Kicking The Pricks

A fascinating journal written after the creation of Derek Jarman’s The Last of England, covering the making of the film itself and the origins of its deeply autobiographical content. In 1986 Derek Jarman started filming The Last of England, one of his most original and innovative films. It is also his most personal work, with the strongest autobiographical content. Shortly after filming began Derek Jarman started work on this book, which contains diary entries, interviews and notes from the script. Jarman writes of his extraordinary childhood and his kleptomaniac father; the process by which he came to terms with his sexuality; his early work as painter and designer; and finally his debut as a film director. Throughout, however, the reader will follow Jarman at his most fervent, as he writes of the corruption of the cinema industry, of the moral and personal consequences of the AIDS virus, and of the evils of Thatcher's Britain.

Rowland Wymer gives detailed, original critical readings of Derek Jarman's eleven feature-length films, and argues that he occupies a major and influential place in European and world cinema.

David Norris is one of Ireland's most popular, colourful and charismatic public figures. Not a man to shy away from controversy, he has spent most of his adult life challenging the establishment, whether as a leading campaigner for gay rights, a passionate conservationist, an unconventional academic and Joycean scholar, a brilliant raconteur, or, since 1987, a fiercely independent Senator and outspoken defender of human rights. Born in the Belgian Congo to an English father, who died when he was six years old, and an Irish mother, who died when he was twenty-one, David has been a Dubliner all his life, and the city of Ulysses remains one of his great passions. He spear-headed the revival of Georgian Dublin, particularly through his campaign to save North Great George's Street, where he has lived for the last thirty-five years. But it is David Norris's campaign to decriminalize homosexuality that will stand as his major legacy. Over a long sixteen years, he fought a difficult battle to overturn the Victorian law, finally winning a historic victory in the European Court of Human Rights in 1988. David's decision to run for President of Ireland in 2011 was not lightly taken, but it proved to be the most bruising period of his life. His popularity and the public affection in which he is held saw him quickly established as the front-runner. However, a sustained and hostile media campaign forced him out of the race; although he re-entered it in the autumn, the momentum had been lost. In these pages, David Norris reveals for the first time the full, no-holds-barred story of his presidential campaign, and of how he recovered from the turmoil. A Kick Against the Pricks is a brilliant, deeply revealing autobiography, a remarkable journey from the margins to the centre of Irish society.

Anthony Comstock was America’s first professional censor. From 1873 to 1915, as Secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, Comstock led a crusade against lasciviousness, salaciousness, and obscenity that resulted in the confiscation and incineration of more than three million pictures, postcards, and books he judged to be obscene. But as Amy Werbel shows in this rich cultural and social history, Comstock’s campaign to rid America of vice in fact led to greater acceptance of the materials he deemed objectionable, offering a revealing tale about the unintended consequences of censorship. In Lust on Trial, Werbel presents a colorful journey through Comstock’s career that doubles as a new history of post–Civil War America’s risqué visual and sexual culture. Born into a puritanical New England community, Anthony Comstock moved to New York in 1868 armed with his Christian faith and a burning desire to rid the city of vice. Werbel describes how Comstock’s raids shaped New York City and American culture through his obsession with the prevention of lust by means of censorship, and how his restrictions provided an impetus for the increased circulation and explicitness of “obscene” materials. By opposing women who preached sexual liberation and empowerment, suppressing contraceptives, and restricting artistic expression, Comstock drew the ire of civil liberties advocates, inspiring more open attitudes toward sexual and creative freedom and more sophisticated legal defenses. Drawing on material culture high and low, including numerous examples of the “obscenities” Comstock seized, Lust on Trial provides fresh insights into Comstock’s actions and motivations, the sexual habits of Americans during his era, and the complicated relationship between law and cultural change.

Depicts the life of Saint Paul, discussing his religious teachings and travels.

Wording in the King James version of the Bible speaks of the rods that shepherds have used to urge animals to go in a desired direction. The phrase may also serve as a metaphor for the barbs and punishing pricks against which a person may have to contend while searching for independence and self-actualization. Cultural and gender socialization provide pricks that goad a person to stay in her/his place in society. Born during the Great Depression and then becoming an Army Brat during World War II to emerge as a young mother and ranch wife during Texas long drought and fi nally becoming a college professor, her account covers struggles and transitions the author experienced through several historical periods. Kizer addresses the crises many have faced or will encounter including the effects of divorce, rootlessness, economic constraints, alcoholism, mental illness, suicide, death, and others.

First century tillers used oxen to help them plow the land, and when the animal slowed or refused their commands, the tiller would use a prick to jab the animal and regain control. Sometimes the oxen would rebel and kick against the prick, and as a result, get stabbed even harder. It was a lesson of cause and consequence, of insurgence, of anarchy, both against their owners, and against God. Wilson takes this concept of rebellion and weaves it throughout his writing in such a way that his characters know how it feels to be both the tiller and the ox. His verse is sharp like a pointed spike, and his style awakens the reader to the gray area in the black and white world of right and wrong, good and bad. Wilson writes without fear and doesn't shirk from the emotions that surface when he digs deeper, doesn't hide from the shadows that creep in when he tills harder. The pieces in Kicking Against the Pricks bring an understanding to pain, suffering, and what it means to be conflicted. Wilson brilliantly shines the light on the darkness that hides within us all and envelopes his readers in a raw, emotional, and beautiful journey as noted in Stoker Award winner Linda D. Addison's insightful introduction.