The following poem came about in an unusual way. This morning, or was it yesterday, PiR visited George Szirtes' blog and found a link to the Rotterdam Poetry Festival and thence to some video of GS and others reading their work. One of these others was Matthew Sweeney who gave an entertaining anecdote and follow-up poem about a sweatmark he found on his shirt when he was in Romania one hot summer. He likened the dark shape to the outline of Ireland.
In 1945 the poet Paul Celan walked from Romania to Vienna, Austria. So there's the tentative connection. The point of the following Poet-in-Residence poem is to amplify the difference between recent so-called problems in, for example, Ireland (we may recall a recent event where a group of Romanians were abused and forced to seek refuge in a church to highlight the point) and the desperate situation in Europe at the end of WWII.
Not only in Ireland but in many other countries around the globe so-called complainants too often resort to brutal violence in the absence of reason, sense (common or otherwise) and foresight. It behoves us to remember that we all inhabit the same planet regardless of where and when various kings and men have drawn their lines in the sands of time and place.
an impression on reading Paul Celan
the beer stain on page 9
where it says
The SS had one essential job to fulfill - "Energisch durchgreifen, die Juden liquidieren," to energetically liquidate the Jews - as they did not trust the Romanians to do it thoroughly ...
resembles the poet's profile
the open mouth
the large eye
the dome skull
the broad shoulder
the beer stain
will leave a record
that will not be erased
unlike the poet's t-shirt
sweatmark
M. Sweeney's map of Ireland
his sweaty socks
his underpants
are in the laundry basket's depths
awaiting
mixed wash
colours
30 Celsius
final rinse
and short spin
-----
gw2009
Friday, 21 August 2009
Aeronwy Thomas (1943-2009) dancing in the sun
The poet Aeronwy Thomas, the daughter of Dylan Thomas, has passed away. I never met Aeronwy, although I was hoping to do so at the Laugharne Poetry Festival, but due to various reasons and circumstances I was unable to get there on time. In fact I arrived in Laugharne a month late. Nevertheless, I did visit the Boat House home of the late Dylan Thomas and his family and also the graveyard, or more correctly said: the hillside meadow with a few graves on it - and from there I followed the heron-priested estuary path over the cow-patched fields and back to the Boat House. I took Bed & Breakfast at one of the local pubs, bought some books at the Boat House shop, and had a lovely relaxing time before moving on to Tenby for the pub crowds and Prince Harry drank here! and the isolation of Skomer for the seabirds.
What Aeronwy Thomas and I have in common are that we are Welsh and that we share the same publisher; Martin Holroyd at Poetry Monthly Press. I have before me a copy of Aeronwy's collection Rooks and Poems and I recall an apt quote from the father, dad, Dylan Thomas about his daughter written in New Quay when she was barely 1 year old (Letters to Vernon Watkins) "Aeronwy doesn't walk, she climbs rocks!" and another written a year later (Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas) to Oscar Williams -"I have a shack at the edge of the cliff where my children hop like fleas in a box [...] my wife grumbles at me and them and the sea for all the mess we make, and I work among cries and clatters like a venomous beaver in a parrot house".
One or two quotes from Aeronwy Thomas's Rooks and Poems would seem to be appropriate to conclude this small tribute. It's always interesting, indeed fascinating, to know what other people, particularly poets, think and say about death - the subject, the raison d'etre so often explored by the diverse bardic and philosophical brains of this world. The following Aeronwy Thomas' quotes, as readers of her poetry would doubtless expect, neatly tidy-up some thoughts and conclusions for us.
I walk over the edge of my dream.
Backstage
my own face greets me
in the morning mirror.
(from Turning the Ghost)
the sands of time are running low
but my feet are still itching to run
to jete´e and twirl
my skirt hem may be untacked
but, look, I'm dancing in the sun.
(from Older)
-----
Details and a review of Aeronwy Thomas' recently published book Shadows and Shades - Selected Poems can be found at the Poetry Monthly link >>>
What Aeronwy Thomas and I have in common are that we are Welsh and that we share the same publisher; Martin Holroyd at Poetry Monthly Press. I have before me a copy of Aeronwy's collection Rooks and Poems and I recall an apt quote from the father, dad, Dylan Thomas about his daughter written in New Quay when she was barely 1 year old (Letters to Vernon Watkins) "Aeronwy doesn't walk, she climbs rocks!" and another written a year later (Selected Letters of Dylan Thomas) to Oscar Williams -"I have a shack at the edge of the cliff where my children hop like fleas in a box [...] my wife grumbles at me and them and the sea for all the mess we make, and I work among cries and clatters like a venomous beaver in a parrot house".
One or two quotes from Aeronwy Thomas's Rooks and Poems would seem to be appropriate to conclude this small tribute. It's always interesting, indeed fascinating, to know what other people, particularly poets, think and say about death - the subject, the raison d'etre so often explored by the diverse bardic and philosophical brains of this world. The following Aeronwy Thomas' quotes, as readers of her poetry would doubtless expect, neatly tidy-up some thoughts and conclusions for us.
I walk over the edge of my dream.
Backstage
my own face greets me
in the morning mirror.
(from Turning the Ghost)
the sands of time are running low
but my feet are still itching to run
to jete´e and twirl
my skirt hem may be untacked
but, look, I'm dancing in the sun.
(from Older)
-----
Details and a review of Aeronwy Thomas' recently published book Shadows and Shades - Selected Poems can be found at the Poetry Monthly link >>>
Monday, 17 August 2009
Searching the Atlas
A is for Atlas
In the Atlas and the desert
the stars twinkle and shine.
An innocent childhood. A far journey.
Tonight you break camp.
They fold the tents
and we move ourselves on
as moths by moonlight.
The caravan in the dark silence
is a journey into eternity
and the night is long.
Ride.
Walk.
Shield your eyes.
Think your thoughts.
Through the sea of sand
we wander to the next oasis
where we make fire.
Bake bread.
Sing our poetry.
Beat our drums.
By night the wind shapes the rocks.
The sand.
In grains our thoughts. Whispers in dreams.
Light is the heart of the night
when you say:
We still have a long way to go...
______
gw 2009
In the Atlas and the desert
the stars twinkle and shine.
An innocent childhood. A far journey.
Tonight you break camp.
They fold the tents
and we move ourselves on
as moths by moonlight.
The caravan in the dark silence
is a journey into eternity
and the night is long.
Ride.
Walk.
Shield your eyes.
Think your thoughts.
Through the sea of sand
we wander to the next oasis
where we make fire.
Bake bread.
Sing our poetry.
Beat our drums.
By night the wind shapes the rocks.
The sand.
In grains our thoughts. Whispers in dreams.
Light is the heart of the night
when you say:
We still have a long way to go...
______
gw 2009
Thursday, 23 July 2009
Graham Greene dreams about God
The final item in this Graham Greene mini-series concerns his interesting dream about God. In his novel The Honorary Consul Greene's dreamed theory is explained in the following passage:
The God I believe in must be responsible for all the evil as well as for all the saints. He has to be a God made in our image with a night-side as well as a day-side. When you speak of the horror [...] you are speaking of the night-side of God. I believe the time will come when the night-side will wither away [...] and we shall see only the simple daylight of the good God. You believe in evolution [...] even though whole generations [...] slip backwards to the beasts. It is a long struggle and a long suffering evolution, and I believe God is suffering the same evolution that we are, but perhaps with more pain.
The God I believe in must be responsible for all the evil as well as for all the saints. He has to be a God made in our image with a night-side as well as a day-side. When you speak of the horror [...] you are speaking of the night-side of God. I believe the time will come when the night-side will wither away [...] and we shall see only the simple daylight of the good God. You believe in evolution [...] even though whole generations [...] slip backwards to the beasts. It is a long struggle and a long suffering evolution, and I believe God is suffering the same evolution that we are, but perhaps with more pain.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Graham Greene and A Passer-by by Robert Bridges
In a dream the author Graham Greene's mother appeared to him and read to him a poem which he had enjoyed as a boy. This so impressed Greene that he mentioned it in his posthumous dream diary, A World of My Own.
A Passer-by
Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
That fearest not sea rising, nor sky clouding,
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?
Ah! soon, when winter has all our vales opprest,
When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,
Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest
In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.
I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,
Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:
I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,
And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,
Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare:
Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped grandest
Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair
Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.
And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless,
I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.
But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.
--------
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
A Passer-by
Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,
Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,
That fearest not sea rising, nor sky clouding,
Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?
Ah! soon, when winter has all our vales opprest,
When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,
Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest
In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.
I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,
Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:
I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,
And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,
Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare:
Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped grandest
Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair
Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.
And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless,
I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine
That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,
Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.
But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,
As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.
--------
Robert Bridges (1844-1930)
Thursday, 2 July 2009
Graham Greene's dream diary
Graham Greene was one of the outstanding writers of the twentieth century. He will be remembered for his wonderful books; books such as Our Man in Havana, Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, and The Power and the Glory.
Shortly before he died he was visited by two women at the hospital in Vevey, Switzerland. One was his daughter Caroline. The other was Yvonne Cloetta and he asked her to prepare his dream diary and to publish it following his death. This posthumous book he would call A World of My Own after a quote from Heraclitus of Ephesus (500 BC): The waking have one world in common, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.
Greene kept a dream diary for almost twenty-five years. The result ran to more than 800 pages. He began the diary in 1965 and completed it in 1989. The published selection, chosen by Greene, runs to 116 pages. It was published in 1992, the year after Greene's death.
A few of my short stories have been drawn from [dream] memories, Greene admits. In Dream of a Strange Land he recorded his dream experience as a leper seeking treatment in Sweden. Only the sound of a shot with which the printed tale ends has been added, he reveals. Another story The Root of All Evil takes place in 19th century Germany. In this story he changed nothing after he woke.
There is another side to dreams that interests Graham Greene and this is when dreams contain what he calls scraps of the future. He points us to J W Dunne's interesting and investigative book Experiment with Time. I note time and again incidents ... a few days after the dream, Greene says. He is convinced Dunne was right when he claims that some dreams can foreshadow future events.
In his dream diary Graham Greene recorded a dream in which he found himself writing a poem for a competition in a magazine called Time and Tide. It was about my own death, he tells his readers
The Room Next Door
From the room next door
The TV talks to me
Of sickness, nettlerash, and herbal tea.
My breath is folded up
Like sheets in lavender.
The end for me
Arrives like nursery tea.
(title idea and verse construction by P-i-R)
When World War I broke out Graham Greene was a young boy. But in A World of My Own he records two dreams about the so-called Great War. The dream that interests Poet-in-Residence is the one where Graham Greene finds himself in the body of Wilfred Owen the poet. In fact he is Owen. He is wearing a steel helmet and an officers uniform and he is in a dug-out. There he begins to recite a verse he has called Givenchy to a girl in a photograph.
Givenchy
Imagine, dear, the shallow trench,
An impregnable redoubt
For this good night and more...
But suddenly the weariness of the war overcomes him and he begins, as Wilfred Owen, to weep. And as he sobs a voice cries out, "The Germans have dropped gas bombs..."
In her foreword written at Vevey in October 1991 Yvonne Cloetta writes,-
Graham -
In The Power and the Glory you wrote: 'The glittering worlds lay there in space like a promise; the world was not the universe. Somewhere Christ might not have died.'
If such a place exists, you have certainly found it.
A World of My Own a dream diary
Graham Greene
Penguin Books, Reinhardt Books, Alfred A Knopf
c) 1993, 1992, 1992
Shortly before he died he was visited by two women at the hospital in Vevey, Switzerland. One was his daughter Caroline. The other was Yvonne Cloetta and he asked her to prepare his dream diary and to publish it following his death. This posthumous book he would call A World of My Own after a quote from Heraclitus of Ephesus (500 BC): The waking have one world in common, but the sleeping turn aside each into a world of his own.
Greene kept a dream diary for almost twenty-five years. The result ran to more than 800 pages. He began the diary in 1965 and completed it in 1989. The published selection, chosen by Greene, runs to 116 pages. It was published in 1992, the year after Greene's death.
A few of my short stories have been drawn from [dream] memories, Greene admits. In Dream of a Strange Land he recorded his dream experience as a leper seeking treatment in Sweden. Only the sound of a shot with which the printed tale ends has been added, he reveals. Another story The Root of All Evil takes place in 19th century Germany. In this story he changed nothing after he woke.
There is another side to dreams that interests Graham Greene and this is when dreams contain what he calls scraps of the future. He points us to J W Dunne's interesting and investigative book Experiment with Time. I note time and again incidents ... a few days after the dream, Greene says. He is convinced Dunne was right when he claims that some dreams can foreshadow future events.
In his dream diary Graham Greene recorded a dream in which he found himself writing a poem for a competition in a magazine called Time and Tide. It was about my own death, he tells his readers
The Room Next Door
From the room next door
The TV talks to me
Of sickness, nettlerash, and herbal tea.
My breath is folded up
Like sheets in lavender.
The end for me
Arrives like nursery tea.
(title idea and verse construction by P-i-R)
When World War I broke out Graham Greene was a young boy. But in A World of My Own he records two dreams about the so-called Great War. The dream that interests Poet-in-Residence is the one where Graham Greene finds himself in the body of Wilfred Owen the poet. In fact he is Owen. He is wearing a steel helmet and an officers uniform and he is in a dug-out. There he begins to recite a verse he has called Givenchy to a girl in a photograph.
Givenchy
Imagine, dear, the shallow trench,
An impregnable redoubt
For this good night and more...
But suddenly the weariness of the war overcomes him and he begins, as Wilfred Owen, to weep. And as he sobs a voice cries out, "The Germans have dropped gas bombs..."
In her foreword written at Vevey in October 1991 Yvonne Cloetta writes,-
Graham -
In The Power and the Glory you wrote: 'The glittering worlds lay there in space like a promise; the world was not the universe. Somewhere Christ might not have died.'
If such a place exists, you have certainly found it.
A World of My Own a dream diary
Graham Greene
Penguin Books, Reinhardt Books, Alfred A Knopf
c) 1993, 1992, 1992
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Klaus Bachler waves the white flag
Klaus Bachler is, or more correctly was, the manager of Vienna's Burgtheater.
Yesterday evening commencing at 8pm, and it may well have gone on until 3am, but even a Poet-in-Residence has to get some sleep, was Klaus Bachler's leaving party. Leaving after 10 years in the boss's chair Bachler is on his way to the Bavarian city of Munich to take charge of the Opera.
To be quite frank it was a rather dreary and over-priced affair. There was much scripted interviewing sprinkled with the usual in-jokes and some general pontificating from the stage. Actors are better when they stick to acting.
Unfortunately many of the audience, due to the special seating arrangements, couldn't see the actors, or at most only the heads of the tallest ones. Fortunately the Burg's best character actor Joachim Meyerhoff had the presence of mind to get to the front centre of the stage where he could be clearly seen, or at least the top two-thirds of him. But he was one of the few exceptions.
The Austrian Education Minister, a lady reported to have claimed 1,400 Euros in expenses for her make-up, got in on the act. And that really summed up the whole evening. A Finance Minister might have had something useful to say; but an Education Minister on the stage of an Austrian theatre? I ask you!
At the end of the official proceedings, after the edited song and dance routine, Bachler was duly hoisted onto the shoulders of a couple of actors and a white sheet, a flag of surrender, thrust into his hands. He briefly waved it. And that was that.
The real party followed but by then many of us were already on our way home.
Bachler will be remembered as the man who followed the man in the long black coat.°
°title of a Bob Dylan song. A reference to Bachler's predecessor, the controversial Claus Peymann who worked closely with Thomas Bernhard, and frequently walked through the streets of Vienna in his long coat. Peymann, courageous and beyond politics, introduced Vienna to its history with Bernhard's anti-Nazi play Heldenplatz. His leaving party was a theatrical event of the first magnitude.
Yesterday evening commencing at 8pm, and it may well have gone on until 3am, but even a Poet-in-Residence has to get some sleep, was Klaus Bachler's leaving party. Leaving after 10 years in the boss's chair Bachler is on his way to the Bavarian city of Munich to take charge of the Opera.
To be quite frank it was a rather dreary and over-priced affair. There was much scripted interviewing sprinkled with the usual in-jokes and some general pontificating from the stage. Actors are better when they stick to acting.
Unfortunately many of the audience, due to the special seating arrangements, couldn't see the actors, or at most only the heads of the tallest ones. Fortunately the Burg's best character actor Joachim Meyerhoff had the presence of mind to get to the front centre of the stage where he could be clearly seen, or at least the top two-thirds of him. But he was one of the few exceptions.
The Austrian Education Minister, a lady reported to have claimed 1,400 Euros in expenses for her make-up, got in on the act. And that really summed up the whole evening. A Finance Minister might have had something useful to say; but an Education Minister on the stage of an Austrian theatre? I ask you!
At the end of the official proceedings, after the edited song and dance routine, Bachler was duly hoisted onto the shoulders of a couple of actors and a white sheet, a flag of surrender, thrust into his hands. He briefly waved it. And that was that.
The real party followed but by then many of us were already on our way home.
Bachler will be remembered as the man who followed the man in the long black coat.°
°title of a Bob Dylan song. A reference to Bachler's predecessor, the controversial Claus Peymann who worked closely with Thomas Bernhard, and frequently walked through the streets of Vienna in his long coat. Peymann, courageous and beyond politics, introduced Vienna to its history with Bernhard's anti-Nazi play Heldenplatz. His leaving party was a theatrical event of the first magnitude.
And, for amusement only, more Virginia Woolf
The following Virgina Woolf how-to-write-a-novel item was composed in the usual fashion; that is, it's based on words and phrases and ideas scoured from Virginia Woolf's diaries. Despite the inclusion of the overconfident adjective blessed it is not intended to be sacrilege and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Breakdown in miniature
The story shall run fast and free
Not poke in dusty holes and corners.
The circle should be complete each time
And the blessed thing brought to an end.
Barker's pins have no points to them!
You want to buy carpets, pots and chairs
You want to have fifty pounds in the Bank.
The material is not so rich as it was!
Don't doubt that the theme will be good or bad
Don't flog your brains all afternoon
Now write the greatest book in the world
It's only a question of getting up steam.
-----
gw2009
Breakdown in miniature
The story shall run fast and free
Not poke in dusty holes and corners.
The circle should be complete each time
And the blessed thing brought to an end.
Barker's pins have no points to them!
You want to buy carpets, pots and chairs
You want to have fifty pounds in the Bank.
The material is not so rich as it was!
Don't doubt that the theme will be good or bad
Don't flog your brains all afternoon
Now write the greatest book in the world
It's only a question of getting up steam.
-----
gw2009
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