Iain Strachan

Inspired by Carol Ann Duffy's new poem  Silver Lining  (hear the Poet Laureate read her poem  here ), I took some photographs, and wrote my own poem, which bears no small debt to "Silver Lining".  The weekend where the skies were so empty of planes felt like a pause at home; a pause that caused havoc for those stranded however, serving to remind us how dependent we are on a precious resource that is bound to run out eventually. Our Labour Paused Not in fifty springs May I see the cherry-blossom thus: Dancing against a plain and planeless blue, Endless shades of white undulating the petals, Stamens accosted by hoverings of wasps and bees; Nature reclaiming the skies and continuing to work. But this morning, deemed safe To receive our own outpourings Of earth's innards, The blue infinities, Criss-crossed with kids' crayons, Streaked with white fragments In straight lines, billowing to a dull blur, Witness: Lovers, reunited, Supermarkets, re...

Coincident with my daughter doing an essay for her English Literature coursework on Beckett’s “Endgame” on the proposition whether tragedy creates a sense of meaning to suffering, I find myself also pondering this subject – a fitting one for a Good Friday, when we remember Christ’s suffering on the Cross.  Rather than consider academically whether the literary genre of tragedy can create a sense of meaning for suffering, I shall try and consider the broader question of whether suffering has a meaning at all, or is it the the inevitable consequence of a blind, pitilessly indifferent nature , as Richard Dawkins has argued in “River Out Of Eden”? Dawkins’s materialistic explanation has the merit that it is the easiest to understand.  If there is no God, then there isn’t the difficult part of explaining why such a God should allow suffering. And yet, we all somehow want to find meaning in suffering – and some better explanation for it than random chance.  I do not know why t...