Saturday 5 December 2009

'I have longed to move away' - Dylan Thomas

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

'In My Craft or Sullen Art' - Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay not praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

December 09

1. 'Poem in October' - Dylan Thomas. Mitra.
(This was a special viewing of a short animated film made my Mitra's husband)

2. 'Prologue' - Dylan Thomas. Phill.

3. 'Do not go gentle' - Dylan Thomas. Michael.

4. 'In my craft or sullen art' - Dylan Thomas. Juliette.

5. 'I have longed to move away' - Dylan Thomas. Hannah.

6. 'And death shall have no dominion' - Dylan Thomas. Phill.

7. ' It is the sinners dust-tounged bell' - Dylan Thomas. Michael.

'Untitled' - poem on 'presence' by Rumi.

Stewart Pearce is the Master of Voice at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. He works with the actors to aid us all to meet the wonderful opportunity of speaking in an amphitheatre built for sound; an amphitheatre built also for some of the most beautiful sounds conjured by the English language, under the feather of William Shakespeare. When we gather the actors on the first day of rehersal at the Globe, I particularly love the pregnant moment of silence before I start to impart welcomes, introductions, and all the information that enables a group of skilled craftspeople to make something as elusive as a production of a Shakespeare play. I try to woo this expectant moment of stillness before business by reading a poem, and this year I read this:

This we have now
Is not imagination

This is not
Grief or Joy

Not a judging state
Or an elation
Or sadness

These come
And go

This is the presence
That doesn't

It's dawn, Husam
Here in the splendour of coral
Inside the friend, the simple truth
Of what Hallaj said

When grapes turn to wine
They're wanting
This

When the nightsky pours by
It's really a crowd of beggars
And they all want some of this!

This
That we are now
Created the body, cell by cell
Like bees building a honeycomb

The human body and the Universe
Grew from this,
Not this
From the Universe and the human body.


Rumi writes of presence and when I dare to read aloud one of his resonant thoughts I draw on all of my work with Stewart.

November 09

1. 'Quickthorn' - Siobhan Campbell. Michael.

2. 'Untitled' - Rumi. Juliette.
(This poem is from The Alchemy of Voice by Stewart Pearce)

3. 'When all this is over' - Siobhan Campbell. Michael.

4. 'Mirror' - Slyvia Plath. Debs.

'Oranges' - Gary Soto

The first time I walked
With a girl, I was twelve,
Cold, and weighted down
With two oranges in my jacket.
December. Frost cracking
Beneath my steps, my breath
Before me, then gone,
As I walked toward
Her house, the one whose
Porch light burned yellow
Night and day, in any weather.
A dog barked at me, until
She came out pulling
At her gloves, face bright
With rouge. I smiled,
Touched her shoulder, and led
Her down the street, across
A used car lot and a line
Of newly planted trees,
Until we were breathing
Before a drugstore. We
Entered, the tiny bell
Bringing a saleslady
Down a narrow isle of goods.
I turned to the candies
Tiered like bleachers,
And asked what she wanted -
Light in her eyes, a smile
Starting at the corners
Of her mouth. I fingered
A nickel in my pocket,
And when she lifted a chocolate
That cost a dime,
I didn't say anything.
I took the nickel from
My pocket, then an orange,
And set them quietly on
The counter. When I looked up,
The lady's eyes met mine,
And held them, knowing
Very well what it was all
About.

Outside,
A few cars hissing past,
Fog hanging like old
Coats between the trees.
I took my girl's hand
In mine for two blocks,
Then released it to let
Her unwrap the chocolate.
I peeled my orange
That was so bright against
The gray of December
That, from some distance,
Someone might have though
I was making a fire in my hands.

'Shocks of Recognition - The photography of Jan Voster'

We all suffer our own daily deaths - our spiritual stagnation, when our sense of wonders fail: when we are no longer in awe of the Creation. The world is like the sea coming into the fine ports of our senses. God knows what kind of cargo to expect - but too often we erect barriers, we blockade these ports. We send the strange, mysterious ships away. We are wary of encountering the unknown. We become walled in by fixed convictions...blinkered beliefs...arrogant assumptions. I think it is vital for our own well-being to keep opening new doors onto life. Miseosler Holeb, a poet from Prague, urges us to take that forbidding step, to set forth and discover:



Go and open the door:

Even if there's only

The darkness, ticking;

Even if there's only

The hollow wind;

Even if nothing is there

Go and open the door.



A poem like this with it keen vision of renewal, its refreshing lift of enthusiasm, encourages all of us to develop a sense of awareness - a sense of reading, an openess to experience. Poetry/painting/photography of this kind is about seeing. Seeing what others have forgotten to see. In this respect Jan Voster is a see-r. A photograph may only take a split second of execution but it represents, as Susan Santag said, ' a lifetime of preparation' A lifetime of walking around with ones eyes opened. Jan Voster has eyes sharp as tin openers. Art of any kind is like a balloon. It takes you up into the air. It gives you and overview of things, but it also has to function as a parachute to take you down safely to earth again.

October 09

1. 'Untitled' - Hafez. Mitra.
(This poem was Persian - Mitra read it out both in its original form and in translation)

2. 'After Rain' - Jo Bell. Michael.

3. 'Defrosting' - Susan Richardson. Phill.

4. 'Oranges' - Gary Sotto. Juliette.

5. 'Berg' - Hillary Menos. Michael.

6. 'The force that through the green fuse drives the flower' - Dylan Thomas. Phill.

7. 'Go and open the door' - Miseosler Holeb. Juliette.
(This is from 'Shocks of Recognition: The Landscape of Remembrance.' The photography of Jan Voster)

8. 'Lament of Heledd' - Dannie Abse. Michael.