Invasion Day +96 Decision time on the blog. In its web only mode the blog has now run into the expected challenges of supporter war-fatigue coupled with mounting internal and external pressures. To maintain its effect and influence we are negotiating with a new recent arrival to the UK from Ukraine to work up a social media response from our supporters and readers to the ongoing war. Ukraine needs you! The war is far from over...as our correspondent today says the soldiers are still screaming in 'the wild battle zone.'
To go to social media has been a difficult decision which we hope will be justified but the main thrust is still to be support for Ukraine through highlighting the need for peace, giving hope and optimism wherever we can and practically supporting as many Ukrainians as we can financially and practically.
To this end we are allying with local businessman and lawyer Iain Butterworth and his tremendous energy to galvanise support in the Scarborough area of the UK. His Facebook page 'Scarborough Sunflower Appeal Help Ukraine' already has 336 members and five posts a day so we feel compelled to embrace social media (it is the element of compulsion we also object to but then Caxton and Wurttemberg et al developed the printing press didn't they? And we still live to tell the tales.)
Scarborough College, a private school here, who we wrote to on three separate occasions, sadly without response, have also been involved in an appeal for Ukraine through social media and the response to them was also good so we feel we must bury our own misgivings and extend our reach or remain in isolation, which is counter-productive.
If you still have not written for the blog please do consider doing so: we need new correspondents to keep the support for Ukraine flowing as well as the book project alive.
Meanwhile...
...the war rages on in the Donbas. Terrible fighting, street by street as Ukraine defends every metre of its land with fierce determination. Russia is reported to have thrown huge resources at capturing piles of rubble, just as it did at Mariupol. Their tactic seems to be a massive bombardment, an infantry assault which is then decimated, followed by a further bombardment and further assaults until a few metres of ground are taken with huge losses and increasing civilian deaths. In scenes reminiscent of the barbaric wars of old, Putin is happy to allow his forces to be slaughtered, knowing their deaths will not become apparent in Russia until years have passed, such is his equally barbaric grip on the state. Russian losses are staggering but Putin's reserves are still available, if dwindling. Ukraine will soon be ready for a significant counter-attack and hopefully it will be sufficient to end Putin's diabolical regime.
Please continue to write for us here; Ukraine needs us all to be here for them.
Thank you everyone,
Hoggy
Today's Letters
From Janet Fizz Curtis, currently 'Somewhere in England'.
Dear Hoggy,
In this quiet time with so much going on elsewhere, I submit another poem for the blog.
'A Life Defiled, A Life Reviled'
A soldier screaming into that wild battle zone
While a mother screams for her missing child
Knowing that who dies here will die alone.
Shrapnel and shards cut flesh deep to the bone
Some wounds can be mortal, some can be mild
A soldier screaming into that wild battle zone.
Out in the yard a child dies on her own
Her life cut short, finished, defiled
Knowing that who dies here will die alone.
Flying low overhead: a plane and a drone
Bombarding the trains of people exiled
A soldier screaming into that wild battle zone.
Base orders were given in fast monotone
By a man in power, a devil reviled.
Knowing that who dies here will die alone.
Who do you agree with? Do you condone?
The man at the top just laughed and smiled.
A soldier screaming into that wild battle zone
Knowing that who dies here will die alone.
Best wishes and please keep it all going for as long as you feel you can and it is needed.
Fizz.
Dear Fizz,
An Amazing Villanelle
Thank you for another moving poem, this time a villanelle of great power and creativity. Well done for your brilliance, we are all suitably very impressed here! Villanelles are not often attempted but you have used the power of the form to great effect: the use of the repetitive lines gives a sense of the repetitive onslaught of war and the ebb and flow of the pain of injury seems to seep from the lines. There is the shocking and moving loneliness of war that you have captured so well, a sense that sends a chill from the page; this is war shown in all its terrible effect. This will certainly make the book.
Your are loyal and Hoggy is extremely grateful to you, Bill, SUFT, and all our other writers who have held on in support so well.
The dip in letters which has occurred since the break in posting has had its effect here but we are trying everything to raise the level of interest once more. The decision has been made to go to social media and we ae taking on a social media manager from next week, a recent arrival from Ukraine.
To do this we are going to need increased funding so we are on the look out for suitable willing donors. The position will be for eight hours a week which we can sustain here for a while from the funds knowing that this money will be going directly to Ukraine to help the families depending upon the workers here to support them back home. But we will need to raise more funds to sustain this and will launch the second fundraising book to this end.
The first is doing well and we launch it officially on the 21st June in Scarborough at Gallery 6.
Thank you again for all your continued support and we look forward to increasing our reach as soon as we can.
Please send more poems of such power.
All wishes,
Hoggy
Coming soon: an art display from Art Therapy Yorkshire. Watch this space!
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