Is the poet essentially vagrant?

I've been reading George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London for comfort in these gloomy, doomy times. The parallels between poets and tramps struck me - idle wanderings being the primary occupation of both; absence of wages the shared predicament. The Irish tradition has a strong itinerant identification. I thought of Beckett's tramps and then Patrick Kavanagh's Memory of my Father, a favourite poem at school.

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumble on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me a riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
'I was once your father.'

Kavanagh's sentiment may evoke a Christian sensibility but an earlier bardic poet, David O' Bruadair, who fell to tramping (thanks to the Cromwellian invasions) packs more of a punch:

Our priests are scarred with
      greed and pride,
and all our poets are cut down
      to size:
but worst of all I realise
that no one poor is considered
    wise.

Blast you, world, you sneaky
     bitch
may our guts and liver in
     agony split!
What's it to you if I become
     rich?
What's it to you if your children
    slip?

The once-proud men of this land
    have swapped
giving for gaining, music for
   crap:
no tunes on the pipes, no music
   on harps -
We ourselves have buried the
   summer at last.

 Written by a tramp in Ireland around 1690 and resonant today as I travel on the Central line beneath the City of London.

 

Great to hear from you Fiona. Where has everyone gone? Maybe, as in James's poem, fallen in amongst lotus-eaters? I shall post something longer soon.

Ashok

Come on, Venteknackers!

Perhaps a certain autumnal mouldering is creeping over us as the bright poets of summer are gently lowered towards their wintry shallow hibernation (like polar bears).

And is it any wonder if we lose heart in these days of Mammon?

Still, there is always the sweet pleasure of reading. This summer my favourite moments were spent reading Anne Carson's Eros The Bittersweet, a book about romantic love beginning with an interpretation of Sappho's famous fragment 31.

Fragment 105 seems right for the season:

As a sweet apple turns red on a high branch,
high on the highest branch and the applepickers forgot -
well, no they didn't forget - were not able to reach...

I also loved reading a book found by chance, remaindered in a Kerry pound shop; a recent biography of James Joyce by Edna O'Brien (Irish Independent). The beauty of this book comes from a great writer's particular insight on and recognition of the true artist's necessary ruthlessness and also its price. 'His exile was so complete within himself that interruption could not endanger it, only time could do that. Time in which he would begin his ''book of the dark'', Finnegans Wake, a book in which people were not only people, they were as well rivers, bushes, mounds, boundless embodiments of Irish mythological figures, human longings, human impulses caught in an archetypal sweep. New words, phantasmagoric words ''breathing in upon his breaking brain''. 

What books were other Venteknackers reading this summer I wonder? After the long silence let's share.

And what were we all writing? I was working on an interminable novel. My one poetic effort was this:

Wren in the Holly bushes

spoon spill of song from a Silver Birch,

        crow passages cloud tumble across blue,

throb of a harvester somewhere

        caught by a breeze at the edge of wind,

and the river on my side,

washing all away,

washing all away.

I'd love to hear from you. Fiona

The end of the Plane trees

In the Guardian this week: an article about how within a few years all the beautiful trees we saw on the Canal Du Midi will be gone-decimated by a disease apparently.

I have not been writing I'm afraid. Not been feeling too good of late.

Love to all

Gala Concert in London Wednesday 20th July

Concert in aid of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra. Fiona's daughter, Eorann is organising this event and is offering a FREE glass of wine or champagne for every Ventenacker and guest who would like to come.

For more info click the link below:

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1r2IhjNUHFxBuO6dieHMkWYv_hM1zH-Yf0TZ-ExkRy3E/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

Free poetry fun at the Barbican

http://www.barbican.org.uk/education/event-detail.asp?id=12446&utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=CCED140711&utm_content=ChildrenandFamily_140711

shambles at Poetry Soc: are we bovvered?

http://displacement-poetry.blogspot.com/2011/06/poetry-society-and-organisational.html

Coming up for air in the middle of my long hearing ...

TIME OFF

I seem to have fallen in with lotus-eaters.

If there was something they were meant to remember

It’s long forgotten. Weekends take ages.

Strangers are included and their secrets

Are not probed for; the hosts have none of their own.

Their minds are quite unclouded by any fear

Of us holding back on facts or liking.

It’s my turn to queue for the croissants au beurre

While they make tea, put out the raspberry jam.

Pushkin in Britain

Passing the Poet's Church (St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Covent Garden) yesterday, which Peter Ackroyd has described as 'the crossroads between time and eternity', I noticed a poster in Russian and was curious.
  Inside the temperature had dropped radically and it wasn't just the cool of the dark architecture. A Russian poetry tournament was in action affecting even the climate. 'Pushkin in Britain' the title, the tournament was a weekend-long contest to find 'the king of king's of Russian poetry.' Wow!
  From the pulpit a young guy dressed in black called up the contestants. One by one they emerged from the congregation to recite. A big screen ran fairly rocky translations, but good enough to transport the reader not only to a sense of difference in place and time, but to a sense of the historic legacy unique to Russian poetry. I sat at the back with my plastic bag of shopping and the Sunday chicken could just look after itself. I was being infused with Russian melody and images, and also with memories: samizdat and Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, the gulags, the great terror under Stalin and the noble part played by poetry in maintaining truth.
   'Reality,' Mandelstam wrote, 'is a continuum, and prose is a disjunct expression of it.' One of the contestant poets had a line about hiring a prostitute to listen to his poetry. There was a sense of disjuncture for this diaspora of Russian souls. Outside in the sunshine the streets were thronged with shoppers, the only imperative being to buy, buy, buy. But inside, behind the thick black walls of the poet's church, it felt like a fortunate, if counter-cultural, convergence. And then the thought suddenly struck me that perhaps I was witnessing the beginnings of something big - Poetry readings may be the next Rock and Roll!
  I don't know what the outcome of the contest was but here is a link to the site for further info.

http://www.pushkininbritain.com/

Poetry International Festival, Live Stream

From June 14th access to the live events - click on following: http://international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=19729&skin=pifhttp://international.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=19729&skin=pif

Poetry Competition

Lightship are running an interesting collection of writing comps. Here is the contact address if anyone is interested. http://www.lightshippublishing.co.uk/competitions

Sean O'Brien gave a resounding reading at the LRB bookshop the other night where Ashok and I attended to the refreshments and rubbernecked the rubberneckers. I noticed a fair share of delightful bitchiness going on between some of the minor poets who turned up. It reminded me of the theatre world I used to inhabit. Minus the sex.

Kleinzahler Gig

Saw him in last night Newcastle with Andrew, Sean-he is good value; read Snow in North Jersey which is one of his I've always liked. As Ashok said he is reading in London,(and elsewhere I think) worth getting to see him if only for his delivery and style of reading. I bought Sleeping it off in Rapid City his new selected edition.

In more detail just in case!

Do hope you can come. LG

mon 16 may, a summer chorus—with roisin tierney, jennifer martin, martyn crucefix, jacqueline saphra, geraldine paine, robert vas dias, eve grubin and carrie etter

Summer starts as ever, with a seasonal chorus of voices, familiar and new:

* Dubliner Roisin Tierney, recently returned to London from several years in Spain—pamphlet Dream Endings (Rack Press, 2011);

* Jennifer Martin has a poetry MA from Bath Spa University and was shortlisted for a 2010 Eric Gregory Award;

* Martyn Crucefix’s new (fifth) Enitharmon collection, Hurt, follows his highly praised translation of Rilke’s Duino Elegies (2006);

* Jacqueline Saphra’s Rock’n’Roll Mamma (Flarestack, 2008) will be followed this summer by The Kitchen of Lovely Contraptions (Flipped Eye, 2011);

* Geraldine Paine (b. London, lives in Kent, Glamorgan M.Phil) had her first collection, The Go-Away Bird published by Belfast’s Lapwing Publications in 2008;

Anglo-American Poetry-School-tutor Robert Vas Dias has had nine collections published in UK and US including Still Life (Shearsman, 2010);

* Eve Grubin (Morning Prayer, Sheep Meadow Press) lectures at NYU in London and is Poet-in-Residence at London School of Jewish Studies;

* Carrie Etter, latest collection Divining For Starters (Shearsman 2011). Her collection The Tethers(Seren, 2009), was winner of the inaugural, Cegin/Coffee-House-Poetry-sponsored London New Poetry Award 2010.

Anne-Marie Fyfe (Organiser)
coffee-house poetry at the troubadour
www.coffeehousepoetry.org
www.annemariefyfe.com

… life, literature and the pursuit of happiness… in the famous Troubadour basement:
London's liveliest & best-loved poetry venue…

readings MONDAYS from 8 to 10 pm, tickets £7 concessions £6,
season tickets 30% off…
cheques payable to Coffee-House Poetry at PO Box address below, no credit cards

events at: 263-267 Old Brompton Road LONDON SW5
(no mail to this address, see correspondence address below)
nr. junct. Earls Court Rd & Old Brompton Rd
nearest Tube station: Earls Court (District & Piccadilly Lines)

for information, advance booking, season ticket & mailing list enquiries,
write to Anne-Marie Fyfe
at Coffee-House Poetry, PO Box 16210, LONDON, W4 1ZP
or e-mail: CoffPoetry@aol.com

Time theme

Thanks Fiona; very acute. Here is my Easter Sunday diary poem which is about time in a way (but aren't they all?). best wishes to all, James

FOR NOW

If the lack is constant

it is also at a remove

like this Easter haze

lightly marring a clear sky

Imminence has receded

to days of blandness and small treats

This will do for now

Still on the Time theme, written yesterday. Anyone else got one?

                               Being empty

on sun days and other

cast offs by holy obligation

I am at liberty to invent

my memory.

             That couple with baby

shaded in her pram,

      how the father holds the

         mother’s hand:

It is me who is loved,

                      their path is my past

  endowed with memory of her

   tired face, the way

she sits, silent in dawn

    breastfeeding

her cantankerous one

   and how he sees her in

       that beginning light

sees his own time in her

    profile,

         watches, aches.

November review

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/apr/10/sean-obrien-november-poetry-review

in case any one missed it ...

Patience

I

Will I know from the way his knuckle raps

on the old oak door, how the wood sings

in the August air as a mockingbird might

or how the Clark’s rubber sole of his boot

beats lightly on the stone step?

If the bell rings clear, he’ll rush the room

and catch me up in his grip, press my nest

to his stomach and kiss my hair, humming

into my forehead the first notes of a lullaby.

II

Mum stitched my blue dress from scraps

rolled and folded, wrapped in wax paper

and tucked between Sunday shoes

and an old oak box locked.

For the neck, she brought out a letter

with preaching tabs between the sheets.

Sister Anne’s austere print signed off

with love and blessings for Confirmation.

I wore the dress that Sunday ceremony,

my slim blue figure a stain in the aisle.

III

Imagine balloons rising from the palms of children

and pitching north on the tide, how easy they drift

without looking down at the bone-pale peaks

of the mountains. Imagine unlocking your box

of wishes. Watch them pull away at the wind’s

hand. Try not to mind where they land.

Last distraction for the day before I get down to some work: Michael's great poem about the Dorothys reminded me of one of mine which I set out below (published in the Interpreter's House a while back)

THE OLD DEARS

(Words in Retirement)

I was drifting through that neighbourhood

In visiting hours for the twilight ward

And thought I should drop in on Myriad.

Will you look at what the cat’s brought in!

She said from her pillows, newly thin.

Not that ill then, Myriad, I grinned.

Better than her, she sotto voce’d,

Nodding her flattened greasy head

At toothless Lest wheezing on the next bed,

And poor Mrs Fain died last Thursday:

She had no visitors, such a shame,

And no-one’s come to take her things away.

All those tests but they still don’t know what’s wrong;

If you ask me, they’re all charlatans.

They dump us here when we’ve lived too long.

Then came their offspring in a burly ruck,

Middle-aged and mostly out of work,

Written off as too telling or too abstract:

Unsafe Peter, worthless Tom, graceless Grace,

Joyless Joy, others I could not place,

Full of anger and self-righteousness -

Mes semblables; there but for the grace …

Better go. You’ll soon be right as rain,

I said, thinking She’ll not see home again

And singing Heigh ho defenceless old dears,

Valiant workhorses of yesteryear,

See-through skin and bare-eyed in the sere.

Can I ask a boring technical question? Is there a way of being alerted when there is a new entry on the blog or does one have to keep checking? Is that what being a "follower" does and how does one become such a thing? By the way please could the followers also tune in? it would be good to hear from them!

Best to all, James

Game

Room is my only measure
stanza of footsteps
my sole parameter

My decks of dust
filter the sunlight
fall in hands of dread

To see me is to hang
inside my frame
and you can never leave

Patience

The girl at the table has not yet revealed her hand.
Her attention is drawn to some other life
Of movement and shadow. Half of her face
Turns to an interior that I cannot enter.

Later,her self-possession is only outline,
A darkness dealt by memory;
The mannered shape of a wrist
Or her fingerprint marking my card.




(I have just realised that line 2 commits Sean's cardinal sin- "some...." and I have used a semi colon to further upset him)

'A Game of Patience' by Meredith Frampton

Here is the painting suggested by Sean O'Brien as part of our exploration of Time.

Glorious

I would certainly endorse Fiona's recommendation of Savage Detectives. Such energy over such a long book.

Here at her suggestion is Gloria. I suppose it's possible for someone savvier than me to post up the picture too. Looking forward to seeing more things here soon.

GLORIA

(after “A Game of Patience” by Meredith Frampton)

I’m not unused to being special,

an only child, now the mistress here

by the terms of my father’s will.

Still your news is unusual.

Are you sure you’ve come to the right address?

Did you ask for me up at the Hall?

All around is frank fertility

all sowing of seed and bringing forth;

I’m thought too good for the local gentry.

I shelter from the August sun

Laying out patience in the Temple of the Winds

While the estate work broils on.

One might enquire, if he wants a son,

Why he doesn’t get one as a man does

Or as a god would have done –

A swan or a bull could have brought me joy;

I would have relished their rough disrespect.

Instead he sent the errand boy.

Forgive me, that’s most impolite.

I have been preferred and my hauteurs

Must seem paltry in his sight.

I will do as the master wishes

I hereby choose to be his chosen

Frozen at acceptance she loses

her girlish future and her past

dies to her

Most feel it hard

to turn cards they did not deal

but not our Lady Gloria!

[Apocryphal envoi by estate workers:

Marie-Antoinette has had her cake

No more Pomona or playing Lady Bountiful

She’ll cancel her flight to Sharm el-Sheikh.]

Another list - Fiona's first post

'I've been cordially invited to join the visceral realists. I accepted, of course. There was no initiation ceremony. It was better that way.'

So opens Roberto Bolano's novel, The Savage Detectives, which is the story of a twenty year search for a lost poet, possibly a bad one; it is never made clear. Our Ventenac capers repeatedly put me in mind of Bolano. Here's another bit chosen at random:

 'Have you written me my poem yet?' she said, sitting down beside me. Rosario has dark eyes, black, I'd say, and broad hips.
 'More or less,' I said, with an ever-so-slight feeling of triumph.
 'All right, then, read it to me.'
 'My poems are meant to be read, not spoken,' I said...
 'Exactly, so read it to me,' said Rosario.
 'What I mean is, it's better if you read it yourself.'
 'No, you'd better do it. If I read it myself, I probably won't understand it.'
  I chose one of my latest poems at random and read it to her.
 'I don't understand it,' said Rosario, 'but thank you anyway.'
                                                  *
I have to admit I have never contributed to one of these blogs before so if there are conventions or codes of behaviour then I apologise in advance if I do the wrong thing and I welcome advice.

The following are books and links that I mentioned to different people, Andrew, James, Michael I can remember asking about some of them, during the week. I am also curious about other sources mentioned so if anyone would like to post their reading list I'd really appreciate it. Here's mine:

GET THE FUCK BACK INTO THAT BURNING PLANE is by Lawrence Giffin (not Griffin as I said). Its a chapbook published by Ugly Duckling Presse, available on Amazon. There is an interesting recording of Giffin reading another of his pieces which links, I think, to Andrew's inventory poem. http://poetrytimearchive.org/archives/145 It takes a while for him to come onto the recording though - you can move the cursor forward about 10 quarks (or whatever they're called).

Interesting too is that on that poem Giffin mentions a work that links to James' Bubble bath poem. Giorgio Agamben's Infancy and History is by Verso 1993. It is a highfalutin' essay on language and the destruction of experience which looks carefully at the connections between play and time. Looking for the soul in toys, he asks, 'But what, then, is the essence of the toy?' It also has a brilliant riff on the meaning of football - 'in ball games we can discern the relics of the ritual representation of a myth in which the gods fought for possession of the sun.' He develops this idea into a metaphysics on time itself, showing in the etymology of Greek terms aion and chronos a split between two different, opposed notions of time - eternity and diachronic time. Lawrence Giffin's list poem sends him up rotten for this kind of stuff but it all seems spookily connected to our time in Ventenacland.

Another book dealing with phantasies about time is Jean Baudrillard's The System of Objects, Verso 1996, 'A cultural critique of the commodity in consumer society...a theoretical letter-in-a-bottle tossed into the ocean in 1968, which brilliantly communicates to us all the live ideas of the day. Basically, it's a semiotics of furniture.

Finally, my favourite book at the moment, Anne Carson's Eros The Bittersweet, 1998, Dalkey Archive Press. A book about romantic love and the invention of our alphabet, it starts with Sappho and is a beautiful meditation on the imagination.

Finally, finally, the best commentary on the credit crunch to come out of poor old Ireland: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8

Welcome Ventenackers

Here is a site for any musings to come out of the recent Ventenac poetry workshops, 2011, given by the esteemed Sean O'Brien.

Authors discussed on the course and their book titles can be shared as well as details of forthcoming events. Threads can be developed and new ideas introduced. Nascent poems also can be aired. In fact anything at all that may be of interest to the wily Ventenac poets.

More soon,

Fiona.