Wednesday 30 December 2009

Night in Ink Sweat & Tears

Charles Christian has kindly selected a new Gwilym Williams' poem for the Ink, Sweat & Tears page dated 28th December 2009.

The poem 'Night' sees out the old, where supermarket trolleys rust, and brings in the new, where snails climb blades of grass.

Happy New Year and blessings to all those bards, poets and writers, many at great peril and risk, who suffer to broaden our minds and widen our horizons and good wishes to all their devoted readers around the world.

In 2010 may the pen be mightier than the sword!

_____
ps -
the reader may find INK SWEAT & TEARS via the sidebar A-Z Links >>>

Tuesday 15 December 2009

A Regular Visitor - a climate change story


A Regular Visitor is a Poet-in-Residence contribution to the climate change debate. The story was first published in 2004 under the New Fiction imprint in the The Unforgettable; a selection of short stories from "some of today's most promising authors". (ISBN 1 85929 106 6)

A Regular Visitor
by Gwilym Williams

Harry Walker the old cartographer, thin as a pencil, legs like a pair of dividers, nose like a beak, hair in the wind like a white sail, strode across the mountain tops measuring and checking. There was a lot of measuring and checking to be done. Harry's peaks were shrinking. The glaciers were melting and the summer snow had all but gone. His favourite mountain, Sun Mountain, was seven metres shorter.

On the map in his rucksack, printed in italics, were the words ice cave and a cave symbol. When he arrived at the cave, he found it no longer existed. There was only debris; fallen rocks, fallen trees and a small muddy stream.

His next stop was the village railway station. There, a new sign greeted him: Railway station closed - nearest station in town.

He walked to the bus stop and checked the timetable. The last bus of the day had departed two hours ago. He went to the phone box and phoned for a taxi. The taxi had to come from town. He waited for half an hour. It arrived. A diesel Mercedes.

'We don't see many strangers round here,' said the chubby, red-faced driver, stubbing out a cigarillo as they set off.

'I'm not really a stranger in these parts. I'm a cartographer. I come here every five years measuring and checking. You could say I'm a regular visitor,' said Harry.

'A what...?' began the driver.

'And I don't like what I see,' said Harry. He then explained how the mountains were smaller and how the ice cave had disappeared.

The driver grunted and turned on the car radio. There was some music and then ... We interrupt the programme to bring you a newsflash. A landslide near the mountain village of ... The driver twiddled with the radio and found another music station.

Harry closed his eyes and tried to relax.

* * *

Soon the taxi was pulling in at Bob's Fast Food Drive-In. The driver ordered a Super-King Burger with French Fries and a Giant Cola. He put the package of food on the front passenger seat and the drink into a plastic holder affixed to his dash near the ashtray. He ate and drank with one hand and steered with the other as they continued their journey. An ambulance in a hurry passed in the other direction. It started raining.

When they arrived in town Harry saw the lights of the train just leaving.

'Tell you what,' said the taxi driver, 'it just so happens that the wife and I do bed and breakfast. I believe the room is available.'

Harry looked at the rain which seemed to be getting heavier, listened to the taxi engine running, the meter ticking up the cost, the swish of the windscreen wipers and the moaning sounds of the blues singer on the car radio.

'I'll take it,' he said.

They drove round the corner and there flickering in the rain was a neon sign; Dave's B & B.

'I'm Dave,' grinned the driver.

'Harry,' said Harry.

'Meet Doris,' said Dave as they entered the small parlour where a heavy, washed-out, middle-aged woman was watching television and eating popcorn.

'Guest?' asked Doris, heaving herself to her feet. 'Take his bags up, Dave.'

'I have no bags,' said Harry. 'I only have this small rucksack containing my maps.'

'Maps?' said Doris.

'Yes, maps. That's my job. I'm a cartographer.'

'Making maps of here?' said Doris.

'Yes. I'll show you one if you like when I'm settled in.'

'Good, then come down and join us for a bite of supper.'

'We'll have the room nice and warm with the electric fire on,' said Dave.

* * *

Before long, the three of them were huddled around the supper table which was piled high with an assortment of sausage meats and chicken portions. In the corner the television was showing the weather map.

'More rain,' said Doris.

'Not eating, Harry?' said Dave, gnawing on a chicken leg.

'Just a slice of bread and butter for me,' said Harry, spreading out his map on the table corner.

'Is that where we are?' said Doris.

'This is where you are,' said Harry, indicating with his pencil.

'And what's this?' said Dave. 'What's this big blue squiggle? It comes right down by our house. Is it the new motorway?'

'No Dave, that's where the new river will be.'

'New river? I haven't heard anything about a new river.'

'No Dave. You won't hear about it until it arrives.'

Dave put his chicken leg down and peered intently. 'What's this then, by the golf course?' Dave's greasy finger prodded the map.

'Oh, that's the new lake,' said Harry.

'A new lake. Speedboats...'

'There won't be any speedboats, Dave.'

'There seems to be a lot of new things on your map,' said Doris, heaving closer, her sausage sandwich dripping ketchup.

'Yes,' said Harry, 'we're even going to have fathoms.'

'Fathoms?' said Dave, perplexed.

'Yes, to measure the depth of water.'

'Ah, for the new lake.'

'Yes, at least one new lake, but there might be two or three. This is only an initial survey,' said Harry, folding the map and putting it carefully away.

There will be many changes, thought Harry. After the avalanches and the rock falls and the formation of the new lakes and rivers, Doris and Dave will be lucky if they only have to move to higher ground. The whole area could be uninhabitable once the monsoon rains become a regular feature.

'Listen...' said Dave.

Overhead the thrum and clatter of a passing helicopter sounded low.

'It's a regular visitor these days, that emergency helicopter,' said Doris, unzipping a can of orangeade.

Midnight Visitor - a short story


Midnight Visitor is an early Poet-in-Residence short story. It first appeared in 2004 under the New Fiction imprint in a selection of "heart-wrenching tales and chilling thrillers" titled Inner World (SB ISBN 1 85929 096 5).
Midnight Visitor is a story which Poet-in-Residence readers are invited to print-off to read to their children; or to anyone impatient for a gaily wrapped parcel lying under a Christmas tree.

Midnight Visitor
by Gwilym Williams

One afternoon I was in the local library researching ghosts, my special field of interest being poltergeists, when a book jumped off the shelf directly in front of me, and I can only say 'jumped' because that's what it did.

For a moment I thought someone was playing a trick on me; but when I looked I saw that there was nobody else around. There was nobody on the other side of the shelf to secretly nudge the book through. It literally had jumped onto the floor where it lay open, face down, as if waiting for me to pick it up. And so I picked it up and commenced to read the text on the pages at which the book had fallen open: 'There is only one substance through which a ghost cannot transmit its image and that is...'

Almost immediately, I remembered a strange incident that I had been told about by a well-respected investigator of the paranormal some years previously. It concerned a girl named Connie Black, who lived in an old house in the village of Stonefield.

When Connie Black was six years of age, she met the Devil; saw him with her own green eyes, in the flesh one could say. But, of course, nobody believed her. They all said it was a dream; even her young brother, Billy, thought Connie had imagined the whole thing. But Connie knew she hadn't imagined it, hadn't dreamt it. And she always had the strange feeling that one day someone would be able to prove it; prove it beyond a shadow of doubt.

Connie was an extraordinary and intelligent child and, like most extraordinary and intelligent children of her age, believed she was perfectly normal. She thought everybody had recurring dreams of being sucked into a black whirlpool or occasionally spinning through the cosmos and waking up on the floor under the bed, or being able to walk in the air several feet above the ground. And so she never thought to mention these experiences to anyone; not even Billy, who slept nearby, always soundly it seemed, in an identical iron bed to hers.

One night there was a happening that was so strange and unusual that Connie, contrary to her normal behaviour, told the whole family about it.

The Devil appeared in the bathroom. He was neither friendly nor unfriendly. He just was. He had two small horns and a tuft of ginger hair on his head. His face was long and purple and his eyes were emerald-green. They were not threatening or angry, but they were staring eyes. Connie looked straight into them; stared back, apprehensive but unafraid.

The midnight visitor was wearing a brown leather jacket with two rows of gold-coloured rings down the front. The rings were tied together with a leather string. Connie couldn't see if he was wearing trousers and shoes because he was behind the enamel bath and she could only see the top half of him.

An interesting fact, observed Connie, is that either he is kneeling, or his legs go straight down through the bathroom floor. And another interesting fact is that he's flat, like a picture; he has no depth. The two of them stared at each other for what seemed a long time. Perhaps he's as surprised to see me as I am to see him, thought Connie.

She then became worried. What if he's putting bad thoughts in my mind? She remembered her mum saying, 'Connie, whenever you have the urge to do something naughty, it's the Devil speaking to you. Then you must say to yourself, 'Get thee behind me, Satan' and you will no longer be tempted. It was the time when Billy had cheated at marbles and Connie had hit him on the head, quite hard, with a stick.

'Get thee behind me Satan,' whispered Connie.

Nothing. The Devil didn't budge. He remained exactly where he was, simply standing and staring.

Connie pulled her eyes away from the Devil's and turned her head away slowly to look around the small room. Perhaps the Devil was not alone. But he was alone. Or rather, he had been alone, for when Connie turned back to face him she discovered he was no longer there. Only the old enamel bath and the plain white wall were to be seen. Connie spun round. It was no trick. He had gone.

Forgetting why she had gone to the bathroom in the first place, Connie switched off the light and padded quietly back to her bed, passing the slumbering shape of her brother who slept nearest the door. In a few minutes she was sound asleep.

I have decided to tell this story now as a cautionary tale for those children who may be destined to meet the Devil before they are very much older. There will be no sudden chill in the air, no shuffling sound or dragging of chains, no smell of rotten apples, no black cat, no neighing horse, no goat, no eclipse of the moon. He will come when he comes. It will be totally unexpected. He may come in the night. He may equally appear by day.

If he comes to you, you could try saying the words 'Get thee behind me Satan'.

Connie is a young woman now and, I'm pleased to say, unaffected by her meeting with the Devil. She is happily married to her childhood sweetheart, Douglas Fir. They live in a modern house just outside Stonefield and have a daughter of their own. She has long red hair and emerald-green eyes. Her name is Lucy.

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Emily Dickinson: This World is not Conclusion

"If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold I know no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?"

Emily in sepia with top of head intact

The two previous Poet-in-Residence posts (see below), Waiting for Godot and The Dream of Gerontius, and also this post are all variations on a theme.

Emily Dickinson was convinced (as Poet-in-Residence is) that there exists an unseen dimension beyond this physical world and that the invisible has a place there. The Large Hadron Collider is looking. And the poets are looking too.

This World is not Conclusion°

this world is not conclusion
a species stands beyond -
invisible, as music -
but positive as sound -

it beckons, and it baffles
philosophy - don't know -
and through a riddle, at the last -
sagacity must go -

to guess it, puzzles scholars -
to gain it, men have borne
contempt of generations
and crucifixion, shown -

faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
blushes, if any see -
plucks at a twig of evidence -
and asks a vane, the way -

much gesture, from the pulpit -
strong hallelujahs roll -
narcotics cannot still the tooth
that nibbles at the soul -

°rewritten without Dickinson's many dashes and capital letters for ease of reading.

Update: 13th December 2009 - the Dickinson dashes - now inserted! See Dominic Rivron's comment. My Compromise - I meet Emily agreeably halfway. But, sorry to say, as much as I love the Poem - I must insist on my editorial Right to refuse the mixture of capitalized Nouns and Line commencements - not to mention the cramped Verse Structure of the Original.
2nd update: OK. I relent. You may now attempt the original. But please don't blame Poet-in-Residence for any resulting optical illusion that may give you a migraine or a severe headache. To deduce why words like soul, twig and scholars are lower case and nouns like Tooth, Vane and Pulpit are capitalized, and why the tight unbroken verse strutcture with its abundance of Capital Letters and dashes aggrieves one's eyesight, is obviously a matter for a professor of optics rather than a simple Poet-in-Residence:

This World is not Conclusion

This World is not Conclusion
A Species stands beyond -
Invisible, as Music -
But positive, as Sound -
It beckons, and it baffles -
Philosophy - don't know -
And through a Riddle, at the last -
Sagacity, must go -
To guess it, puzzles scholars -
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown -
Faith slips - and laughs, and rallies -
Blushes, if any see -
Plucks at a twig of Evidence -
And asks a Vane, the way -
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit -
Strong Hallelujahs roll -
Narcotics cannot still the Tooth
That nibbles at the soul -

Emily Dickinson 10th December 1830 - 15th May 1886

Tuesday 8 December 2009

Elgar's Dream of Gerontius: Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic

The fate or otherwise of the soul is a matter to which many of us devote more than a passing thought. Most people only do this when a loved one dies or when they themselves are ill or getting on in years.

I often think, when I meditate, on the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet: To be or not to be that is the question... - the soliloquy points up the fact that we'd do well to consider what strange things may meet us in the unknown, in the next dimension of reality. In death.

Who knows what cards today's MacDeath keeps under his cloak? Prophets of all religions will say: Yes. We know. But, in truth they do not know any more about death, the next great adventure, as a precious friend often calls it, than the rest of us; we who say that we do not and cannot know, whatever those holy books and scriptures may say.

In any event, while we are alive here on this Earth, we may all dream. Perhaps in our finest dreams, beautiful angels will appear and guide us safely along beams of light that lead to our final destinies. We may all be accompanied by heavenly music, perhaps played on golden harps.
Desperate characters who have done much harm in the world will have to settle their accounts, we like to believe. Some other fate, perhaps worse than a lengthy stay in purgatory, perhaps a fate too horrible to imagine, may be their destiny, we quietly hope.
These human failings and desperate hopes do more than keep the religion business in business. They prove that we are not robots. They keep many of us from going mad. And they inspire the poets too.


Edward Elgar's two-part Oratorium The Dream of Gerontius is based on the poem by Cardinal Newman (1801-1890) which tells of an old man's dream of his last hours and the journey of the soul.

Friends and priests have done what they can; in prayer they have asked for mercy for Gerontius' soul: Save him in the day of doom. A guardian Angel soon arrives to conduct the soul to the place of judgement.

On the journey the soul hears the noise of demons emanating from a wall of fire; voices of souls now consigned to purgatory. Dread of hell fire, of the venomous flame, a coward's plea...

Despite this nightmarish experience, Gerontius' soul has no fear as it awaits the judgement. Gerontius has led a good and honest life and therefore no harm can befall his soul. And so it proves.

On 3rd October 1900 the premier was performed in Birmingham Town Hall, a venue not too far from the composer's home near Worcester. A Vienna Philharmonic premier came five years later, on the 16th November 1905. It was doubtless a great success for performances of Elgar's Enigma Variations quickly followed: 11th November 1906 and again on 29th and 30th January 1907.

Two world wars intervened and apart from one or two exceptions the work of Edward Elgar all but disappeared from the Vienna scene.

It was to be a long wait, for it was not until 1992 that The Dream of Gerontius was again performed in Vienna; after an absence of 87 years it signalled a change in attitudes and something of an Elgar renaissance is now taking place in Austria.

Berlin Philharmonic's resident conductor Simon Rattle, with his usual aplomb and panache, ably conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's The Dream of Gerontius on the Sunday 6th December. I was informed by a friend who went the previous day, that the Saturday concert was equally wonderful.

The performers:

Magdalena Kozena (mezzo soprano) - the Angel

- this child of clay
to me was given,
to rear and train
by sorrow and pain


Toby Spence (tenor) - Gerontius

- my soul is in my hand: I have no fear
But Hark! a grand mysterious harmony:
it floods me, like the deep and solemn sound
of many waters


Thomas Quasthoff (bass) - the Priest and the Angel of Agony

Jesu! spare those souls which are so dear to Thee

The Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien - the Assistants (Friends), the Demons, the Souls in Purgatory and the Choir of Angelicals

- praise to the Holiest in the height,
and in the depth be praise ...


It ended with well-satisfied applause and more than 3/4 of the auditorium rising to its feet (front centre parterre people are beyond standing!).

Simon Rattle appeared genuinely delighted, especially with the marathon performance of Toby Spence, as I'm sure we all were. Thomas Quastoff was reliably solid as always and I particularly enjoyed his deep powerful tones in the role of the Priest. The choir had been trained-up for this by Johannes Prinz and it seemed that they were all in fine fettle.

In the end it was warm smiles all round and a large bouquet for the Angel.

An Austrian Elgar renaissance is well on course.

_______
image: fine angel clipart

Waiting for Godot premier at Vienna's Burgtheater


It's the 5th December and I am early for the Bochum Schauspielhaus's Vienna Burgtheater premier of Samuel Beckett's masterpiece Warten auf Godot. Others will be late. Others will miss it.

Trams fetching many of the theatre-goers have to pass the nearby Vienna University where students are in the fourth, or maybe it's the fifth week of protest. And, of course, thousands of visitors are flocking to Vienna's largest Christmas Market situated outside the Rathaus (the City Hall), directly opposite the Burgtheater's main entrance. It's all a little chaotic.

One mildly interesting aside, in view of the themes of the play I'm about to see, is that several homeless men, perhaps as many as twenty of them, men rather like the Beckett characters Estragon and Vladimir, are lending active support to the student protest, joining-in as it were, in order to spend some of their cold and foggy December nights in the warmth of the Audi-Max Lecture Hall.

Karl-Ernst Herrmann's scenery is, as usual, out of the ordinary. The Burgtheater stage has been dispensed with and there now hangs before us a great and golden picture frame; there to fix our attention on surreal and comic imagery; Magritte-like scenes frozen in time; the crescent moon, the orange sun, the white-black simplicity, the leafless tree. The small group of actors.

Beckett's two heroes are wonderfully played with gusto, humour and spirit. Ernst Stötzner (Estragon): loud with a voice like a man at the bottom of a hole and the convincing meandering amble of the down-and-out is exactly right for the role. Michael Maertens (Vladimir): high-pitched, stressed-out, is the would-be intellectual who strives against all the odds to bring comfort and hope to his bosom pal. The two tramps have come far in the wrong direction since the day long ago when they held hands at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Top class performances too from Ignaz Kirchner (Pozzo) and Marcus Kiepe (Lucky).

For me the point, the message, was: What's the difference, if there is a difference, between Godot, who never appears, and Pozzo who appears twice and with his bag-carrier, his brainless slave Lucky on the end of a long dog-lead? It seems to be that if Pozzo is in reality Godot, there is no difference. Pozzo answers to any name. He is everybody. He could be anybody.

I think what Beckett is telling us is that God or God(ot) may control the affairs of Estragon and Vladimir (i.e. you and me), just as Pozzo controls the affairs of Lucky. Lucky must carry the weight of Pozzo's world, the heavy suitcase and so on. And we must carry our given loads too. Pozzo guides Lucky. The unseen God(ot) blindly guides us. We are like Lucky. We are told, on pain of punishment, to Fetch! Go! Stop! Halt! The invisible strings control us. We have no freedom worth speaking of. From the first story of Adam and Eve, our destiny has always been in the hands of another. Only the tree grows:

Pozzo: Ask me, ask me! Why doesn't he put his bags down!
Estragon: (finally screaming) OK, then, why doesn't he put his bags down!!!

To me that's Beckett's point in 20 words.

But of course this grim situation is not entirely without hope. There's always a little hope as we like to tell ourselves. The tree sprouts a leaf. And this single leaf, this work of nature, is our hope. Vladimir sees that the whole tree is in leaf. But Estragon sees no change. He wants to hang himself from the tree. The old rope, which is a belt to hold up his trousers, suddenly breaks. It's not yet his time. And so tomorrow the two tramps will have to return to the tree and wait there for God(ot) to come ...

We are all here to do Godot's work, to carry his load. Our relationship to the invisible is the relationship of Lucky to Pozzo. When we wait for Godot to appear we will wait for ever. Or at least until we are dead.

"Why do you write such things?" someone once asked Beckett.
"To look for the one who murdered me," he replied.

A good move by new director Matthias Hartmann to unwrap this Bochum production of Beckett's Warten auf Godot at the Vienna Burgtheater. A Christmas box not to be missed!

_________
Samuel Beckett image:
- courtesy Wikipedia

Saturday 5 December 2009

the poetry twentyten project

As a result of a suggestion from regular correspondent Dominic Rivron a new web-zine poetry magazine has been launched at Poet-in-Residence. Simply click on the poetry twentyten image to go there and get involved. And if you like the idea, invite your friends to do the same.

By the end of 2010 there will exist at poetry twentyten a selection of top quality contemporary poetry from all around the world which the reader will be able to print-off using a maximum of 15 sheets of paper and no expensive coloured ink. There will be no fancy fonts and photos. There will be no need to upload space-hungry megabyte software.

Poetry twentyten proposes to let the poetry speak for itself. Our working motto will be based on the words of the American poet Walt Whitman: Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but it is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.

Anyone, anywhere, who can muster ten to twenty lines of poetry, between now and the end of October 2010 is welcome to submit. That's it. That's all there is to do.

Thursday 3 December 2009

Poetry on the Internet

These days there's a plethora of poetry magazine web-zines. These are rapidly increasing in number. Long established poetry magazines and journals are in serious danger of disappearing. Postage costs and the rising cost of paper and ink are to blame.

The trend brings with it its own problems. And they are basically these: What can one do when the e-mailed newsletter or poetry 'booklet' is not, for example a straightforward Word Document?

If I can't open the document, what then? And what can I do if I don't have a computer? Or if I have a computer but don't want to download yet more software.

The answer seems to be that I should go to the library and use its computer and printer. That's what poetry journal editors like to tell me. But what if I don't live near a library or even an Internet Cafe´? What then?