New Template - an apology to readers

I apologise to my kind readers  for the change in the look of Public Poems. The earlier template which I was using had some technical problems, and the new one seems to have solved them (touch wood). 

I've been blogging for several months now, though admittedly in the form of approximately weekly essays on subjects which interest me. It has been an educational process, not least because in the course of it I have come to know a little more about what really interests me!

"Public Poems" has been a catch-all title until now. I will continue it enthusiastically on literary/political matters, but will divert some of the subject matter to a couple of other blogs. 

My libertarian beliefs, such as they are, in future will be expressed in my new blog "antiGuardian.com", which will offer occasional comments on the statist and interventionist aspects of the left. Any further subjects I which fall outside these two areas - such as my interest in sport -  will be addressed in warwickcollins.com. 

Should anyone wish to look at these other blogs, if you click on "view my complete profile" you will find the other blogs listed there.

Finally, one of the most gratifying aspects of Public Poems has been the interest in my essay "Free the movie industry - abolish exclusivity clauses". My Google analytics show this to be the most visited posting. Over the next months and years, I'm going to try to build support for the notion that exclusivity clauses in film contracts, which prevent films from being made (90% of contracted films are never made into films) should be rendered non-enforceable by legislation because they are in restraint of trade. Authors should be able to sell their rights (the positive rights) but not the negative rights which prevent another film being in perpetuity. I believe this would be good for writers, good for the film industry, and good for viewers. In a blog called Liberate Cinema I'll be pursuing this course.

My blog postings will continue to be intermittent because of my other writing commitments. When I write fiction or a screenplay I have tunnel vision and the particular subject on which I am writing tends to obsess me. Currently I am writing a screenplay for a Swedish production company, set during the second world war and based on a true story about a famous female Swedish dancer who fell in love with an Italian film producer. In the course of their passionate relationship he shot her, paralysing her from the waist downwards so that she never walked again. Paradoxically, she rose from the tragedy, married for a second time, had another child, and became something of an iconic figure in Sweden for her courage and optimism, while he subsided into madness and eventual death. I have been writing with the usual combination of nervousness and occasional exhilaration.