Tag: Galeano

Write because I am curious about my audience?

Published November 29, 2010 by Jo Jordan

So am I going to write that paper or shall I bin it?

In a former life, I might have decided whether to write a paper or not on the basis of the objective merits of the paper. I might even had aspirations that someone might read it. Ha! The average formal paper is read by 7 people. Blogs at least get read if ever so cursorily.

Solidarity and invitation

Galeano makes an important point. The only interaction worth having is horizontal – solidarity.

If I write that paper

Who do I hope to benefit?

Who do I hope to invite in?

And most of all, whose reply do I hope to receive?And why do I want their reply? For personal gain or because I am genuinely interested in what they have to say?

Deeply curious about our audience

Writing is not so much knowing our audience. It is being deeply curious about our audience.

My challenge is clear. Who do I want to hear from?

Legitimate anger

Published November 28, 2010 by Jo Jordan

I don’t like anger. I don’t trust it.

I don’t like anger. I don’t trust it. We just become one track-minded and lose perspective.

Eduardo Galeano expresses the anger many of us feel

But sometimes we do need to sink into an emotion. I re-read Galeano’s words on the hegemony of unfairness and I re-read them aloud. These are hard words to be read aloud to hear their flint-sharp steel-hard tones.

Reading negative poetry aloud at home is safe . . . and cathartic

I felt better. I did.

It doesn’t harm that below those words I had also recorded a positive way forward. But it helped to hear words that confirmed that I am not the only person in the world so heartily tired of having to pretend that the unfairness we see every day is not there.

Maybe one day I will read those words aloud in public