Waiting for Godden: LOVE is on the rise

Extinction Rebellion - "LOVE is on the rise"
Salena Godden reading poetry in Parliament Square,
photo by photo by Philip Webb Gregg

LOVE IS ON THE RISE: In this photograph I'm improvising with a poem. As I start reading my poetry I'm interrupted by a heckler on a loudspeaker. People in the crowds begin to rise to drown him out, they all boo and hiss at the heckler. I thought he was funny, I asked the crowds to applaud him, to me he was like a pantomime baddie. Then eventually the heckler was taken away. It was a funny moment and I am glad someone took this photo to remind me. I'm posting these photos and poems this morning with solidarity and love to everyone who took part in the peaceful Extinction Rebellion, the hopeful and the joyful, a gathering of soulful and passionate people. Throughout history there’s been doers and doubters, people who sneer at the doers for trying to improve the world. Imagine cleaner oceans, cleaner air. Imagine the talks and actions these protests have already inspired, the changes that will come, changes we will ALL benefit from and pass on to future generations. Imagine if the governments listen. Imagine if we all learn and grow and change. If you dare to dream and imagine any small part of this, if you dare to imagine you can help to make a better world fit for the next generation then you are already part of the rebellion and a better tomorrow.

All the inspiring talks and debates about saving the planet made me yearn to breathe sea air, find some bluebells and woods and camp under the full moon and stars, I spent easter weekend exploring Norfolk's north beaches under the April's full Pink Moon and I remembered it’s a beautiful world, I love life and this wild living world, I remembered how we are all connected and wild and a part of each other.

I have been thinking about our survival and fire and water and ice and flood and destruction and conservation and forests and cathedrals and stained glass windows and Greta Thunberg and my sister Jo and autism and all the spectrums we live in and the beauty and the chaos of this powerful time of protest and the immigrants that built our cathedrals and temples, and the cathedrals and temples in other countries bombed for gold and oil and war, and the cathedrals under the oceans and deep in the rain forests and thinking about it all, and I do mean all of this at once, my head explodes, it is a mosaic of colour as spring sunshine and hope pours in and out and in and out and washes through me and onto this page. What a time to rebel and what a time to live your one life true and alive and lively ... Keep fighting the good fight!

“Consider the age of that gold Buddha,

it is older than the crippled tree

that was planted when it was erected,

but younger than the river beneath it

and the ocean oldest of all ...”

This poem has been whispering in my ear lately, it is published in 'Pessimism is for Lightweights' and I rarely read it and share it at gigs. Although it was written a few years ago now, it resonates with my feelings for both Extinction Rebellion and that fire of Notre Dame

I read this poem last weekend in Madrid in most beautiful DESPERATE LITERATURE!!

🍷🇪🇸✨BIGLove to Desperate Literature and our Madrid poetry family!

We had such a fabulous adventure in Spain reading poetry @desperateliterature

Huge thank you to Terry and Charlotte and everyone who came out to see us

Thanks to Martha Sprackland, Will Burns and Rough Trade Books.

Very excited that Rough Trade Books are now in stock in

DESPERATE LITERATURE, MADRID, SPAIN

Beautiful books and wine and feasts

and laughs and poetry and

joy in sunny Spain,

Thank you!!

❤️🙌🏾

www.roughtradebooks.com

SUMMER 2019

May 2 - BELFAST - Neu Reekie, #CQAF w/ Bill Drummond and more

May 9 - NOTTINGHAM - Out-Spoken, hosted by Joelle Taylor

May 15 - BRIGHTON FRINGE - John Higgs 'The Future Starts Here'

May 16 - BEXHILL, DE LA WARR PAVILLION - with John Cooper Clarke

May 24-26 - TOTNES - Sea Change Festival w/ Rough Trade Books

June 3 - LONDON - The Social, WORD w/ Emma Warren, Toria Garbutt

June 9 - LONDON - Cockpit Theatre

June 28 - LONDON - What is Masculinity? Book launch

July 18-22 - CORNWALL - Churchtown

August 2-4 - CHEPSTOW - Green Gathering

August 23-25 - SUSSEX - Byline Festival

August 31 - HASTINGS - Hastings Lit Fest

September 13-15 - WALES - Good Life Festival

September 28 - WORTHING - with John Cooper Clarke

October 19 - NANTWICH - Words and Music Festival

This week I'm in Belfast with Neu Reekie, Bill Drummond and friends!!

I'm just doing this handful of festivals over the coming summer months because I'm working on new projects and new books. I'm keeping a lid on it for now but I'm well excited about the new work in the pipeline. I just want to say I've been on a roller coaster lately and I want to send BIGLove and thank you to all who’ve supported me and been to see me and bought tickets to gigs and thank you to all readers of my work so far. Thank you to everyone who has bought a book and come and said hello and given me a hug. Thanks for the support from festivals, from bookshops and BBC radio too. Thank you to all courageous poetry rebels, new mates and old comrades and everyone I’ve been drinking and gigging and giggling with! More soon! Thank YOU!
sgxx

"From this moment despair ends and tactics begin. Despair is the infantile disorder of the revolutionaries of everyday life." Quote from Raoul Vaneigem's The Revolution of Everyday Life, 1967 - Extinction Rebellion - New work by Banksy