Recently over at Maps' blog there has been debate over, and remembrance of, Hone Tuwhare. You can read about it here and here. I wanted to pay tribute to one of my favourite poets by selecting a couple of his poems and putting forward Scott's tribute poem to Tuwhare.

Rain
I can hear you
making small holes
in the silence
rain

If I were deaf
the pores of my skin
would open to you
and shut

And I
should know you
by the lick of you
if I were blind

the something
special smell of you
when the sun cakes
the ground

the steady
drum-roll sound
you make
when the wind drops

But if I
should not hear
smell or feel or see
you

you would still
define me
disperse me
wash over me
rain

Friend

Friend,
Do you remember that wild stretch of land
with the lone tree guarding the point from the sharp-tongued sea?
The boat we built out of branches wrenched from the tree, is dead wood now.
The air that was thick with the whir of toetoe spears succumbs at last to the grey gull's wheel.
Oyster-studded roots of the mangrove yield
no finer feast of silver-bellied eels, and sea-snails steaming in a rusty can.

Friend, allow me
to mend the broken ends
of shared days:
but I wanted to say
that the tree we climbed
that gave food and drink
to youthful dreams, is no more.
Pursed to the lips her fine-edged
leaves made whistle—now stamp
no silken tracery on the cracked
clay floor.

Friend,
in this grim time
of dark unrest I press your hand
if only for reassurance that all
our jewelled fantasies were real
and wore splendid garb.

Perhaps the tree
will strike fresh roots again:
give soothing shade to a hurt
and troubled world.

The Old Place

No one comes
by way of the doughy track
through straggly tea tree bush
and gorse, past the hidden spring
and bitter cress.

Under the chill moon's light
no one cares to look upon
the drunken fence-posts
and the gate white with moss.

No one except the wind
saw the old place
make her final curtsy
to the sky and earth:

and in no protesting sense
did iron and barbed wire
ease to the rust's invasion
nor twang more tautly
to the wind's slap and scream.

On the cream lorry
or morning paper van
no one comes,
for no one will ever leave
the golden city on the fussy train;
and there will be no more waiting
on the hill beside the quiet tree
where the old place falters
because no one comes anymore
no one.

To a Mäori figure cast in bronze
outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland

I hate being stuck up here, glaciated, hard all over
and with my guts removed: my old lady is not going
to like it

I’ve seen more efficient scarecrows in seedbed
nurseries. Hell, I can’t even shoo the pigeons off

Me: all hollow inside with longing for the marae on
the cliff at Kohimarama, where you can watch the ships
come in curling their white moustaches

Why didn’t they stick me next to Mickey Savage?
‘Now then,’ he was a good bloke
Maybe it was a Tory City Council that put me here

They never consulted me about naming the square
It’s a wonder they never called it: Hori-in-gorge-atbottom-
of-hill. Because it is like that: a gorge,
with the sun blocked out, the wind whistling around
your balls (your balls mate) And at night, how I
feel for the beatle-girls with their long-haired
boyfriends licking their frozen finger-chippy lips
hopefully. And me again beetling

my tent eyebrows forever, like a brass monkey with
real worries: I mean, how the hell can you welcome
the Overseas Dollar, if you can’t open your mouth
to poke your tongue out, eh?

If I could only move from this bloody pedestal I’d
show the long-hairs how to knock out a tune on the
souped-up guitar, my mere quivering, my taiaha held
at the high port. And I’d fix the ripe kotiro too
with their mini-piupiu-ed bums twinkling: yeah!

Somebody give me a drink: I can’t stand it

Tuwhare by Scott Hamilton

Tangaroa scuttles whales
and beaches fleets of dolphins,
Rehua flies moreporks
into an overpass,
Tane sends chainsaws
to chew on totara:
let’s face it, Hone,
the Gods are bloody stupid.
They give, and they take
away. They were stupid
again, this week.

I’m drinking Hone Hikoi
in the Harlequin Bar,
watching the TV,
watching them dig your hole.

Hine-nui-te-po was a bird
in the pub at Mangakino.
Not the blonde,
not the brunette, whatever
their names were –
the other one,
the one with the dampness
of the earth in her veins.
The one with the blackhead
on her chin -
the one filling an ashtray
in the corner of the pub,
under the dartboard
that had lost its numbers.

You ignored her,
but she was watching.
At closing time she sidled home
to sew you a suit.
She had to leave room,
knowing you’d fill out,
with Common Room sausage rolls
and literary dinners,
with Kaka Point homebrew
and with hot air.
Years, decades passed,
but the suit was waiting.
You’re wearing it now
as they squeeze you into the hole.

To write is to take
some little thing from death,
from Hine-nui-te-po,
'the Great Lady of Night'.
You took a dozen toi toi
and the rain on
a corrugated roof;
the Southern Ocean
and the walk down Highway One.
You left her a mound of earth
on the edge of Kaikohe,
and noon traffic backing up
to Ngawha Springs.

Pureora Forest

Pureora Forest Park straddles the Hauhungaroa and Rangitoto Ranges between Lake Taupo and Te Kuiti. It is a hidden wonderland of tall trees, clear rivers and rare wildlife.
Location
Pureora Forest Park lies between Te Kuiti, Taumaranui and Lake Taupo and is easily accessed by SH 30 and SH 32.

Maps and I recently visited Pureora Forest - we liked it so much we're returning this week and aim to walk to the top of Mount Puriora (Maps assures me it's an easy 2 1/2 hour trek - I'll let you know if we make it!).
We are lucky today to be able to visit Pureora Forest and see the ancient native trees like Totara. It is only due to the efforts of people in the 1970's that the forest still exists. In 1978 protestors occupied the treetops of Pureora Forest in a bid to protect the native forest from logging. Their actions were successful and the government eventually ended native forest logging in the Park. You can listen then local MP Ian Shearer expressing his concern over the logging plans here and here you can read a story of tramping in Puriora.

One of the things you can do in the Park is climb a forest tower and be among the treetops like the protestors would have been in the seventies. It's 12 m high and only a 10 min walk from Bismark Road car park. You can hear & see the native birds calling from the tower - it's a great view.

The girls enjoying a night out!

Our cute cat Smudge - 7 months old :-)

What is Exposure07?
The University of Auckland Postgraduate Students’ Association is proud to present Exposure07, the 2007 Postgraduate Research Exposition at the University of Auckland, kindly supported by The University of Auckland, the School of Graduate Studies, The University of Auckland Society, and Watercare Services Ltd.

Exposure07 Postgraduate Research Exposition is a celebration of academic excellence and student ingenuity at the University of Auckland. It has been designed to give postgraduate researchers the chance to showcase their work to peers and staff, gain public exposure, and receive important feedback about the research they do at the University.

When is Exposure07?
Exposure07 will be held from 2nd - 10th October 2007. There will be a professional, published programme with abstracts, a catered evening prizegiving with live music, and more than $10,000 in prizes will be awarded to the participants, runners up and winners.

Exposure07 Outline
Poster presentations
Posters will be on display in the Engineering Atrium from 2 October to 10 October from 10 am to 5 pm daily.
Oral presentations
There will be six oral presentation preliminary sessions held from Tuesday 2nd - Thursday 4th October (9 am- 12 pm, 1- 4 pm), in the Graduate Centre Seminar Room. The winner from each session will go through to the oral finals on Monday 8th October, 6 - 9 pm in Engineering Lecture Room 1.401.

Students will present to an audience and a panel of three judges consisting of staff and invited guests. Everyone is invited to come along and listen to the talks. Exciting spot prizes can be won by anyone from the audience.
The detailed programme for each day may be downloaded here

If you are interested in the postgrad research taking place at Auckland uni, come and be part of the event - check out a few presentations and have a look at the posters in the engineering atrium (20 symonds street).

The Leaning Tower of Penchant-by BackLit Productions

This production is created by some of the most innovative and exciting young choreographers and dancers in New Zealand (they also happen to be my friends). They are at the cutting edge of creativity in NZ - Go and see your yourself!

dancer in photo: Lucy Miles
photographer: Camille Sanson

'Penchants' Exposed in a Vibrant Performance by Nine Auckland Choreographers and Dancers.'

Contemporary Dance Company BackLit Productions will present an unusual and stirring performance as part of the TEMPO Festival of Dance 2007. The show is an experimental collaboration between the nine members of the company, combining their varied skills as choreographers, dancers and artists to create an explosive Contemporary Dance/Performance Art show that takes in-depth look at human 'penchants' and desires.

'The Leaning Tower of Penchant' was originally crafted for an outdoor venue at Wellington Fringe earlier this year, winning runner up for 'Best Newcomer' Award. BackLit Productions now brings this performance to Auckland audiences, re-vamped and re-structured to fit the TAPAC theatre.

Artistic Director of the project, Rosey Feltham, describes the show:

'Penchant' is a tower of indulgence and desire. The inhabitants of Penchant are entranced by their obsessions. As you are immersed in this illusory world, you realize that nothing is as it seems and even the most solid character is fragile when bound by their 'Penchant'. Will the tower continue to accumulate desires and hold fast, or will it topple under the strain?' Exploring new grounds in dance performance by using unusual props and set and breaking away from the traditional use of proscenium theatre, BackLit Productions explore the possibilities created where Dance meets Performance Art in this collaborative event. Eclectic characters weave an illusory world of intrigue as they dance on teacups, suspend from ropes and are transformed by their obsessions.

2006 TEMPO Festival Awards winners, BackLit Productions are a dedicated group of nine choreographers and dancers who reside in Auckland. Since forming at the beginning of 2006, BackLit Productions have continued to impress with their highly professional, slick and original performances.


'Back-Lit Productions created a stir with their polished, confident
works that shifted between poignant, darkly Butoh and entertaining
themes.'

Francesca Horsley, Listener Review of Fuzzy Reception 2006.


"There was an element of risk to the evening that left one feeling slightly tilted as the action and a series of very striking images ......swirled around us in 'The Leaning Tower of Penchant'."
Lyne Pringle, theatrereview.co.nz 2007

The leaning Tower of Penchant
Penchant is a Tower of Indulgence and Desire. The inhabitants of penchant are lost in a world of obsession, acquiring everything they wish to own. Will the tower continue to hold fast or will it topple under the strain?
Witness the weaving of illusion and intrigue in this extraordinary evening of dance.

When: 4th Oct 10pm, 5th Oct 8pm, 6th Oct 10pm
Where: At Tapac, 100 Motions Road, Western Springs.
Cost: $23, $18 concession.


For interviews and full colour images contact:
Janine Parkes - Publicist

021 0605113
09 3600241 (Home)
myspace.com/backlitproductions_ltd

Last weekend I spent a hilarious evening with a group of my closest friends drinking vodka and singing cheesy 80's Karaoke - haven't had so much fun in a long time! The photos were taken on my mobile so they are a bit grainy and blurred :-) Adds a kind of warm atmosphere though! CerianRoger and Lee


Rosa

Fleur, Bex, Andrew

Scott Hamilton and Brett Cross enjoying the Bill Direen gig at the Wine Cellar 29 June '07. Read more about that gig on Scott's blog here View from Mt Eden before the gig on Monday
Scott and Michael Steven larking about at the 'What's in Your backyard?' event last night (2 July) . It was an evening of poetry, performance and music - brought to us by Powertool Records (they produce Bill Direen's music) and Titus Books (they bring us Bill's writing, along with many other talented writers).

It was a cold Auckland night but about 80 of us braved the weather and came down to the Kings Arms to hear cutting edge NZ poets perform. It was also a chance to hear the legendary Bill Direen play (a rare treat for Aucklanders as he spends most of his time in Paris with the odd stint in Dunedin).

The fire was blazing in the pub and everyone was in a relaxed mood - the evening had the feeling of a group of friends hanging around the fire, jamming and sharing ideas and poetry. Looking at all the faces during the evening I saw how happy people were to be part of such a refreshingly original event.

Moments from the event that stand out for me are:
1) Michael Steven reading his Cesar Vallejo translations:

Sacred Defoliation Moon!

Crown of an immense head,
that loses its golden leaves in shadow!
Red crown of a Jesus that thinks
tragically of sweet emeralds!

Moon! Wild celestial heart
is it for you I row, inside a goblet
filled with blue wine, toward the west
away from a stern and powerful beating?

Moon! And to fly by force of vanity,
dispersing opal holocausts,
you have entered my gypsy heart
to walk in my weeping blue verses!..

2) Scott Hamilton's 'Ode to Auckland', backed by Bill Direen and Brett Cross, was a noisy but lyrical bash and was a crowd favourite (Chris Knox couldn't wipe the smile off his face and seemed to enjoy it).

Ode to Auckland

The city wall’s condition varies. In some places it stands twenty feet high, and sprouts concrete watchtowers like sea monsters’ heads. In other places it is three strands of rusty wire, supported by warped and splintering puriri posts. In still other places one finds piles of scoria bricks of an irregular shape and size, padded by lichen and moss. The wall is punctuated by gateways at Orewa, in the north, and Mercer, in the south. The gates are never opened, because barbarians camp outside them, in fighting units of indeterminate size. In the evenings smoke from the barbarians’ campfires and the scent of their roasted opossums can be detected in Silverdale and Pukekohe. The barbarians are as necessary as the wall. The barbarians are part of the wall. Though their muskets have rusted and their hostages have expired, the fearsome reputation they won long ago deters more well-equipped and motivated armies from approaching the city.

but now it is time
and the microbes swarm
like stars in a midsummer sky

The city’s law is impartial. Rich and poor alike are strictly forbidden to sleep under bridges, or beg for bread. Young and old alike are strictly forbidden to drag race down Queen Street, or enter nightclubs without ID. Men and women alike are strictly forbidden to breastfeed in public, or buy gin while pregnant. Healthy and sick alike are strictly forbidden to sneeze in cafeterias, or cough blood on city streets. The law is impartial. Wells may on occasion be poisoned, but the city’s fountains must be kept clean. The law must be defended like a wall.

but now it is time
and the secret policeman advances
stooping to pick up butts

The city’s one hundred and eleven registered poets have three common tasks. They must make young women cry at weddings, make young men shout before football games, and prepare the elderly for dignified deaths. To these ends, each poet is supplied with certain meters and rhymes. In lines for young men, the spondaic beat of the agitated heart is preferred. Anapests are deployed at altars and in geriatric wards. Rhyme is encouraged, but it is forbidden to couple manoeuvre with manhole cover, or blackbird with blackbird. Occasionally a poet goes mad and runs deep into the eleven hectares of wilderness at the park, where he carves winking eyes on the puriri trunks. On returning, he is asked to write a self-criticism in perfect blank verse.

but now it is time
and the insurance salesman advances
with sherry on his breath

The park covers one and a half square kilometres, and includes eleven hectares of wilderness. At the entrance to the wilderness you pause to watch two park rangers fitting a plastic cord and a label written in Latin around a puriri trunk. You remember the morgue two blocks away, tags tied around the blue ankles of tramps and junkies. You have come to the park to admire the city’s protected bird. The bird’s importance has been noted in several volumes of local poetry. You look up, and listen carefully. According to one of the city's poets, the bird’s song consists of a single repeated note, which can be heard at a distance of two kilometres. Up close, the bird's song is reputed to sound like a hammer beating an anvil. You hear a sudden shrill squeal, and look down to see the bird swooping low and shitting on a grateful ranger.

but now it is time
and all the heroes enlist
in a train station’s rush hour crowd

Above the city, the moon goes about in his white coat, like a doctor walking his wards. Sometimes clouds are rolled in front of him, like the stained curtains that separate beds. After every night shift you park, turn off your engine, and listen to the same waves breaking jellyfish and condoms on Bastion Reef. The moon stares back.

but now it is time
and the billboard shouts
in a language you’re afraid to learn

The city’s first governor established extensive grounds around his mansion, but his successors have had little interest in gardening, and today environmental groups lobby to have the whole site turned into a wilderness reserve. Geese fly low, in formations of six or eight, under the radar, over the scummed surfaces of the four rectangular ponds. A silver-gray epiphyte wraps itself around an ageing oak, like an undercover policeman embracing a heckler in the mansion’s banquet hall. Blackberry bushes grow like barbed wire around a memorial to the war dead.

but now it is time
and the pill is placed in your hand
like a coin worn smooth

The city’s public hospitals were long ago consolidated into one super-facility, whose surgeons are noted for their technical brilliance. A middle-aged woman is raised from the underground waiting room, where she has been shaven and sedated. The operation lasts for seven hours, until the chief surgeon holds a blood-coloured cyst aloft and punches his other fist in the air, before accepting the handshakes of his colleagues. The patient expired four hours into the operation. The cyst will be bottled and handed to her family.

but now it is time
and the hated face congeals
into a blissful smile

Now and then a group of citizens assembles in the city’s central square, in the place of the clowns, jugglers, and karaoke singers who are normally gifted to the space. It is sometimes possible, in the interval between the expulsion of the city’s entertainment corps and the arrival of the police, for a particular citizen to make one or two statements from the stage that occupies the middle of the square. Along the edges of the space, statues of previous governors study his countenance, his gestures. When the police and protesters wrestle, they knock each statue off its flimsy plaster base, so that the city fathers appear to be prostrating themselves.

but now it is time
and the microbes swarm
like stars in a midsummer sky

now it is time
and the hated face congeals
into a blissful smile

3) Bill Direen - so much of what he did touched and inspired me. He started the evening by singing a French revolutionary song and his version of Carickfergus brought a tear to my eye. He jammed with friends including Brett Cross and Chris Knox (we all smiled and enjoyed Chris and Bill improvising together and singing children's ditties).

I found it interesting when Bill put his own poetry to music and that of WH Auden as well. Bill's enthusiatic guitar playing saw him break a few strings but he still managed to perform 'America' amazingly - 'Alligator' also got everyone going. Absolutely wonderful Bill - you are a true artist and your voice has such a great range and tone - magnifique!If you want to buy Bill's Cds you can get them through Powertool Records

Read some of Auckland's best writers including Jack Ross, Olwyn Stewart, Bill Direen, Scott Hamilton, David Lyndon Brown, Olivia Macassey, Will Christie, Richard Taylor- you can buy them through Titus Books

SMUDGE - our new kitten

Scott's book 'To the Moon, in Seven Easy Steps' is now out and can be bought through Titus Books and at bookstores like Timeout in Mt Eden, Parsons Bookshop Auckland, Unity Wellington and Auckland, UBS in Dunedin.

Jack Ross wrote on the backcover:"Scott Hamilton's heroes, like WH Auden's 'helmeted airmen', are forever setting out on some doomed quest...Scott delves into the mytho-poetic past of New Zealand, showing that this past is alive and shared"

Katyn (for Cerian)

The soldier stepped out of the pines, and walked

to the centre of the clearing, and knelt

and dug a hole, a long shallow hole, with his hands,

and lay down in his hole

and covered himself with dirt

and had a heart attack.

This happened five thousand times, maybe

more, in Katyn forest, in 1940.

At the Cheeky Kumara Cafe

we choose a window table.

Threshers the size of tanks

level a field of wheat,

a field of barley,

and three moths stick to our window.

They are scraps of paper,

scraps of thin yellow paper,

Polish army stationery issue,

scraps from the same page of a letter,

from Leszek Staff's last letter to Gertrude Boll,

written in Smolensk, on May the 5th, 1940,

and torn up by an NKVD intelligence officer

who got hard reading about troop movements

and resistance cellsnot a pair of silk lace stockings

slipping off freshly shaven legs

in Krakow Municipal Gardens.

You stir the last of the sugar into my tea.

We know how to dispose of our dead

correctly. Follow that gravel road

over a train track, then up a small hill

until the fields part for a red-rooved chapel

and its flock of stones.

Every name there faces north.

Out the back, behind the water tap,

are plots reserved for the elderly, the infirm.

Red earth foams over the newest graves.

This afternoon the reverend's outmaking his rounds,

and relatives are at the races.

Nobody is there to see Leszek Staff

stagger out of the barley, and fall

to his knees, and dig

for four minutes, in the soft red soil,

and lie down comfortably

to die, to be discovered.

Outside the cafe

a truck backfires.

Delhi, 1857: a bloody warning to today's imperial occupiers

A century and a half after the Indian mutiny, echoes of the arrogance and lies that sparked insurgency could not be clearer

William Dalrymple Thursday May 10, 2007 The Guardian

Soon after dawn on May 11 1857, 150 years ago this week, the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was saying his morning prayers in his oratory overlooking the river Jumna when he saw a cloud of dust rising on the far side of the river. Minutes later, he was able to see its cause: 300 East India Company cavalrymen charging wildly towards his palace...read the rest of this interesting article here

More on the Indian Mutiny here

Maps and I had fish n chips in Westmere and enjoyed the sunset.

My first attempt at a poem in 13 years (with assistance from Maps).

the cicada stepped out of its skin

into the breeze

she picks the shell

gently

off the pine sap

the dumpy dripping staligmite

she lets the breeze lift it

drop it

onto broken needles

where a condom leaks

like a punctured jellyfish

Tibetans tortured by Chinese after failed escape attempt, says survivor

Randeep Ramesh of the Guardian reports today on a 15 year old boy's torture following his capture at Nangpa La pass last September.

Jamyang Samten, 15, was in a 75-strong group making their way over the 5,800-metre-high Nangpa La pass in September when Chinese guards opened fire. At least two people, including a 17-year-old Buddhist nun, were killed. Read more here

More info on the detainees released and the Nangpa La Pass shootings here

New Zealand's own Martin Henderson has shown his support for the release of the detainees. See more photos from the campaign: CHINA: Would You Shoot Me Too? Here

The Bloody Pursuit of Perfection

I’ve just read an article in the Guardian entitled ‘The Bloody Pursuit of Perfection’.
It’s hard for me to think of a time in my life, at least since the age of about eight, when I wasn’t conscious of my body. I never felt at ease with it and even when I was a healthy size and weight I was always dissecting it and thinking, “I wish my thighs were a bit slimmer or my arms more toned.” This is the experience of many women (if not all women in western societies). It seems that from childhood girls are taught to feel unhappy with their bodies and they try to search for “perfection”, but is that ever achievable or even desirable? I love people to be unique and it’s the quirks and imperfections which we can become most fond of.

The Guardian article pointed out that:
Liposuction is booming - and the vast majority of patients are women. What makes them submit to such a violent procedure - especially when it removes only a few pounds of fat? They do it to try and achieve so called “perfection”.

As a surgeon said in the Guardian article: “If, after dieting and exercise, you haven't achieved what you wanted, and you have some stubborn areas of fat, then you would be a good candidate for liposuction." The maximum amount of fat it is possible to lose from a specific area would be 2-2.5 kg, he adds.

Ironically I’ve spent a lot of my working life around the fashion and media industries. My personal experience can back up the research (and common sense) that tells us that these industries have a lot to answer for in encouraging poor body image among women (especially the young).

So, for instance, late last year, the Mail on Sunday's You magazine ran a survey in which women were asked to assess which part of their body they liked least out of their breasts, thighs, face/neck, bottom, tummy, upper arms, and legs. (The tummy, that long-time foe, romped home with 45.2%.)…

This tendency to pick ourselves apart, put each part of our bodies under the microscope, has been encouraged by celebrity magazines. As a culture, there is plenty of evidence that our body obsessions are making us less and less healthy, with both obesity and eating disorders at an all-time high. And still, in the midst of these two extremes, we remain obsessed with the idea that the human body is perfectible.

Do all cultures seek an ideal of femininity? Why do we as females conform and allow these trends to exist?

In advertising we see that any "imperfections" in the images are airbrushed out. Blemishes, scars, and slight bulges of fat are all erased. What is it in our society that makes us want to rub out imperfections and difference? This sad situation alienates people, and those who may already suffer from low self esteem can be affected so badly that they develop eating disorders and depression.

Maia at Capitalism bad: tree pretty has an interesting piece on body image and hating your body. It seems to me that New Zealand as a society finds it particularly hard to tolerate people who don't fit the mould. Is this one of the reasons why we suffer from one of the world's worst youth suicide rates? Feelings about body are closely related to a woman's sense of self; the body is perceived as acceptable or unacceptable, providing a foundation for self-concept women trying to look their best, it is also a struggle for control, acceptance and success.

I don’t think that we should keep saying it’s ok to be fat when we aren’t happy with it ourselves. I don't buy into what some feminists say that we have to be happy with being fat and by continually saying we are happy with our bodies we will somehow suddenly accept our bodies. I can say I am not happy with my body. I am happy with who I am as a person. I'm not searching for "perfection" in my body just health, so I will continue to loose some weight but I don't have a desire to be skinny or "perfect". I would also like to see women being seen as people and not judged by the way they look.

It is unhealthy to be obese. This is a fact and I don't think we should be afraid to acknowledge that. But, I still disagree with the way that our society makes people feel about themselves and their bodies. What I think we should talk about is the obsession with looking for “perfection” and objectifying and dissecting our bodies. And, I'm worried about women feeling depressed when they can’t live up to an unrealistic body image projected by our society. I’m angry at a media that makes women feel so bad and that motivates them to put their bodies through barbaric surgery so that they can look like Barbie dolls!

We need to shift our society away from the obsession with the material, external, individualised, capitalist model. We need to find ways to make people feel accepted for who they are and connected to their community and wider society. We need to look to more holistic models of being and less dissected and alienated ways of living.

I'm no expert on this topic. I just read an article, got angry at yet more evidence of the insanity of cosmetic surgery and our materialistic society and wrote a blog post about it! Would like to hear other people's ideas on body image + our society + feminism....