Orange man, orange man — where do you go?I slip into the evening like a warmed coin, to dinner, to the picture house where reels are slow. Orange man, orange man — what do you do?I stitch small salvations at my bench: a tongue of leather, a stubborn nail, the map of a sole. Orange … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “Orange Man”, v.3
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Utopia by Thomas More
Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) reads like a paradox that learned its art of contradiction. On the surface it is a crisp, economical travel narrative — the voice of Raphael Hythloday recounting an island society — but beneath that surface it is a moral mirror and a rhetorical trap. The author fashions a work that is … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Utopia by Thomas More
Revisionist Poetry – “Orange Man”, v.2
Orange man — where do you go at dusk?To the chip shop, to the cinema with my woman. Orange man — what do you mend?Leather at the bench: heel, stitch, the hollow. Orange man — why do we stay alive?To pass the good things on: bread, a half-smile, a repaired sole. Orange man — how … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – “Orange Man”, v.2
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Slab-Built Ceramics by Coll Minogue
Coll Minogue’s Slab-Built Ceramics presents itself — and persuades — as more than a how-to manual: it is a meditation on process, an argument about the expressive possibilities lodged in a single, humble slab of clay. Read as a craft text, it is pedagogically rigorous; read as an artist’s tract, it is provocatively poetic. Read … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Slab-Built Ceramics by Coll Minogue
Revisionist Poetry – Life of a Smoke, v.4
I am smoke. Born at the ember’s edge — pyrolysis of leaf and fibre —a thin life of rising carbon and heat.I press against warm darkness, a pocket of soot and vapour,a particulate world cradled in solid matter. Light finds me. Lips close like twin petals; a clap, a seal.A spark cracks — combustion — … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – Life of a Smoke, v.4
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
A. A. Milne’s The House at Pooh Corner (1928) stands as one of the most quietly profound works in children’s literature—a book that, under the gentle veil of whimsy, reflects deeply on friendship, identity, and the fleeting nature of childhood. Though often shelved as a companion to Winnie-the-Pooh, it is, in many ways, the more … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne
Revisionist Poetry – Life of a Smoke, v.3
I was born in a pocket of night — a small, safe darkthat felt like forever. Movement told me I existed:warm, resistant matter folded close on every side. Then a sudden white light found me. Fingers, large and soft,closed too firmly; I slid between two warm plains that shut like petals. A spark cracked the … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – Life of a Smoke, v.3
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
Few works of children’s literature invite as sustained a double-vision as A. A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh: at once an apparently simple collection of episodic adventures for very young readers and a compact, artful meditation on friendship, play, authority, and the strange temporality of childhood. Published in 1926, the book wears its modesty like a costume—genial, unassuming, … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne
The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Surface Design for Ceramics by Maureen Mills
Maureen Mills’s Surface Design for Ceramics reads like a compact manifesto for the small, concentrated art of ornamentation — not a polemic but a pedagogy: a careful, image-rich argument that the surface of a vessel is not mere decoration appended to a form but an active partner in meaning-making. Presented as one of the practical … Continue reading The Adaptable Educator’s Book Review – Surface Design for Ceramics by Maureen Mills
Revisionist Poetry – Life of a Smoke, v.2
I lie in the dark that feels like forever.I know I am because movement answers me,solid matter pressing all around. Sudden light. Hands take me—a hard, soft squeeze. I slipbetween two warm surfaces that close. A sharp crack, a white flash; it comes close,then touches. Air rips through me.I burn. Energy becomes pain when the … Continue reading Revisionist Poetry – Life of a Smoke, v.2
The New Renaissance Mindset 