Thursday 11 September 2008

Apropos Georgia / Reginald Shepherd


I thought I'd put this link to Michael Totten on since Snoop points me to it. It's a long and fascinating read with accounts of events long before the recent outbreak of overt hostilities. A colleague at university is preparing an article on Georgia as I speak.

As Shuggy, not too long ago, correctly pointed out none of us bloggers ('I am a simple poet, ma'am, begging your pardon, and you know what terrible politicians poets tend to make, I mean fancy making a line walk on five feet!') is expert at this, though most of us know enough to be wary of partisan lines taken by newspapers who often rely on partisan sources. The noises made by Moscow, referring to the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili as a 'war criminal' sound very familiar to my cold-war ears. Regarding Totten's article I will take the Wittgenstein line - 'what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence' - but that's not to say I may not point to someone who probably does know what he is talking about.

I still remember a pre-1956 Hungarian cartoon (in Ludas Matyi, the Party's equivalent of Viz) that showed Dag Hammarskjöld, the then UN Secretary, leaving bloody footsteps wherever he went. Hammarskjöld's were not the footprints later discovered in Budapest.

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I was very sad to hear of the death of the American poet Reginald Shepherd. He is on the sidebar to your left. Shepherd was a fine, extraordinarily intelligent and articulate poet, not only a genuine passionate, highly skilled writer but, going by the evidence of his blog, a good man. See for yourself.



1 comment:

Mark Granier said...

Terrible news. I knew Reginald a little and we emailed each other from time to time. A very generous person and, as you say, extraordinarily intelligent, passionate and articulate poet (also a brilliant critic). I will miss him.