There is a cherry on top of all this. Shelley described poets as
"the unacknowledged legislators of the world." I could certainly agree with the views on legislation expressed in this article on free speech by one of our modern-day poets, Pamela Hardyment. (Though it's "playwright" not "playwrite". Just sayin'.) Ms Hardyment is the author of Dancing Alone and Other Poems. She's a supporter of PEN and has signed many of that organisation's admirable petitions to free imprisoned writers.
Pam Hardyment is also a Jew-hater.
"What is particularly disturbing is the way opposition to the Jewish state descends into vicious antagonism against Jews themselves, as shown by this sickening recent outburst from writer Pamela Hardyment, a member of the National Union of Journalists, which in April voted to boycott Israeli goods.
"Explaining her support for the NUJ’s stance, Ms Hardyment described Israel as 'a wonderful Nazi-like killing machine backed by the world’s richest Jews'.
"Then, like some lunatic from the far-Right, she referred to the 'so-called Holocaust' before concluding: 'Shame on all Jews, may your lives be cursed.'"
That was from Leo McKinstry's widely-quoted story in the
Express. It draws on Stephen Pollard's more detailed account
here.
Dear old Shelley thought that "Poetry is the record of the happiest and best moments of the happiest and best minds" and says of Homer, Virgil, Bacon, Raphael and Spencer that "if their sins were as scarlet they are now white as snow: they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer Time." Time, however, is a selective redeemer and only offers the wash to those poets who qualify as great. Some of us may still be alive in around fifty years' time to judge whether Ms Hardyment made the cut. Given that her most well known literary work so far is not only an outpouring of bigotry but also has the distinction of containing eleven consecutive exclamation marks, I am not hopeful.
I promised you a cherry. She's a Truther too. (Signature 7429).
posted by Natalie at 10:17 PM
