Thank you…

…to John O’Donoghue, Maria Jastrzebska and Jackie Wills for helping put together the Cultural Leadership Network Funding Bid over the last few days. John was emailing me at 2.30 am Friday with helpful hints. That’s the kind of commitment getting these proposals together takes, when we have no secured funding, every day is a hand to mouth existence, and we’re all busy with other work. I feel a Friday evening ramble coming on so here goes…

THE SOUTH is now operating at the level of a regional agency, but getting the funders to appreciate this and to understand just how innovative and different our approach is seems to be taking an eternity. That suggests a problem of communication, but is it our mode of expression, or others’ mode of listening that’s the problem. A bit of both probably. I’m certainly very keen to improve our communication on all kinds of issues. If you feel you could help, please let us know. We especially need people who are used to filling in applications and writing kultur-spik. I’m sure major changes in arts funding and arts infrastructure are on the way. They’re certainly long overdue. I’m confident that THE SOUTH is in a very good position to make the most of that change and even take part in the change-making process itself. Always having been a little subversive myself, that appeals. I think the next few months could be the most interesting yet in THE SOUTH’s development. A leading poet a little unkindly described it as ‘one man’s pipe dream’. Thanks. Pipe dream? I don’t think so. I have a dream, certainly, but it’s not in my pipe. I have a dream of a flourishing and active literature network, channels of communication sparkling with interchange and reciprocation. I have a dream of young people reclaiming language for themselves, rediscovering its beauty and power. I have a dream that the discipline of poetry, the curious straitening of its forms and its spellbinding power, are important and significant for modern society to deal with itself honestly, justly and precisely. I have a dream of a vibrant multi-faceted southern culture freed from bigotry, a social dance to the music of words. I have a dream that one day, maybe, someone will realise just what we’re trying to nurture, offer, give. An interconnecting energy, giving voice to the region’s voiceless heart.

Wo! Must have stayed up too late last night working on that proposal. Good night!

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