SENSITIZE ©

High Velocity. By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh ©. All Rights Reserved. Additional online literary editing by Catherine Edmunds.
^ Click the title of this poem up above to watch the video for it.

high velocity ( a political video-poem )
By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh © 2001/2004. All rights reserved.
Additional online literary editing by Catherine Edmunds aka delph_ambi.

with hate and high velocity
the bullet bounced off the gable wall
meeting flesh and bone
with a sickening wet thud

the boy fell to the pavement
twitching
innocence once more
bathed in blood

and someone screamed; oh jesus!
someone got a priest
I watched a green jeep
take a corner too fast

and my hate
increased...

______________

High Velocity is a political video-poem written by Louis P. Burns aka Lugh as part of a series of creative writing masterclasses facilitated by David Gothard (former artistic director of Riverside Studios, London) while he worked with various performance artists and writers at the Playhouse Theatre and Resource Centre - Derry, Northern Ireland.


1st Mural in the Bogside, Derry 2007. Photograph by
Diarmuid McGowan © for Upstate Renegade Productions.

High Velocity is the first completed e-poem by Upstate Renegade Productions. We're currently working on a comedy piece called The Gadget's Man, but High Velocity is one of our more serious productions.

The aim of High Velocity is to address the similarities between what happened in Ireland/Northern Ireland under illegal British military occupation/rule with what is currently happening in the Middle East under the tyranny of America and Britain. The poem is written from the perspective of someone who finds themself driven to fight back militarily against this occupation. Please note that High Velocity is a creative new media arts production only and not necessarily the political view of the artists/editors/promotors involved in its content or production.

All stills images (in the video) were gathered from open source internet search engines via AltaVista, Google, MSN and Yahoo. High Velocity is subject to international copyright legislation. Louis P. Burns aka Lugh / Upstate Renegade Productions © 2001/2004/2008. All rights reserved.

Performed, Produced & Written by:
Louis P. Burns aka Lugh

Directing & Editing + Additional Derry Murals Photography by:
Diarmuid McGowan

Production Co-ordinator:
Brian Gillespie

Online Literary Editing by:
Catherine Edmunds

International Promotion:
Salvador Oria


2nd Mural in the Bogside, Derry 2007. Photograph by
Diarmuid McGowan © for Upstate Renegade Productions.

For further information about the online literary editor of High Velocity; Catherine Edmunds, visit her website on:
http://www.freewebs.com/catherineedmunds/

For further information about David Gothard visit his website on:
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucwagpa ... othard.htm

2nd September, 2006.

High Velocity By Louis P. Burns aka Lugh / & Upstate Renegade Productions on YouTube.com

Old version. High Velocity has been revamped since this demo production.

This is great work, Lugh.

Here are a few editorial suggestions for the web page.

First of all, the poem itself.

You need to be consistent about capitals. Decide which way you want to go. There are three options.

1. Traditional, ie, capitalise the first word of each line (as you've done for the first three lines of each stanza, but not subsequent lines.)

2. Prose style, ie, capitalise the first words of sentences. This is more or less what you've done, but it hasn't quite worked in my view because your sentences aren't generally 'real' grammatical sentences.

3a. Don't capitalise other than 'I' and proper nouns.
or b. Don't capitalise at all.

I think the best style for this poem would be 3a.


Next: typos. Nicely typo free, but eagle-eyed delph spotted one. Second line, should be 'off', not 'of'.


Next: punctuation. This is seriously over-punctuated in my view, but remember, this is just my opinion.

First stanza, I would definitely ditch the full stop at the end of the first line, as it makes no sense. Same with the one at the end of the second line. They are both ungrammatical. Err... as is the comma at the end of the third line. The commas after 'sickening' and 'wet' are grammatically correct, but I wouldn't use them. The formatting and line breaks give you the effect of a pause and a 'list', which is all the commas were indicating in the first place.

Second stanza. Hmm... you do like your full stops, don't you. I don't understand the logic of their use in this stanza; why you've used them in lines one, two and four, but not three. I'd get rid of them all, myself.

Third stanza. "Oh Jesus!", not "Oh Jesus"! , ie, punctuation must come inside the speech marks if it is in relation to what the person is saying. I would drop the full stop after 'priest', if you decide to drop the other earlier full stops. I like the ellipses at the end.


Right, onto the 'blurb' at the side. This is what I would do.

First paragraph: replace semi-colon after 'poem' with a comma, and add a comma after 'HIGH VELOCITY'. Delete the comma and 'up' after 'Gothard'.

Second paragraph: Insert a full stop after 'warfare'. Delete 'and', and start the new sentence 'It draws... ' Replace 'on' with 'with' (ie 'It draws parallels with conflicts...'.

Third paragraph: delete 'then' before 'rested'. Delete comma before the brackets. Turn round end of sentence to make it '...on which Lugh was engaged' to avoid ending the sentence with a preposition. Replace 'a bit of' with 'some'. Replace 'it' with 'the poem' (ie, 'while Lugh recited the poem...') Replace ellipses at end of paragraph with a full stop.

Fourth paragraph: full stop after 'camera'. New sentence starts 'Diarmuid edited...'

Fifth paragraph: delete dash before the link. Not necessary.


Hope that's helpful.

Crikey Delph. You have been busy lol...

At the moment all media production including amendments to our webpages isn't an option. We have to carry out all media type work on another pc then copy to this one and upload. So, what this means is that we will indeed work with your guidelines above, but it will take us a few days or perhaps weeks.

Thank you for your excellent critique and feedback. I am really grateful to you mate. Will add your name to the credits for webpage and on the credits of the actual film when things are back up and running fully...

Sincere best wishes for now and thank you once again

No problem, Lugh; I appreciate the current technical difficulties.

I enjoy editing. It's like taking a piece of sheet music and checking there are the right number of beats in each bar and the key signatures are consistent. I don't need to worry about creative input, and the composer ends up with a more professional looking product. Everyone's a winner

I mention key signatures, because years ago I was in doing a season of 'Carmen' using old handwritten scores, and nobody had ever checked the key signatures... loads of it's in seven flats, and whoever had written out the parts often failed to mention the fact after the first few lines. Also, the accidentals were all identical. A vague little squiggle. The parts had been photocopied many times, so they were littered with photocopied sellotape and pencil annotations. Right ruddy mess. Over-sized too, so that they nearly caught fire on the music stand lights. Ah... the joys of being a pit musician. Darlington Civic Theatre used to have a sloping pit, so you had to bring chunks of wood to try to level your chair. It was also advisable to use your third best bow, because there was no room at all, and it was likely to break as you collided with your colleagues or a brick wall. Happy days...

Sorry, gone off track there for a moment.

Yes, apply any or all of the editing suggestions at your leisure, Lugh