Browsing the rich resources available on the Shades of Noir Site, my heart felt at once sad and hopeful. Aisha Richard’s, Do you Remember? brought me to tears. It bears witness that her quest for social justice has been embarked upon from a place of Truth. Compassion has been a travelling companion. Both a yearning for truth and compassion are needed to heal the Fisher King wound. Both Richards’ lived experience of intersectionality and Finnigan’s compassionate friendship have asked the questions Arthur’s knight Parzival or indeed any other knight failed to ask. Indeed, the Romantics turned to the past and the very same Romances, privileging imagination and feeling over Reason. Harold Bloom goes as far as to claim that through their poetry, music and visual art, the Romantics were healers of a society fractured by Enlightened Reason. One wonders, however, what Truth they were seeking? Or was it just a reaction to satisfy a self- righteousness or the ego?

Our rational, civilized and enlightened world that demands a denial of the feelings that make us human, manifests as trauma, disconnecting us from our authentic self and without feeling there is no value judgement. Audre Lorde’s use of the Erotic as power is Romanticism come of age. She is a poet that speaks truthfully through lived experience. She is Segune, Cundrie and Parzival asking questions and finding answers that heal not only her wound but the Fisher king’s wound. Her poetry is humanising and compassionate, making peace with herself, with the master and with the world.

Richards and Finnigan are true knights of the realm, watering the seeds planted before them and for those that come after them. Where Wordsworth despaired of not being able to make a change through words, these women have turned their words into events. Shades of Noir indeed the Inclusive Practice on the PGCert is Aisha Richard’s legacy and there is no de colonising without acknowledgment and gratitude to those due it. Aisha Richard’s we salute you.

This is a resource I will point students to time and again.