Although, the bird of paradise flowers have been a part of my backyard for a number of years now, it was only recently, while pulling off their black, dry heads, last October, with my extremely ‘green’ thumbs, that I became curious about them. What were these birds of paradise doing in my backyard? How
I look at the old couple sitting next to me, on one of the coffee tables of the Franky and Co café, enjoying the hustle and bustle, the sounds and smells of a busy Saturday morning. One of them slowly lifts their cup of coffee, trying to steady the tremors in their hand and not
When I was asked by my colleague, at the high school I teach in, to come and speak to her Year 11 Religious Education students and share with them my faith journey and the ways in which the Holy Prophet Muhammad p.b.u.h. was a role model for myself and other Muslims in my life, I
‘I’m unstoppable, I’m unstoppable today’, sings Sia. ‘I’m invincible, I win every single game,’ she lies. Don’t get me wrong. I love the song, released some 6 years ago. It just lights me up with a resolve to crush every obstacle, real or imagined, that raises its weak and ugly head and threatens to drag
Continue Reading “Beneath the Armour: The unstoppable heart.”
Before going to Cessnock, Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia’s famous wine country, a few weeks ago, somewhere in my mind’s eye, I had a very different impression of what a vineyard would look like. I had imagined the grapevines in the vineyards to be taller than me. The vines would grow and spread out, like they
‘Remember ideas become things’. When my son brought a promising blank notebook for me from one of his overseas trips, with these words written across its front cover, I couldn’t help wondering which of the ideas had become things for me. It didn’t take me long to stumble upon the basic questions that I have
There is an unconsciousness Lurking in the light That blinds me And A consciousness Concealed in the darkness That I am blind to ( Khan, 2021, p.38, ‘Darkness’) When I wrote the poem, ‘Darkness’, in 2017, I think, inspired by Paul Bogard’s article, ‘Let there be dark’, I was specifically drawn towards his title and
When does the act of ‘seeing’ (as understood in the visual thinking routine of ‘See, Think, Wonder’, used to initiate both analytical and creative inquiry in learners of all ages) become the point of entry into the reflective (think), and, of exit into the critical or creative (wonder) wormhole, where multiple possibilities of interpretation, await
‘I have a dark and dreadful secret: I write poetry’ (Fry, 2006, foreword) I was listening to the opening three minutes of the ‘foreword’ to Stephen Fry’s Ode Less travelled: Unlocking the poet within, on Audible, during my Sunday morning walk, when these first words brought me to a ‘literary’ halt. Was writing poetry my
While all of the poems, On sad afternoons, were written in private, for no one in particular but myself, they were arranged and edited in their present form for publication for a wider readership. And in that process of selection and organisation, I as the editor, sought to weave a metacognitive bubble over what I
Continue Reading “Navigating the not-so-perfect split – Writer, Editor and More”