Author: Red Balloon

I am a chronically ill queer artist and writer. I have a number of degrees in higher education and have spent most of my life interested and active in social movements against racism, militarism, misogyny and homophobia. Over the course of my life, I have worked in the world of alternate news, translation, law, teaching, and with progressive cultures, music, poetry, performers, and artists. I speak and understand a few languages and plan to share media in them on this blog. I am a poetry, art, music, and nature lover with an especial fondness for cats!

Art, cats, Humour, poetry

Of Feral Cats and Cockroaches!

This week, I’ve been trying to get through the winter blues and the covid blahs by reading some humour. Over a hundred years ago, journalist and humorist Don Marquis created some of funniest free verse around. Wikipedia tells us: Marquis’s best-known creation was Archy, a fictional cockroach (developed as a character during 1916) who had been a free-verse poet in a previous life, and who supposedly left poems on … Continue reading Of Feral Cats and Cockroaches!

Red BalloonJanuary 29, 2021January 29, 2021Leave a comment

children's books, fiction, racism, reading

Reluctant Witness: Kids Books, History, and Whiteness

For many years I have thought of reflecting upon and examining certain conjunctures and countries where I have had the opportunity to spend some time. Unlike many of my middle-class peers in Canada, my experiences of studying, researching and living abroad were often shaped by both overt and covert racism and sometimes homophobia and sexism. Instead, I have been focussing on where I make my … Continue reading Reluctant Witness: Kids Books, History, and Whiteness

Red BalloonJanuary 22, 2021January 22, 2021Leave a comment

Art, Colourful, poesia cubana, poetry

Poetry for the Peeps! AfroCuban Poetry in Translation

The following three poems are by the contemporary Afro-Cuban poet and scriptwriter, Georgina Herrera, who has graciously given permission to share and translate her work . Author of numerous collections of poetry and radio and television scripts. I have done the English translations you see below. I’ve included a biography from Wikipedia, to give you some idea of the achievements of this great poet, who … Continue reading Poetry for the Peeps! AfroCuban Poetry in Translation

Red BalloonJanuary 20, 2021January 22, 20211 Comment

Happy New Year

With a Little Help from my Friends!

I am taking the time today to reflect briefly on my blog and the reasons for starting it… It’s been a year and a half. And what a journey these times have been. In my poem Pachacutec, I refer to the world being upside down and there’s no doubt the covid-19 pandemic has brought about complete upheaval. But things have unfortunately stuck in their place … Continue reading With a Little Help from my Friends!

Red BalloonDecember 29, 2020Leave a comment

Art, childhood, cuba, Josefina de Diego, translation, Tropical Christmas, winter

A Child’s Christmas in Cuba: Grandfather’s Kingdom

Today, I’ve chosen a child’s memory of Christmases past, not in Wales, but in Cuba. Daughter of poet Eliseo Diego, Josefina de Diego’s prose poem, El Reino del Abuelo/Grandfather’s Kingdom, is a gentle and melancholic look back at Christmas time in a house full of inquisitive children, and adults immersed in the literary and musical worlds of Cuba in the 1950s, just before the Revolution.I’ve … Continue reading A Child’s Christmas in Cuba: Grandfather’s Kingdom

Red BalloonDecember 23, 2020December 26, 2020Leave a comment

Art, music, poetry, winter

Solstice 2020

Today marks the shortest daylight in our hemisphere, and the arrival of winter’s official season. But as of tomorrow, the days will lengthen again imperceptibly, and for those of us who need the light, like morning glories or sunflowers, hope will gradually be born anew. Indigenous and pagan peoples celebrated and celebrate the energies and magic of this day when the darkness must be propitiated … Continue reading Solstice 2020

Red BalloonDecember 20, 2020Leave a comment

Art, poetry

Citizen Heart

there have beenso many armiesso many hungersfood, land, water,the naming and naming of ourselves,chanting out in slogansthe red, brown, black of usthe “not-you” of us. there have beenso many citizensso many subjectskidnappings, rapesbuyings and sellings at auction blocks.since then ships and trains hurtling, planes gleamingso many travellerstrading home for outsidershiptrading belonging for hopethere have been so many. there have beenso many handssowing, tilling, building, diggingso … Continue reading Citizen Heart

Red BalloonDecember 19, 2020December 19, 2020Leave a comment

Art, challenge, Disability, haiku

Why Now? Haiku

Another contribution from me to Ronovan Writes’ weekly haiku challenge. This week’s words were “mad” and “sane”. The haiku’s form provides structure. Our minds provide the creativity! The link is here: https://ronovanwrites.com/2020/12/14/ronovan-writes-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-336-mad-and-sane/. As a person with fibromyalgia and chronic conditions, I am always heartened to see the work of others like him who push through their circumstances to find humour and creativity. Girl, it’s not … Continue reading Why Now? Haiku

Red BalloonDecember 18, 20202 Comments

AfroCuban history, law, nation-building, racism, Art, Health, Santeria, syncretism

For Hope and Healing: A Visual Homage

On this 17th day of December, and in this year 2020, especially, I honour Babalu Aye, the great Yoruba Orisha of illness and healing.Whether it be ourselves, our loved ones, this beautiful earth, the vast oceans and blue lakes and rivers, the air we breathe; they who invoke Babaluaye on this day, invoke transformative and curative energies. His colours are purple and yellow and brown. … Continue reading For Hope and Healing: A Visual Homage

Red BalloonDecember 17, 2020December 17, 2020Leave a comment

Uncategorized

Antidote to Grey! A Picture Gallery

The following drawings have been done over the last month. The greying days and short daylight hours contrive to make gloomier, an already difficult time under a second, though hardly stringent, lockdown. Every day has been a litany of anxiety and sadness, grief and powerlessness. Every day ordinary people triumph over extraordinary odds to grapple with how to keep themselves safe, fed, and sheltered during … Continue reading Antidote to Grey! A Picture Gallery

Red BalloonDecember 12, 2020December 13, 2020Leave a comment

Art, challenge, haiku

Haiku: Words and Worlds!

It’s my third attempt with https://ronovanwrites.com/2020/12/07/ronovan-writes-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-335-curl-and-paw/. The challenge is real, hahaha. Word prompts remind me of slam poetry, and the adrenalin of having to “come up with something”. And the more I delve into the haiku form, the more I see its possibilities. It’s spare and contained syllables contain worlds! This week’s words are “curl” and “paw”. seems like a paw, softcurling nails that tear … Continue reading Haiku: Words and Worlds!

Red BalloonDecember 8, 20201 Comment

Art, haiku, poetry

The Wind Speaks Winter: Haiku

Once again, I joined in https://ronovanwrites.com , Ronovanwrites’ Haiku challenge based on the two words, “grace” and “slip”. I enjoy the exercise for my rusty brain. And for me, so much more enjoyable than writing essays! The Haiku form has been around for centuries. It’s very sparseness makes it alluring. It’s like the very distilled form of story telling. 90 proof! Salud! Wind Speaks Winter … Continue reading The Wind Speaks Winter: Haiku

Red BalloonDecember 1, 2020February 15, 20218 Comments

Art, Autumn, fall, poetry, Refugees

Poetry for the Peeps! Of Spiders and Refugees

Autumn is a time when spiders look for warm places to spin their webs and lay their egg sacs. I’ve always been terrified of large and hairy spiders but outside among the plants they design the most beautiful webs which catch the dew or frost of colder times. While, I’m not a fan of spider infestations, one or two small ones don’t terrify me. In … Continue reading Poetry for the Peeps! Of Spiders and Refugees

Red BalloonNovember 29, 2020November 29, 2020Leave a comment

Art, haiku, poetry

Life, View, Haiku

I recently found a blog on haiku which also offers up writing challenges, by assigning words to construct a piece around. I hadn’t engaged in that sort of thing since high school. But I decided to try my hand at it. I learned that a) it’s harder than it seems and b) that it is fun to do once in a while. I hope you … Continue reading Life, View, Haiku

Red BalloonNovember 24, 20202 Comments

Art, coronavirus, india, Manabendra Bandyopadhyay, memory, Satyajit Ray, Soumitra Chatterjee

My Father and Soumitra: Mourning and Memory

What a year this has been. After the loss of my father to covid 19, I watched a lot of early Bengali films that I had seen first with him. Although I started watching Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, I could not continue.I remembered being a small Bengali girl in a white provincial Canadian suburb, harassed by passengers and bus drivers, as we went, in our … Continue reading My Father and Soumitra: Mourning and Memory

Red BalloonNovember 22, 2020November 25, 20201 Comment

Ear to the Ground

culture, current events, musings in which another world is possible!