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twelve - Intervention: Force deep

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2022

Phil Jones
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Beth Perry
Affiliation:
The University of Sheffield
Paul Long
Affiliation:
Birmingham City University
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Summary

Like Skywalker the force is deep in Balsall Heath

Torrents of thoughts unique fall like Autumn leaves

Feed the soul supplant the holes in the whole

Steep the heaths peeps in a shoreless floral peace

Some say after good days first they play

And then – and only then they lay to sleep on astral beams

And that some dream of glorious auroral themes

Many vaunted schemes of Balsall's luminaries

Morphed and preened by mawkish teams

Of careering career politickis; the self styled Elite

Into policies as ambiguous as one of Morpheus's dreams

Meager morsels of morphine for communities ravaged by austerity

With temerity and tenacity the heaths inhabitants

Transcend the banality of these patently patronizing fallacies

Rouse their innate virtue verve Zirconic-zeal & cobaltcreativity

Adeptly think on their feet with the dexterity and grace of Zorba the Greek

Rejuvenate the jaundiced mortal sheath

That cyclically haunts and seeks us bought to our knees

By I not we philosophies and initiatives

Viciously viscous bitumen instilling recidivism

Nibbling at the very fabric of Balsall's tapestry

Prompting tempestuous mavericks who treat such despotic deviousness

With the lightness of a Waldorf salad

To challenge the talisman of established practices

Reimagining growth absent of environmental damage

Fertile forward facing frankness absent of anguish

Mediation rather than malice altruism not avarice

Neither chained by nor afraid of the omnipresence of change

For the chains change yet something intangible yet substantial remains

And yes the words with which I express what I observe

Are peppered with romanticized hyperbole yet my purpose

Is to celebrate the Heaths intuition & ingenuity

Her eternally palpitating purple perdurability

For I know this is something Heathonians

Will never do due to their implicit humility

Look at how Dr Atkinson and Anita Halliday in the 70’s

Nurtured the birth of critical thinking for Balsall’s burgeoning progeny

Creating through play in playgrounds that give the youth a say

And were swiftly mimicked across the UK

And when one is upset or want to lash out

Don't abandon; find him or her a space that suits their way

Engendering the essences of our shared

Opulent cosmology ardently humbly locally

Puncturing the presence of the parochial

Proffering pleasure and practicality

As a magical marriage of the matter and the imaginative

Type
Chapter
Information
Cultural Intermediaries Connecting Communities
Revisiting Approaches to Cultural Engagement
, pp. 179 - 182
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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