Author Archives: Josie Moon

Aretha Franklin: Young, Gifted and Black

I am particularly moved to learn that she held women’s rights and civil rights as central to her life and values. Not only this but she quietly and privately supported the struggle for the rights of indigenous Americans. She refused to perform at Trump’s inauguration as an act of protest from artists and musicians.

World Poetry Day, March 21st 2021

I’ve posted this poem before, a couple of times, because it becomes more relevant and sinister by the day. It is part of my 2018 collection, Poems from the Swamp which explores the psychogeography of an imagined version of the East Marsh where I live, it’s material reality and the unconscious and mythic layers that exist beyond the thinnest of veils. Each poem is written from the point of view of characters I have created.

Pauline Oliveros, Stuart Dempster, Panaiotis: Deep Listening

In the entire history of struggle for rights and freedoms, those in power never give it up willingly. Power has to be wrested from them and there is always a fight. There needs to a be a fight now. I hope that this week, which concludes with Mother’s Day for God’s sake, is the start of a fight; one which can be won and not by those currently holding the levers of power.