SarahMcCulloch.com | With Strength and Spirit

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Luminary Uprise

Luminary Uprise comes from “Word Disassociation” by Lemon Demon, and was the original name of my website until it moved to its current domain. I never wanted to let it go, so it’s taken the title of a page of miscellaneous items I wanted to make available but which defy categorisation.

Lost and Found

  • An Essay on Forms of Government by Frederick the Great
  • – unabridged and typed up copy of a very famous essay on the philosophy of government.

  • In Excelsis, by Lord Alfred Douglas – a copy of the full and abridged version of one of Bosie’s most famous poems.
  • Drink With the Beloved – lyrics to a traditional Sufi song. These didn’t exist at all online, and I had to transcribe them myself from a video of it.

  • Hoof and Horn – the lyrics to this song do exist on line, but they’re scattered about and I have a recording of it. ;)

  • Once There Was a Time… – the lyrics to this song do not exist online as far as I could see, so consider yourself lucky. :)

  • The Longest Word in English – Took me ages to find the full 189,000 letter long chemical name for the informally named Titin. And then when I finally did in a few obscure places, they’d miss out part of it, or put it all on one line(!!).

Down the Back of the Sofa

  • The Bisexuality Report 2012 – A ground-breaking report on the lived experiences of bisexual people compiled by members of Bi UK.
  • Under Construction: Bisexual Students  – NUS LGBT Liberation campaign document on how to be bi inclusive for sabbatical officers.
  • Autism Provision by NHS Primary Care Trust 2012 – An attempt to compile a data table of all ASD pathways by NHS trust. Unfortunately abandoned halfway through due to the abolition of all PCTs and creation of Clinical Commission Groups.
  • Drug Classification: Making a Hash of it? – the fifth report of the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, which famously criticised the inconsistencies and hypocrisies of our drug classification system. Hard to find.

  • The BNP 2005 Manifesto – the general election manifesto of the British National Party, which seems to have mysteriously vanished from their website.

A Nepenthe of Poetry

For some reason, as a teenager, I collated a short collection of poetry that I titled “A Nepenthe of Poetry” and printed in a little booklet I used to carry around with me. As a young adult building my first website, I uploaded this these poems to generate content. As a sentimental adult, my interests in poetry have developed and broadened, but I am loathe to update, alter or delete this little chapbook of poems that fourteen year old Sarah considered most Spoke To The Human Condition.  

The poet is in the end probably more afraid of the dogmatist who wants to extract the message from the poem and throw the poem away than he is of the sentimentalist who says, “Oh, just let me enjoy the poem.”  ~ Robert Penn Warren

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music… and then people crowd about the poet and say to him:  “Sing for us soon again;” that is as much as to say, “May new sufferings torment your soul.”  ~ Soren Kierkegaard

Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind.  ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

The poetry of the earth is never dead.  ~ John Keats