Hearing Our Prayers An Exploration of Liturgical Listening by Juliette J. Day

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There is a lot written about the “performance” of liturgy but this book turns to focus instead on the “reception” of liturgy.

Juliette J. Day draws out distinctions between what we hear and what we listen to, between the intentional sounds of the liturgy (mostly the words spoken and sung), the incidental sounds of the liturgy (the turning of the pages of the hymn book etc), and noise (the traffic roaring past outside). But within that mix we find the experience of the liturgy – to treat the liturgical experience as solely an encounter with the intentional sounds is to misunderstand it.

The is some consideration to the ways that the need for the liturgy to be heard has space practice – the use of chant helps carry the sounds through the space, the re-arrangement of Churches after the reformation to favour the spoken sermon – some of these were changes made with an understanding of the physics involved in hearing, some perhaps intuitive. How these were approached gives an insight into what people at different times and places thought was important about the liturgy.

Taking on the whole scope of Christian worship means this is very much a whistle-stop tour of the themes – a good introduction that would perhaps open doors to wider and deeper reading on the topics.

We Die Like Brothers, the Sinking of the SS Mendi by John Gribble and Graham Scott

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This book not only honours those that lost their lives on the SS Mendi but opens up a wider story of the role those from across the British Empire played in the First World War.

While the First World War played a key role in creating a sense of nationhood in some parts of the Empire, especially for Australia, for most places and people the contributions were marginalised, erased even, in the process of commemoration.

Books like this one play a small, slow, part in reversing that marginalisation – giving people their stories back.

And so we come to the story of the South African Native Labour Crops. The British were drawing ‘Black’ labour from the Empire to support the war effort, but reluctant to have ‘Black’ soldiers fighting in Europe against the ‘White’ Germans in case this encouraged the idea that the ‘Black’ population of the British Empire might take up arms against their ‘White’ British rulers.

And in the case of South Africa the racial policies were extreme, even against the benchmark of the injustices of the wider British Empire, the seeds of what would become the apartheid already growing. The Government of South Africa placing strict conditions on the labour it was sending to Europe, seeking segregation of its people for fear that they might experience some form of equality, that they might be treated with humanity and dignity, and return home after the War with expectation of the same.

Within these fears it seems that was an awareness that the structures of Empire were flawed – the superiority of the ‘Whites’ a fiction that needed to be cared for – that it would take but a feather to bring the house down.

That so many died when the Mendi sank was due in large part to the conversion of the cargo holds to accommodation, without provided appropriate means of access – hatches suitable for one or two crew to access and inspect the cargo, completely unsuitable as the access point and critically emergency exit for hundreds of men.

That this arrangement was allowed appears to not be solely down to the carriage of ‘Black’ labourers, there were similar arrangements on troop ships, but one is still left with the sense that there would have been greater scrutiny of the arrangements on a ship carrying ‘White’ British personnel – the lives for the British Working Class held in higher regard, even if only marginally, but the decision makers of Empire.

The book was published in 2017 to tie into the centenary of the tragedy, now the best part of a decade on and that growing distance, the First World War no longer part of living memory but firmly in the category “history”. It was part of the memories of my Grandparents’ parents in a family while has had long generations, for many there will be an extra generation or two. But the importance of continuing to tell the stories – to tell an ever fuller story – remains. These people deserve to be remembered, and we need to remember the horrors of that war to ensure we do all that do not allow history to be repeated.

Midnight Bestiaries by Andre Bagoo

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I always enjoy the richness and the myth-making of Andre Bagoo’s work – and this is another strong example.

It is a book of two halves – the first a collection of poems – gems – the second an ‘erasure’ of Henry James’ The Beast in the Jungle, leaving a smattering of words on each page – this way of responding to another’s work, of creating something new with them, is skilfully done.

One for Sorrow, Two for Joy by Caleb Nichols

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I have read and enjoyed a couple of Caleb’s other books, and they a Fourteen Poems and &Change poet :-)

This book is seeped in North Wales, there is a strong sense of place, Caleb responding authentically in ways that perhaps are heightened by being from some place else yet invested, this is not the work of a tourist, it is one who is fully inhabiting where they are.

The versatility of Caleb is also at the fore in this work – and it is a delight.

Queer Icons Edited by Day Mattar and Brendan Curtis

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This is a great anthology, with a mix of powerful voices, including.... 

Ode to my Beloved’s Back by Katie Jukes

If Lazarus did not want to live by Jay Mitra

your room, everyday, all the time by Dylan James

not quite straight by Alina Burwitz

butter by Elenia Graf

The Orgreave Stations Poems by William Hershaw and Images by Les McConnell

The Stations of the Cross are a rich source, and handled well here.

With words and images Christ is placed in the setting of Orgreave, one of the flash points of the Miners’ Strike.

This could have been clunky, but Hershaw and McConnell don’t force a political point down your throat, it comes as much from what is not said – and in that way carries greater power.

Les McConnell’s images give us a Christ who is a working man – not the soft skinned fantasy of some many Victorians that linger too long in our collective imagination.

The words of the final station…

After Hours: Fear No More

Based on Shakespeare’s Cymbeline

Fear no more the heat o the sun – Cymbeline, Shakespeare

All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. - Ecclesiastes 3:20

Fear no more the drop of the cage,

The crawl to the face, the din and the thrum.

Homeward you head with hard-won wage

Now your shift below is done,

When golden lads come from their shift,

To coal dust, ash, they surely drift.

Fear no more the frown of the boos,

No bully gaffer harms you now,

There is no fine, there is no loss,

Only one power to which you bow,

For wisdom, law, decree our kind,

Turns into ash, fades in the wind.

Fear no more the sudden flash,

Now the dreaded fall of stone,

Fear not the tomb door’s closing crash,

In darkness to be left alone.

All miners young, how much they graft,

Burn bright and flame then turn to ash.

But may your memory be well-known

And children learn about your days,

Your graves be green where grass is sown,

Your solidarity be praised,

May all your struggle now be past,

All souls like coal must turn to ash.