. We would like to appeal to each and every one of you and make you [...]

— continue reading . . . Writers at the Brussells Tribunal

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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
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Read extracts from my novels

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