we hail you with joy

your silence
has sounded
louder
than the jabber
of politics
and the clang
of military power;

out of deep darkness
your little lamp has
shone
across the planet;
your stillness
has moved the world.


Taken from the oration given in honour of Aung San Suu Kyi when she received an honorary doctorate in Oxford, 20 June 2012. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

Hush

We forget that there are
masses of people
that live without silence
and they need
sometimes
a little bit of space
and a little bit of time
to think.



Taken from a film made by We Love Libraries in January 2011, in response to planned library closures. The line arrangements aim to reflect the rhythm of speech. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Don't Speak

I've got nobody to talk to.
Nobody to say, how you feel?
Nobody to say, you ok?
Nobody. You can't talk.
I can only talk to you.
And you're no frigging good,
cos you can't talk back.

It's been really funny, cos in the stillness I've felt
you know
my goodness, you know,
this is me. It's just
it's just me now. I feel kinda stripped bare.
I can't
the only way I can describe it is I feel
tetchy. I feel
every time it gets really quiet I think
I'm out of control.

With all the stillness
I really can look at myself.
I don't know whether you can
whether that's ever happened to you
where you've actually looked in the mirror and
you can kind of see past the eyes. And it's like
meeting a new person.

Right now, right this minute
this is the loneliest I've felt since I was
was at the children's home.



Volunteers on a silent retreat, taken from the BBC's The Big Silence, first broadcast on 22nd October 2010. Submitted by Marika Rose.