What’s the last best thing you read? Write about why you loved it, or why it stuck with you.
Medium is a blog site. They have just started a writing hour, where you just log on to sit with other writers, each silently at their craft. Options are made available as a response to a prompt. I chose the title question above.
I actually struggled to narrow down a single recent read as best. I read some Oscar Wilde last week. He always carried his diary with him, as “it was important to have something sensational to read”. I am not sure my blog sits in that camp, but I do read my posts again as they are a collected work in progress. Plus, someone has to read them to the end…
Here is a piece I have read several times with wider reading in support. “Sonnet : England in 1819”, by PB Shelley. It is a haunting read, the second time around. It sticks with me now because two hundred plus years later, much of the sentiment remains. I had to read the history of the Peterloo Massacre to even understand the context of the piece. A terrible day. And once the history was read, without needing to equate the living to the dead, it now sits weightily with poem in one hand, and news feed in the other. Cynicism lasts more than one age. Representation in parliament hardly holding itself to sit with more empathy today.
…Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn, mud from a muddy spring, —
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know.
But leech-like to their fainting country cling.
‘Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow
PB Shelley, from “Sonnet : England in 1819”
…and then the hour was up. Normal blogging will resume tomorrow.
About Me
In psychology we are required to look beneath the mask. This blog series is attempting to unmask some hidden parts of projects to engender a more collaborative way.
