Kevan Manwaring's Blog: The Bardic Academic, page 3
January 29, 2023
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Otter
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2010
From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Salmon
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017
From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
January 27, 2023
January 26, 2023
January 25, 2023
January 24, 2023
The Taliesin Soliloquies – Afagddu
‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’ is a sequence of poems based upon the Welsh legend of Taliesin. It was first published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard (O Books, 2010), with a detailed commentary of each stage. Recently I have recorded it, restoring it to the living breath. The link is shared below, and I will post each poem over the coming month. There are 22 poems in total.
January 23, 2023
The Taliesin Soliloquies – Creirwy
‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’ is a sequence of poems based upon the Welsh legend of Taliesin. It was first published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard (O Books, 2010), with a detailed commentary of each stage. Recently I have recorded it, restoring it to the living breath. The link is shared below, and I will post each poem over the coming month. There are 22 poems in total.
Ghosts in the Machine
My creative writing commission about Artificial Intelligence – Centre for New Writing, 2017.
Sam Illingworth’s article provides some useful food for thought. about this (to this particular organic being) disturbing development in technology. It seems as inevitable and ubiquitous as Skynet, sorry, the internet (it all seems a bit Terminator 2…).
When my whole creative-critical DNA is about honing the authentic, individual voice – mine and that of those I teach (whom I wish to empower through creativity) – I shudder at the thought of students submitting AI-generated stories, poems, scripts, or essays. A few ‘writers’ have already ‘authored’ books this way (a death of the author Barthes didn’t see), and a major publisher has even created a cover for one of its novels, to much controversy. Knowing professional artists who are being personally impacted by the insidious ‘scraping’ AI-generated art involves, I oppose the use of it on ethical grounds.
However, I am certainly for creating more authentic, meaningful assessments – ones that cannot be generated through algorithm-driven plagiarism. In BA Creative Writing we have some examples already, e.g. our Writing in the Community L6 unit, which encourages our students to design and deliver creative workshops within a community of choice, thereby creating real world impact. The more we think outside the box, about assessment, the better. That’ll be a win for both lecturers and students. Nobody wants to have to mark loads of near-identical assignments. Students sometimes request examplar ‘answers’, when it is their individual voice and vision that we most of all seek.
It’s a complex issue, and as a SF author who has won a national prize with a novel featuring AI, I’ve thought about it a fair bit.
But there is no doubt, it’s (already) part of our lives, whether we like it or not.
The gauntlet has been thrown down to educators. Who, or what, will pick it up?
READ MY AI CREATIVE WRITING COMMISSION – ‘GOLEM SPEAK’S – HERE
January 22, 2023
The Taliesin Soliloquies – Tegid Foel
‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’ is a sequence of poems based upon the Welsh legend of Taliesin. It was first published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard (O Books, 2010), with a detailed commentary of each stage. Recently I have recorded it, restoring it to the living breath. The link is shared below, and I will post each poem over the coming month. There are 22 poems in total.
January 21, 2023
The Taliesin Soliloquies – Ceridwen
‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’ is a sequence of poems based upon the Welsh legend of Taliesin. It was first published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard (O Books, 2010), with a detailed commentary of each stage. Recently I have recorded it, restoring it to the living breath. The link is shared below, and I will post each poem over the coming month. There are 22 poems in total.
Ceridwen by Wendy Andrew
Awaken the bard within in this inspiring journey into your creative potential. Expanding upon the foundation of “The Bardic Handbook”, this volume explores the transformations the bardic initiate must go through to become a fully-fledged Bard. This originally took 12 years of study in the Bardic Colleges – but communities need bards right now, bringing healing and hope with their words and music and so the training process is accelerated over 12 months, echoing the 12 years of Taliesin’s journey from Gwion Bach to the Shining Brow. Extracts from the author’s notebooks and journals over 20 years illustrate his own journey – showing how this ancient wisdom has been gleaned and validated by powerful personal experience. “The Way of Awen” is a way of living creatively.
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 9781846943119
Number of pages: 392
Weight: 440 g
Dimensions: 217 x 140 x 22 mm
