Poetry

[Padraig]

Earplay Performs "And then I knew 'twas Wind" (1992) by Toru Takemitsu - YouTube

And the poem that inspired the music -

Like Rain it sounded till it curved
And then I knew 'twas Wind -
It walked as wet as any Wave
But swept as dry as sand -
When it had pushed itself away
To some remotest Plain
A coming as of Hosts was heard
That was indeed the Rain -
It filled the Wells, it pleased the Pools
It warbled on the Road -
It pulled the spigot from the Hills
And let the Floods abroad -
It loosened acres, lifted seas
The sites of Centres stirred
Then like Elijah rode away
Upon a Wheel of Cloud.

Emily Dickinson 1872 First Published 1945

[Padraig]

There was an interesting programme last night on BBC 1 NI featuring the poetry and thoughts of Michael Longley, once a friend of and fellow ambassador for poetry with, Seamus Heaney.

BBC One - Michael Longley - Where Poems Come From

[johncorrigan]

There was an interesting programme last night on BBC 1 NI featuring the poetry and thoughts of Michael Longley, once a friend and fellow ambassador for poetry of Seamus Heaney.

BBC One - Michael Longley - Where Poems Come From

Thanks, Padraig. And speaking of Irish poets, Paul Muldoon made an appearance at 1.45 this afternoon on Radio 4 in a programme celebrating roundabouts., which his poem 'Sightseers' is concerned with.

The Sightseers
by Paul Muldoon

My father and mother, my brother and sister
and I, with uncle Pat, our dour best-loved uncle,
had set out that Sunday afternoon in July
in his broken-down Ford

not to visit some graveyard—one died of shingles,
one of fever, another's knees turned to jelly—
but the brand-new roundabout at Ballygawley,
the first in mid-Ulster.


Uncle Pat was telling us how the B-Specials
had stopped him one night somewhere near Ballygawley
and smashed his bicycle

and made him sing the Sash and curse the Pope of Rome.

They held a pistol so hard against his forehead
there was still the mark of an O when he got home.

[Forget It (U2079353)]

There was an interesting programme last night on BBC 1 NI featuring the poetry and thoughts of Michael Longley, once a friend of and fellow ambassador for poetry with, Seamus Heaney.

BBC One - Michael Longley - Where Poems Come From

Wonderful programme
Wonderful poet
Wonderful wife!

[Padraig]

Wonderful programme
Wonderful poet
Wonderful wife!

I'm glad you enjoyed it - I agree on all three points.

[Belgrove]

Picked up a copy of Simon Armitage’s latest collection, Blossomise, after hearing him read an excerpt on the equinox. It celebrates the arrival of Spring blossom with poems that are instantly accessible, full of optimism, but tinged with wistfulness at the ephemerality of the blossom season and its passing. The longer poems are punctuated by haikus:

Old Jaguar parked
under apple blossom tree
becomes snow leopard.

The collection is illustrated with prints by Angela Harding. A delightful and charming volume.

[Padraig]

Picked up a copy of Simon Armitage’s latest collection, Blossomise, after hearing him read an excerpt on the equinox. It celebrates the arrival of Spring blossom with poems that are instantly accessible, full of optimism, but tinged with wistfulness at the ephemerality of the blossom season and its passing. The longer poems are punctuated by haikus:

Old Jaguar parked
under apple blossom tree
becomes snow leopard.

The collection is illustrated with prints by Angela Harding. A delightful and charming volume.

You've sold it to me Belgrove.

[johncorrigan]

I have been very much enjoying the former Scots Makar, Jackie Kay's recent collection of poems, 'May Day'. I transcribed this from the book trying to remain as faithful as I could to the punctuation etc, but I may have made a mistake or two along the way. Hopefully not.

Nina Simone at Ronnie Scott’s, 1983

When Nina Simone sits down on her throne
her long, elegant fingers hovering above the keys,
and places her hands lovingly on her ebony and ivory,
half in flying mode, already, making her way out alone,
and settles herself down, moving back and forth, slowly,
before coming back to stroke that soft note,

her sound as distinctive as a first chord by Joni,
or a Bach’s cello suite sarabande,
she looks out and across to take us in briefly,
then down at her black and white keys,
as if we’re intruding on her private affair
with her first love. The piano understands.

And we are an unwelcome interruption
to this meditation, this communion with her muse.
How could she not loathe us, though we are rapt,
in awe, we’ll take a raised eyebrow in our direction,
or a sullen gaze. Our feet tap, chins move in and out,
heads nod, our hands take part in a private conduction.

But halfway through, in a dream-like state,
Nina Simone looks across the seas of our faces,
and rouses herself from her last demon, dimly lit,
and hurls herself at us in one full swing, the piano, dark,
angry, her voice’s rising fury, everybody knows about
MISSISSIPPI GODDAM! I see a look in her eyes

I’ve never forgotten, and when the High Priestess
raises her head (perhaps a year has passed or maybe seven!
And all sorts of things have gone down, and racism’s
still doing the rounds) MY NAME IS PEACHES she roars,
defiant! Now we seem to be on her side, tell it, tell it, we
respond to her call, we, chosen people, so when she switches

I’ll love you till the bluebells forget to bloom
And I’ll love you till the clover has lost its perfume,
I’ll love you till the poets run out of rhyme
Until the twelfth of never and that’s a long, long time

she’s soft and full of love for us; it is better than a gold star
from an old teacher, or a first class honour.
Any requests, she drawls. I put up my hand.
I am twenty-two. I shout ‘SUGAR IN MY BOWL’. And she looks
straight at me as she whispers, Sugar in my bowl,
I’ll be doing later. Then segues to Baltimore. O Baltimore

Ain’t it hard just to live, just to live. And it seems an age,
an epoch has passed, maybe every death that hurt
has hurt again: Dr King, Lorraine, the four girls in Alabama,
Medgar, Malcolm, Jimmy, she’s been to open graves, come home
to Ronnie’s. She raises her game; she digs down deep.
To be young, gifted and black (this I wrote for my friend Lorraine)

Is where it’s at! Is where it’s at! Lorraine Hansberry was only
34 when she died. A Raisin in the Sun lives on, says Simone.
Lorraine is here, she says, almost praying, the piano now a coffin.
Then SNAP! She remembers ‘Sugar in My Bowl’ suddenly.
She points her long finger at me, still pointing forty years later,
I need a little sugar in my bowl / maybe I can fix things up so
they’ll go...

Jackie Kay

[vinteuil]

Afterwards

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things"?
If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a familiar sight."
If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."
If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?
And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?

Thomas Hardy [1840-1928]

( it would be lovely to think someone might read this at one's funeral...)

[LMcD]

Afterwards

When the Present has latched its postern behind my tremulous stay,
And the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings,
Delicate-filmed as new-spun silk, will the neighbours say,
"He was a man who used to notice such things"?
If it be in the dusk when, like an eyelid's soundless blink,
The dewfall-hawk comes crossing the shades to alight
Upon the wind-warped upland thorn, a gazer may think,
"To him this must have been a familiar sight."
If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm,
When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn,
One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm,
But he could do little for them; and now he is gone."
If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door,
Watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees,
Will this thought rise on those who will meet my face no more,
"He was one who had an eye for such mysteries"?
And will any say when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom,
And a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings,
Till they rise again, as they were a new bell's boom,
"He hears it not now, but used to notice such things"?

Thomas Hardy [1840-1928]

( it would be lovely to think someone might read this at one's funeral...)

Never having encountered 'dewfall-hawk' before, I now know that it's Hardy's own beautiful alternative name for a nightjar.

[Padraig]

Thanks John and vinteuil. When I see 'Nina Simone' or 'Thomas Hardy' - say no more. Jackie Kay moves in exalted company.

Moi - I'm just re reading Heaney a book at a time - District and Circle now.

[vinteuil]

Never having encountered 'dewfall-hawk' before, I now know that it's Hardy's own beautiful alternative name for a nightjar.

... nice piece about the nightjar here -

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/03/country-diary-a-bird-associated-with-lost-souls-and-otherworldly-forces

.

[johncorrigan]

... nice piece about the nightjar here -


.

Fascinating, vinteuil. Thanks!

[LMcD]

Fascinating, vinteuil. Thanks!

Thanks from me, too!

[smittims]

'...say no more...'

I wonder what Thomas Hardy would say about Nina Simone.