'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.

A 14-Year-Old Convalescent Cat In The Winter- Gavin Ewart

I want him to have another living summer,
to lie in the sun and enjoy the douceur de vivre --
because the sun, like golden rum in a rummer,
is what makes an idle cat un tout petite peu ivre--

I want him to lie stretched out contented,
revelling in the heat, his fur all dry and warm,
an Old Age Pensioner, retired, resented
by no one, and happiness in a beelike swarm

to settle on him -- postponed for another season
that last fated hateful journal to the vet
from which there is no return (and age the reason),
which must soon come -- as I cannot forget.

Wild Geese- Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

PS September

Friday 4th September

1. Voyage- Tamar Yoseloff. Michael
2008 Forward Prize Book of Poetry

2. Wild Geese- Mary Oliver. Juliette
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/wild-geese-by-mary-oliver/

3. Inheritance- Evan. Michael
2008 Forward Prize Book of Poetry

4. A 14-Year-Old Convalescent Cat In The Winter- Gavin Ewart. Juliette

5. London- Elaine Fanshaw. Michael
2008 Forward Prize Book of Poetry


Juliette
Michael
Monica
Brian
2008 Forward Prize Book of Poetry

Clown in the Moon- Dylan Thomas

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

Everything Changes- Cicely Herbert

Based on the poem 'Alles wandelt sich' by Bertroit Brecht.

Everything changes. We plant

trees for those born later

but what's happened has happened,

and poisons poured into the seas

cannot be drained out again.

What's happened has happened.

Poisons poured into the seas

cannot be drained out again, but

everything changes. We plant

trees for those born later.

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven- W. B. Yeats

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

PS August

1. Dylan Thomas- Clown In The Moon
www.bbc.co.uk/poetryseason

2. Cicely Herbert- Everything Changes
(Based on Bertroit Brecht's 'Alles Wandelt Sich')

3. W. B. Yeats- He Wishes For The Cloths of Heaven
www.readprint.com/work-1582/He-Wishes-For-The-Cloth-Of-Heaven-William-Butler-Yeats

4. Sheenagh Pugh- In The Moment
Taken from Poetry Review volume 98:2 Summer 2009

5. Wendy Cope- The Traditionalist
Taken from Poetry Review volume 98:2 Summer 2009

6. Wendy Cope- The Radical
Taken from Poetry Review volume 98:2 Summer 2009

7. Jo Shapcott- Procedure
Taken from Poetry Review volume 98:2 Summer 2009

8. Charles Evans- Libetto
Taken from Poetry Review volume 98:2 Summer 2009


(Link to the Poetry Society's website is as follows: http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/homepage/
You cannot access the poems from there but it has some interesting stuff as well as a list of all the contributors (to the book Michael read from) and a review of the poems too!)

A Boy's Head

In it there is a space-ship
and a project
for doing away with piano lessons.

And there is
Noah's ark,
which shall be first.

And there is
an entirely new bird,
an entirely new hare,
an entirely new bumble-bee.

There is a river
that flows upwards.

There is a multiplication table.

There is anti-matter.

And it just cannot be trimmed.

I believe
that only what cannot be trimmed
is a head.

There is promise
in the circumstance
that so many people have heads.

Miroslav Holub - age 14

A Martian Sends A Postcard Home

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings -

they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.

I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.

Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:

then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.

Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.

Model T is a room with the lock inside -
a key is turned to free the world

for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.

But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.

In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.

If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep

with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.

Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room

with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises

alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.

At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs

and read about themselves -
in colour, with their eyelids shut.

Craig Raine

A Few Words on the Soul

We have a soul at times.
No one's got it non-stop,
for keeps.

Day after day,
year after year
may pass without it.

Sometimes
it will settle for awhile
only in childhood's fears and raptures
Sometimes only in astonishment
that we are old.

It rarely lends a hand
in uphill tasks,
like moving furniture,
or lifting luggage,
or going miles in shoes that pinch.

It usually steps out
whenever meat needs chopping
or forms have to be filled.

For every thousand conversations
it participates in one,
if even that,
since it prefers silence.

Just when our body goes from ache to pain,
it slips off-duty.

It's picky,
it doesn't like seeing us in crowds.
our hustling for a dubious advantage
and creaky machinations make it sick.

Joy and sorrow
aren't two different feelings for it.
It attends us
only when the two are joined.

We can count on it
when we're sure of nothing
and curious about everything.

Among the material objects
it favors clocks with pendulums
and mirrors, which keep on working
even when no one is looking.

It won't say where it comes from
or when it's taking off again,
though it's clearly expecting such questions.

We need it
but apparently
it needs us
for some reason too.

Wislawa Syzmborska
(Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh)

PS July

1. A Few Words on The Soul - Wislawa Szymborska. Juliette

2. A Martian Sends a Postcard Home - Craig Raine. Juliette

3. A Boy's Head - Miroslav Holub. Juliette

There were 3 of us but i was the only which which read this session.

Don't Say I Said

Don't Say I Said
Next time you speak to you-know-who
I’ve got a message for him.
Tell him that I have lost a stone
Since the last time I saw him.
Tell him that I’ve got three new books
Coming out soon, but play it
Cool, make it sound spontaneous.
Don’t say I said to say it.

He might ask if I’ve mentioned him.
Say I have once, in passing.
Memorise everything he says
And, no, it won’t be grassing
When you repeat his words to me –
It’s the only way to play it.
Tell him I’m toned and tanned and fine.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Say that serenity and grace
Have taken root inside me.
My top-note is frivolity
But beneath, dark passions guide me.
Tell him I’m radiant and replete
And add that every day it
Seems I am harder to resist.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Tell him that all my ancient faults
Have been eradicated.
I do not carp or analyse
As I might have when we dated.
Say I’m not bossy any more
Or, better still, convey it
Subtly, but get the point across.
Don’t say I said to say it.

Sophie Hannah
http://www.sophiehannah.com/biographical.html