In 2007 I attended a Blake Society workshop called ‘Freedom Songs’. We looked at famous texts which illustrated struggles for freedom. One of the exercises was to use one of these texts to write an original piece of your own. The challenge was to do this using only words and phrases already in the text. We cut out words we wanted to use, then arranged them, jigsaw-like, until we had a text of our own. My text was Nelson Mandella’s speech after he had been sentenced to prison.
Fear cannot be allowed
to stand in the way of
people
political division based on colour
domination
suffering
is entirely artificial.
The only solution …… own experience
change
struggle.
During my lifetime
the right to live
will triumph
when we live for
freedom for all.