Strip-Tease
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I am linking here to the Irish PEN statement on Ireland’s need for a Constitutional Referendum on Blasphemy. Readers of this blog know that there is a link to the International PEN Statement on Defamation of Religions on the Site, and some links to the 2006-2009 Defamation Bill. I am adding here two links from Irish PEN, which is affiliated closely with International PEN.
Urgent Need for Irish Constitutional Referendum on Blasphemy
March 18th, 2011.
The Executive Committee of Irish PEN, the Irish Centre for PEN International, is campaigning for a constitutional referendum to be held on blasphemy in the Republic of Ireland by the end of 2011.
Why do we need a constitutional referendum?
Article 40.6.1.i of the Irish Constitution requires that blasphemy be banned and hence abolishing the offence requires a constitutional referendum.
Why is the move towards “defamation of religions” bad?
Human rights attach to individuals, not to states, organised groups or ideas. When governments seek to limit the rights of individuals to criticise, they are not seeking, as they claim, to protect faith or belief. Rather, they are seeking increased power over their citizens. Religions are capable of good and evil. To ensure that the good dominates, it is essential to maintain freedom of expression, ensuring writers are free to criticise them
Edit : 30/03/2011 : Press-Release from American PEN.
New York City, March 30, 2011—PEN American Center today praised the U.N. Human Rights Council for ending efforts to restrict speech considered offensive to religions, calling the Council’s recent unanimous vote on a religious tolerance resolution “a vital affirmation of the inextricably-linked rights of freedom of expression and religion.
“We are delighted that the OIC has come to share our view that in the necessary work of building mutual respect between the world’s religious traditions, the criminalization of speech about a religion—however offensive to its adherents—would have been an unhelpful step,” PEN President Kwame Anthony Appiah said today in New York. “This is especially so because incitement to violence on any basis, including religion, is already exempt from the wide protections for freedom of expression in international law.”
Beginning in 1997, a coalition of countries led by the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has put forward a series on resolutions on “combating religious defamation” that contained language demanding that states ban blasphemy and other religious denigration. PEN and a number of other human rights organizations have lobbied against the proposals, warning that they would significantly erode crucial international and national protections for freedom of expression. In submissions to the Human Rights Council and in a presentation for U.N. delegates in Geneva this past September, PEN cited numerous cases where governments have used religious defamation laws to jail writers and suppress unpopular opinions, and it has insisted that blasphemy laws do little to achieve the stated goal of curbing religious bigotry.
Instead of reintroducing the religious defamation resolution at the current Human Rights Council session, the OIC presented a new resolution that focuses on ending religious discrimination. The resolution, which passed unanimously last Thursday, removes all references to protecting religions and shifts the emphasis to protecting individual believers, something PEN has long argued is the correct approach both in principle and in the law.
Related Links.
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A short time ago I wrote an introductory to the Poetry Foundation discussion on best practices in Fair Use of Poetry, which should serve as a guideline on the creation, licensing and transmission of original materials.
” Fair use, a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, non-licensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author’s work under a four-factor balancing test. The term fair use originated in the United States. A similar principle, fair dealing, exists in some other common law jurisdictions. Civil law jurisdictions have other limitations and exceptions to copyright“.
That link on Fair Use and current discussion on the creation of a new Irish Version of 3.0/BY-NC-SA/Draft Creative Commons Licence (UCC) have prompted a short piece at Writing.ie regarding the treatment of the Poet’s original work, both ours as poets, or as we review or translate the original writing of fellow writers in our blog-spaces or in other online modes of transmission. I’d like to thank Vanessa O Loughlin who requested the piece.
Introduction to The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute discussion here:
“During 2009, the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute convened a group of poets, editors, publishers, and experts in copyright law and new media, with the goal of identifying obstacles preventing poetry from coming fully into new media and, where possible, imagining how to remove or mitigate these obstacles. Embracing the overarching value of access to poetry as its theme, the group saw that business, technological, and societal shifts had profound implications for poets publishing both in new and in traditional media, and also that poets have an opportunity to take a central role in expanding access to a broad range of poetry in the coming months and years. The resulting Poetry and New Media: A Users’ Guide report covers topics such as copyright and fair use; royalties, permissions, and licensing; estates; access and lifelong engagement with poetry; and engaging educators, institutions, and communities.
The Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute invites poets, publishers, and everyone involved with poetry as an art form to consider this report, the upcoming Best Practices for Fair Use in Poetry document, and other available resources as they make their own thoughtful and conscious decisions based on their values and priorities in relation to these topics. As the new-media environment is ever changing, we present the Poetry and New Media report and the upcoming Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Poetry in the spirit of an evolving conversation on a timely topic.”
Creative Commons -
Silly Me …
by Nessa O Mahony
to think the beech would shiver differently today.
It’s felt the breeze for aeons though the leaves
still tremble to that touch.Why expect another shade of blue
behind those tossed-sheet clouds?Imagine thinking that the sun might dance
or my face would give the game away.
If I remember not to smile.From Bartalk, by Nessa O Mahony
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Sancreed Well
by Nessa O Mahony
A mouth into the earth,
a gape of flags
beside the rubble
of the early church.
No other sign,
no fragment cloths
tied to twigs with faith.
Just steps deep down,
worn slippy by the weight
of pilgrim hopes
and the steady drip,
the water-carried beat
of prayer.
In the clammy air
nowhere to look
but down, deep down
into the blackened pool,
and in the moss-lined font
nothing to see
but your own face,
staring your rippled question
back at you.from Bartalk, http://www.irishliteraryrevival.com/nessa-omahony/
Re: Irish Literary Revival and Creative Commons Licences.
This means that the works can be shared under the licensing of Attribution, no derivatives (alterations or adaptions) and not for commercial purposes. I am linking here to the wonderful Irish literary Revival Site and to Nessa’s blog-space: For information on Poetry and blogging, those people interested in Intellectual property rights and literary dissemination should look at Creative Commons and a Poetry Foundation Document, which I have previously published here.
Related Links.
- Code of Best practices in Fair Use for Poetry, Poetry Foundation
- Creative Commons Homepage
- http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/legalcode
- Nessa O Mahony blog http://nessaomahony.wordpress.com/
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In the Storm of Roses, by Ingeborg Bachmann.
“Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, and the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.”The Broken Heart by Ingeborg Bachmann
“News o’ grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi’ breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi’ grieven,
Vell her head, wi’ tears a-creepen
Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,
An’ there wer still the hans that tied it
Hangen white,
Or wringen tight,
In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.When a man, wi’ heartless slighten,
Mid become a maiden’s blighten,
He mid cearelessly vorseake her,
But must answer to her Meaker;
He mid slight, wi’ selfish blindness,
All her deeds o’ loven-kindness,
God wull waigh ’em wi’ the slighten
That mid be her love’s requiten;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know
What weight o’ woe
Do break the heart ov ev’ry griever.”
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Here follows a statement and link from the National Campaign for Arts 07/03/2011:
“The Programme for Government released yesterday by Fine Gael and Labour has a small section on the arts. You can read the relevant extract here. On the positive side:
- There is a reference to ‘the Department’ so it seems the new government plans to retain the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport as it stands, although we won’t know this for sure until the cabinet is announced.
- The Labour Party’s idea of merging Culture Ireland into the Arts Council is not included, so it would appear this is not the new government’s policy. This is welcome news.
References to the arts and culture in the document are limited and somewhat disjointed. Specifically there is:
- No mention of funding for the Arts Council, Film Board, Culture Ireland or the National Cultural Institutions.
- In fact there is no mention of film at all. (We understand a new audiovisual strategy will be published by the Department shortly).
A new Minister presents us with an opportunity. There is ample scope for the campaign to make representations to the Minister and put flesh on the bones of the outline set out in the Programme for Government. Hopefully, in the elaboration of the programme into policy, it will become more dynamic and comprehensive.
With so many new TDs, a surprising number of whom have a connection with the arts, the campaign can make a very persuasive case. We are keen to do so.
However, even to run on a very modest basis, we need to raise €30,00 by the end of March. It seems like a huge amount and is a big ask in these difficult times. We’ve raised €8,500 to date. Some organisations have received a letter seeking a specific donation in the last few weeks. If you have not, you will receive a letter shortly. Individuals are encouraged to donate online.”
National Campaign for Arts in Ireland
National Campaign for Arts -
Flaxman
by Margaret Fuller.
We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,
Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,
And in forms of gods and heroes wrought
Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone,-
A higher charm than modern culture won
With all the wealth of metaphysic won
With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,
Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore.
A many-coloured light flows from one sun;
Art, ‘neath its beams, a motley thread was spun;
The prism modifies the perfect day;
But thou hast known such mediums to shun,
And cast once more on life a pure, white ray.
Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,
Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.This poem comes from the wonderful Norton Anthology, The Making Of A Sonnet, Edited by Edward Hirsch and poet Eavan Boland, Norton, 2008. Information on Margaret Fuller’s feminism, journalism and poetry can be gotten from her Wikipedia page and online. In the context of discussions begun by VIDA on women reviewers,poets and literatry advocates, I thought it an excellent idea to place here a poem by the first full-time female book-reviewer in journalism. Calls have been made to explain the absences of women from the 2010 lists. I am adding in here the relevant links :
- Margaret Fuller’s Wikipedia Pages
- Anne Hays letter to the New Yorker Magazine
- VIDA articles and Links
- A Saturday Woman Poet Archive on Poethead
- The Making of a Sonnet, Hirsch and Boland
Daguerrotype of Margaret Fuller from Wikipedia. -
Cóiced.
‘ The word for a ‘province’ in Irish is ‘fifth’.
The fifth one : Meath or ‘middle’ place,
is secret : a drawer, or priest-hole,
Omphallos
a sliding door oiled into space
rock-faced , as in sheer of cliff.‘We’ll find them’, callow children laughed
on mid-term breaks
in plastic macs.
‘Don’t drive. We’ll walk.’
They held a compass : North, North-West
and tied a thread to leave a trail.We found one body in a field
metal-detected teeth through lime
walking-shoes out on a ledge.
One child survived. Now ninety-nine
one plain, one purl, hand-knitted
time of sorrow. For
‘Wherever you walk in Ireland
you reach the edge.’by Mark Patrick Hederman
Discussed here
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At Carmel Highlands.
by Janet Lewis.
Below the gardens and the darkening pines
The living water sinks among the stones,
Sinking yet foaming, till the snowy tones
Merge with the fog drawn landward in dim lines.
The cloud dissolves among the flowering vines,
And now the definite mountain-side disowns
The fluid world, the immeasurable zones.
The white oblivion swallows all designs.
But still the rich confusion of the sea,
Unceasing voice, sombre and solacing,
Rises through veils of silence past the trees;
In restless repetition bound, yet free,
Wave after wave in deluge fresh releasing
An ancient speech, hushed in tremendous ease.
From The Making of a Sonnet, Eds, Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland. A Norton Anthology, 2008.
Chris Murray 