The Bright Field - R. S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field 

for a while, and gone my way 

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl

of great price, the one field that had

the treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.

Postscript - Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west

Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,

In September or October, when the wind

And the light are working off each other

So that the ocean on one side is wild

With foam and glitter, and inland among stones

The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit

By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,

Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,

Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads

Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.

Useless to think you'll park and capture it

More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,

A hurry through which known and strange things pass

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open. 

Breakfast - Jaques Prevert

He put the coffee

In his cup

He put the milk

In the cup of coffee

He put the sugar

In the cup of coffee

He stirred it

With the little spoon

He drank the coffee

And he put the cup down

Without speaking to me

He lit

A cigarette

He blew rings

With the smoke

He put the ash

In the ash-tray

Without speaking to me

Without looking at me

He got up

He put

His hat on

He put his raincoat on

Because it was raining

And he went out

Into the rain

Without a word

Without looking at me

And I put

My head in my hands

And I cried

Incandescent May 2010

1. Jacques Prevert 'Breakfast' Juliette

2. U. A. Fanthorpe 'Rising Damp' Steve

3. R. S. Thomas 'The Bright Field' Hannah

4. Seamus Heaney 'Postscript' Juliette

5. Cecil Day-Lewis 'Walking Away' Steve

Tides - Hugo Williams

The evening advances, then withdraws again

Leaving our cups and books like islands on the floor.

We are drifting you and I,

As far from one another as the young heroes

Of these two novels we have just laid down.

For that is happiness: to wander alone

Surrounded by the same moon, whose tides remind us of

ourselves.

Our distances, and what we leave behind.

The lamp left on, the curtains letting in the light.

These things were promises. No doubt we will come back to them. 

Patience

I know you're busy, so I'll try to keep this short.

A Buddhist monk once said: "The spiritual journey requires a cup of wisdom, a barrel of love, and an ocean of patience." This is also true about reading poetry. If you have patience the rest will follow. Guaranteed.

Make no mistake. You cannot read poetry like you read a newspaper. You can't read it like you read a novel. You can't even read it the way you would study technical information. 

William Carlos Williams once called poetry "a machine made out of words." Well, what's a machine for? A machine does something, right? Otherwise it's not a  machine. And a machine is only good if it works.

Some machines need electricity to work. These machines will not do anything unless they're plugged in or their batteries are charged. Other machines need a human operator to turn a crank or to pedal or push.

Poetry needs patience in order to work. Patience is to poetry as electricity is to the vacuum cleaner. But what does poetry do when it works? We know what a vacuum cleaner does. But if poetry is a machine, then what kind of machine is it?

Poetry is an imagination machine. Good poetry, given patience, lights up your imagination in some way. It surprises you, tickles you, gives you a nudge, or even awes you. It might reveal a new perspective, dazzle your mind's eye, or broaden your inner vision. 

Sometimes It Happens - Brian Patten

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then

You are not friends,

And friendship has passed.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved an d then

You are not loved,

And love is passed.

And whole days are lost and among them

A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then

You do not want to speak.

Then the opportunity has passed.

Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then

There is somewhere to go,

Then you have bypassed. 

And the years flare up and are gone,

Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.

You wonder if these things matter and then

As soon as you begin to wonder if these things matter

They cease to matter,

And caring is past.

And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

(NB - Brian Patten said of writing, 'Sometimes it doesn't happen for  a long time, then suddenly a line comes. It's like an underground stream which you tap into with a stick until it runs dry.')

Incandescent April Meeting 2010

1. Sometimes it happens - Brian Patten. Juliette.

2. The Euphamisms - Peter Reading. Mike. 

(taken from Beyond Bedlam, an anthology of poems written in co-ordination with a mental health charity)

3. Little Owl Who Lives In The Orchard - Mary Oliver. Gina.

4. A Scattering - Christopher Reid. Steve.

5. Tides - Hugo Williams. Hannah.

6. Patience - Anon. Juliette. 

(taken from a book on how to read poetry)

GuardianCardiff

We are being mentioned....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cardiff/2010/mar/18/thursday-18-march

Diaries - Joe Sheerin

Tonight I read my first son's 

childhood out. A sneak preview

I gather up his toys in armfuls

and put his books

of frog princes and wild geese and

pumpkin brides and dwarfs where they belong

He has crossed the rapid flood

into the sparse terrain where I range

Chest deep in muddy water holding

his innocence aloft like a gun, I draw

my breath in, half hoping he will drown

He shakes himself like a dog on my ground

And now neither of us can go back.

Joy - Hugo Williams

Not so much a sting

as a faint burn

not so much a pain

as the memory of pain

the memory of tears

flowing freely down cheeks

worse in the world

than stinging nettle stings

and nothing better

than cool dock leaves. 

The Ball Poem - John Berryman

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,

What, what is he to do? I saw it go

Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then

Merrily over - there it is in the water!

No use to say 'O there are other balls':

An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy

As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down

All his young days into the harbour where

His ball went. I would not intrude on him,

A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now

He senses first responsibility

In a world of possessions. People will take balls,

Balls will be lost always, little boy,

And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.

He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,

The epistemology of loss, how to stand up

Knowing what every man must one day know

And most know many days, how to stand up

And gradually light returns to the street,

A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,

Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark

Floor of the harbour ... I am everywhere,

I suffer and move, my mind and heart move

With all that move me, under the water

Or whistling, I am not a little boy. 

Vernon Watkins

It has always been an axiom of mine that a true style cannot be learnt from a contemporary. I am not suggesting that poets living at the same time cannot help each other; they can do this, profoundly, but they cannot teach a style. Style is, I believe, a root thing, and roots do not run along the surface of letters. Although poetry is always, in one sense, revolutionary, because it takes the reader by surprise, it is always its relation to the past that gives it depth. Since a poet is  witness, carrying news of his time to future generations, it would seem that the sharper and clearer his perceptions are, the more acute and lasting will be his findings; and yet if clarity is the only criterion, his function will serve no better than a camera, and his art will be journalism. The perceptions of a poet must be composite, as he is a witness for the living and the dead at the same time. If he observes the two responsibilities, he will begin to see what is ancient in the contemporary scene and what is contemporary in the ancient; and his style will emerge from that collision, from that twofold perception. Only gradually does a poet find and begin to realize his particular task, for the task of each poet is different, and his true affinities in the poetry of past ages are not quickly understood. Style which has depth is recognised at once as it has immediacy, and also the corroboration of past ages; but among contemporaries it is distinction and opposition that foster style. True and different talents may feed each other, but they can only do so by obeying deep-rooted affinities, and by a divergence of style. The most fruitful relationship between contemporary poets is where a fundamental difference of style exists to serve a single truth, which then has more than one manifestation, or different truths which are bound together by affinity and indissoluble respect and affection. If we look back through the centuries of our poetry we shall find many examples of these fruitful oppositions, of two poets innately and fundamentally different in idiom and style, but often bound by friendship and a common theme, whose work has been strengthened, not by competition, but by the assurance and expectation of works from a complementary talent. I think of Hopkins and Bridges, Browning and Landor, Shelley and Byron, Wordsworth and Coleridge, Shakespeare, Marlowe and Ben Jonson, to name only a few; and European poetry is equally rich in these examples. Lyrically every poet is alone, but in the range of his development no poet is alone. Style is a root thing; development is something which unfolds. 

Incandesent 18th March 2010

1. Hillary Llewellyn-Williams. 'No.7' from the 'Persephone' section of Greenland. Micheal.

2. John Berryman - 'The Ball Poem'. Juliette. 

3. Hillary Llewellyn-Williams. 'No.1' from the 'Persephone' section of Greenland. Micheal.

4. Joe Sheerin 'Diaries'. Juliette.

5. Poem from Phillip Gross' 'Watertable'. Micheal.

6. Hugo Williams - 'Joy'. Juliette.

7. A piece of prose by Vernon Watkins about poetry. Juliette.  

'Snow' - Louis Macneice

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkeness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes -
On the tounge on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands -
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses

'Everyone Sang' - Siegfried Sassoon

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away ... O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing
will never be done.

'Not Waving But Drowning' - Stevie Smith

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning;
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

'A Bowl of Warm Air' - Moniza Alvi

Someone is falling towards you
as an apple falls from a branch,
moving slowly, imperceptibly as if
into a new political epoch,
or excitedly like a dog towards a bone.
He is holding in both hands
everything he knows he has -
a bowl of warm air.

He has sighted you from afar
as if you were a dramatic crooked tree
on the horizon and he has seen you close up
like the underside of a mushroom.
But he cannot open you like a newspaper
or put you down like a newspaper.

And you are satisfied that he is veering towards you
and that he is adjusting his speed
and that the sun and the wind and rain are in front of him
and the sun and the wind and the rain are behind him.

'New Year Snow' - Frances Horovitz

For three days we waited,
a bowl of dull quartz for sky.
At night the valley dreamed of snow,
lost Christmas angels with dark-white wings
flailing the hills.
I dreamed a poem, perfect
as the first five-pointed flake,
that melted at dawn:
a Janus-time
to peer back at the guttering dark days,
trajectories of the spent year.
And then snow fell.
Within an hour, a world immaculate
as January's new-hung page.
We breathe the radiant air like men new-born.
The children rush before us.
As in a dream of snow
we track through crystal fields
to the green horizon
and the sun's reflected rose.

'Winter' - Suzuki Masajo

no escaping it -
I must step on fallen leaves
to take this path

February 2010

1. New Year Snow - Frances Horovitz. Juliette

2. Ambulances - Philip Larkin. Phill

3. Not Waving But Drowning - Stevie Smith. Hannah

4. A Bowl of Warm Air - Moniza Alvi. Juliette

5. An Arundel Tomb - Philip Larkin. Phill

6. Everyone Sang - Siegfried Sassoon. Hannah

7. Reading Poetry - Lemm Sissay. Juliette NB This was not a poem, but an article on how to read poetry, wirtten by the resident poet at the Southbank Centre. The link to the article will be posted on the blog.

8. As Bad As A Mile - Philip Larkin. Phill

9. Snow - Louis Macneice. Hannah

10. Winter - Suzuki Masajo. Juliette NB This was a Haiku poem, which is a 3 lined poem that follows the structure 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables.