Link to the Petition to ‘Stop SOPA Ireland’

Stop SOPA Ireland petition , January 26 2012  ” in an interview with TJ McIntyre and Sean Sherlock just concluded on Today with Pat Kenny, the minister has promised to publish the most recent draft of the SI (the is the one nobody has yet seen!) within one hour. Regardless of the content of the draft, this is a significant victory for transparency in the legislature that has been won because of public pressure brought to bear by all 45,361 of you. Thank you! 

http://stopsopaireland.com/breaking-news-sean-sherlock-promises-to-publish-bill-online/

Consultation  with  arts-originators , visual-artists , bloggers ?

In 2011, I wrote a post about an open consultative process here in Ireland to address radical copyright reform, wherein the Minister promised innovation and jobs through radicalising our copyright laws. I submitted, along with countless others, on issues pertinent to copyright and advances in digital technology. My submission was based in requesting the opening out of this consultation to arts organisations and originators of creative works. I am aware today that my submission was ignored and that originators of art-works are treated with disdain by a government which kow-tows to industry. Discussions by actual originators of works in the arts can be studied at this link. (Center for Social-Media discussion on fair-use in the arts.)

The Blacknight release on Stop Sopa Ireland  is here  excerpted :

“Jan 24, 2012 - Irish registrar and hosting company Blacknight (http://www.blacknight.com) urge the Irish Internet community to join them in saying no to a “SOPA” style law being enacted by ministerial order.

The Minister of State at the department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, is introducing a statutory instrument that very closely mirrors SOPA, which was recently defeated in the US. This statute will affect all 3.5 million people in Ireland is about to become law with no vote in the Oireachtas.

An outspoken leader in Irish tech, Blacknight has long been opposed to censorship and restriction of the Internet and is committed to ensuring freedom online. If passed, sites of all sizes from YouTube, Twitter and Facebook to personal sites may be blocked in Ireland. The impact of such a move could be detrimental to Ireland’s digital economy” (from Blacknight release,  24/01/2012)

Article link to McGarr Solicitors, Dublin on the issue of ISP-Blocking .

” However, unlike that US law, people here can’t even expect to have this blocking law debated in their legislature. The Minister has said that he intends to deal with the matter by way of a Ministerial Order. Nor has he published the text of the law. The first we, the people of Ireland, will know about the text of this law will be when it is signed and brought into force.

This is grossly wrong. This is why we were so enthusiastic when Sabrina Dent suggested that we launch a petition website to let other people (a) know what was going to happen and (b) tell the Ministers responsible that they object to the proposal.”   Full article here   The link to the Irish Petition to STOP SOPA is available here.

-

Personal note : Why bother with Irish Political consultations when they are shredded, ignored or limited by decisions already taken?

In what amounts to an ignorant rejection of the consultative process the Minister, Richard Bruton and Seán Sherlock T.D intend to introduce isp-blocking in Ireland. This event follows on quickly from the PP in Spain’s innovation in this area, and the SOPA/PIPA protests of last week in the U.S. I don’t expect much discussion on in it in the Irish media, who often publish press-releases and soundbites , rather than anything approaching contextualisation. I am annoyed that the consultative-process that I participated in amounted to optics , and that our government is basically pushing through aggressive legislation without debate, discussion or reference to the experience of other E.U countries. It looks like FG/Lab will also attempt to tax the internet. How quickly opposition parties dump their principles when they get to play with the big boys.

Stop SOPA-Ireland Petition link: http://stopsopaireland.com/  

Irish Times article of 27/01/2012  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2012/0127/1224310799439.html#.TyJ-QjbpQfs.twitter  

The Millions, a discussion on U.S SOPA  http://www.themillions.com/2012/01/copyrights-wake-sopa-james-joyce-and-the-future-of-intellectual-property.html

The Burning Bush Revival Meeting is online

The Burning Bush 2 went online this very week, and there is a little poem in it by myself written in Barcelona. Even a  short holiday makes me miss the winds and lakes in Ireland! I am adding here the link to the Burning Bush landing page, along with a list of poets therein, and a copy of my poem too. I have also added a link to the TBB2 site in the Poethead blogroll  beneath this post.

Background to the TBB2 (Revival)

“For those who might not know, the original Burning Bush was published from 1999 to 2004 in Galway, Ireland. It was edited by the poets Michael S. Begnal and Kevin Higgins (until 2000 when Higgins left and Begnal became the sole editor). There’s a piece here on Mike’s blog which gives the background and history of the original magazine. I’m pleased to report that, fittingly, Kevin and Mike have both contributed to The Burning Bush 2. They are among a number of past contributors to the Burning Bush included in these virtual pages.” ( by Alan Jude Moore , editorial issue 1)

The Poets in issue #1 of Burning Bush Revival

“As we mentioned in an earlier post, in the first issue we wanted to include as many poets as we could who had published in the original Burning Bush. Several former contributors answered the call, including Kevin Higgins, Patrick Chapman, Todd Swift, JT Menesini and Nuala Ní Chonchúir.” (by Alan Jude Moore)  Here’s the complete list of poets in the first issue of Burning Bush Revival. There is also a Facebook appreciation and info page available at this link.

About  the poem,  and her yellow music caught in the throat of birds

I wrote a small poem in Barcelona which is there at the very end of the poets’ list. I lately again found the notebooks where I had initially written the Irish version (in an old craftsman’s handbook, which I had tied with elastic at the time). The poem and two others were filed in a folder relating to a set of images I had been working on called Archivum. The folder was in a small group of other folders that I had been meaning to search through, and last week just after the funeral of a dear friend I recovered them while looking for his letters. I wrote it in bad Irish and thought it better to send a translation instead. (luckily)

The full list of poets in the Burning Bush 2 Revival Online Meeting 

Michael S. Begnal, Kevin Higgins , Maurice Scully,  John Thomas Menesini ,  Patrick Chapman,  Nuala Ní Chonchúir,  Keith Gaustad, David Wheatley,  David Stone, John W. Sexton , Todd Swift , Emily Cullen , Dave Lordan ,  Paul Perry, Annemarie Ní Chuireann, John MacKenna , Stephanie Conn,  Gerard Smyth Shannon ,  Ward Miceál Kearney, Sarah Maria Griffin,  Jean Kavanagh ,  Peadar O’Donoghue , Kerrie O’Brien ,JP Dancing Bear,  Gerard Beirne , C. Murray

The Burning Bush 2 can be found at this internet address.

‘Phrase Books Never Equip you for the Answers’, by Sarah Clancy

Phrase Books Never Equip you for the Answers

“on the morning of the fifteenth time we went through
our sleep-with-your-ex routine, I had the usual optimism
thing about mistakes is to not keep repeating the same ones
I said disregarding the government health warning
on the cigarettes I was sucking, crossing the road without
stopping speaking or looking, ignoring the red man pulsing
on the lights at the junction, I was wired direct and I said;
I know, I’ll write you the definitive user manual for me.
You said I was arrogant that we should make it up as we go,
and I said; well could I do a mind map then? With
here be dragons marked clearly in red, so we won’t flounder
like last time end up washed up dehydrated and drained
well I was, fairly wired, I said ‘in each shipwreck we’re lessened
embittered, come on, let me at least try to fix it, I can write us
a blueprint for the new improved version, and you laughed
and said well damn you for a head-wreck, go on then and do it.

So I wrote, but it came out all stilted, like a work in translation
see when I say, let me fix that or give it here and I’ll do it
it means I need you, and if I tell you for example how
I’ll re-arrange the universe to your liking it doesn’t mean
I’m superior in fact, translated it’s about the same as the last one-
‘can you not see, how I need you? And when I come out with all those
‘you-shoulds’ that drive you demented, there’s no disrespect in ‘em
verbatim they’re whispering I’d be desolated without you
and when you call me control freak, the tendencies you’re describing
are inherently rooted in my fear of you leaving and how I’ll react.

Less-wired more hopeful I brought you my phrase book
on our very next meeting but you kissed my cheek and said
let me stop you a minute and then those awful words that never
signify good outcomes, listen I’ve been thinking… I know
we’ve got this weird cyclical attraction thing going and I’m sorry
for my part in it but really I can’t see it working, the problem
for me is how you just don’t need anything and my phrase book
had nothing listed under that heading.”

© Sarah Clancy

Thanks to Sarah Clancy  for the poem,  Phrase Books Never Equip you for the Answers , which is taken from Thanks for Nothing Hippies , which will be launched in April 2012, by Salmon Poetry. Hippy Get a Job , by Sarah Clancy, is here.

A Saturday Woman Writer: Marianne Moore.

Poetry

“I too , dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that
there is in it afterall, a place for the genuine.”

The original Poetry had 29 lines which Marianne Moore excised, retaining only the first three lines. Those three lines are taken from the Faber Collected Marianne Moore.

Marianne Moore, Poet

An elegy, lament by an unidentified woman

Leighton

” I was ordered to live in a nest of leaves,
in an earthen cave under an oak.
I writhe with longing in this ancient hole;
The valleys seem leaden, the hills reared aloft,
And the bitter towns all bramble patches
of empty pleasure. The memory of parting
Rips at my heart. my friends are out there,
Savoring their lives, secure in their beds,
While at dawn, alone, I crawl miserably down
Under the oak growing out of my cave.
There I must squat the summer-long day,
There I can water the earth with weeping
For exile and sorrow, for sadness that can never
Find rest from grief nor from the famished
Desires that leap at unquenched life.”

This translation of an Old English Elegy is by Burton Raffel and comes from the book,  Poems and Prose from the Old English, it is edited by Burton Raffel and Alexandra H Olsen.

The condition of the woman’s exile is left unexplained but it can be gleaned that she was a leaving, an unwanted wife in exile. She may have been replaced or she may have been an adulteress.The imagery is fascinating as it calls to mind both the Antigone and the Apocryphal tales of the Magdalene in her earth cave. The images of the long-haired Magdalene seemed to have left the artistic imagination , though some can be still viewed in galleries round the globe. Of course the Antigone of legend along with other Women in the Wall or women figures in fertility stories and rites are common to all cultures. The story of Antigone is treated also in Egyptian terms and that story may have provided the basis for the Greek. The condition of women has hardly improved , thus the lament and the tales of exile have new voices and songs.

.
I have referred over and over to the theme of the woman in waiting throughout this blog, so I shall just add in the book details and mention my favorites:

The Penelopiad, by Margaret Atwood.

Julian of Norwich

The tales from The Ebony Tower, by John Fowles.

This extract is from : Poems and Prose from the Old English, trans , Burton Raffel,

Published; Yale University Press/New Haven and London 1998.

Winter Postcard from Mayo.

Separated as I am from my library of women’s voices and essays, it has been an interesting visit. The scaffolding that had clamped Westport House is gone . It looked like a huge hangar or insect from across at Roman Island. The weather is awful with not one hope of even climbing the lower section of the Reek, but it’s nice to have black dark nights and to awaken at first light, it beats the clatter of the city.

The Rare and Interesting Bookshop have extended their range and had some good books, including the few small ones I bought, one being an uncorrected proof of Julian by Gore Vidal., It’s a novel about Julian the apostate, which I have not gotten my teeth into yet. He also had a copy of Mosada by Yeats, whose waxen doppleganger inhabits the Westport House Library section during the Tourist season .

I am reading some complex stuff in Metaphysics and wondering if its possible to get out and walk without a complete soaking ?

The ducks have taken to sitting in small lakes within flooded fields. We shall be missing the Education Protests in Dublin tonight, which is unfortunate. I am pretty sure that there will be many more, given the seriousness of the issue of providing education to our kids: who deserve the best. Meanwhile learning to live without telly and surrounded by excellent books and music seems to be good for one of them at least. Back to the Saturday Woman Poet at the weekend. I have discovered up here a small volume of poems written in 1945 (and self-published) which I hope to transcribe and put on the site. Interestingly the publisher’s address is given along with these words :Duration Address

Cartron lake at Twilight: By Sonia Mc Mullin.

” Night is whispering
In the
Reeds.
The waters are dark
And Eerie,
And the weeds
Have turned to silver.
Hark!
There is a sudden
Flutter of
Wings,
And a mallard rises
Into the dusk.
The shattered silence rings
With its squak,
And the hush of husk of night
Has descended.”

The Road to the Point

” Curling between the mountains and raced by streams
That dance along beside you, silently you go,
Pondering, and the marble on your surface gleams
In the sunlight. the misty clouds are drifting low
Above you, while at your edges, ferns and heather
Blend their beauty with the lonely bog and the sky-
The heart of a dreamy island. And together,
As we wander to the sea, the gulls above us cry.”

These poems by Sonia Kelly (nee Mc Mullin) were written during WW2.

For information on the areas round Cartron lake and Mayo environs google maps and the Irish Ordinance Survey are excellent. Sonia is still writing and has just published another book ,Doris: Ecstasy for the Elderly, Sonia Kelly, 2008, Authorhouse.

The two poems that I have just published come from a small book of poetry published by Arthur H Stockwell Limited. Elms Court, Ilfracombe, N. Devon… Duration Address. I was delighted to see the small book of poems and to read them whilst in Mayo. Another piece on this blog entitled ;The Philosopher and the Birds discusses in the briefest way possible the relation of Wittgenstein to the area of Rossroe. The Poet Richard Murphy‘s relation to the area is described in his book,  The Kick.

I suppose that the only workable link to the wonderful Murphy poem on Wittgenstein in available through using the search engine on the right. I enjoy Murphy’s ability to encapsulate the geography and quality of light (and silence) in the areas of Mayo that have become both familiar and intoxicating to me anyhow.

Views From the Windy House. Rob Smith.

” Telescope tree tell me the truth
of why and what for
I stand at the door
not the one before
but the floor is the ceiling
and the window the floor
but I made the game
which lost the key to the door.”

from:- Views from the Windy House, the Rob Smith Notebooks. Publ, The Irish Museum
Of Modern Art. 1994.

I just published this because it is an interesting exemplar of the marriage between image and poetics; and also because the pragmatism displayed in Rob’s chosen divisions is very like Colum’s approach to the work of the poet in The Poet’s Circuits. Unfortunately I have not imported my links to other pieces I have written on Colum onto this site yet. I have decided to include my archive at Poetry Ireland Forum in the righthand column (blogroll) which includes some small pieces on Nagy, Ginsburg and Colum.

I am a great admirer of a pragmatic approach to artistic communication and thus organise all my bits into colour-coded online folders in google docs, that way I can avoid the in progress headache of some prose (completely) and work through the painful blocks.

Note: I have just linked in my archive to Poetry Ireland discussions and contributions on the blogroll, it sits beneath the Tara petition and Feis notices.

A Cold Coming, by Tony Harrison

This poem was first published in protest against the First Gulf War. It was re-published on February the 14th 2003. It is by the magnificent anti-war writer and poet Tony Harrison. 

This morning I am hoping that other routes to global understanding are sought. It feels like a whole generation of kids have been effected by War, by Propaganda, by violent and intolerant language. The included poem (above) is also linked in the blogroll on the righthand side of this page. I have decided not to excerpt it here but would encourage anyone who is interested in the realities of war to read. Tony visited the frontline and is a deeply political poet of great integrity.

A Cold Coming (excerpted)

“I  saw the charred Iraqi lean towards me from bomb-blasted screen, 
his windscreen wiper like a pen ready to write down thoughts for men, 

his windscreen wiper like a quill he’s reaching for to make his will. 
I saw the charred Iraqi lean like someone made of Plasticine 

as though he’d stopped to ask the way and this is what I heard him say: 
“Don’t be afraid I’ve picked on you for this exclusive interview. 

Isn’t it your sort of poet’s task to find words for this frightening mask? 
If that gadget that you’ve got records words from such scorched vocal cords, 

press RECORD before some dog devours me mid-monologue.” 
So I held the shaking microphone closer to the crumbling bone: 

“I read the news of three wise men who left their sperm in nitrogen, 
three foes of ours, three wise Marines with sample flasks and magazines,

three wise soldiers from Seattle who banked their sperm before the battle. “

The Mysteries / http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2003/feb/14/features11.g2

The Poetics of Engagement: Marianne Moore.

This Book Of Marianne Moore‘s Prose is entitled  The poetry of Engagement and is edited by Grace Schulman, University of Illinois Press 1986. I have printed one other piece by Moore on this blog (The Saturday Woman Poet Section is searchable through the engine to the right of this small piece). I tend to ignore critique except to contextualise the social and historical life of the poet, the movements that brought the writer to settle into her voice.., and yet there is a resonance in Moore’s Poetry that is hooking, despite the best efforts of someone like Hughes in underrating her contribution, or whatever it was that provoked the nasty little Moore Poem in Birthday Letters

So I am adding in this little excerpt along with the title of the book in the hope that more readers will come to look at women writers:

“There never was a war that was
not inward; I must
fight till I have conquered in myself what
causes war, but I would not believe it.
I inwardly did nothing.”

The image is by Spero who does tremendous work in exploring gender issues through her art of paint and print. When I read Birthday Letters , long before I had read anything by Moore, I must confess that the imagery that Hughes used to talk of the woman put me right off wanting to read her. The issue emanated from a particular episode in which he accused her of putting shards of glass into an acerbic note she sent Plath but also the image of her in her hat looking for the grave on which to lay her little wreath. It irritates me beyond belief that such power in writing can be used in such a wholly provocative manner and be celebrated by other poets including Heaney.

For me , a writer of prose and a poet, the issue has always been about engagement with themes and symbols that evolve over time, but that somehow retain their shape and essence no matter what. I am still trying to understand how a voice as strong as Hughes is capable of honing those particular traumas so artfully decades indeed after the episode. Thats Poetic Engagement and can give reviewers the equivalent of the bends; and yet effect another writer’s historical place in our consciousness by sleight of hand.

(!)

Work and Contemplation- by EBB

” The woman singeth at her spinning- wheel
A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarolle;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel
is full, and artfully her fingers feel
With quick adjustment, provident control.
The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll,
Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian Church, that we may do
Our Father’s business in these temple’s Mirk,
Thus swift and steadfast ; thus, intent and strong:
While, thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue
Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our work
The better for the sweetness of our song.”

This is a good evening, it rains (it pours) but political change is in the air and I am glad for that.. cos sometimes it seems that Women’s Work is ignored (and it is often hard work.)

The above is by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, one of my favourite writers.

Two poems by Liliana Ursu.

Luxemburg Gardens. Monument to Chopin, by Rousseau.

Poem with a Griffin, a Pike and Peacocks.

“I am reading a poem while it rains.
The day blinks
through windows guarded by a griffin; its talons
flex, its tail switches.

.
Do you remember those summer showers high in the mountains?
The dull pop of a toadstool beneath your bare foot
in the dew-covered grass?

.
Under a crystal bell jar, the still life-fleshy ripe bananas,
cherries, lemons and the silver knife you bargained for in the bazaar
as the Bhosphorus sparkled at the feet of the one you loved.
On the wobbly kitchen table, with that very knife,
you slit open a pike.

.
And the hunting rifle, propped against stuffed peacocks-
has it turned into a lapdog
licking the other woman’s hands
as she weighs my pearls….? “
.
In the Forest

I wrote the essential poem on an oar
just before setting out.
Perhaps long ago it’s been erased
or maybe the sea
knows it now
by feel.

Like the woman in Rousseau’s painting
I shudder
at the sound of footsteps
-when the fear comes on too strong.
.
The path I follow
is a knife blade.
maybe this is why
the sky behind the forest
is now so red.

I wrote the essential poem on an oar
just before setting out. “
.

These two poems are taken from the Bloodaxe published book,  The Sky Behind the Forest by Poet Liliana Ursu. It is translated by Tess Gallagher and Adam Sorkin.

I really like the book, but I always make one suggestion when recommending it, and that is to read and absorb the beautiful writing before reading the introductory and translators essays.The essays are highly important in establishing the appalling context of censorship under which the poet suffered , but one can feel it also in the powerful writing.

The Sky Behind the Forest, Liliana Ursu. Trans, Liliana Ursu, Tess Gallagher,
Adam J Sorkin. Bloodaxe Books. 1997.

The Perils of Indulging in Cosmetics : Il Libro dell’ Arte.

Anon Manuscript

I thought I would put a small excerpt from Cennini’s excellent Il Libro dell’ Arte on the blog today:

“You would have occasion in the service of young ladies, especially those of Tuscany to display certain colours to which they take a fancy. And they are in the habit of beautifying themselves with certain waters. But since the Paduan women do not do so; and so as not to give them occasion to reproach  me; and likewise because it is contrary to the Will of God and Our Lady; because of all this I shall keep silence. But I will tell you that if you wish to keep your complexion for a long time; you must take a practice of washing in water-spring or well or river: warning you that if you adopt any artificial preparation your countenance soon becomes withered, and your teeth black; and in the end ladies grow old before the course of time; they come out the most hideous old women imaginable. And this will have to be enough discussion of the matter.”

(!)

 Quite reminds me of my grandmother’s woe at freckles. Il Libro Dell’ Arte is still studied for its excellence in technique in painting,from grinding colours through creating fresco. If one can ignore the jaundiced approach to women… its always best to keep in mind the artistic instruction books were written solely for the benefit of young men hoping to be apprenticed to masters, but he does some pretty good facial and cosmetics advice therein.

The Craftsman’s Handbook , ” Il Libro dell’ Arte “. Cennino d’Andrea
Cennini, Trans, Daniel V. Thompson Jr. Dover. 1960

Lazarus. By Ágnes Nemes Nagy.

” Round his left shoulder, as he got up slowly
every day’s muscle gathered in agony
His death was flayed off him like a gauze.
Because second-birth has such harsh laws.”

From: Between by Ágnes Nemes Nagy.Trans, Hugh Maxton. Dedalus Press , Dublin and Corvina Press, Budapest.

Face at the Bottom of the World: Hagiwara Sakutaro.

Yoku Go No Onna from the Chester Beatty Library. Dublin.

Duel

Both earth and sky are greenesses,
Greens that explode and expand:
Shoes flash like fish as I tread the seas
And hang like fish when I stand,
And happiness swims in the shadow of trees
As the light blade hangs from my hand.

Moonlight and Jellyfish

I swim in the moonlight, swim to snare
Jellyfish swarming, flocks of phlegm.

My hands stream out, forgoing me:
Further and further they extend
Among those moving mirrors where,
Coiling, the seaweeds cumber them;
Where, in the mooned alembic sea,
My flesh turns glassy, glassily.

A thing transparent, a chilly thing,
Flows in the water, knows no end…

My soul near frozen, shivering,
Sinks in the sea, is almost drowned,
Drowned in its very trance of prayer
While swarming everywhere around,
Swarming round me everywhere,
The jellyfish in trembles of pure blue
Swim out, swim through
That moonlight they are turning to….

I shall have to balance these excerpts from  The Face at the Bottom of the World with a woman poet, when I get two minutes. In the meantime the edition I read these in is from the UNESCO Collection, Published by Charles E Tuttle and Company 1969.

Here, In Ireland our jellyfish are small and brown with electric blue veins in the top. I made a poem about a whole lot of them beached and rotting In Irishtown a number of years ago.There were hundreds lining the beach after a wild storm.

I am publishing this in Images, tagged with Visions.

Female Complexities: Dorothy Molloy.

Looking for Mother, by Dorothy Molloy

‘I ransack her room. Loot and pillage.
I root in her trunk. Crack open
the tightly sprung boxes of satin
and plush. Pierce my breast with her butterfly

brooch. I pose in her hats,
French berets, mantillas of lace,
the veil that falls over her face,
the boa she wraps round her neck.

I try on her shoes. her slippers
are mules. I can’t walk in her callipered
boots. I break into her wardrobe.
Hands grope in the dark. Faded bats,

like umbrellas, are humming inside.
Stoles of fox-fur and mink : tiny claws,
precise nails. Lips clamped in the rictus
of death. I’m hot on the scent

of oestrus, umbilicus, afterbirth,
eau-de-cologne, I fling myself
down on the bed that she made
of dirt from the Catacombs, blood

of the saints. Under the counterpane,
nettles, goose-feathers, a tore’.

from : The New Irish Poets, edited by Selina Guinness Bloodaxe 2004.

I remember well those fox-furs, my own mother was bequeathed a pair and I too delved into the huge old wardrobe, bringing out the fur stoles complete with little curled feet and a golden chain effect that operated as a clasp. The wardrobe revelation is part of most girl’s growing, though only that it were a peaceful thing. There is so much fear for some young girls. I will add in the UN links on campaigning to end violences against women and girls when I correct my widgetry.

In the meantime, there is a small piece on the trousseau, inheritance and the Island Women on the blog (somewhere). I quite remember being unable to zip the zipper of my mother’s wedding dress confection onto me at twelve- nor indeed being able to squeeze my toes into the minute satin winkle-pickers that she wore for her wedding day !

EDIT : 25/11/2010 , this is a Reblog of a piece written to mark the 16 day Campaign to eliminate Violence
Against Women and Girls.

Mary Lavin’s Island Women
International day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Girls 2010

Dublin Writer’s Centre Funding Cut and A Saturday Woman Poet.

The Irish Arts Council is struggling with the yearly budget arrangements; and well the mainstay of support for Writers has been cut out of the Budget. This small preoccupation has many (many) reasons for me; but I shall refer in brief to two:

1.In 2003 , the Then Minister for Arts and Tourism decided to commit a major error and introduce legislation (for the second time only in the history of the Irish State) that ties artistic funding quite closely to the organs and instruments of government. An extremely bad and idiotic idea; but we have been struggling with a Government for ten years that thinks Art is a business, thus removing the Arts portfolio from it’s natural place with Heritage/The Islands to a profit-creating sector.

2. The man who has been appointed to the Arts Portfolio has been directly responsible (also in 2003) for abolishing the Heritage Agency (Dúchas). So it all fits together with inevitable alacrity. We have no legislative provisions nor Statutory Implements for the preservation of our heritage. Thus Tara. The links to the ongoing Tara campaign, which discuss more fully this remiss are on the right side-bar.

Thats my protest registered. I am disgusted at how our state maintains both interference in our expression; and has no functional application in protections -go figure!

A Saturday Woman Poet

The Soul’s Expression by EBB

With Stammering lips and insufficent sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound,
and inly answering all the senses round
with octaves of a mysitc depth and height
which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual ground!
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole,
and utter all myself into the air.
But If I did it,- as the thunder-roll
Breaks its own cloud, my flesh would perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Love the usage of the words ‘inly’ and ‘outbear’; but then I adore the work of Ms Browning anyway

Poethead uses OpenID

Happy Christmas , I lost my avatar

Mainie Jellett figurative Composition.

O well, I lost my avatar so have included an image of guimel, after attempting a braille V, and a semaphore download. 

Today I went to the National library and got maybe five minutes of quiet time in a Christmas rush that involves me doing all the cooking. (Thus ingredient buying). The Yeats exhibit is still there and will be showing during the Christmas period on the 29th of the month until 4.45pm. The National library is having a facelift at the moment, so people should follow the scaffolds and signs.

The last twice I saw the Yeats were excellent, at this point I just decide what room to enter before I go in and try to ignore the rest,tantalising as it is. Today I went into the little darkened office-space, wherein two fake candles (insurance reasons). The last time I was in there the angel of the Apocalypse fell off the stand and I banged my head. This is not the thing to do in the hushed rooms of the National Library Collection. Anyway, I highly recommend the exhibition to those who are familiar with Yeats; and to those who might get a kick out of the Metaphysics and occult aspect of the exhibition.

There’s also a book-sale ongoing in the shop (which is why I had gone in to be honest). The weather is glowy yellow and town (Dublin City Centre) is buzzing beautifully. My shoes were too loud and I did not have enough time to really enjoy; but the exhibition is  excellently curated , and a break from the glitzy tinsel so beloved of our shops. Merry Christmas to all whom read Poethead.

RIP Harold Pinter: 1930-2008

This morning’s Newspapers announce the death of Nobel Winner and Playwright Harold Pinter. Rest in Peace. I toddled up to the corner shop to get fags and saw that one of the the UK papers was carrying a huge black and white image of the author. He was a frequent visitor to Dublin, indeed, we have been lucky enough to have some excellent Pinter Seasons in
the Gate Theatre; and that is where we saw him breezing through.

His plays were gems of created tension and violence include The Homecoming, The Room, the most formative one for me was (and is) The Dumb Waiter,   but it was always about more that the plays or his life. There was also his opposition to George Bush,his abrasiveness and his intellectual integrity. That  will be missed.

The London Independent which is online carries the appreciation and Obits for those interested in the Great Man.I was unimpressed by Betrayal, but everyone has their own Pinter resonance. The images in the Papers belie his commitment to fighting the regime that has brought intolerable suffering to our world, he spoke out against the Gulf War again and Again. He used his profile and relationship with the Press to oppose this Disgraceful subversion of International Arbitration bodies , including the UN. Along with Tony Harrison the poet, he became a strong and enduring voice against the media silence on this great suffering and for that we must be thankful.

“The Crimes of the US throughout the world have been systematic, constant, clinical, remorseless and fully documented but no-body talks about them”.

Would that there were more with his courage and bravery in the face of a relentless and idiotic media, that both ignores and spins this period that we have lived and raised our children through : When war and abuse became fodder for mass consumption, Snuff.

RIP Harold Pinter: 1930-2008.

The Second Voyage : Ní Chuilleanáin.

“Odysseus rested on his oar, and saw
The ruffled foreheads of the waves
Crocodiling and mincing past; he rammed
The oar between their jaws, and looked down
In the simmering sea, where scribbles of weeds defined
Uncertain depth, and the slim fishes progressed
In fatal formation, and thought

If there was a single
Streak of decency in those waves now, they’d be ridged,
Pocked and dented with the battering they’d had
And we could name them as Adam named the beasts
Saluting a fresh one with dismay, or a notorious one
With admiration; they’d notice us passing
And rejoice at our destruction, but these
Have less Character than sheep and need more patience.

I know what I’ll do he said,
I’ll park my ship in the crook of a long pier
(And I’ll take you with me, he said to the oar)
I’ll face the rising ground, and climb away
From tidal waters, up river-beds
Where herons parcel out the miles of stream,
Over the gaps in the hills, through warm
Silent valleys, and when I meet a farmer
Bold enough to look me in the eye
With ‘Where are you off to with that long
Winnowing fan over your shoulder?’
There I will stand still,
And I’ll plant you as a gatepost or a hitching-post
And leave you for a tidemark. I can go back
And organise my house then.

But the profound
Unfenced valleys of the ocean still held him;
he had only the oar to make them keep their distance;
The sea was still frying under the ship’s side.
He considered the water-lilies, and thought about fountains
Spraying as wide as willows in empty squares;
The sugarstick of water clattering into the kettle;
The flat lakes bisecting the rushes. He remembered spiders and
frogs
Housekeeping at the wayside in brown trickles floored with
mud,
Horsetroughs, the black canal with pale swans at dark;
His face grew damp with tears that tasted
Like his own sweat or the insults of the sea. “

by Éiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.

 This poem is culled from The Penguin Book of Irish Verse. It was edited by Poet Brendan Kennelly and published in 1970. Both poets have collections, translations and ongoing works.

The Island of the Fand 1916. [Sir Arnold Bax]

Whilst in Mayo on holidays a conversation occurred regarding accessing written materials by Artist and Seer George Russell (A.E). The only book obtainable from the library was The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, by W.Y Evans Wentz.

There are a few pages of unidentified interview with AE within the book (Colin Smythe, Humanities Press, 1911). The name of Bax also emerged, (but unfortunately upon my leaving), thus it appears that the LPs will be played for me at a later stage.  Bax was an  acquaintance of my host, who had some interesting stories on Bax’s Irish sojourn and  eventual death to impart. There is, as far as I can make out nothing on YouTube, so I must await the pleasure of hearing the music.. described within the sleeve notes as,

” The Garden of the Fand is the sea…in the earlier portion of the work the composer seeks to create the atmosphere of an enchanted Atlantic.. Upon the surface floats a small ship… the little craft is borne on beneath a sky of pearl and Ameythst until on the crest of an immense wave it is tossed onto the shore of Fand’s miraculous island. Here is the inhuman revelry, and the voyagers are caught away unresisting into the maze of the dance. A pause comes and Fand sings her
song of immortal love.. the dancing begins again, and finally the sea rising suddenly overwhelms the whole island…twilight falls, the sea subsides, and Fand’s garden fades out of sight..”

Text mentioned: The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries by, W.Y. Evans
Wentz. Colin Symthe : Humanities Press 1911.

My contact on where to access info on Bax in Ireland.
 Some Arnold Bax Music
on you-tube.

The Hare Arch : by Eilis Ní Dhuibhne.

The 'Hare Arch' by Alice Maher.

“Some girls have hairs on their heads,
Artful girls have hares in their hearts

Cailín óg álainn is ea mé anois
Ach ní fhada na blianta ag sleamhú thart
Agus ansin beidh buanna eile uaim
Seachas an fholt ógra, an béilín binn.
Is ansin a thiocaidh mo ghiorra i gcabhair orm
an lá úd a déanfar cailleach den gcailín.

Agus rachaimid amach, an beirt againn,
Maidin Bealtine ag breachadh an lae
Ag crú an uachtair ós na bá sna páirceanna,
Ag crú na greinne, ag crú na bláthanna
Ag crú an samhraidh, agus na samhlaíochta.”

(Le Eilis Ní Dhuihne)

This Poem accompanied an exhibition by Alice Maher which showed in the RHA Gallery in Ely Place last year. The top floor of  The Night Garden exhibition was a series of wall art based in Imagery inspired by The medieval bestiary and The Garden of Earthly Delights. The book of Poems and collaborative Art by Maher and Dhuibhne is entitled The Night Garden, Mark my Words

The accompanying art work is based in the women’s collaboration and is in pen and ink; and charcoal. I got mine when I attended and am unaware if the poems have been published for a book-buying market. I should hope they have ‘cos they are really good.

The Night Garden, Images by Alice Maher and Poems “Mark my Words”, by Eilis Ní Dhuibhne.

Alice Maher’s Chaplet Image.

A Poem by Sylvia Plath.

Bonnard's Almond Tree in Blossom.

Mary’s Song

“The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity….
-
A window , holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire
-
Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the jews.
Their thick palls float
-
Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt out
Germany.
They do not die.
-
Grey birds obsess my heart
Mouth-ash, ash of eye.
They settle. On the high
-
Precipice
That emptied one man into space
The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.
-
It is a heart,
This Holocaust I walk in,
O golden child the world will kill and eat.”

From Winter trees , 1971. Publ. Faber and Faber.

How to Construct an Operating Vade mecum.

I am working on it !

a) You need a notebook or set thereof.

b) A room of one’s own is not too much to ask.

c) A goodish pen, this is problematic if the only you have possessed for many years has been stolen/lost/misplaced. Ensuring an adequate replacement of the implement means a ready supply of good accessible Cartridge refills.

d) On the subject of typewriters (as Opposed to easy keyboards), It’s nigh impossible to get ribbon and correction tape replacements in shops. There is one supplier of these articles in Dublin and he’s not always in his shop.

e)Read a lot on your subject. It helps if you are a bibliophile.

f) Be always aware that the visibility of women writers in any language is part of a huge struggle in multimedia and News Media.

A Saturday Woman Poet: Eithne Strong.

Sarah, In Passing

A Pair of bockety
legs went up
the street below county
tweed and haystack
hat, the waddling brains
inside.
‘Aren’t they most awfully
rich?’ the shaky Anglo
voice inquired.
‘O no,’ he said,
straight leg and cavalry
crease
suffering her infirmity,
slow pace
for pace.
‘Her father was
but she, she
lost it all.’

Words in the morning.

Sarah passed
ingesting scene and situation;
imagining , assimilating;
seeing much she did
not see,
interpreting what she did
not hear:
( Short Excerpted piece from what Sarah saw or did not see)

Girl on her Lover

Like some god
too dark to live
upon the earth.
All beautiful , all evil,
all powerful over
me. No rest nor sever
from the dark hard tie”.

Sarah, in Passing. The Dolmen Press. 1974.

She carried her body-cage like a delicate and brittle basket..

We do not often get real sticky wet and slippy snow in Ireland…

Our older people (we will all be elderly soon enough) are carrying themselves with incredible delicacy. The paths present a patchwork of half-hearted sand thrown down and a web of glassy ice , the puddles make a satisfying crack when breached,  but bones are delicate..,

 

This is an excerpt from The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges. ( I found it again, it keeps losing itself in my shelves)

” before becoming a monster and then turned into rocks,
Scylla was a nymph with whom Glacus, one of the sea gods, had
fallen in love. In order to win her, Glacus sought the help of Circe
whose knowledge of herbs and incantations was well known. But
Circe became attached to Glacus on sight, only she was unable to
get him to forget Scylla, and to punish her rival she poured the juice
of poisonous herbs into the fountain where the nymph bathed”

( Borges then excerpts the Metamorphoses of Ovid, which btw are given a contemporary gloss and translation by the late Ted Hughes and are  published by Faber.)

So, poor Scylla becometh a rock and well our nod to certain difficulties and words in common useage do include the phrase:

“Between a rock and a hard place”,

though I suppose that since our education system is more based in manual labour and globalisation, the provenance of such clichéd phrases or truisms gets lost in the translation.

Charming Little Book : V Sackville West

This is just a brief note, given my current interest in our small bird population and this year’s lack of snowdrops in my own garden. Indeed it is related somewhat to another entry on Poethead . (cf bottom of this post for linkie)

Every year we wander to the NBG to take a look at the snowdrops in the rockery, this is utterly convenient because the rockery comprises a playground for the burgeoning and largely tame squirrel population; but I digress.. I bought the book for my mother in her early widowhood because she adores climbers, roses and scented stock. Our beautiful Sumac came down in a storm and though I only visit with her , its become obvious that the straggling offspring do not carry the same impact for the local birds or indeed aesthetically.

Thus this evening I am bringing home In Your garden by Sackville West to re-read, and Faber’s Collected Marina Carr Plays.

In Your Garden by Vita Sackville-West, Frances Lincoln.
Original text 1951.

Marina Carr Plays incl. The Mai. Faber and Faber 1999

The Brightest Jewel by E Charles Nelson and Dr Eileen Mc Cracken

Chorus Line.

Musicians in the Orchestra a Wiki image- Degas

This small post is about the chorus line and in keeping with the tone of the blog  can include both the unhinged (and hung): The Maidens from Atwood’s Penelopiad, and the solo singer who creates the most wonderful antiphons from her weird isolation and her tithing to the Church: Hildegard of Bingen. I shall include links to all at the end of this post.

For days now I have been rooting through my books to find Murder in the Cathedral by T.S Eliot. The chorus therein is composed of the poor women of Canterbury who both delineate the action and act as witnesses to disaster. They are the voices of the dispossessed as much as the women of the islands in their keening , or the voices of women poets who are marginalised in Irish academia (at least) and the reason why I initiated this blog in the first place.

The  amount of blog hits have surprised me,  and I would like to thank those who regularly read. I would also enjoy developing outward.

Barbro Karlen
Hildegard
Peneopiad
Elegy

Excerpt from Nagy : Notes on Fear.

Leonard Baskin Woodcut.

Stanza 7

” Pinned on the fieldpark
stand saplings stark,
their boughs drawing the eye skywards
to find, then, night has not come
yet, sky is still green, edged in chrome,
the bare branches outling
unknown ebony letters
and between above in sliced green
the evening star glitters.

*

And a Bunch of tulips inside.

Stanza 8

“Weathered like a traveller
so battered they are
these sweaty envoys
mumbling the lost lines
of their message made flesh:
their beauty launches- (through the slash

of the knife the knife that cut them
through the hand that bought and washed
the shop that sold them
through unbreachable mesh
of a cordon the heart’s startled cries
and hands’ hand’s-off clutch)-
their beauty launches the sizzling
thunderbolt into water, into my eyes.

From Between , by Agnes Nemes nagy, Trans Hugh Maxton.
Publ. Corvina Press Budapest and Dedalus Press, Dublin.

XI: ‘The Monuments’ , By Padraic Colum , 14/02/09

” Above me stand, worn from their ancient use,
The King’s, the Bishop’s, and the Warrior’s house,
Quiet as folds upon a grassy knoll:
Stark-grey they stand. wall joined to ancient wall,
Chapel, and Castle, and Cathedral.

It is not they are old, but stone by stone
Into another lifetime they have grown,
The life of memories an old man has:
They dream upon what things have come to pass,
And know that stones grow friendly with the grass.

The name has crumbled-cashel that has come
from conqueror-challenging Castellum-
Walls in a name ! No citadel is here,
Now a fane the empty walls uprear
Where green and greener grass spreads far and near.”

The Poet’s Circuits, Collected Poems of Ireland. Padraic Colum.
Dolmen Press. 1981 , Centenary Edition. Introduction by Benedict Kiely.

Tara Nomination.

Anna Politkovskaya: August 1958- Oct 2006.

No Charges in the murder of a Writer.

The Anna Politkovskaya Murder trial has ended in accquital. Ms Politkovskaya was shot on October the 7th 2006. RIP.

CPJ

NY Times

Bloggie.

NYT Twitter

A Saturday Woman Poet : Margaret Atwood.

The Chorus Line : A Rope-Jumping Rhyme

“we are the maids
the ones you killed
the ones you failed

we danced in air
our bare feet twitched
it was not fair

with every goddess, queen , and bitch
from there to here
you scratched your itch

we did much less
than what you did
you judged us bad

you had the spear
you had the word
at your command

we scrubbed the blood
of our dead
paramours from floors, from chairs

from stairs, from doors,
we knelt in water
while you stared

at our bare feet
it was not fair
you licked our fear

it gave you pleasure
you raised your hand
you watched us fall

we danced on air
the ones you failed
the ones you killed.”

Taken from The Penelopiad 2005, Canongate.

The maids were of course the young girls who helped Penelope spin her endless threads, the abused, raped and disenfranchised women of Odysseus’ court. Well they got hung in a line. Atwood is very good on mythos.

Chorus Line.

Still Living …(name the Artist Pls, Ipsi)

awaiting the name...,

O! and Pierre Joris hath switched to WordPress for Nomadics, one of my favourite sites on Literature/poetry and politics (added at the end)

I shall have an International Women’s Day List and Poem this weekend  Women’s Day 8th March 2009.

Pierre Joris *Homad*

International Women’s Day Sticky : I Shall be Adding to this Post.

 The Pen Writers In Prisons Committee.

Dot’s Spot Bloggie.

 Last Year’s Feminist Walking tour of Dublin.

 Ne’er a Woman Laureate in the UK.

IPWWC Greetings.

mainie Jellet Composition

 

A Saturday Woman Poet , Ileana Mãlãncioiu

Charlotte Salomon : 'Boek'

Maybe It Isn’t Him.

“I found your body stilettoed from behind,
It would have been much harder otherwise
I pull the blade out terrified and wipe
Its gold handle on my breast and side

Lord, I cry, maybe it isn’t him,
Maybe it’s his earthen shape
Maybe the blood is not actual blood
Maybe his soul is singing across the plain.

Maybe the birds are listening to his song,
And that’s why over the plain they are all
Silent, maybe they too are made of clay
And their one use is magical.

Maybe it is death barely now arrived
That hunts the mystery of your sacred being
After whose form we were made,
Maybe the eternal bird is singing.”

From : After the Raising of Lazarus, Trans, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin. Southward 2005.

Info on Charlotte Salomon.

‘Hands Across the Border’ : Quilt Exhibition at the NBG.

Beautiful exhibition of Quilting in the National Botanic Gardens Dublin today and running until March the 15th : Hands Across the Border, the image I would have selected is not available at the Irish Patchwork Society Webpage, but I am including a link to both the Society and to the National Botanic Gardens at end of this post.

The Northern Irish Patchwork Guild and The Irish patchwork Society   are a friendly crew who like small kids and were able to tell the stories of whichever quilt was asked about. The work varied from the hand-dyed artistic to the tale of a life in quilt and embroidery, with a stunning example telling of the Shackleton Antarctic Expedition. There was a small patchwork christening robe adorned with the names of babies in gold simple lettering, by Breege Watson and Elizabeth Mc Cartney’s Hand Dyed Picnics in Ravensdale Woods.

Best of all was the raffle for a hamper of Patchwork doings, and the visitor’s book adorned with the scrawls of kids and the very intelligent writing of grown-ups. Sadly we did not win that. The Herbarium space in the rejuvenated National Botanic Gardens is a wonderful lit space for exhibitions. I am adding in here a short piece that I wrote on the NBG restoration project , entitled The Brightest Jewel , by E Charles Nelson and Dr Eileen Mc Cracken.

The Making of An American Quilt, by Angela Carter (from Burning Your Boats)
is on the recommended list.

Irish Patchwork Society Irish patchwork Society
The Brightest Jewel , the National Botanic Gardens

19th Century Pomegranate Embroidery from the Americas

A Saturday Woman Poet Amy Lowell used the Pomegranate Embroidery as Illustration.

A Saturday Woman Poet : Máire Nic Mhaoláin.

Caoineadh, Le Máire Nic Mhaoláin

Ní ceist orm gur éagais
Ach gur céasadh dom
Cumhracht mormónta
Féileacán bán ar phraiseach
Féileacán breac ar marigolds
Agus do lamha a bheith fuar.

‘Gus Haiku

sean-neadacha
i ngéaga ardchrainn giúise-
lámh fhuar um an tua.

as Haikúnna, le Máire Nic Mhaoláin, ‘gus Caoineadh, le Nic Mhaoláin :
Fíliocht Uladh 1960-1985, Gréagóir ó Dúill, a chuir in eagar. Coiscéim 1986

Kells letter

International Women’s Day 2009 : A Simone Weil Poem.

Necessity

“The Cycle of days in the deserted sky turning
In silence watched by mortal eyes
Gaping mouth here below, where each hour is burning
So many cruel and beseeching cries;

All the stars slow in the steps of their dance,
The only fixed dance, mute brilliance on high,
In spite of us formless, nameless without cadence.
Too perfect, no fault to belie;

Toward them , suspended , our anger is vain.
Quench our thirst, if you must break our hearts.
Clamouring and desiring, their circle draws us in their train;
Our brilliant masters were forever victors.

Tear flesh apart, chains of pure clarity.
Nailed without a cry to the fixed point of the North,
Naked soul exposed to all injury,
May be obey you unto death.”

Notebooks (OC 6:2:147-148)

Poetry and Poetics, Simone Weil : Thinking Poetically. Joan Dargan, State University of New York Press. 1999.

Jo Kerr: Forms (08/03/09)

Magnus Rosendahl: Frost on a Spruce Branch.

Forms (A Sampler)

for C.M

What would they have said
had you heard the whisper

slip ravenous up the avenue
on fat and awkward dialect

towards the parlour comfort
of an army of the wizened

faces of their mother, who
settled in her embroideries

internalising the potential
of an inclusive act, to fuse

the eschatological omission,
confined in insurrection

to the vortices of daylight,
silently, symbolically laced?

© Jo kerr

Haiku Coirp, Le Ní Chonchúir

Tatú, le Ni Chonchúir : Arlen House.

“Fillte idir mo
leasracha, oisre, ag crith
is ag frithbhuladh

Ina luí idir
do chosa, magairlín, ag
leathnú, díbholgadh.”

An dán seo as Tatú le Nuala Ní Chonchúir.

I decided to leave it as Gaeilge for the minute because I like the sounds and they are not too hard to make (unlike the poor orchis that wilts in Stanza II).

Irish women Writers are really good at fish and flower sexual images – it may be that we have evolved a language due to Catholic repression, or it may just be that its part of our linguistic inheritance , images of beauty and sometimes of  terror .

Tatú

“Is pailmseist mo chorp
faoi do lámha,
paipír arsa,
scrollaithe fút,
ag tnúth le do rian.
Glanaim mo chraiceann,
sciúraim siar e
go par báiteach
ionas go bpúchfaidh
do lamh mar
dhúch tatuála,
ag liniocht thar
linte dofheicthe
gach fir eile.

Níl faic ach tusa
scrábáilte ar mo chorp. “

Tatú , Le Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Arlen House 2007.

Simone Weil , ‘Thinking Poetically’

I have been reading the Simone Weil critique, Thinking Poetically for the last few weeks, interspersed it seems with other activities and work.

In many ways it has prevented me from posting up here because the subject matter is so imperative to the creation of her poetry; and yet and the Poet/Philosopher’s experiences in Vichy as a woman writer are neither subtle nor intriguing.

Her writing is sometimes painful to read. At the end of this brief post I shall include the link to Weil’s poem Necessity which I had published in recognition of the 2009 International Women’s Day.

‘Necessity’ by Simone Weil

“The cycle of days in the deserted sky turning
In silence watched by mortal eyes
Gaping mouth here below, where each hour is burning
So many cruel and beseeching cries;

All the stars slow in the steps of their dance,
The only fixed dance, mute brilliance on high,
In spite of us formless, nameless, without cadence,
Too perfect, no fault to belie;

Toward them, suspended our anger is vain.
Quench our thirst if you must break our hearts.
Clamoring and desiring, their circle draws us in their train;
Our brilliant masters, were forever victors.

Tear flesh apart, chains of pure clarity.
Nailed without a cry to the fixed point of the North,
Naked soul exposed to all injury,
May we obey you unto death. “

(Simone Weil)

One of the themes of this site is ‘of waiting’, or to put it more succinctly: the writing of women who are entrapped (intellectually and spiritually) by the prisons their time has brought them to: many of them , Miriam Tuominen, Liliana Ursu, Nelly Sachs and Weil were writers that knew the shape of their prisons and created from them the most amazing
poetic structures.

The other main theme is visibility of women critics and writers in our society. (always a problem).

There are strong sympathetic links in how prose is constructed between Porete and Weil, between Julian of Norwich and Weil and I suppose ‘heard in the antiphons of Hildegard of Bingen.

I do not have time to elaborate on the themes, so I thought It would suffice to add in the Porete links and the link to Necessity and that I would complete this in second part with some brief notebook excerpts in the coming days.

Thinking Poetically Joan Dargan, State University of New York Press.1999

Necessity, by Simone Weil.
 Barbro Karlen
 Excerpts from Marguerite Porete.

Some EBB.

To George Sand

A Recognition

“True genius, but true woman! dost deny
Thy woman’s nature with manly scorn,
And break away the gauds and amulets worn
By weaker women in captivity?
Ah, vain denial! That revolted cry
is sobbed in by a woman’s voice for
-lorn!–
Thy woman’s hair, my sister, all unshorn,
Floats back dishevelled strength in agony,
Disproving thy man’s name! and while
before
The world thou burnest in a poet-fire,
We see the woman heart beat evermore
Through the large flame. Beat purer,
heart, and higher,
Till God unsex thee on the heavenly
shore,
Where unincarnate spirits purely aspire.”

The Soul’s Expression

“With stammering lips and insufficent
sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature day and night
With dream and thought and feeling
interwound,
And inly answering all the senses round
With octaves of a mystic depth and
height
Which step out grandly to the infinite
From the dark edges of the sensual
ground!
This song of soul I struggle to outbear
Through portals of the sense, sublime
and whole,
And utter all myself into the air.
But if I did it-as the thunder-roll
breaks its own cloud, my flesh would
perish there,
Before that dread apocalypse of soul.”

I highly recommend that young women who like poetry get into Mrs Barrett Browning.

Julian of Norwich ’8′ and related links.

A recapitulation of what is seid and how it is shewid to hir generally for all

“And as Longe as I saw this sight of the plentiuos bleding of
the hede I might never stinte of these words ; ‘Benedicite domine!’
In which the sheweing I understode vi things : the first is the
toknys of the blissid passion and the plentious sheddyng of
his pretious blode; the iid is the maiden that is his derworthy
moder; the iid is the blissful Godhede that ever was, is and
ever shal bene, al mighty, al wisdam, al love; the iiiith is althing
that he hath made; for wele I wete that hevyn and erth and
all that is made is mekil and large, fair and gode, but the cause
why it is shewid so litil to my sight was for I saw it in the
presence of him that is the maker of all thing, for a
soule that seith the maker of all, all that is made semith full
litil, the vth is that he made all things for love; be the same
love it is kept and shall be withoute end, the vith is that God
is all thing that is gode, as to my sight, and the godeness that
al thing hath, it is he; and al these our lord shewid me in the
first sight with time and space to beholden it. And the bodily
sight stinted and the ghostly sight dwellid in myne understondying.
And I abode with reverent drede ioyand in that I saw. And
I desired as I durst to se more , if it were his will, or ell lenger
time the same. In all this I was mekil sterid in charite to mine even
cristen, that their might seen and knowyn the same that I saw;
for I would it were comfort to they, for al this sight was shewid
general. Than said I to them that were aboute me ‘It is today
domysday with me’. And this I seid for I went a deid, for that day
a man deith he is demyd as he shal be without end , as to
my understondying. This I seid for I would their love Gode the better,
for to make hem to have mende that this life is shorte as thei
might se in example: for in al this time I went have deid and that
was mervil to me and sweeme in partie, for methowte this
vision was shewd for hem that should leven. And that I say of me
I sey in the person of al mine even cristen, for I am lerned
in the gostly shewing of our lord God that he menyth so;
and therefore I pray you al for God’s sake and counsel you
for your own profitt that ye levyn the beholding of a wretch
that it was shewid to, and mightily, wisely and mekely
behold God, that of his curtes love and endless godeness
wolde shewyn it generally in comfort of us al; for it is God’s will
that ye take it with gret ioy and likyng as Iesus had shewid it on to
you al”.

That was awful to type from a book. I am about to tap in the related links on Julian, Marguerite and Hildegard (momentarily).

Julian of Norwich, a Revelation of Love, ed Marion Glascoe. University of Exeter Press 1976.

Midwifery

Goldfriend, an Elegy.

From :Afeast for the Eyes Site.

Goldfriend

(After The Wanderer, Anglo-Saxon)

Oak black
rich with age

the floor is rich
as the glints

the jewel-encrusted
brocades give

tapestries glint
in the shadows

of this hall
where I have

come to look for you
my lord,

Goldfriend.
I go to your hand

for forgiveness
maybe.

Ah but there is nothing
for you to forgive,

just me
just me,

or because you knew
I would come.

 © C Murray 2008, previously published P.I

A feast for the eyes

St Jordi’s Day : Link on Censorship and Imprimaturs.

A Compass rose for St Jordi's Day

I love this little bit of writing from a very good friend who doesn’t like censorship and likes to tell stories, so I sent him a rose (image).

Jordi Kills the dragon (again)

Marking the day.

Ethnopoetics.

Translation and Linguistic Rights.

A Saturday Woman Poet , Ileana Mãlãncioiu

Samson’s Hair

“Delilah did her job,
Samson’s head lay on her knees
As on a dish
And his hair was cut and his strength
Was gone without his knowledge.

When he woke up and tried to break
The ropes that bound him it was too late,
But the story could not be finished
As long as Samson was still alive.

The world knows only how his strength was taken
But I remember also what came later
And in the immense hall I feel afraid
Standing beside those two golden pillars
As I wait for Samson’s hair to grow.”

Ileana came to Dublin and she signed my book! This poem is taken from After the Raising of Lazarus trans, éilean ní Chuilléanain, 2005 Southward Editions.

fadas galore in here= bad tech day

Credo, by Eithne Strong

“I feel witness
to unchangingness
as well as to change.

If I incline to
Leave unmirrored
political moil, it is because

the human composition,
person to private person,
is my sphere, my particular

theme. In brief:
the things of state-
bland blue suit smile,

smooth shirt doubledo
(we beg true blue but
have them shot by dark)

Lobbying;
feather-nesting; high inflate
of rigmarole; vigilant spite

that splits the nose
to spoil the party face-
all these things I have to see

as but reflections
in macro of doings round
the micro centre. As people

pattern in private
so, unchangingly, will they
project in their public scale.

The central attitude
is inexorable; there is no
escape ; life demands encounter

with figures like
fathers, brothers, lovers,
rivals, mistresses, mothers, wives.

Inevitably, national
and international are but larger
shapes of interpersonal procedures:

appetites and checks
that flux around the swallowing
demand of predatory devouring ‘Me’

large happenings
in the state wear secondary
coverings. My bent is primary.

Credo, by Eithne Strong. ‘Sarah in Passing’, The Dolmen Press,
1974

Paul Celan Snippet.

“Poems are also gifts-gifts to the attentive”.

I am unsure of the provenance of the quote above, I found it within the pages of my constant companion book :

Simone Weill, Thinking Poetically, Joan Dargan, State University of New York Press. 1999

On the recommended reading list:

Alain Bosquet, “Stances Perdue” and “Fathomsuns and Benighted”, by Paul Celan.

A Saturday Woman Poet : Medbh Mc Guckian.

To a Cuckoo at Coolanlough

For Peter Fallon

“Driving the perfect length of Ireland,
Like a worn fold in a newspaper,
All my deep, country feelings
Wished I could have hypnotized myself
into going back for the cherry-market
at Borris-in-Ossory.

But all I could think of was the fountain
Where Shelly wrote his ‘Ode to the west Wind’
Nesting like a train-fever or combing jacket
Over the town.

A child will only sleep so long, and I wonder
If he is an artist, or have the six
Muscles round his eye forgotten colour,
And look it up, that Saturn-red, wild smudging,
In a dream-book ?

And I wonder, after the three-minute
News, if you remember
The bits of road that I do ?”

from : On Ballycastle Beach, Medbh Mc Guckian, Gallery Books, 1988/1995.

In Memory of David Marcus who died today, editor, translator,
writer and Friend of Irish literature

‘Irish’ by Paul Celan

Irish, by Paul Celan

“Grant me the right of way
over the cornstair to your sleep,
right of way
over the path of sleep,
the right to cut turf
on the shelf of the heart,
come morning”.

Irish, by Paul Celan. from ‘Fathomsuns and Benighted‘, trans Ian Fairley. Carcanet Books, 2001.

‘No Earthly Estate’, Patrick Kavanagh

no earthly estate.

I am recommending, today a book called  No Earthly Estate: God and Patrick Kavanagh an Anthology, ed Tom Stack, Columba Press 2004.

Excerpted , ‘No Earthly Estate , Kavanagh, Colum and Strong’ (December 2010) :

‘The wordsmiths mentioned above , Kavanagh, Strong, and Colum are but a tiny example of the triumph of art and literature against what amounts to a repressive and regressive approach to the Arts. They are not contemporary poets but provide for the new writer the amazing root-system which forms Irish Literature in all its wonderousness. Would only that those who claim to lead us politically were aware of their cultural heritage , story-telling and indeed the violence of words that make up this rich history of multifaceted voice and poetry !’

The Devil , by Patrick Kavanagh.

‘ I met the devil too,
and the adjectives by which I would describe him are these:
Solemn,
Boring,
Conservative.
He was a man the world would appoint to a Board,
He would be on the list of invitees for a bishop’s garden-party,
He would look like an artist.
He was the fellow who wrote in newspapers about music,
Got into a rage when someone laughed;
He was serious about unserious things;
You had to be careful about his inferiority complex
For he was conscious of being uncreative.”

No Earthly Estate

The Columba Press.

Risible Blasphemic Measures : 2009

Cruci-fiction, the fictive crucifixion of the artist’s word by a Minister for Government , cYp on Politics.ie

These risible and wholly unnecessary measures have made me break my apolitical rule on Poethead, thus causing agitation for a whole 24 hours…,

Stories and opinions at links provided above. # July 2010, this whole stupid posturing has led to the need for a Constitutional Referendum on the subject of Blasphemy. I am of the opinion that we need a writer the calibre of Swift to show up these appalling Modest Proposals that are grounded solely in the vanity of senior ministers, who in fiscal crisis
tend toward the ephemeral.

The law mentioned in the quotes above has been amended still retaining the criminalisation aspects ,

Ahern’s Amendment.

Once by Paul Celan.

“Once
I heard him
he was washing the world,
unseen, nightlong,real.

One and infinite,
annihilated,
ied.

Light was. Salvation.”

From : Fathomsuns and Benighted,Paul Celan, trans, Ian Fairley. 1991. Carcanet Books.

Tony Harrison : The Mysteries

The annual Cúirt festival of Literature occurred recently, indeed it has been mentioned before in a series of pieces relating to Current Irish Arts Council Policy which has mitigated against two of three writers organisations in this country. 

Anyway, I used attend the Cúirt Festival of Literature up in Galway, it was for me an annual treat and in many ways Life-changing because it’s always good to hear the poet, or indeed to see him/her. I met Tony Harrisonat one particular reading and it was round the time that he had published his Mysteries.

I lost one copy, then replaced it, re-found and loaned one to a friend in Barcelona, indeed we read bits of it on a particularly stormy night which I will never forget (but, I digress……..)

The Mysteries were  instigated by the Guilds’  system’ to bring fundamental truths to communities, thus butchers, bakers, candlestick-makers became the passionists of Religious communication, before such jolly ideas as a created Apocrypha or Imprimatur descended into the too rational brains of those who sometime detested the very words that make bibles. (Gosh!!!  two digressions)

.

“A man is like a rusty wheel
On a rusty cart.
He sings his song as he rattles along
And then he falls apart.

-

And we sing allelujah
At the turning of the year
And we work all day in the old-fashioned way
Till the shining star appears.

-

A man is like a bramble briar
Covers himself with thorns
He laughs like a clown when his fortunes are down
and his clothes are ragged and torn.”

-

I won’t go on at the moment, I was rather hoping to include some Mary Magdalena who is a physical/spiritual lover in this  bookie. Thus I will end with a recommendation :
Tony Harrison: the Shadow of Hiroshima and other Film Poems, Faber. Related link :  Desperate Funding Cuts

Protected: The Island is Silence,

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Coleridge, by Mc Guckian.

(for Michael Longley)

In a dream he fled the house
At the Y of three streets
To where a roof of bloom lay hidden
In the affectation of the night,
As only the future can be. Very tightly,
Like a seam, she nursed the gradients
Of his poetry in her head;
She got used to its movements like
A glass bell being struck
With a padded hammer.
It was her own fogs and fragrances
That crawled into verse, the
Impression of cold braids finding
Radiant escape, as if each stanza
Were a lamp that burned between
Their beds, or they were writing
The poems in a place of birth together.
Quietened by drought, his breathing
Just became audible where a little
Silk-mill emptied impetuously into it
Some word that grew with him as a child’s
Arm or leg. If she stood up (easy,
Easy) it was the warmth that finally
leaves the golden pippin for the
Cider, or the sunshine of fallen trees.

from: On Ballycastle Beach, by Medbh Mc Guckian, Published the Gallery Press 1995

‘Life’, by EBB

” Each creature holds an insular point in
space;
Yet what man stirs a finger, breathes
a sound,
But all the multidinous beings round
In all the countless worlds, with time
and place
For their conditions, down to the central base,
Thrill, haply , in vibration and rebound;
Life answering life across the vast
profound,
In full antiphony, by a common grace?
I think this sudden joyaunce which
illumes
A child’s mouth sleeping, unaware may
run
From some new soul newly loosened from
earth’s tombs.
I think this passionate sigh, which
half-begun
I stifle back may reach and stir the
plumes
Of God’s calm angel standing in the sun.”

From Elizabeth Barret Browning‘s Sonnets

La Pucelle, by Nuala Ní Chonchúir.

“In the hush of my father’s house,
before dusk rustles over the horizon,
I take off the dress my mother made
-it’s as ruby red as St Michael’s cloak-
and with a stitch of linen, bind my breasts.

By the greasy light of a candle,
I shear my hair to the style of a boy,
in the looking glass I see my girlhood
swallowed up in a tunic and pants,
I lace them tightly to safeguard myself.

My soldiers call me ‘Pucelle’, maiden,
they cleave the suit of armour to my body,
and know when following my banner
over ramparts into Orléans, that
there will only ever be one like me.

When the pyre flames fly up my legs,
I do not think of the Dauphin,
or my trial as a heretical pretender,
but see my mother, head bent low,
sewing a red dress for her daughter to wear.”

Tatoo: Tatú, le Nuala Ní Chonchuir, Arlen House, 2007.

Poetry Ireland Online.

Poetry Ireland

This post comprises a small acknowledgement of the work of Poetry Ireland both online and in the real world , as well a space to collate some of the useful links which might interest those who amongst us who do poetics.

In recent times I had written a small tribute to David Marcus who had died and whilst mining for information to add to the scant bit that I knew both as a reader and writer I noted that he was instrumental in setting up the precursor to Poetry Ireland which has developed imho into an incredible literary resource , thus I thought it would be really nice to discuss the site online in Poethead which has a strong connection to the site through the Poetry Ireland Forum,the Tangled Web and even a review page on Agnes Nemes Nagy.

There follows at the end of this short paragraph links in bold to the site , which I have decided is the best way to present anything, those who may be interested in exploring further can get a taster of how it is all put together; and thus divine what joy it gives to those amongst us who like the idea of both utilising the site and contributing therein.

The Tangled Web Resource Page

Poetry Ireland Publications

Book Reviews Page

Poetry Ireland Forum

Poetry Ireland Mainpage

My Nagy

25 Pins in a Packet.

Apart from the category How Words Play, I suppose that I like to publish on the theme of Women’s Work within the 25 Pins in a Packet category most. I decided that I would publish the archive link in here along with a short note on the category itself.

I like unusual books, not specifically those that are rare or antique but books full of interest especially when the author is passionate about his theme, in many ways I consider myself fortunate to live amongst bibliophiles and collectors because there is always something in the library , the books proliferate at an alarming pace, be it through gift , loan or purchase. The Kerlie in discussion herein is a hard cover book on the theme of walking the religious sites in France, prinicpally in the Alsace Lorraine region and they take in a wide variety of history to boot.

Unfortunately I do not have the book to hand and cannot find its isbn, publication date or full tile and will thus add it into the comment section here when I can take the necessary notes. The actual 25 pins in a Packet were a prize given by the abbesses at Remiremont (founded in 620 by Romaric ) which boasted all sorts of interesting theological curiosities but uppermost were some hairs purporting to be from the Virgin Mary, each year the Abbesses held a singing contest during an annual celebratory fete in which the prize was indeed the aforementioned pins. The pins were treasured items but they are also symbolic of the work of women, which is often hard and sometimes not so good, I thought to explore this theme through the conceit of Penelope, Arachne, the women of the harem and the women of enclosed communities, right down to the Anchorite who is the ultimate soloist. Poethead is  thematically scattered with women’s work which in the grand scheme of things is often not honoured and not very well rewarded.

Forms, A Sampler, by Jo Kerr.

Archive for 25 Pins in a Packets

Shrines in Alsace-Lorraine, E Marianne H M’Kerlie, Sands and Company 1918

‘A Glance Will Tell You and A Dream Confirm’, Mc Intyre.

Companion

“Slip ashore, show
you how to gather
pollen, simple breath,

music wishing
to be born
loops the page,

a red sea-rod
knows every fish
wise in the lap

of your ninth wave,
wave in waiting
shy to the west,

it’s long past noon,
the night comes one,
down to the water,

child of nature,
down to the water,
play me home.”

A Glance will tell you A dream confirm, Tom Mc Intyre, Dedalus Press, 1994

I am moving rather slowly through the Poetry Book Society recommended  translation of The Georgics  of Virgil by Peter Fallon, published Gallery Press, 2004. Thus the opening verse:

” What tickles the corn to laugh in rows, and by what star
to steer the plow, and how to train the vine to elms,
good management of flocks and herds, the expertise
bees need
to thrive- my lord, Maecenas, such are the makings of
the song
I take upon myself to sing.”

Both these books are longtime favourites which are sorely neglected in the daily grind of work.

‘Between Earth and Sky’, Ágnes Nemes Nagy and Hugh Maxton.

Firstly , I am adding in a review that I did a while ago, along with one or two Nagy poems. I am really leaving this open-ended in terms of discussing Nagy and Maxton’s collaboration and would hope that it becomes a series on poetic prose, collaboration and translation. Then, I will add in the International PEN links at the end of this small piece.

Agnes Nemes Nagy : ‘Between’, a Poetry Ireland Book Review.

“I have no serious doubt,” observed George Szirtes in his Introduction to The Night of Akhenaton, a selection of her poetry, “that Ágnes Nemes Nagy is one of the great indispensable poets of the twentieth century.” Agnes Nemes Nagy (1922-1991) was a Hungarian poet, author, political writer and activist, whose life, as for so many of her generation, was defined by the Second World War, and particularly by the friends she knew who died in Auschwitz. Between by Agnes Nemes Nagy and translated by Hugh Maxton comprises the largest translated collection of Nagy’s work into English, and is published by Dedalus in Dublin and Corvina Press in Budapest.

Angels are always terrifying in Nagy and often allied to tree and branch symbols. Her imagery in general is often ‘off-centre’; she wrote about the process of writing as “I think it is the duty of the poet to obtain citizenship for an increasing horde of nameless emotions”.

I Carried Statues

“On board ship carried Statues,
Huge faces unrecognised
On board ship carried statues
To stand on the island.
Between nose and ears
Perfect right angle
Otherwise blank.
On board ship carried statues
And so I sank.”

Terraced Landscape is a prose piece which visually describes movement through time through the poem’s 34 separate planes or terraces:

Zero Plane.

“Now nothing is visible.Yet something continues
To sound, in a fragmentary fashion, breaking down,
Swelling. Do you hear it? Up there somewhere,
Towering little domes like the roofing of a city, unknown bells inside”

Zero Plane is the poem’s introduction, while the overall structure is cyclical, so that the white noise at the end of Level 34 seques back to the beginning, Zero Plane. Not all the levels are described, yet all things acquire depth and shape, everyday objects swell and become, they lose their flatness. This reminds me of Sylvia Plath’s ‘I love the thingness of things’, and of how familiar objects become so alien or so intimate to the observer that they acquire a symbolic importance.

The poem ‘Lazarus’ -

‘Round his left shoulder, as he got up slowly
Every day’s Muscle gathered in agony
His death was flayed off him like a gauze
Because second birth has such harsh laws’.

- recalls Leonard Baskin’s Hanged Man’, a lithograph from the Fifties of the Hanged man from the Tarot deck,
an image not only of torture but also a warning that the poet and artist must consistently engage with the world
whatever the cost.

Between is divided into short poems and cycles, two essays and some prose, with Nagy herself contributing the foreword. Hugh Maxton talks of the translation / collaboration process at the back of the book, but between intro and postscript the images and words create, for this reader, visual monuments, portals into a mythos and an often sublime awareness.

Agnes Nemes Nagy, Between, Dedalus Press, Dublin and Corvina Press , Budapest. Trans, Hugh Maxton

Related Links.

This is the P.I Review which I have adjusted in minor terms re the Italics and Bolds.

International Pen , Translation and Linguistic Rights.

Ágnes Nagy’s Poetic Prose translated by Hugh Maxton.

Baskin Mosquito.

From ‘Leaf-Stalks’

“Yet I would not dismiss the nonentities. The things that nearly are not. Journey of woodbine, ampelopsis on the ancient walls (of garden and its house), clutch of tendrils and trailing plants, the shuffling of their minute paws, with pads of suction for terminals of their thread-like minute fingers, and claws, green zig-zag path of lizards this way and that, climbing always higher until, until there are masterpieces of space-fillment. No question of it: indeed we bathe our faces in the roistering fire of some noted blooms, therby healing up our remoteness. But what of the props and supports? Candle-stick under the candle’s flame, the stalks, the vegetable scales, thorny pronged candelabras. And the floating wicks, nightlights of a provisional kind, shoepolish tins in times of siege..”

Night-Stalks, from ‘Between’ by Agnes Nemes Nagy

In a brief afterword attached to this Volume of Between by Nagy, Hugh Maxton discusses his approach to collaborative translation, along with a brief description of the history and political situation in Hungary in terms of linguistic revival and conservation. It’s well worth the read, I shall be looking for an online link to add in here. In my last piece on translation , I alluded to the appalling translations of Nagy that I found online whilst searching for material by the writer and in brief to the importance of linguistic heritage, (though I am no expert in the field ), it’s actually easy enough to identify a terrible translation into English.

The Nagy/Maxton collaboration is a triumph in sensitivity and awareness, thus his approach to the project is something I would recommend to people who are interested in the area of disseminating literature either online or in publication.
I also like Gallagher’s translations of Ursu and some scraps of Agren Mc Elroy’s work on Nelly Sachs, both of whom I have mentioned on Poethead before now.

Between, The Selected Poems of Agnes Nemes Nagy, trans High Maxton,
Corvina Press Budapest, Dedalus Press, Dublin, 1988

Leonard Baskin Woodcuts.

The IELA in the context of Fianna Fáil Cultural policy 2009.

This post includes a link which leads to a short explanatory of the Irish Exhibition of living Art, the reason being twofold:

i) The current Irish government has no idea of the importance of cultural expression nor indeed of Irish heritage, this exemplified in the Tara debacle, the cutting of funds to the IWC and the WWC and the current blasphemy debacle. ii). The depts that are up for downgrade or cutting are the Arts Dept and the one charged with Culture and Gaelteacht.

The Link to the IELA from IAR is at the bottom of this piece.

Having no idea therefore of the historical role of government in the Irish Arts, I thought to include this blast from the past because some people in this country do have an idea of the importance of cultural and artistic expression, despite
erosion after erosion through funding removals, legislations that corrode thethe importance of arts; and infrastructure projects that do not take account of preservation within EU and International Directives . The Arts and heritage of cultural and community memory have always be entrusted to those who who respect the dialogue between artist and community.

The FF/Green government will be introducing a Blasphemy amendment to the Defamation Bill 2006 which is expected to pass into Irish law on July 10th 2009 under time constraint or guillotine. This risible bit of jiggery pokery is enabled
by the overt attack on the independence of the arts by Seán O Donoghue (FF) TD, who in 2003 introduced the Arts Act thereby allowing government interference in the appointment of the Irish Art’s Council Board and in funding decision , which had already dealt the first blow to Irish Arts. In 2004 Martin Cullen introduced the NMA* which allowed the destruction of National Monuments and he abolished Dúchas the Heritage Agency leaving Ireland without an implementation body or statutory agency to ensure preservation of architectural or built heritage. There has been a subversive and acultural element in the current government since its 12 year reign of power began that is at variance to best practice in terms of protection and conservation. The link below is a reminder of how artists engaged the community with their cultural heritage despite the government’s inability to understand the importance of cultural expression and critique within the state at its foundation.

Unfortunately Irish governments are more concerned in projecting a national stance or image in what they consider to be the best bits of our character as a nation and not recognising the importance of growth and dialogue in the arts, thus creating a fetished ossification of any green shoots that deign to appear or that attempt to confront a national image. This means that those who drive policy do not have a sense of the most basic rudiments of history of cultural expression; but indeed tend to foist their jaundiced and silly fetishes onto an unsuspecting public who will turn out in droves to whatever
Hollywood crud is put on in whatever convention centre funded to the hilt by a buddy or crone of a cabinet Minister. It’s pretty shaming to witness that corrosiveness in terms of the destruction of Tara or the fund cuts to two of three writer’s centres but as the link herein shows its pretty much par for the course to have a bunch of shop-keepers and teachers driving national policy in culturally sensitive areas.

Continence would be preferable.

 The Irish Exhibition of Living Art.
Save Tara Campaign.
 National Monuments Act 2004.
Irish Arts Act 2003.

Blue Moon.

Harry Clarke Links at bottom of Poem .

Blue Moon

The blue moon, the blue moon
low strung and the late roses.

© C Murray

The Pics on this new Clarke site are indicative of his Blues

Ephemera VI: The Google Book Settlement (Links at the base of Piece)

The Google Library and Partnership projects: barely covered by the Irish Times.

I attended the Google Book Settlement Seminar at the RCSI this morning to get an overview of the case to date: Which I must emphasise is not settled yet, thus making the dates/issues/cases and general agitation by Google whose advisors and lawyers have created what is essentially an entirely arbitrary set of obfuscating circumstances to define book digitalisation.

I think it’s called Corporate avant-gardeism

A brief overview of the GBS:

i). Google has redefined what comprises Commercial availability.

ii). Through the Berne Convention (Which is covered by GBS) Irish Authors and Publishers have ‘A US Copyright interest: Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

iii). Google (for the moment one assumes) is excluding personal papers, sheet music, periodicals, public domain and governmental publications from the GBS.

* Oxford and Harvard have agreed with Goggle to digitalise their collections.

*2005: The Author’s Guild and Mc Graw Hill sue Google for copyright infringement.

* +7 Million books have been digitised of which 5 million were copyright protected.

(This means that they went ahead and infringed legal copyrights and decided to
fight the legal point at a later date)

* 2008: The Google Book settlement is achieved.

All info on the settlement will be available on a special Author’s help page:

Poetry Ireland , inquiries to info@poetryireland.ie

Legal, timeline and other info : Irish Copyright Licensing Agency: ICLA | Frontpage.

Google Settlement info: Google Book Search Settlement Notice to Rights-holders – Books & Inserts Registry

The only IT article was hidden in the financial pages : In short – The Irish Times – Fri, Jul 10, 2009

The European Commission is meeting on this on the 07/09/09 to look at anti-trust elements which are also brewing in the US (the speaker indicated that this is generally part of a class action in the US).

because a number of cheap US authors thought to support the Goliath, the issues has spread virally into the EU whereby anti-trus meeting and Berne Convention will directly impinge on Irish Publishers and Authors. The US Library of Congress is not supporting the Google library or Partnership projects.

Berne Convention.
ICLA.
Poetry Ireland Mainpage
The Google Book Settlement.
Author’s Guild.

The ‘Ephemera’ Titles on Poethead.

Anyone who reads this site (and lots do) will note that there are titles
Ephemera I-VI

I did not start an Ephemera Category , nor do I much feel like developing one.
It’s mostly direct C+P without operating links from email leakage or indeed
from one or other site that I happen to contribute on. I have published them
also into a group in Linkedin because I strongly believe that everything
should be filed somewhere.

( makes things easier to find, even if they are rough and ready.)

The Six Poethead Ephemera Links are now added into this post:

Ephemera # 1.
Ephemera # II.
Ephemera # III.
Ephemera # iv.
Ephemera # IV (a)
Ephemera # V; Knickers to Google.
GBS : Ephemera # VI.

Poetry Against Blasphemy Laws : ‘Over the Edge’.

It’s great when your government ministers do not recognise
their own traditions of blasphemy, thats mostly because they
have little in the way of time to read a book- though one hopes
when they are fcked out next election that they will increase
their literacy level…

Ireland has a wonderful tradition of blasphemic utterance, in poetry,
in fiction and in literature, mostly we are a people that refuse to take
ourselves so seriously:

I feel that Dermot Ahern has not one iota of intellection in this issue.
What a sad and expedient little man he has proven himself to be.
I hope many people submit as govt consistently erases cultural
memory in pursuit of what gain? Cheap and tawdry idiotic family
members pretending they can write books, or good tailoring- who
knows what attracts the witless bureaucrat to a position of power
therein to laud their ignorance as if it were somehow commensurate
with actually having a brain >?

Poets and Blasphemy via ‘Over the Edge’, Submissions Notice.

A Constance Madden Poem: Last Night you Passed By.

Sophie Taueber-Arp image from MOMA.

“Last night you passed by
As slow as the shadows,
And your thoughts were all drenched
With dreams of her promise.
But my window was laced with tears
At your passing
And you never came in
And my heart on you fasting.

And you never came in
And the weary night waiting.
But my heart is as deep
As the grass of her grazing.
O count up her fat cows
My soul feeds on tears.
But lonely tonight waits
And Lonely the years.”

by Constance Madden.

A wee tale,  I found this poem in a small book of Irish Writing got yesterday in Howth; and edited indeed by the Late David Marcus.I will add in David’s Obit at the base of this piece. The volume number is 13 and the cost is 6/6.

The Death of David Marcus.

It is the centenary year of Ms Weil’s Birth.

Writers are this year celebrating the centenary of Simone Weil‘s birth, sure if we did not have dedicated women’s departments where would we be?

A proliferation of books,essays and critiques are promised for this year, oft-times women of great vision and expression disappeared under the weight of history only to resurface with the creative effort of forensic archivists and dedicated communicators.

I have just completed reading Waiting for God by Ms Weil, and I have a small book of her writings in a SUNY publication. It will be great to be able to access more of her writing. I shall add in here at the base of this small post the few Poethead links to Simone Weil’s work and I hope to have another piece available over the next few days.

International Women’s Day,’ Necessity‘ by Simone Weill.

On finding a book of Simone Weill essays!

A Wreck of Gulls.

I have before mentioned the two small book-fairs that occupy Howth village each Sunday afternoon, mostly its where treasures can be found and indeed regular customers get spoiled with first options on new boxes of books.

This time of year is when the gulls are encouraging the young to leave their nests and head out to sea, the boiling humidity and swirling grey closeness make the crèche loud and dramatic. Sea-birds run through Yeats and Joyce as tropes and images, especially Yeats whose doomed desire for Gonne was represented often by the squaking gulls up at Howth head where they walked out.

I cannot think of a Yeats’ poem off the top of my head to publish here (now) unfortunately, but I am so glad that the National Library exhibit is continuing for I was able to bring the little one in to show her the Lapis and sword  of Sato this last week.

NLI exhibition of Yeats’ life and work in Dublin.

Winter Fire, by Kathleen Raine.

“The presence of nature in my winter room
With curtains drawn across the clouds and stars,
lakes, fells, and green sweet meadows far away
Is fire, older and more wild than they.

Fire will outlast them all and take them all
For into fire the autumn woods must fall.
Spring blossoming is the slow combustion of the tree,
The phoenix fire that burns bird beast and flower away.

Once Troy and Dido’s Carthaginian pyre
And Baldur’s ship, and fabulous London burning,
Robes, wooden walls and crystal palaces
In their apotheosis were such flames as these.

Flames more fluent than water of a mountain stream,
Flames more delicate and swift than air,
Flames more impassable than walls of stone,
destructive and irrevocable as time.

Essential fire is the unhindered spirit
That, laid upon the lips of prophecy
Frees all the shining elements of the soul;
Whose burning teaches love the way to die
And selves to undergo their ultimate destruction
Upon those flaming ramparts of the world
That rise between our fate, and the lost garden.”

Kathleen Raine : from Modern Verse 1900-1950
Oxford University Press (OUP), ed Phyllis M Jones.

soleil d'Or rose, though not a winter bloom.

GBS: The Google Book Settlement , Resources and Links.

I am publishing here the Poetry Ireland GBS (Google Book Settlement) pages, replete as they are with interesting factoids and links regarding how it effects authors. There is already a searchable quantity of links on Poethead regarding this issue which will be updated soon enough after the European Commission meets on the possible anti-trust elements on the 07/09/09.

Poetry Ireland Resource, Factoid and Link page.
Politics report on the story to date.
Poethead
Ephemera on copyright,statute, funding and GBS.

I found an old note on Simone Weil in my Google docs.

Since buying Waiting for God in the last month and indeed in the centenary year of Ms Weil’s birth, I have been fairly ensconsed with her philosophical writings which part of me rejects because of the strength of her writing. She continues to intrigue however, with her strong likeness to Meister Eckhart, to images in the poetry of Paul Celan , and to Marguerite Porete, the beguine who found her death during the French Inquisition. All the above named authors are searchable in Poethead with a special emphasis on Paul Celan whose work features so little here, save in two small pieces.

This then is the Google doc note:

[ A brief note on Simone Weil's Notebooks ].

I had published Necessity on the Poethead blog to acknowledge and celebrate International Women’s day, which as everyone knows occurs annually on March the Eight (annually).

I shall add in the link to that poem at the end of this note. I have taken to carrying round the Joan Dargan book “Thinking Poetically“, because my time is carved into segments of day in which certain functions and duties must occur. These largely revolve around the children, thus the luxury of reading has evolved into a certain office time which I have claimed totally for myself, or indeed in moments of utter frustration books are packed into a bag with the hope of a coffee shop, a traffic jam or a warm park.

“Even to let the imagination linger over certain things as possible (which is completely different from clearly conceiving a possibility, a thing essential to virtue) is already to commit oneself. curiosity is the cause of this. To forbid (not from conceiving but from lingering over) certain thoughts; not to think about. People believe that thought does not commit one, but it alone does commit one, and the licence of thought imprisons all freedoms. Not to think about, supreme faculty. Purity, negative virtue.”

 and….

 ”if what is supreme can be expressed in our language only by means of negation, in the same way we can imitate it only by means of negation.”

from ,  Simone Weil , Thinking Poetically, ed, Joan Dargan State University of NY press. 1999.

I am adding in the links to the other small pieces re Weil at the end of this post, along with the hope that when I have thoroughly finished the two books on my desk that I shall go beyond aphorism and discuss the works more intimately. The above note includes her ideas on negation which are more completely expressed in her essays on Catholicism which are manifestly not written by a theist, indeed she was unbaptized at her death, though she seemed to possess a catholic consciousness and philosophy that owes a lot to Aquinas and indeed to the tradition of Isacc Luria (She was an agnostic Jew in her upbringing).

Wikipedia on Weil
The Centenary of Ms Weil’s Birth.
Necessity.
Once by Paul Celan.
Paul Celan and Heidegger, ‘translation at the mountain of death’

‘Poetry’ by Elisaveta Bagyrana, trans Brenda Walker.

Elisaveta Bagyrana (Wiki Image)

Poetry

“If my glance were not blest-
with you, inside. Open-eyed to penetrate the darkness,
and to make it fly and dance for me,
grafting wings to it,
to teach it how to see the flower,
to see the future fruit in the a branch still bare,
and to land with an interstellar craft
on a star that twinkles there-
how could my eyes, deprived of such joy
last,
if you did not exist ?

If you had not pitched my ear-
so that in stillness I can hear
those words, someone whispers to enlist for me
words, that bring both care and cheer,
with nearby or distant voice,
from outer space or next door’s fence,
that reach me when full of remorse,-
all that powerful richness of sense
my life would miss,
if you did not exist.

If you had not possessed my heart
from youth until this very hour,
poured all your song and thought in me-
so I might feel my sister’s hand
when I was helpless and alone,
so that your furnace could transmute
sorrow to a spark, into joyous-tones.”

Elisaveta Bagyrana, Penelope of the Twentieth Century, trans, Brenda Walker, with Valentine Borrisov and Belin Tonchev Forest Books 1993. Elisaveta on Wikipedia.

‘Your childhood fable of fountains now’ , FG Lorca.

I thought to do a note on some poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, though the images he conjures seemed to have thwarted that and instead I found myself ensconced in a book I found years ago in Charlie Byrnes bookshop up in Galway City.

The poetry of Lorca has run like a thread through my visual and intellectual life since I was nineteen, though it seems an age ago when I discovered his writing- it really is not that long. Thus I was unsure whether a poem or  two would suffice to capture this greatness; and indeed had prevented me thus far from publishing anything by the man.

The line at the top of this post is by Jorge Guillén , Lorca uses it to begin his Poem Your Childhood in Menton ,  after he had found himself transplanted into the Americas as a student; and away from the very soil that made his songs, be it bleached by the sun or drenched in blood. Thus, I am going to publish here an excerpt from the  poem along with an exhortation to read Lorca, to listen (if at all possible) to the music of the Deep Song; and to recommend from amongst the Biographies of FGL that of Ian Gibson.

Your Childhood in Menton.

love, love, love. The childhood of the ocean.
Your lukewarm soul which is without you and does
not understand you.
Love, love the roe’s flight
over the endless breast of white.
And your childhood, love, and your childhood.
The train and the woman who fills the sky.
Nor air nor leaves nor you nor I.
Yes your childhood fable of fountains now.

The above excerpt is taken from a series of published lectures by Federico Garcia Lorca, entitled: Deep Song and Other Prose, Ed and Trans Christopher Maurer. Publ. Marion Boyars 1954.

I believe my bilingual edition is also translated by Christopher Maurer but have not it to hand at the moment. I heartily recommend chapters , which are essentially speeches from these lecture series on The Duende and  Lullabies for the new reader to familiarise him/herself with Lorca’s intimate tone , and Poet in New York for  a good introduction to some of his later poetry.

Lorca, a Life
Poeta en Nueva York
Deep Song
Lorca Wiki

Fountain in the generalife Palace, Alhambra.

Across the Sound, Daragh Breen.

This small book was a gift, I am excerpting two wee pieces from it because Autumn is coming in, thus my trips to the place in the west will be not as frequent. The words contain almost a hunger to describe the island, the sea and the west of Ireland in it’s storm-damaged reality. Some of the images remind me of a view from Roman Island in Mayo and some indeed remind me of the Arnold Bax composition, The Island of the Fand

Across the Sound

The horizon is a mess of mizzle
Like gathered stage-curtains
Behind which the world is
Constantly trying to slip.

Across the Sound

Seven-night gales had been
Known to rip sheer rocks
From these bird-shocked cliffs.

As if the island had been
Offered up by the mainland,
An inhabited storm-wall

As if the island had been
Jettisoned, a large block of
Night heaved into the sea.

Across the Sound, Shards from the history of an Island , Daragh Breen, November Press. 2003

Paul Henry
The Island of the Fand

Paul Henry’s Paintings at link

Pretty useless things , by Poethead

Wiki image of Maurice Ascalon Art deco.

Pretty useless things

by C Murray

A Summer’s evening, its gray raining.
the flames of five candles are dancing gay.

As counterpoint, your little lamp is straining
her low glow across the space between us.

And you give me pretty useless things,
these symbols of light;

a golden bowl figured in silver round,
red-glazed, a red not in nature found.

This poem published in the Poetry Ireland Forum members area is from an MSS
  also published Éisteach 2011.

Poethead by C Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0
Unported License. Based on a work at poethead.wordpress.com.

Maurice Ascalon Wiki

GBS Charm Offensive: Google Book Settlement and Privacy.

Some of the broadsheets, though mostly UK based have had positive blogs on the Google Book Settlement, comparing it to a huge library of accessible knowledge, indeed an exercise in democracy. I would differ there, given the issues that are *not* discussed and that I have linked to before on Poethead.

Google Inc has no Robust Privacy policy in relation to Data:

Independent UK
Electronic Frontier Foundation on GBS with dinky contact email addie for Eric Schmidt.
My Blog on Politics.ie re the GBS.
The Open Book Alliance
Poetry Ireland GBS Pages

Snapshot of an Orchard in Port Angeles, By Liliana Ursu.

Snapshot of an Orchard in Port Angeles
(for Mrs Georgia Bond and Stanley Kunitz)

” The woman worked all her youth on Lost Mountain
marking trees to be cut,
and gave birth to five children.
Now, old and a widow, she takes care
of her orchard,
When her daughter brought the poet from Provincetown to visit,
the old woman was proud to show him
her oldest tree : pinus aristata- the one never marked
for cutting- that is, the deathless one- she added.

The poet doubted this; ‘I am afraid you are mistaken.
The oldest tree in the world is metasequoia
glyptostroboides- (also known as the Dawn Redwood)
and it has more lives to live. Well, what do you think?
Which one of us is right, madam?’

She answered: ‘A man lives as long as his life, mister,
but a poet lives as long as your tree with a strange name.’
He liked her answer so much that on her birthday
he sent by telegram to a nursery, then by truck
to her doorstep, his own tree, the Dawn Redwood,
and a card : ‘May this tree grow near yours.
Let their shadows annul each other reciprocally
so in your orchard
light will grow free forever’. “

I have mentioned Liliana Ursu’s book The Sky Behind the Forest before, it is translated by Tess Gallagher and Adam Sorkin. Bloodaxe 1997.

Two Poems from The Sky Behind the Forest, by Liliana Ursu.

A Bonnard Blossom tree.

The Google Book Settlement and the European Commission.

I refer in short to the Google Book Settlement as the GBS throughout this series of posts, the links for which I will include at the base of this short piece.

Yesterday there was a meeting of the European Commission (07/09/09) re the GBS which yielded what Irish Media refer to as concessions to European authors and publishing houses.

How Big of Google to recognise that the GBS is an irritant encompassing:

i). Breach of copyright.

ii).No robust data privacy rules and the use of deposit library relationships to advance the GBS above the heads of authors.

The Telegraph referred to the meeting as out for European authors and betwixt the two lies a truth. The manipulation of the Berne Convention to subvert intellectual property rights law in an era wherein governments  (such as In China) can proscribe forms and words that they disprove of incl. the utilisation of search engine terms (such as in the Green Dam youth filtering software) would point to Google vying for a market dominance without the requisite ethical approach to Freedom of Information and data privacy.

if you can make a word vanish in China you can remove books from the digitisation project at the behest of government, not to mind that the GBS scanning omits pictorials and forewords.

I am adding in here the two P.ie posts on the issue:

EC Meeting of 07/09/09
GBS links
Reports on the EC Meeting:
Telegraph 08/09/09
GBS and Privacy.
GBS Facts Pages for Authors and publishers
Electronic Frontier Foundation on data privacy
The Berne Convention from Wiki.

Unearthing things : The Archivum.

Panorama of BCN via Wiki .

I spent this early morning at the funeral mass of a neighbour and I have not had time to think about what poem I would like to publish today. Yesterday, whilst looking for some paperwork
and files,  I found a small hand bound book of poems that I had made in Barcelona last year. It’s provisionally titled The Archivum,  partly because I found myself at least twice in the  Cathedral of Pi (Gothic quarter) and therein is a small courtyard with railed in trees, the paving slabs are endowed with varieties of images and symbols, mostly skull and X-bones. Before one gets to the courtyard, there are two coffins on a shelf bearing crosses, that, my friend assures me quivered and rocked about during the Cathedral occupation; and then a sign Archivum.

For some reason the little book contains two finished poems and volumes of notes/drafts , all forewords by a quote from The Unnameable by JP Lovecraft I have said it here before, Lovecraft is creepy; but not really scary. The poems are in Irish and describe Loch Lein and Catalunya breezes.

I am unsure whether to publish them in full or excerpt , as they are more draft than poems. I thought I had lost them in my endless files and am glad they are recovered. I also came across a blue Craftsman’s Notebook , which is chockfull of images (they all start as image) that never quite made it into poems but does show my intense preoccupations at that time. It’s blue bound with a small elastic holding it together. I did not study it too closely but intend to later on today.

There is a poem on Poethead entitled Santa Maria del Mar which I am adding in at the base of the piece. I am interested in conservation and apocrypha, thus can only assume that the two small books were filed together in an odd place for later finding.

The exterior of PI.
Santa Maria del Mar

Dublin Culture Night 2009: Poetry Ireland

Poetry Ireland at the Unitarian Church

Last year’s Dublin Culture night, wherein mostly all Dublin venues are open to everyone and include galleries, museums, film and readings was fantastic, especially the Poetry Ireland Open Mic sessions down at the Unitarian Church on St Stephen’s Green. The church is often used as a PI venue, indeed I visited to hear the belated International Women’s Day celebrations in 2008 also.

The evening begins at 6pm and goes through until 11pm; and once the poets are signed in for their allotted seven minutes they can come and go as they please. Last year slammers, irish poets and new poets vied on the pulpit memorably, with Ulick O Connor followed by an
LA slammer  (t’was hilarious). Ulick colour codes his pieces and had a sheaf of original material nested beneath his arm as he ascended to read. I highly recommend the evening and shall leave an info link at the base of this small piece.

I heard that Parnell Square had good writers doing the readings and talk also.

Poetry Ireland Open Mic evening, Unitarian Church, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2. 6pm-11pm 2009.

Poetry Ireland Link for 25/09/09
Bloggie for Culture Night

It’s Culture night 25/09/09!!

I am looking forward to it, though have to do an intricate plan by mapping the evening. This is to do with my guests who are smaller than the average person and not used to being up late.

So the evening will involve drop-ins to their and my chosen venues. And a wee bite to eat along the route.

The main thread on the night is just below this post, that includes the main link to maps and cities involved in this year’s celebrations. As I said there , Poetry Ireland will be reviving their wonderful Open Mic night at the Unitarian Church on St Stephen’s Green.Other recommendations include Charlie Byrne’s bookshop evening up in Galway which will be chaired by Michael O Loughlin and anywhere where poets do gather = look at the maps. The cities will be lit up with venues open that normally do not open at night; and as I said before the best way to do it, is by using the feet and planning well in advance. Taxis are for the time-constrained.

Galway Culture Night
Politics Ireland Culture Night Thread.

Lightplay in Irish Landscape: Hyde and O Driscoll.

The Mystery, by Douglas Hyde*

I am the wind which breathes upon the sea,
I am the wave of the ocean,
I am the murmur of the billows,
I am the ox of the seven combats,
I am the vulture upon the rocks,
I am the beam of the sun,
I am the fairest of the plants,
I am the wild boar in valour,
I am the salmon in the water,
I am a lake in the plain,
I am a word of science,
I am the point of the lance in battle,
I am the god who created in the head, the fire,
Who is it who throws light into the meeting on the mountain ?
Who announces the ages of the moon?
Who touches the place where couches the sun
(if not I)

I do not have a book for this one, it’s transcribed from a bilingual Spanish edition in the keeping of my wonderful friend, I will of course ask him to send me the details so I can publish it here. it’s a beautiful poem by Douglas Hyde.

From Skywriting, by Dennis O Driscoll

On midwinter day, sun excavates
the entrances of passage tombs,
surveys their corbelled vaults, revives
their spirits with light touch.
And slabs of weather-beaten stone-
wedged on heathery mountain tops
that offer panoramas of five fertile counties-
carry boulders like the weight
of the world on granite shoulders
receive a warm overspill of light,
as do these giant incisors- a ring of
standing stones- which form a sun trap.

I highly recommend ‘Skywriting’ by the way, it is taken from Reality Check by Dennis O Driscoll, publ. Anvil 2007, sure I know – was at the launch in RCSI on the Green.

Anna Politkovskaya: Third Anniversary on the 07/10/09

wiki image by Tatyana Zelenskaya

Anna Politkovskaya 30/08/48 to 07/10/06

I will add in a few blog posts and information pages at the end of this post which is in the manner of remembering the importance of this woman writer politically and acknowledging the work she did in Chechyna.

Light is Speech, by Marianne Moore (excerpt)

“One can say more of sunlight
than of speech; but speech
and light, each
aiding each- when French-
have not disgraced that still
unextirpated adjective.
Yes, light is speech. free frank
impartial sunlight, moonlight,
starlight, lighthouse light,
are language. The Creach’h
d’Ouessant light-
house on its defenceless dot of
rock, is the descendant of Voltaire.”

RIP Anna Politkovskaya (1948-2006)

Here are some links to information about Politkovskaya via The International Women in Media Foundation, My Blog and  Politics.ie:

Anna’a Page at IWMF.

International Women’s day ‘Remembering Politkovskaya’
dot’s blog
Letter of Protest to Putin.

A Poem by Paul Celan.

from Fathomsuns and Benighted, Trans Ian Fairley.

“White Noise, bundled,
beam-
tracks
cross the table,
with the bottle-mail.”

[from: Fathomsuns and Benighted, Trans Ian Fairley. Carcanet 2001. Fadensonnen and Eingedunkelt Introduction by Ian Fairley (trans)]

“White Noise, bundled,
beam-
tracks
cross the table,
with the bottle-mail.

(which sounds itself,sounds
an ocean,drinks it
in, unmasks
the gangwealed
mouths.)

The one Arcanum
passes forever into the Word.
(Apostates roll
beneath the tree without leaf.)

Every
shadowclasp
on every
shadowhinge,
in and out of hearing,
all now report.”

I do like Paul Celan, indeed theres a wee poem by him on Poethead entitled Irish, Use the search engine at the top right of the page to access Poetry by Paul  Celan.

Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin’s Book on Early Irish Literature.

This is a wee link to Dr Ní Bhrolcháin’s book on early Irish literature which I shall go to the trouble of buying before I review it, rather than begging for a free copy (which isn’t a nice thing to do).

As the blurb says this book is suited to both the serious student and to the general reader with an interest in the area. I shall put a link in here at the base of the small piece and a huge congratulation to Muireann on the publication in what have been incredibly difficult times. The latter part of the statement alludes to her years of commitment to the Tara campaign and unlike ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern she really is well worth the read ‘cos She wrote it herself…

Put it on the Christmas stocking list:

An Introduction to Early Irish Literature , Muireann Ni Bhrolcháin,
Four Courts Press 2009.
Save Tara Campaign.

‘Early Irish literature’ by Muireann Ní Bhrolcháin

“This book discusses the rich written heritage of the Old and Middle Irish period, 600 – 1200, and is suitable for students of medieval Ireland as well as the general reader who wants to learn about the stories, poetry and themes of early Irish literature. Early chapters deal with the poets, druids, monks, the beginnings of writing manuscripts as well as an introduction to each of the saga cycles.”

(from the Four Courts Press)

Bridie is on her way to Prayer, by Poethead

A Wiki Iris.

Bridie is on her her way to prayer,

Past the purple bells that grace the wall
They will not be still
Raising their arms up to the breeze
That blows in from the mountain.

© C Murray

Anne Bronte (with Umlaut apologies)

Its Monday and it’s cold in Dublin, am so glad I got a new all-weather but mostly Mountain-climbing Jacket on the Mayo Sojourn (Post-flu and dental recovery). Since I am unpacked and having done the school run where the little one was welcomed back with much happiness, I thought to publish some Bronte (Brunty) poems and whilst adoring Emily’s amazing poetry , I think Anne mostly neglected.

Poethead is about women writers , the whole idea of the blog was sited in the Penelopiad , the woman in exile and the community of women who are sometimes nodded to in serious writer’s chorus’, chorus-lines or indeed hymn sheets, though most of the time critique is poetry and weekend supplements tends to the male voice and academic fields. I still have not learnt how to do an Umlaut,{ apologies}:

The North Wind

“That wind is from the North: I know it well;
No other breeze could have so wild a swell.
Now deep and loud it thunders round my cell,
The faintly dies, and softly sighs,
And moans and murmurs mournfully.
I know it’s language: thus it speaks to me:

‘I have passed over thy own mountains dear,
Thy northern mountains, and they still are free;
still lonely, wild, majestic,bleak and drear,
And stern, and lovely , as they used to be

‘When thou a young enthusiast,
As wild and free as they,
O’er rocks and glens, and snowy heights,
Didst thou love to stray.

‘I’ve blown the pure, untrodden snows
in whirling eddies from their brows;
And I have howled in cavern’s wild,
Where thou, a joyous mountain-child,
didst dearly love to be.
The sweet world is not changed, but thou
art pining in a dungeon now,
Where thou must ever be.

‘No voice but mine can reach thy ear,
And heaven has kindly sent me here
to mourn and sigh with thee,
And tell thee of the cherished land
of thy nativity.’

Blow on wild wind; thy solemn voice,
However sad and drear,
is nothing to the gloomy silence
I have had to bear.

Hot tears are streaming from my eyes,
But these are better far
Than that dull, gnawing , tearless time,
The stupor of despair.

Confined and hopeless as I am,
Oh, speak of liberty!
Oh, tell me of my mountain home,
And I will welcome thee!

The edition the Poem was taken from is an Everyman: Everyman : Selected Poems, The Brontes, Ed, Juliet RV Barker, 1993 .

Margaret Atwood list.
25 Pins in a Packet
Julian of Norwich

The National Campaign for the Arts Petition.

I have discussed here on Poethead before now the effects of a bad approach to arts, indeed compared this current Government’s paucity in funding to the first government in this state which underfunded, censored and failed at every level in arts development , leading to the evolution of such groups as The Irish exhibition of Living Art, The White Stag group, the friends of the Hugh Lane Gallery and many more. Most of these comments are noted in the threads about Blasphemy and the funding cuts to the Irish and Western Writer’s Centres. I spent a considerable amount of time listening to similar stories in music development in Mayo (theres a facebook going there too).

I expect that it is a lack of cultural understanding about how art develops that plagues this government, not to mention a sense of propriety which belies an almost lunatic ignorance (which most of the growing Irish generation has witnessed in the approach to the destruction of Tara by Dick Roche, John Gormley and Bertie Ahern). Ireland needs a viable Art’s Council and a Minister capable of intellectual integrity .:. Sign the Petition here ‘:’

National Campaign for the Arts Petition.
Western Writers

Irish Writer’s Centre Benefit Evenings (October to December 2009)

I am placing herein a link to the Index page of the Irish Writer’s Centre in Parnell Square who have been running a series of Benefit evenings to increase core funding as a result of cutting by The Irish Arts Council, (along with fund cutting to the Western Writer’s Centre). The Cuts occurred just after the Minister Martin Cullen appointed a New Irish Art’s Council Board (Linked at base of this piece/Politics.ie).

The Benefits have been running Oct > Dec 2009 and are chaired by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and John F Deane, I hope to get out to one or two of them also. The Index page of the IWC is here:

IWC Index of Events for Oct-Dec 2009

WWC/IWC fundcuts. (Cullen’s Adventures with the Scissors)

Eithne Strong’s ‘Sarah in Passing’.

This wee poem (one of 17 from Eithne Strong’s book, Sarah in Passing) is one of my favourites, thus I am publishing it today in my Book of Days. The book is published via Dolmen Press 1974, I found it on a book stall in George’s Street Arcade some few years ago; and along with Mark My Words,by Eilís Ní Dhuibhne (Illustrated by Alice Maher), it’s one of my favourite poetic and illustrative collaborations:

Regeneration

“Let me out. I’m rising out of death’s skull.
Aha, old devil’s dower I have victoried.
I leave you in the morning: it deals
with every death and spring defeats the catafalque.

You see I must believe in resurrection.
This is it. Now. I was dead and am alive.
Hello eternity. I can die no more horrific
death than I have died. No hell beyond

the horrors of myself that murdered
every life; saw death in every pregnancy
of dog and nut and man. Found death
the ever death. Come bomb,come

my most killing hate, life lives outside
the blasting skull. Computer is not final.
I cannot give you proof of course,
I merely have arisen.”

Regeneration, from Sarah in Passing, by Eithne Strong, Dolmen Press 1974, illustrated by John Hodge.

The Hare Arch by Ní Dhuibhne

Alain Bosquet, Lost Quatrains.

The edition that the Lost Quatrains (Stances Perdues) are derived from is a Dedalus (Dublin) one, from the Poetry Europe Series No.6:

Stances Perdues, Alain Bosquet, Trans, Roger Little.1999

I have published one from this edition before now on Poethead; and of course referred in brief to Anatoly Bisk (Alain Bosquet) in brief, I will add in a brief bio link at the end of this small Post.

(i).

“My world is simple: an armchair , a mirror,
a ceiling that comes down at my commanding,
a book where everything occurs at hope’s
margins. I’m happy sketching larks ascending.”

(ii).

“I’ve learnt to perish several days a week.
A simple exercise : you ask your heart
to stop awhile. You don’t feel any pain:
you simply live, arise and then depart.”

(iii).

” I prize the elements of which I’m made:
nitrate and quicksand, pepper there for taste.
I greet the devil and caress the rose.
When I get up, a crystal is displaced.”

This is a bilingual edition with short biographies on Translator and Poet. I put in the Max Ernst print because he is quite a favourite of mine and I have used him before to show poetic/artistic collaboration in the post of Rene Crevel‘s Babylon:

Babylon : Art and Image.

Alain Bosquet Books.

Marie Ndiaye :” Trois femmes puissantes” and Sarkozy.

It is not often that I refer to political issues on this blog, indeed
I do the commentating (or critique) elsewhere on a politics blog.

But today in the stead of my Saturday Woman Writer snippets
( both Poetic and literary) I wish to refer to the case of Ms Ndiaye
and the situation in Paris. All morning there have been alerts regarding
the situation wherein a 42-year-old mother of two has left France and
moved to Berlin because of increasing surveillance , which she detailed
in an Interview (August 2009) with Inrockuptiples Magazine.

The issues of surveillance and repression always being an interest to me as a writer.

Ms Ndiaye’s book : Trois femmes puissantes is based in the migration issue.
So, I will consider this post a short note on the problems in Paris and indeed in Calais.

“Three Strong Women”, by Marie Ndiaye.
Marie Ndiaye and Three Strong Women.
Interview with Ndiaye.

‘Necessity’ by Simone Weil

“The cycle of days in the deserted sky turning
In silence watched by mortal eyes
Gaping mouth here below, where each hour is burning
So many cruel and beseeching cries;

All the stars slow in the steps of their dance,
The only fixed dance, mute brilliance on high,
In spite of us formless, nameless, without cadence,
Too perfect, no fault to belie;

Toward them, suspended our anger is vain.
Quench our thirst if you must break our hearts.
Clamoring and desiring, their circle draws us in their train;
Our brilliant masters, were forever victors.

Tear flesh apart, chains of pure clarity.
Nailed without a cry to the fixed point of the North,
Naked soul exposed to all injury,
May we obey you unto death. “

Simone Weil‘s : Necessity

“The cycle of days in the deserted sky turning
In silence watched by mortal eyes
Gaping mouth here below, where each hour is burning
So many cruel and beseeching cries;

All the stars slow in the steps of their dance,
The only fixed dance, mute brilliance on high,
In spite of us formless,nameless, without cadence
Too perfect, no fault to belie;

Toward them, suspended our anger is vain.
Quench our thirst if you must break our hearts.
Clamoring and desiring, their circle draws us in their train
Our brilliant masters were forever victors.

Tear flesh apart, chains of pure clarity
Nailed without a cry to the fixed point of the North,
Naked soul exposed to all injury,
May we obey you unto death.”

This poem from Poetry and Poetics ed Joan Dargan, Simone Weil; Thinking Poetically SUNY, 1999 was first published on Poethead on March 8th 2008 to celebrate International Women’s Day and is republished here to mark the nearing end of Weil’s Centenary year.

I will look at the images in notes attached to comments but just want it read by those inclined to poetics. There is a 180 degree turn from Verse 1 to Verse 3 (line 3, V3.3) . I will look at it in relation to a poem by Paul Celan in notes.

Campaign for Arts in Ireland (update).

The petition which is linked on this blog twice has garnered +9,000 signatures to achieve change in how Arts is funded at all levels. I shall add in that link at the end of this short piece.

 I just wanted to publish here a short response I made on the Politics.ie site with regard to how problematic structuring a funding of such epheremal tasks as Arts development can be. Art’s development is (let there be no doubt) an infrastructural issue as well as a heritage and cultural issue. The Government must act in the role of Stewardship with a view to cultivating and encouraging an Art’s sector based in administration, provision of spaces, resources, archives and education to the people of Ireland. This area is problematic given the starvation at the root of that development which has occurred true legislative changes which include the Art’s Act 2003 and the Blasphemy Legislation of 2009. (both will be linked at the end of the Piece).

Here’s the comment referred to above

Thread: National campaign for the Arts Petition 2009

“I am sure when the store is set that an adequate approach to funding will be discussed with those who have an interest in the area, if FF radicalisation includes this type of summit, there’s little hope:

Forum opposes gallery merger – The Irish Times – Thu, Nov 19, 2009*

Art occurs at both a grassroot and developmental level, which I why I referred above to the fight in Mayo regards bringing music to schools, in the past this service was founded by a small group of people who gave us the school orchestras and Feiseanna- thereby encouraging talented members of the populace into artistic development and expression. The Government are but stewards in what is a cultural and heritage issue. Their abysmal lack of understanding of that role has led to an impasse of gargantuan proportions, typified by two minsters who don’t get that its not about influence/affluence; but about cultivation of excellence and passing that on to the next generation.

(Dermot Ahern‘s Blasphemy legislation and some of Martin Cullen‘s appointments to the Art’s Council indicate that problem)

So in short response to Clanrickard’s insertions above ^^^: Should not stakeholders have a say in protest at cuts that are misdirected, ill-thought-out and wrongly targetted??

Everyone else who has interests in fund-cuts have had their say, why should the Art’s sector remain in silence and watch bad decisions being made on behalf of those who will inherit a worsening situation??”

Politics.ie Thread on the Campaign4Arts.

PDF of the 2003 Art’s Act

Irish Blasphemy Laws 2009 (WTF??)

Forum Opposes Gallery merger (Irish Times)*

Campaign4ArtsPetition.

A Poem from Filíocht Uladh by Máire Uí Chonboirne.

'The Last Walk ', Basil Blackshaw from Wiki images.

Ceacht

“Tá an ghaoth ag séideadh ó cheann, ‘ceann an bhaile,
Tá an fharraige bogtha le neart,
Tá mé féin gaibhte istigh ar an oileán
‘S mo ghrása amuigh ar tír mór
Tá an cleamhnas sé mhí iar a dhéanamh
Bhí an tréigint i ndán dom ón tús
Nuair a labhair sé an focal le m’athair
ba róbhreá leis an bhólacht ‘s an duais.

Ach is gile an spré údaí ‘fuair sé
Nuair a bhí sé ‘dul thart ar an tír
I maoin eallaigh char chuir sé riamh spéis
Ná go dtáinig an annir air thiar.
Staicín áiféise mise ón uair sin
a d’imigh mo leannán dhil uaim.
Cha labhraim níos mó faoi mo mhuirnín
tá mé caite faoi chian ‘s faoi ghruaim.

Pill arais orm a rúin ‘s a chéadsearc
Ná tréig mé ‘s an tachrán seo liom,
Beidh muidbeirt inár suí cois an chladaigh
ag éisteacht le tuaim bhinn na dtonn.
Chann fillean mo ghrasa níos mó orm
Chann feiceann se choíche mo bhua,
an stócach bheas ag súgradh ‘s ag léimnigh
i bhfad thoir ar bheanna an Dúin.”

As Filíocht Uladh 1960-1985, le Gréagóir ó Dúill. Coiscéim 1986

‘To Revive the Wind’ , René Crevel’s ‘Babylon’.

“Summer.
The grandfather and the mother had to remain in Paris because of their work. The grandmother settled in with her grand-daughter on the family property in the Seine-et-Oise. Queen of a box-bordered garden, the old lady drenched her roses with a syringe, as if those persnickety creatures had need of a clyster to preserve the pretty colour, the natural delicacy of flowers. The hour of the daily apotheosis rung, and the intricate task once performed (which for nothing on earth would she abandon to the uncouth indifference to mercenary hands), the grandmother ascended in great dignity the steps of the belvedere from where each car she perceived gave her a pretext for regretting the magestic and dustless era of victorias and princess gowns “.

from To Revive the Wind, Babylon , by René Crevel, Trans Kay Boyle Quartet Encounters, 1985. Illustrations by Max Ernst.

Babylon, Art and Image .

‘Hide ‘ by Catríona O ‘Reilly.

Hide

“Because it tells me most when it is most alone,
I hold myself at bay to watch the world
regain it’s level-headedness, as harbours do
when keels are lifted out of the in autumn.
This is not unconsciousness. Seen from above,
the trees are guanoed sea-stacks in a greeny cove
full of gulls’ primeval shrieks and waves’ extinctions.
Here birds safely crawl between the bushes,
wearing their wings like macs with fretted hems.
The air’s a room they fill to bursting with their songs.
All day the common warblers wing it up
and down the scale , see-saw, hammer-and-tongs.
This is not aimlessness. It is something industrial.
A starling cocks its head at the blackbird’s coppery notes.
All I hear of them in the hide reminds me
that the body must displace itself for music,
as my body has, inside this six inch slot of light.
What converses in a thrush’s throat, burnished, tarnished ?
It’s news endures no longer than the day does.

Catríona O Reilly ; Hide taken from The New Irish Poets, publ Bloodaxe, 2004, Ed Selina Guinness.

Proto-Sinatic Alpha-Bet , Via Wikipedia.

Aminatou Haidar.

Aminatou Haidar- The importance of place.

I saw this last week and indeed suppose I have followed it a while. Many of us are familiar with names, the naming of things and have a sense of place. Indeed, mostly when a parent names a child , they know that they will carry that name through their life and possibly have it etched onto their gravestone (unless they happen to live somewhere where people
disappear or get brutalised by governments).

Morocco has taken the woman’s identity cos she is not Moroccan and she has been on hunger-strike at Lanzarote. We all know about Passports too (they get traded by people with influence or nicked for the black market, mostly travel is impossible without them and those who don’t possess them are called Sin Papales in that part of the world).

BBC Reportage.

‘Translations’ by Brian Friel.

Aminatou Haidar’s Wikipedia.
__________________

The Blasphemer’s Banquet : Part the First (excerpt)

The Blasphemer’s Banquet is a film poem, it’s here excerpted from the Bloodaxe edition of Shadow of Hiroshima and other film poems, 1995.

“When I see bigots wanting Rushdie dead
burning a book I’m sure they’ve never read,
marble bust or not, Voltaire’s got stored
a much more critical book in his old head.

I too heard bigots rant, rave and revile
books of mine, which after a short while
were canonised as classics, which is why
you always see Voltaire with this wry smile.

A boy in Abbeville for having sung
a mildly blasphemous ballad had his tongue
ripped from it’s roots, and on his blazing body
my Philosophical Dictionary was flung”.

In one part of the poem, Tony Harrison (who I very briefly met) reproduces the burnt book out of air -

There is another Harrison Poem on Poethead and it is linked to the Guardian Open source platform : A Cold Coming :

A Cold Coming

I also recommend V, The Collected Tony Harrison, and my personal Favourite,The Mysteries (most of the above and early Harrison is via Faber and Faber)

Lorca, Le Brocquy and Madden.

Megalith 14, 1971 by Ann Madden

I thought to do something on the failed attempt to find the grave of Federico Garcia Lorca this morning; but I find that do not have my wee paper copy of Gypsy Ballads to hand.

I believe that there are other images related to both Madden, Lorca and Le Brocquy on PH anyway, I used Le B’s scathingcriticism of successive Irish governments’ approach to the arts in an IELA item and a Le B head in this poem :

Santa Maria del Mar.
megalith 14, 1971 : Doris Lessing.
Madden/Le Brocquy pages, painting and
exhibitions.
Failed exhumations at Lorca’s burial site.

The Blasphemers Banquet, excerpt the second.

Gaze of the Gorgon.

” This isn’t paradise but the Bradford Square
where Rushdie’s book got burnt, just over there.
by reading it, where fools had it cremated
I bring it whole again out of the air.”

ex The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film Poems, Tony Harrison, 1995, Faber and Faber.

Pierre Joris ‘Homad’

I have been meaning to write a little about Joris for some time, the old PH (Poethead) site carried links to his Nomadics site and to an essay on Heidegger and Celan. I will add in those links at a later point in this small piece.

The current PH bloggie does not support widgets, as it has been toned down whilst I decide on either a re-design or a domain. The widgets are a bit of a loss but the idea this year was to focus on Poems and sometimes an image from transcribed books (mostly out of print) or from my own pieces.

Therefore I am adding in the links here to the wonderful Homad and Nomadics sites for people to read Mr Joris, who has sometimes visited and read here also.

Homad Site, Pierre Joris.
The Nomadics Site .
Celan/Heidegger Translation at the Mountain of Death.
A Paul Celan Poem, ‘Irish’

Dermot Ahern enacts Blasphemy legislation: We should have a Banquet!!

I could do nothing on this yesterday , being stranded in the snowy hills of outer Mayo BUT sure there’s a thaw.

Ireland’s Justice Minister is a small man, he has criminalised blasphemic utterance because he was told to, as his colleague attacked funding provisions for protestant schools in Ireland (cos he was told to). The brave republican soldiers of the Fianna Fáil party do things because they are told.

The Irish media is dominated by an ex-political party called the PDs, interestingly the govt appointed Ms Geraldine Kennedy (formerly a PD Teachta Dáil (head of the Irish Press Council and editor of the Irish Times Newspaper) thought not to mention the Blasphemy enactment today in her newspaper, though it headlined in both the BBC and the UK Guardian Newspaper.

The Irish government and the now obsolete PD party have stitched up a generation with their unnecessary attacks on the realm of creative thought and endeavour; but more importantly they have been seen to protect the interests of the wealthy conservative religious lobbies whose access to the government ear is a thing of legend in an Ireland that pretends it’s America !

I am ashamed of my government dominated by a single party for 13 years (with a variety of props) , who have attacked, destroyed and eviscerated Irish culture whilst playing to lobbies and interests who are variously abusive, insolvent, bullying and censorious.

Historical Fianna Fáil cultural vandalism.

The Blasphemer’s Banquet.

Blasphemy and The Arts in Ireland (2009-2010).

Just a short note on the issue of criminalisation for blasphemic utterance/publication , introduced by Dermot Ahern, Minister for Justice, on the 01/01/10 .

The criminalisation for Blasphemy is part of the Defamation Bill (2006-2009) and despite assurances on the issues of merit in the Arts, the Bill clearly incentivises legal action based in the ability of blasphemic utterance (incl. Arts and writing ) on the basis of Outrage, rather than seek to either remove the issue of blasphemy from the Irish constitution (by referendum) or to define clearly what blasphemy is.

Since 2003, the Arts in Ireland are subject to Ministerial control under the 2003 Art’s Act, thus the Arts Minister can get to define or arbitrate upon what is considered blasphemic. There’s no independence in the Arts, nor is it right to seek to criminalise the artist in the realm of ideas if S/he pisses off enough people to cause outrage.

For this reason I am including three links at the base of this note,

i). A link to the Secular Ireland petition

ii). A link to the Rouault Blasphemic debacle which occurred in 1942 ,and saw an Irish  government refuse to hang the paintings of Rouault , accusing him of blasphemy and Incompetence.

iii). A link to the Art’s Act 2003 by O Donoghue, this allows an overt interference in funding and appointments by the Minister for Arts and Sport. It is a highly important document which should be studied to understand that through it the Arts lost their independence for the second time in the History of the State, allowing unwonted Governmental interference in what comprises Irish Art and expression – rather than Government aiding the provisioning of needed Arts Infrastructure.

* for More info on the historical precedents in Art’s funding and in Arts development in Ireland , A Concise History of Irish Art, London, Thames and Hudson 1969 : Info on Bruce Arnold and the Irish Arts.*

Secular Ireland Petition against the 2009 Blasphemy Criminalisation.
The IELA and Rouault.
The Art’s Act 2003.

‘The Neutral Hothouse’ , Dorothy Walker and Modern Irish Art.

I had meant to write a more extensive post on the issue of the cultural naivety of the forms of censorships that characterised the foundation of the State BUT instead did a short submission on the Blasphemy issue to PEN. As I am mostly into poetry and visual art, it was torturous to have to write anything that is not poetic, so readers will have to forgive the stunted style…. and indeed it is here pasted :

Ireland enacts Blasphemy Criminalisation as part of the 2006-2009 defamation Bill.

On January the first (01/01/10), the 2006-2009 Defamation Bill was enacted under Irish Law, making Blasphemy a criminal offence which carries a 250,000 Euros fine. The Blasphemy amendment was mooted in 2009 by Justice Minister Dermot Ahern who sought to change the Protection for Religion Clause in the Irish Constitution to include all religions, citing multiculturalism and immigration as reason. It was considered by him at the time, despite endless protests on free speech to be an ‘Imperative’.

The Irish Statute, since this enactment, now contains a criminalisation for Blasphemy, which is not sited in the definition thereof but in the ability of blasphemic utterance to cause outrage, whilst some exception has been made to the Arts in this , regarding the issue of ‘Merit’, the arena is open for incentivizing legal actions against those who would cause offence through blasphemy be it in utterance, in artistic expression or indeed in religious observances! The issue of ‘merit’ in art is adjudged by an Art’s Council which , under the 2003 Arts Act is both subject to Ministerial Appointment and to funding on the basis of reflecting ‘Irishness’. This extraordinary situation has only occurred once before in the history of the state (at its foundation) when the naive new Government thought to ally the Arts of the state to the idea of ‘State’ and was a particularly Naive policy grounded in an understandable imperative and indeed a whole stock of censorship boards, including the Censorship of Publication’s Board (who didn’t like such luminaries of Joyce.)

I am including at the end of this piece a short set of notes re. the appalling precedent for critical censorship, the current enactment of the Blasphemy criminalisation on the Irish Statute; and the influence of the 2003 Arts act on funding and appointment in consideration of how we would judge the issue of ‘merit’ . The fact that the blasphemy clause in the Irish Constitution was not overturned by referendum but actually added to , to include other religions has direct implications for freedom of speech in Ireland, where in creating the criminalisation the Minister has somehow managed to elude the definition of Blasphemy; but to cite the legal offence in subjectivism and thereby incentivizing these legal actions against thinkers and ideas: As if human rights to freedom of expression were not attached to persons but to interest groups, who already hold sway in terms of agenda under the Fianna Fáil and Green government !

Sources :

Dorothy Walker, ” Modern Art In Ireland “, 1997, Lilliput Press.

Bruce Arnold , ” Mainie Jellett and the Modern movement in Ireland“, Yale University Press,

New Haven and London , 1991

Irish Media Coverage of the Potential Blasphemy enactment.

The 2003 Arts Act

Dáil passes the Bill, July 2009.

Ann Ridler ; ‘Against Anger’.

Chess Theory, Max Ernst.

Against Anger

“The boy asking – in a swing travelling to the moon
through curled ice of the spinney frozen with flowers-
‘The bery old man in the moon, does he wear a beret?’
The poet in the glassy office doorway,
unable to remember the Professor’s Christian name;
and the man I love, in another glass
seeing his looks of delight as an unlikeable face
and his eloquence as a hum, surprised at our prizing,
had such humility I think they cannot be wounded,
their unmeant sweetness makes them a safe place.
Next when I kill them in my heart for harms
I think they do me, and next when am raging,
this remembering, let it save
my mind from the hell-go-round of the grievance-ridden
save the fool turkey-cock into love.”

Taken from : Modern Verse 1900-1950, chosen by Phyllis M Jones, Geoffrey Cumberlege Oxford University Press 1940,1941,1943,1955

Indeed possibly a Standard text from TCD/Oxford/UCD… though I am rather unsure of its provenance , being in the habit of picking up poetry books all over and sometimes they form a gift or bequest. Little gems.

Re-Visiting the Narrative Arts Club !

The Narrative Arts Club are beginning again their series of workshops and performances, so I went along last night to the Central Hotel in Exchequer Street to say Hello! to Coilín and listen to some good stories. I am not a fan of TV and had let my visits go a bit slack of late, thus I was delighted to hear that they are going strong and it was a most enjoyable evening, with one caveat :

Coilín you must tell the people to exchange stories during the 25 minute interval, this was a feature of the older club and it always throws up some interesting tales.

There has been some change to the structuring of the evening, I noted more scribblers in the audience than before and there was a wee booklet by Tinderbox handed out, my copy of which is before me as I write.
The Programme for last evening included:

The Sufi and the Onions /The Arabian Nights:

Introducing Shahrazad , The Merchant and the Dijn , The three Sheiks,The Fisherman and the Dijn (intro)

I had to leave at the second short interval, whereupon two short tales were to be told , I am assured that the next series will include the full story of ‘The Fisherman and the Dijn’, and I am looking forward to that. The stories are beautifully told , the atmosphere is convivial, the bar is next door for drinkies and socialising- thus It’s a wonderful evening of delights and tales which beats the pants off watching television!

I am including here the Facebook page for details of upcoming events : NA Facebook page and contact.

Tinderbox Network.

Find the Narrative Arts Club on Facebook.

Listowel Writers Week Competitions. [2010]

The annual Listowel Writer’s week and Festival kicks off in June 2010.
This is a short note on submissions for the Writing prizes for those
who are not on the Databank/mailing lists:

Closing dates for entries into a variety of short story writing competitions
is Friday 26th February 2010. Categories include:

The Kerry Group Irish fiction Award.
The Bryan Mac Mahon Short Story Award.
Duais Foras Na gaeilge.
Eamon Keane Full Length Play.
Writer’s Week Originals Competition.
Writing in Prisons.
The Single Poem Competition.
The Collection of Poetry Competition.
Irish post/Stena Line New writing competition.
Fiction Slam competition.
Kerry County Council creative writing competition for youth.
‘Tell your Story’

Rules and details are at link.

Writing Link.

The Blasphemer’s Banquet, Part the Third.

‘Oh, I love this fleeting life.’

‘The Koran denounces unbelievers who
quote ‘love this fleeting life’ unquote. I do.
I’m an unbeliever.I love this life.
I don’t believe their paradise is true.

The afterlife for which that chilled corpse prayed
was a paradise of fountains and green shade
and dark-eyed houris and a garden
whose roses bloom forever and don’t fade

unlike this world of ours where things fade fast.
In a place where nothing changes and things last
the fatwa fascist lolls in paradise
and waters full of stars go flowing past.

[Superimposed quotation, Ayatollah Khomeini]*

‘These are things which are impure : urine, excrement, sperm,
blood, dogs, unbelievers, wine, beer and the sweat of the
excrement-eating camel’.

The superimposed quotation mark is a film direction, because essentially the book , The Shadow of Hiroshima and other Film Poems is a collection of Harrison’s films/poems. The Blasphemer’s Banquet is taken from the Faber edition, publ, 1995. Tony Harrison.

IPWWC Women, new blog at the Portugal PEN Centre.

The new chair of the Portuguese International PEN Women Writer’s Committee , Teresa Salema, has announced a new blog set-up Via Blogger for members of PEN to contribute, follow and join in the conversation. I sent  this morning my congrats.

Following this short introductory, I have added in the links to both Terra Incognita and the IPWWC main page.

Welcome to Kadija George who is new Chair of IPWWC and Thanks Judith Buckrich.

IPWWC Homepage.
‘Terra Incognita’
PEN Portugal Club.

Terra Incognita Blog graphic.

A Writerly Moment: ‘Over the Edge , New Writer of the Year 2010′

Over the Edge announce the 2010 Competition.

I am just adding in here the lovely Over the Edge Graphic and website link for aspiring writers and poets who may be interested in competing in this event. For those readers with a Facebook account, there are more details and invites available on there (link also included at the end
of this short piece).

Details of the Competition are at the following  link :

Over the Edge Blogspot.

Over the Edge Facebook and Comp. Details are at this link.

Sponsored by Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop.

2. Statement from the Irish Writer’s centre on Grant aid cutting by the Arts Council.

This is a Cut and paste from the IWC site, I shall be adding a section of the 2003 Arts Act alongside this in a few minutes:

NO grant from the Arts Council

The Board’s Statement

The Irish Writers’ Centre is extremely disappointed that the Arts Council has rejected its application for a grant for 2010. Until 2009 the IWC received an annual grant to enable it to function as an organisation providing a venue and a service to writers and the public, but the grant was withheld last year on the basis of a value-for-money assessment. Over the past year the Centre has addressed all the criticism and misgivings that led to the withholding of the grant. It has renewed itself and reformed entirely. Through the efforts of the Board and a team of voluntary staff we have now established a vibrant and exciting centre, open from morning to night, open Saturdays, with readings, events, workshops, meetings, all progressing non-stop. We have opened up a home-from-home where writers and readers can converge for literary business and literary pleasure. We have ensured that there is one place in Dublin where writers from abroad can come to interact with their Irish colleagues. This supreme effort has been made to demonstrate how effectively the Centre can cater for the needs of writers and readers, but it cannot be maintained indefinitely without funding.

Writing is the national art form of Ireland; more than with anything else, our national identity is associated with writing. But the allocation of resources does not reflect the primacy of literature, quite the contrary, despite the enormous economic contribution that literature makes to the country through cultural tourism. The Writers’ Centre has been given the most enthusiastic support by the whole literary community over the past months. Everyone has shown anxiety for its survival as a venue for showcasing contemporary Irish writing, encouraging new writing, providing writers with one physical location which belongs to them: a writers’ house. Within the literature community there has been a consensus endorsing its case for funding. It is therefore all the more baffling and disappointing that the Arts Council has not responded to that clear wish of the literature community.

Dublin has lodged an application to UNESCO for a special designation as a ‘City of Literature’. If this is granted, Dublin, and Ireland, will be able to exploit this status to enhance its cultural profile and its attraction to cultural tourists. But the designation will be granted and maintained, not in recognition of our glorious tradition, but on the vibrancy of the contemporary writing environment and on the infrastructure that exists to sustain and develop that vibrancy. In view of this, the decision of the Arts Council to jeopardise the Irish Writers’ Centre is myopic in the extreme.

Last autumn when the Arts Council faced the spectre of a catastrophic cut in funding for the arts, they issued a call-to-arms and asked the writers to join the vanguard on the basis that literature was demonstrably our extraordinary performer in the arts arena. Reasonable damage limitation was achieved, but the recent grant allocations to literature do not reflect the enormous esteem for writers and writing the Council espoused just a few months ago.

And Our Response

We will not fold up our tents and go meekly away. We firmly believe that there is an absolute need for the Irish Writers’ Centre at the heart of the literary landscape, and that it should be funded. We will continue to seek funding and support from every quarter and we appreciate that Dublin City Council and Foras na Gaeilge have responded positively to our applications and guaranteed us some funding. We need a lot more to cover our overheads and maintain our programme of activity, before even thinking of paying our administrative staff.

We therefore call on our supporters and sympathisers, on all who delight in using the facilities of the Centre, and on all who want to see Literature accorded the esteem it has earned, to double and treble their efforts to ensure the survival of the Irish Writers’ Centre, especially by:

Becoming a Member We have already a hundred, we need a thousand. At €50 per year it is not an inconsiderable amount especially for struggling writers, but it would provide a financial base towards meeting our overheads. It would also ensure that ownership of the project is in the hands of writers and readers. Yes, don’t forget that membership is open to readers as well as writers.

Supporting Events Every week we have literary events, all exciting and enjoyable. Come along and show your support for and interest in writers, whether they are internationally acclaimed authors or writers taking their first tentative steps into the literary world.

Irish Writers’ Centre, 19 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. Tel: +353 1 8721302. Fax: +353 1 8726282
Email: info@writerscentre.ie
IWC Blog

Link to the above statement.

1. Section 11 of the 2003 Arts Act drafted by Sean O Donoghue .

11 2003 24

Membership of Council.

11.—(1) The Council shall consist of the following members, that is to say—

(a) a chairperson, and

(b) 12 ordinary members,

each of whom shall, in the opinion of the Minister, have a special interest or knowledge in relation to the arts or matters connected with the functions of the Minister or the Council under this Act.

(2) The members of the Council shall be appointed by the Minister.

(3) The Minister shall, for the purposes of section 16 (2)(b), designate one of the ordinary members of the Council to be deputy chairperson of the Council.

(4) The chairperson of the Council shall hold office for 5 years from the date of his or her appointment.

(5) Subject to subsection (6), the ordinary members of the Council shall hold office for 5 years from the date of their appointment.

(6) Such 6 of the ordinary members of the Council first-appointed after the commencement of this section as the Minister determines shall hold office for 30 months.

(7) Of the members of the Council, not less than 6 of them shall be men and not less than 6 of them shall be women.

(8) Subject to subsection (9), a member of the Council whose term of office expires by the effluxion of time shall be eligible for reappointment to the Council.

(9) A person to whom subsection (8) applies shall not be eligible for reappointment to the Council where he or she has served 2 consecutive terms of office as a member of the Council.

(10) The members of the Council who held office immediately before the commencement of section 4 shall cease to hold office upon such commencement but any such member shall, subject to subsection (9), be eligible to be reappointed as a member of the Council under this section.

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Section 11 of the Arts Act 2003 , in which the Arts lost it’s independence.

Irish Publishing News blog on the Irish Literature Bursary.

This is just a link to Irish publishing News reportage on the issue of Irish Arts Council literature bursaries for 2010. The previous two posts on this blog have looked a bit closer at the savaging by the Irish Arts Council of two dedicated Writer’s Centres :

The Irish Writers Centre, in Parnell SqandThe Western Writer’s Centre in Galway. I have also been discussing the issues of disfunctionality and lack of independence in the Irish Arts Council on my Facebook and Politics.ie (Irish politics site).

I expect that I often have linked them to the previous articles , which are linked at the end of this post.

In my opinion the issue of endorsement (for it is not artistic exemption) is based in the changes made by Seán O Donoghue to the 2003 Arts act, which allows the Revenue commissioners to take the advices of a Council appointed directly by the Minister for Arts and Sport.

Irish publishing News on the reduction in literature bursary .

statement from the Irish Writers Centre on 0% funding

Statement from IWC on Poethead.

Two Writer’s Centres savaged by Martin Cullen TD appointed Arts Council.

Yeatsian Words, from ‘Selected Criticism’

WB Yeats, by John Singer-Sargent

On Magic

VIII.

“I have now described that belief in magic which has set me all but unwilling among those lean and fierce minds who are war with their time, who cannot accept the days as they pass, simply and gladly; and I look at what I have written with some alarm, for I have told more of the ancient secret than many among my fellow-students think it right to tell. I have come to believe so many strange things because of experience, that I see little reason to doubt the truth of many things that are beyond my experience; and that it may be that there are beings who watch over the ancient secret, as all tradition affirms, and resent , and perhaps avenge, too fluent speech.”

I have been reading Yeats again. The above quote arrested me last night, as I remember going to see his exhibit in the National Library; and all the accoutrements of his magick are housed in glass cabinets there, indeed, I wrote of the National Library here in this blog before. I think that Section VIII in his Selected Criticism is worthwhile and  too long to be transcribing here so I shall leave the details at the end of the small post.

‘ Who can always keep to the little pathway between speech and silence, where one meets none but discreet revelations ? ‘

I am aware that PH is becoming more minimal than before and that I don’t really offer much but snippets and Poesie; BUT that is the joy in reading and exploring, one has to negotiate the labyrinthelike structure of words and their surprises to find what one is looking for (or sometimes not). Books have always presented themselves to me in the weirdest fashions through bequest, or collection. I have written here about digitisation and it’s effect, when the approach is wrong (cf the GBS threads), I think writers should digitise , rather than corporate entities who do not know the life’s work that goes into making a book and treat their writing with such utter contempt.

WB Yeats, Selected Criticism, ED A Norman Jeffares. Pan 1964

The Electronic Frontier Foundation: ‘Digitial Books and Your Rights’.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have been lobbying and releasing for quite a period on the Google Book Settlement (GBS).

I have carried their links on a number of sites regarding the oft-neglected issue of Consumer data privacy in relation to the GBS.Today, so, I am carrying a link to their latest information and to their site, for those who are interested in the issue of privacy and digitisation.

Here’s the Checklist (in brief, full version at link):

1). Does your ebook/service tool/etc protect your privacy?

2).Does it tell you what it is doing?

3).What happens to additions of books you buy, (commentaries/annotations/highlights)?

4).Do you own your book or just rent or licence it?

5).Is it censorship-resistant?

Number 5 interests me mostly, having experienced some degree of censorship myself, thus a simple enough question? :

We live in an era where Defamation laws (UK/Ireland) are preponderant, (Blasphemy in Ireland), if a book or licenced edition eBook were to fall foul of these laws, has our government the right to stymie /trace/track our reading ?

It may seem a silly question but as can be seen in many countries, words piss off governments and even giants like Google fall foul of the censors. I mean if everything were in data banks who gets to snip and clip at an advisory level?

The article is here:

EFF ‘Digital Books and your Rights’

Other digital reading matter.

‘Various Creeds attempt to but can’t split the world of spirit from the world of shit’

Abandoned Graveyard : The Blasphemer’s Banquet, Part the IV’

” Where some of Bradford’s past already lies
life flowers in these already bright affirming eyes,
though her forehead rests on some old grave
she thinks that time stays still, and never flies.

It won’t be long before she knows
that everything vanishes with the rose
and then she’ll either love life more because it’s fleeting
or hate the flower and life because it goes”

from : The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film/ Poems, FF, 1995. By Tony Harrison (0ne of a series).

Raymond Deane’s Letter to the Irish Times : 26/02/10.

This is a C+P from today’s letter’s page in the Irish Times,to which I am linking some PH posts on how Martin Cullen TD has appointed and directed his Arts Council:

.
The Irish Times – Friday, February 26, 2010 : Cuts in Arts Council Funding.

.

Madam, – So the Arts Council has had its budget cut by 5.6 per cent. While this is regrettable, in the present climate it is hardly draconian (“Arts organisations to discuss severe funding cutbacks”, February 6th).

Yet instead of spreading this cut evenly across the spectrum of its clients, the council has elected to cut all funding to an apparently arbitrarily selected number of the livelier theatre companies and contemporary music ensembles, as well as the Association of Irish Composers, while “larger theatre companies have been less severely affected”.

One can only conclude that the council’s aim is to prevent new Irish theatrical and musical works seeing the light of day, while continuing to favour those established arts institutions that are seen as part of the tourist industry.

It is thereby negating at least three of the goals set out in its Partnership for the Arts document: to “assist artists in realising their artistic ambitions”, to “make it possible for people to extend and enhance their experience of the arts”, and to “strengthen arts organisations countrywide so as to secure the basis of a vibrant and stable arts community”. It is also, in my view, violating its public service remit. – Yours, etc,

RAYMOND DEANE,

National Campaign for the Arts.

I Put a Spell on you, by Shane Mc Gowan and Pals for Haiti.

“I Put a Spell on You”

The ‘In Conversation Series’ at the Dublin Book Festival.

The Irish Times in Conversation Series at the Dublin Book Festival

Venue: Council Chamber, Dublin City Hall.

Saturday, 6 March

1.00pm: NELL MCCAFFERTY
Nell McCafferty is a civil rights campaigner and feminist and one of Ireland’s most respected and controversial journalists. Her books include Nell (Penguin Ireland); The Armagh Women (Co-Op Books); In the Eyes of the Law (Poolbeg); Vintage Nell (Lilliput) and, from Attic Press, The Best of Nell; Goodnight Sisters; Peggy Deery and A Woman to Blame: The Kerry Babies Case.

3.00pm: THOMAS KILROY IN CONVERSATION WITH DECLAN HUGHES
Thomas Kilroy has written sixteen plays for the stage, most of which have been
presented at the Abbey and published by Gallery Press. His latest play Christ Deliver Us! is currently on at the Abbey.
His novel The Big Chapel was recently reissued by Liberties Press.
Declan Hughes is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter, and co-founder of Rough Magic Theatre Company. He is author of the Ed Loy PI series, with the fourth title, City of Lost Girls, appearing in 2010.

Sunday, 7 March

1.00pm: MARY KENNY
Mary Kenny has been a journalist for over four decades and was a founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement. Among her books with New Island are Goodbye to Catholic Ireland; Germany Calling; and Crown and Shamrock: Love and Hate between Ireland and the British Monarchy.

2.30pm: GORDON SNELL IN CONVERSATION WITH SARAH WEBB
Gordon Snall has a long and distinguished career, and, since the 1970s, has written more than forty books, mainly for children, many of which have been published in Ireland by Poolbeg, O’Brien Press and Glendale. Gordon is married to the writer Maeve Binchy and they live in Dalkey.
Sarah Webb was a children’s bookseller before becoming a writer. Among her books are the Amy Green, Teen Agony Queen series and Emma the Penguin (O’Brien Press).

4.00pm: EILEEN BATTERSBY IN CONVERSATION WITH DECLAN MEADE
Born in California, Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times and four times winner of the National Arts Journalist of the Year award. She is author of Second Readings: From Beckett to Black Beauty (Liberties Press).

I do highly recommend a visit to the DBF for those bibliophiles who wish to accquire books and to meet the varied small companies and independent presses. I have booked a couple of tickets for one of the days and will be bringing the kids along to some of the events over the weekend.

Dublin Book Festival homepage.

A quickie note on the DBF

2010 International Women’s Day: A poem by EBB.

I am hoping this is a creative commons image, THnX Iosaf.

Pain in Pleasure from The Sonnets , by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

‘ A thought lay like a flower upon mine
heart,
And drew around it other thoughts like
bees
For multitude and thirst of
sweetnesses, -
Whereat rejoicing , I desired the art
Of the Greek whistler, who to wharf
and mart
Could lure those insect swarms from
orange-trees,
That I might hive with me such thoughts,
and please
my soul so, always. Foolish counterpart
of a weak man’s vain wishes! While I
spoke,
The thought I called a flower, grew
nettle-rough _
The thoughts , called bees, stung me to
festering.
O entertain (cried reason, as she
woke)
Your best and gladdest thoughts but long
enough,
And they will all prove sad enough to
sting.’

This from a set of Photocopied pages of EBB, incl. The Sonnets from the Portuguese. 

Simone Weil, whose centenary occurred in 2009.

Faoi Chabáistí is Ríonacha, le Celia de Fréine

I try and obtain poetry books at book festivals, mostly because a lot of shops would tend to shove them to the back of the shelves and bustle the brightly coloured airport novels and chicklit to the front!

Last weeks Dublin Book festival was no exception to the rule, good books all over the place .I bought a Celia de Freine book of pomes, which when I returned home, revealed a hidden CD in the back cover .

I am excerpting one wee poem from Faoi Chabaistí is Ríonacha today:

Anamchairde

(1)

An Bhean Chaointe

Taim ag caoineadh anois chomh fada
agus is chumhin liom
ce gur dócha go raibh me óg trath-
seans fiú amháin gp mbinn ag súgradh.
Ni cuimhin liom an t-am sin
ná an ghruaim a chinn an ghairm seo dom.

Ni cuimhin liom ach oiread
éinne den dream
atá caointe agam-
ní dhearna mé taighde ar a saol
ná nior léigh mé cur síos orthu
i gcolún na marbh.

Ach is maith is eol dom
gach uair a sheas mé
taobh le huaigh bhealschoilte,
gur chomóir me gach saol
go huile is go hiomlán,
gur laoidh mé éachtaí

na nua-mharbh
is gur eachtaigh mé
lorg a sinsear.
Tigím anois
go bhfuil na caointe seo
tar éis dul in bhfedhim orm.

Dá mbeadh jab eile agam
ba bhreá liom bheith im scealaí-
sui le hais na tine is scéalta a insint.
D’éistfeá liom- tharraingeodh
d’Eddifon asam iad
á n-alpadh sa treo is go slanofaí mé.

Le Celia de Freine.

Faoi Chabáistí is Ríonacha, Clo Iar-Chonnachta, indreabhán, 2001.

Celia de Freine

The Blasphemer’s Banquet, by Tony Harrison.

The newly minted Irish Defamation Bill amendment (enacted January the first 2010) will go to a Referendum to Delete the offence of Blasphemy from the Irish Constitution, in October 2010.

 EDIT : apparently now delayed until January 2011

Update : December 2012, No sign of a Blasphemy Referendum in Ireland, the second anniversary of the criminalisation/amendment  approaches on January the first 2012

from : The Shadow of Hiroshima and other film poems,
by Tony Harrison.

“When you are in hiding , tuned to the BBC,
I hope you get some joy in watching me
raise my glass to The Satanic Verses,
to its brilliance and, yes, its blasphemy.

.

Its Blasphemy enabled man
to break free from the bible and the Koran
with their life-denying fundamentalists
and hell-fire such fanatics love to fan.
.

Omar loves ‘this fleeting life’ and knows
that everything will vanish with the rose
and yet, instead of paradise prefers
this life of passion, pain and passing shows.
.

Omar writes how nothing stays the same
and it’s an irony of fleeting fame
that this tandoori, Omar Khayam today
Tomorrow will be called another name.”

I do recommend the civil arts of reading poetry and expanding the mind, after all we have suffered under the imprimatur for far too long.

From : The Shadow of Hiroshima and other film Poems, by Tony Harrison, Faber and Faber 1995.

The Blasphemy section on PH. 

EDIT :  This offence has not yet been removed  October 2012.

Writing through a block , ‘Unfinished Prose’ by PH.

(Winter 2009/10).

It’s always best to begin with an image, for instance , a pigeon has alighted on my tree. The tree is a Winter Flowering Almond and there is a pigeon in it.

The growth of the tree has atrophied in sections because it had been rooted too closely to the house. I have decided that the pigeon is a male, because of the purple ring at his neck and his confrontational sidelong appraisal of me.

I imagine the image I provide for him as I sit with my feet firmly planted on the wooden boards, and watch my tree.

It is a distinct luxury to have not alone a tree in flower outside one’s window; but a pigeon to observe, along with some wintering bees.

I have put a chicken into a pot about one hour ago and it seems that the wine and bay leaf is permeating the very wood of the boards upon which my feet rest. I can feel the bones of my feet nestled into my boots, upon the floor and the wood seems permeated with the smells of cooking.

There is a child dancing in the room next to mine.
There is a bird in my tree.
There appears to be a layer of sleet silting up the gathering cloud.
There is a wind rushing through the acid new leaf that makes the blossom
pinkish.

I had maybe wished a rainbow.

The two atrophied branches dismay me, one ends in a set of extrusions alike in appearance to a dragon head.The other lops quite impotently in the breeze; It has a mechanistic plumb-like sway, that could if I allowed my imagination carry
me, transport me to a place wherein the building of walls occur.

I have decided that it is more beneficial to examine the tree than it is to indulge in transports of fancy, not matter how delightful and provoking they may be. The whole tree is obfuscated by the twelve-paned window which confronts me.
The glass is warped and a naked screw juts out on the upper-right side.

and there it finishes, though it’s got me thinking about The book of Fabulous Beasts by Jorge Luis Borges .

'Birds and Animals' by Leonard Baskin, artist and illustrator.

Liliana Ursu, ‘The Sky Behind The Forest’.

Letter from the Constellation of the Swan, Lilian Ursu.
(For Cathy and Donald)

“Once upon a time, maybe two weeks,
maybe two centuries ago in Pennsylvania,
a friend telephoned:
‘All evening I heard a strange rustling,
as if someone were trying out
the word sadness in all the languages of the world.
I raised my eyes to the sky.
Wild geese were returning.
Flocks of swans followed
in solemn stateliness. I had gone out into my yard
into the soft breezes of spring
to hang the communion linen to dry.
You know the priest gives it to me for washing.’

In this tender night of the mystical Spring of Healing,
from my window in Bucharest,
I look up to the constellation of the Swan.
And suddenly Europe and America are fused
under wing beats, under the cosmic telescope
with which I magnify my still falling tear
toward the undying of my dear father.”

Liliana Ursu wrote her poems during the Ceaucescu regime, this selection is translated by Tess Gallagher and Adam J Sorkin. ’The Sky Behind The Forest’, by Liliana Ursu, trans Adam J Sorkin and Tess Gallagher. Bloodaxe Books, 1997.

‘Two Songs of Spring Wandering’ by Wang Wei.

Bonnard's little tree.

Two Songs of Spring Wandering
I.

” The silken willow wands arching the loitering river,
unfold into smoky strings of leaves;
The ice in the cold ravine melts into the warm air.
When the glory of spring has been born again along
the flower-laden paths,
We shall already have heard people playing gay tunes
from the inspiring Yun and Shao.

II.

Wandering along the willow-bordered trail and over
Peach-Blossom Stream,
Hungering for the brightness of Spring – everywhere
beauty enchants me !
Flying birds dart now and then to scatter the
willow catkins;
Boughs, overburdened, bend beneath whorls of blossom”.

Publ. Poems of Wang Wei Trans, Chang Yin-nan
and Lewis C Walmsley. Charles E Tuttle Company, Tokyo , Japan. 1958.

25 years of the Cúirt Festival.

(I always remember it as sunny in Galway for the Cúirt festival).

In Today’s ‘An Irishman’s Diary’, printed in the Irish Times , Fred Johnson
remembers the First ever Cúirt.

(so I will be adding in that link firstly at the bottom of this short post,
theres a link to the 2010 programme available also via the Galway Arts Office).

But mostly , we should be thanking Fred Johnson for his contribution to
our writing heritage in the face of worsening conditions for Irish Writers,
which I have added in here ( indeed all over the Poethead site). These
can be found via the search engine in the Righthand column .

Two of our three major Irish writers Centres are struggling with zero in the
way of funding from our enlightened Arts Council at this point BUT they
continue to operate, providing resources to new writers, because
of the focus and commitment of their staff.

Kudos to Fred, to the Western Writers and to the Irish Writers Centre in
Parnell Square for doing it and NOT taking it.

An Irishman’s Diary 13/04/10
Cúirt 2010 Programme

‘Outside and In’ : Three Women at the Cúirt Literary Festival 2010.

‘Outside and In’ : Three women at the Cúirt literary Festival 2010 .

In truth my visit to the Cúirt festival this year was brief; but I managed to attend the Town Hall Theatre to hear Joyce Carol Oates, Marina Carr (The Gallery Press 40th celebration) and on to Nuala Ní Chonchúir‘s launch of ‘You’ at the Dáil Bar , opposite Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop.

Nuala’s launch epitomised the way Cúirt used be, a pub corner had been requisitioned, a tab run up and Charlie Byrne’s staff  brought in boxes of the novel, which the author signed for everyone present (more of that anon).

Joyce Carol Oates read from a New Yorker story called Spiderboy, whilst regaling the audience with tales of worried students who had thought her visit to Galway in the midst of the Volcanic ash crisis comprised a journey into the vortex riven with personal danger and who sought assurances that she would return to teach. She read a long tale about a young boy who had unwittingly procured victims for his senator father. ‘There are places where people just vanish’ , was the response when asked of the father where those boys duct-taped shoes or filthy shirts had gone, after the lost boys had been plied with beer or brought to over 18 clubs. The da had found a way to rid himself of what he considered to be human detritus. It was truly an artful and troubling tale.

Unfortunately Ms Oates did not speak afterward but welcomed meeting and signing in the lobby. Outside , an accident occurred and I watched as a man was intubated at the Franciscan Church, his wife making a wordless tableau of grief; and the hospital but yards away.

A brief interval later; and there ushered in the Luminaries of The Gallery Press, Tom Kilroy, Peter Fallon, Tom French and Marina Carr did brief readings from their plays, poems and works in Progress. Marina terrified me with an image that will stay with me, as a woman lay in her dying, a weird taloned scarecrow emerged from the wardrobe to take account of the Seeker, it drew blood from two wells in the woman’s body to fulfill her obligations to write the life and death of the woman. A midwife scene of such darkness and droll humour that It stays with me indelibly; and advised the Elizabeth Siddall Portrait that graces this page, by Leonard Baskin.

The stage of the Town hall Theatre felt populated with carnival grotesques as Marina’s deep  voice rang through the silence of bluish, indigo and the myth took shape under her  restrained body-language.

I waited for Kilroy’s Cromwellian work in progress before taking my leave to go to the Dáil Bar where a very warm and friendly gathering of people had arrived to celebrate Nuala’s Ní Chonchúir’s launch of ‘You’.

My inscribed copy formed a gift, so I shall just add a brief description of the wonderful reception, family welcome and lovely kids who played round as Nuala read strongly from her book. Little Juno played with my tickets and programme as soft rain began to fall outside, inside an ambient group enjoyed and bought many copies of the book.

Spiderboy, by Joyce Carol Oates

‘Woman and Scarecrow , Marina Carr.

Nuala Ní Chonhúir Review Pages

Leonard Baskin's , 'Elizabeth Siddall', from the R.Michelson Gallery catalogue.

‘The Masque of Bread’, by George Mackay Brown

“What answer would he give, now he had reached
The inquisitor’s door, down seventy hungry streets,
Each poorer than the last, the last a slum
Rambling like nightmare round his winter feet?

The Inquisitor’s door ? The walls were all blank there,
But a white bakehouse with a little arch
And a creaking sign..Against the fragrant doorpost
He clung, like drifted snow, while the shuttered oven
Opened on hills of harvest sun and corn.

The loaf the bakers laid on the long shelf
was bearded, thewed, goldcrusted like a god.
Each drew a mask over his gentle eyes
-Masks of the wolf, the boar, the hawk, the reaper-
And in mock passion clawed the bread.

But he
Who stood between the cold plough and the embers
In the door of death, knew that this masquerade
Was a pure seeking past a storm of symbols,
The millwheel, sun, and scythe, and ox and harrow,
Station by station to that simple act
Of terror or love, that broke the hill apart.
But what stood there – an Angel with a sword
Or Grinning Rags – astride the kindled seed ?

He knelt in the doorway. Still no question came
And still he knew no answer.

The bread lay broken,
Fragmented light and song.

When the first steeple
Shook out petals of morning, long bright robes
Circled in order round the man that died. “

Sometimes poetic themes can be hard going and this is a poem purely for voice.

 From Interrogation of Silence, the Writings of George Mackay Brown Eds, Rowena Murray & Brian Murray,John Murray Publications 2004.

‘My Heart and I’ By EBB (for Aoife)

RIP Aoife O Brien ( June 23rd 1970-May 1st 2010)

I.

“Enough! we’re tired my heart and I.
We sit beside the headstone thus,
And wish that the name were carved for us.
The moss reprints more tenderly
The hard types of the Mason’s knife,
As heaven’s sweet life renews earth’s
life,
with which we are tired, my heart and I.

II.

You see we’re tired, my heart and I.
We dealt with books, we trusted men,
And in our own blood drenched the
pen,
As if such colours could not fly.
We walked too straight for fortune’s
end,
We loved too true to keep a friend;
At last we’re tired, my heart and I.

III.

How tired we feel, my heart and I!
We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang grey and uncurled
About men’s eye’s indifferently;
Our voice which thrilled you so, will
let
You sleep; our tears are only wet:
What do we do here, my heart and I ?

IV.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I !
It was not thus in that old time
When Ralph sate with me ‘neath the
lime
To watch the sun set from the sky.
‘dear love you are looking tired’, he
said;
I, smiling at him, shook my head:
‘Tis now we’re tired, my heart and I.

V.

So tired, so tired, my heart and I !
Though now none takes me on his arm
to fold me close and kiss me warm
Till each quick breath end in a sigh
of happy langour. Now alone,
We lean upon this graveyard stone,
Uncheered, unkissed, my heart and I.

VI.

Tired out we are my heart and I.
Suppose the world brought diadems
To tempt us, crusted with loose gems
of powers and pleasures? Let it try.
We scarcely care to look at even
A pretty child, or God’s blue heaven,
We feel so tired, my heart and I.

VII.

Yet who complains ? My heart and I?
In this abundant earth no doubt
Is little room for things worn out:
Disdain them, break them, throw them by.
And if before the days grew rough
We once were loved, used- well
enough,
I think, we’ve fared, my heart and I. “

E.B.B

Aoife O Brien, June 23rd 1970- May 1st 2010

Some Sufism for Friday.

From : Shabistari and the Secret Rose Garden

” ‘I’ and ‘You’ are but lattices,
In the niches of a lamp,
Through which the one light shines.

‘I ‘ and ‘You’ are the veil
Between heaven and earth;
Lift this veil and you will see
no longer the bonds of sects and creeds.

When ‘I’ and ‘You’ do not exist,
What is mosque, what is synagogue ?
What is the Temple of Fire ? “

 from, The Essence of Sufism, John Baldcock. Eagle Editions Limited 2004

This is somewhat related to the Blasphemer’s Banquets Posts on Poethead , the links of which I will add in here at the end of the post. Also, I will add some more Sufi poems onto this thread in the coming days. It is also related to the John Moriarty Obit from July of 2008. I’d highly recommend the Moriarty Dreamtime and Serious Sounds volumes to readers on religions, metaphysics and philosophy.

Dreamtime and Serious Sounds

The Blasphemer’s Banquet

More Harrison

Reposting Excerpts from ‘Tula’ by Leo Tolstoy.

There have been some difficulties with this post , which is companion to Simone Weil‘s Necessity  and to Edith Sitwell‘s The Wind’s Bastinado. Both the above poems were transcribed from a small  library in Mayo, the original Tula was removed earlier today, this is an edited version.

Leo Tolstoy: Essays from Tula, with an introduction by Nicolas Berdyaev. London, Sheppard Press, 1948.

i). Bethink Yourselves.
ii). The Slavery of our times.
iii) An Appeal to Social reformers.
iv)True criticism.
v). I cannot be Silent.
vi).Thou Shalt Kill No One.
vii). A Letter to the Peace Conference.
viii).The End of the Age.
ix). Love one Another.

Foreword by Nicholas Berdyaev

The book has an interesting tale, it came to me via my favourite wee private book collection in Westport , where the borrowing involves making a note of Essay/book/monograph, author and  ISBN (if any).

The borrowing can be long term , unlike the public libraries which tend toward a three week limit and a fining system… That collection (in Mayo) is also good for transcribing portions of poetry books and books that are no longer in circulation and is in the way of discipline regarding what one wishes to access. Interestingly a small group of books that are in my possession have been requested by someone who the owner judged not to be ready to request (as yet) …that will change with time.
.
It’s funny that often the books we would disregard at certain stages gather potence and relevance as we get a bit more life-experienced (or indeed world weary).

Here’s some Tolstoy for a Monday morning in Dublin city:

” Yet a religion which answers to the demands of our time does exist and is known to all men, and in a latent state lives in the hearts of men of the Christian world. Therefore that this religion should become evident to and binding upon all men it is only necessary firstly that educated men, the leaders of the masses, should understand that religion is necessary to man. That without religion man cannot live a good life, and that what they call science cannot replace religion; and secondly that those in power and support the oldempty forms of religion should understand that what they support and preach under the form of religion is not only not religion but is the chief obstacle to men’s appropriating the true religion which  they already know, and which alone can deliver men from their calamities”.

I have indeed published this in excerpt before now on this very blog. Thats probably because it is imperative to understanding the concept of evolutionary development in human philosophies and wisdom. Theres a huge apocrypha which go ignored and unconserved in our drive to modernism which really does leave the best bits of our philosophies out. I am not into theorising on why theocracies indulge the most totalitarian aspects of collectivism or why dogma is anti-intellectual: sure that’s all been done before. I would simply say that each individual will take something different from a book they are reading be it poetry, theology, politics, philosophy and that to have that chance is important to everyone and not to the guardians of dogmatism who in many ways have failed quite simply to engage people at any level of understanding saving the overtly materialistic.

I’d highly recommend the writings of Simone Weil to those who wish study how anti-intellectualism makes many of us outsiders to a shared heritage and how close we come to totalitarianism by arrogantly accepting dogma with blind obedience. I will add in the Weill links at the base of this small post.

Necessity

Leo Tolstoy’s Essays from Tula with an introduction by Nicolas Berdyaev London, Sheppard Press 1948.

Re-posting ‘An Duanaire’ ; Poems of the Dispossessed’

An Duanaire 1600-1690; Poems of the dispossessed

In response to a war in summer 2006 I had published a small piece on Dispossession voiced by Inanna. I remember the veracity of the words for the specific reason that they are often mouthed by others in literary history , often anonymous, often the voices of women (and indeed in the chorus ) ; be it in TS Eliot, Shakespeare or Atwood. (i)

They may be found in the exilic lament in Anglo-Saxon poetry (such as The Wanderer or The Wife’s Lament) through Anitgone or the laments of the Island women, so beautifully written by Mary lavin in The Green Grave, The Black Grave, or indeed in my own writing of laments- though I consider them inadequate mostly.

One book I return to again and again is An Duanaire ,the poems date 1600-1900 and revolve round the theme of lament and exilic condition, something in this mad technological rush to Lebensraum and democracy (on which mostly the unwilling do not have a chance to dialogue, civil society groups always among the first to be repressed) has led to homelessness , Camps and gentrification : a global hidden exilic condition grounded in greed .

Language is twisted from it’s unity with image and symbol and boardroom talk replaces intimacy. Indeed language is become a tool to hide a multitude of ills and inability to confront the huge wave of poverty and desperation that we
pretend to ignore.

Ochón, A Dhonnacha (excerpted)

‘The moon is dark and I cannot sleep.
All ease has left me.
The candid Gaelic seems harsh and gloomy
- an evil omen.
I hate the time that I pass with friends,
their wit torments me.
Since the day I saw you on the sands so lifeless
no sun has shone. “

and ‘S í Blath na Sméar í

‘* S í Bláth Geal na Sméar í ‘
” ‘S í Blath geal na smear í
‘s í bláth deas na sú craobh í
‘s í planda b’fhearr méin mhaith
le hamharc do shúl
‘s í mo chuisle, ‘s í mo rún í
‘s í a bláth na n-úll gcumhra í,
is samhradh ins an fhuacht í
idir Nollaig is Cáisc.”

dedicated to Viola and Christina, two Roma girls who died from drowning , images of their bodies were published in the world press as they lay dead on an italian beach

You’re currently reading “An Dunaire- Poems of the Dispossessed.,” an entry on Poethead

(Published: 09/08/2008 / 09:21 Category: War Tags: 25 pins in a packet )

Notes :

(i) T.S Eliot ‘Murder in the Cathedral ‘ – the Chorus, Margaret Atwood’s
‘The Penelopiad’ -The Chorus.

(ii). An Duanaire 1600-1690, Poems of the Dispossessed,
le Seán ó Tuama is Thomas Kinsella.

Leonard Baskins Man of Peace

The Image is Man Of Peace by Leonard Baskin, a man who spent a lifetime drawing and sculpting in the Post-Holocaust period and coming to terms with his identity as a Diaspora Jew.

‘Water’ by Philip Larkin.

“if I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
.

Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes ;
.

My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
.

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly. “
.

Philip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings. Faber and Faber 1964.
Colum
‘The Island of the Fand’ Sir Arnold Bax .

UBUWEB and ‘Homad’ : Ethnopoetics and Translation (i).

UBUWEB and Pierre Joris‘ , ‘Homad’

Poethead has always been about books, indeed the idea initially was to share lots of women poets who have gone out of print or are not easily obtainable (save online through Amazon and such places).

The blog came about as a result of an small bequest of books that Marianne Agren Mc Elroy’s daughter had given me as a gift. Marianne was a  translator and an artist. Her art books went to students of the visual and her poetry books which included Mirjam Tuominen, Bagryana, Nagy and others , Moore, Ursu, found their way from a small cardboard container to me !!! (along with some press clippings of her translations ).

Comes Somebody by Nelly Sachs, trans, Agren Mc Elroy is on the PH site.

I had added to the site some early edits of Plath (along with the re-print Of Ariel  , edited by Frieda Hughes and small collections of poems from my own library which include the really hard to get and immensely popular Simone Weil, Irish language women poets and the odd male poet too !!

Another resource (or set thereof) has been online, I read Pierre Joris translations (not frequently enough) – his ’Nomadics’ and ‘Homad’ sites are amazing for those interested in translation (aramaic/arabic) and UBUWEB. I am adding the links here to those two sites , along with an exhortation : Read and read lots .

Everyone has their own influences , be it the spoken or written word. I deliberately search for visually intense symbolism in the written word , and find it readily in Ethnopoetics.

A lot of online translations can be weak , so those with a strong interest in the poetry should seek out good translations which are coming from a collaborative base (if at all possible). The dissemination of literature through new media resources should be as protected in terms of the author’s meaning using the established conventions and with regard to the intellectual property rights of the authors. There are reams of discussion online about the issue and some discussion on digitisation on Poethead. PEN international has pages on Translation and linguistic rights which I will put in comments.

UBUWEB Ethnopetics
Homad

UBUWEB Logo

A Lost Quatrain, by Alain Bosquet

Today is the first of June 2010 , so a June Poem is in order, translation by Roger Little is beneath the French:

Pg 46 : Lost Quatrains

” J’ai noté. J’ai jugé. Vos étoiles sont nues.
Vous le verrez, le paradis est si banal !
Malgré le mois de juin , l’aube n’est pas venue.
Je reviendrai. Puis-je emprunter votre cheval .”

(Trans , Roger Little) :

” I’ve made a note. I’ve judged. Your Paradise
is so banal, you’ll see ! Your stars are bare.
Despite the month of June, no dawn has come.
I shall return. Will you lend me your mare ?”

I went recently to bury a friend in Dún Laoghire. The sea, as is usual was dark , deep grey and full of white horses , which didn’t make it to the rocks but dissipated in energy before hitting the shore.

The train (a DART) was heading to Greystones and a voice on the intercom kept announcing in Irish, the destination no Clocha Liath , na Clocha (í) Liath . I thought to make a poem after it all … but could not-

Stances Perdue ; Lost Quatrains, by Alain Bosquet. Trans, Roger Little. Dedalus Press.
1999. ( Poetry Europe Series No. 6 )

Translation and Linguistic Rights (ii).

Translation and Linguistic Rights

Following on from the 28-05-2010 Poethead post which was concerned in the provision of links to the excellent UBUWEB Ethnopoetics site (along with Pierre Joris‘ Homad), I thought to add in here a link to the International PEN Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee (which I shall do at the end of this short post).

Many of the books mentioned on Poethead are translations, indeed, they are for the most part either collaborative translations or translations which are rooted in the translator’s knowledge of and empathy with the Poet. All of the translations are direct transcriptions from the printed texts that are attributed at the end of the pieces in bold,
save one or two transcriptions that came from photocopies or leaflets at various events and have been kept in small notebooks for years. The middle English translations are in the main from university presses. Indeed, I don’t think I have ever pushed a poem through a digital translator- though I have seen some appalling online clunky translations: particularly of Ágnes Nemes Nagy. The most sympathetic translations come from other poets or writers of prose, mentioned again and again are Tess Gallagher’s translations of Ursu, Peter Fallon’s Georgics, Agren Mc Elroy’s translations of Sachs or indeed Christopher Maurer’s Lorca Translations in Poet in New York. Pierre Joris’ essays on Celan and translations of Isacc Luria also are important from the point of view of literary dissemination.

The attached link is one that leads the reader to the PEN International Committee on Translation and Linguistic Rights, it is based in the Writer’s Perspective; if one moves over to the Righthand Column , there are a series of reports and PDFs on the issue which all writers and translators should be familiar with.

I am also adding in a link to the Poetry Ireland site , which has resources available on digitisation, translation and collaboration. There are a series of posts/article of Poethead regarding the Google Book Settlement , which also
link onto the Poetry Ireland Pages regarding literary dissemination, copyright and Intellectual property Rights, which will be Part (iii) of this set of pieces.

The search engine at the top right of this page can be used to look up related articles, mostly the collaborative pieces are concerned in artistic collaborations ; but helpful search engine terms here include:

Lilian Ursu, Alice Maher, Nelly Sachs, René Crevel, Federico Garcia Lorca, Ethnopoetics , Pierre Joris, Julian of Norwich, The Wife’s Lament, The Google Book Settlement and Paul Celan.

Running down the righthand column of PH are a set of blog links , which reflect the themes of the site , these contain similar links or further resources in arts and humanities that are part of Poethead.

International Pen , Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee
Poetry Ireland Resource pages
international Declaration of Linguistic Rights.

Some comments on the translation process of ‘An Duanaire, Poems of the Dispossessed’

Often when I write (or speak) about the poetic translation process, which I have done in two posts above quite recently, I have mentioned the necessity of sympathetic or collaborative translation processes. The two links in question will be added in at the end of this short post; UBUWEB and Homad , Ethnopoetics and Translation (i) and Translation and Linguistic Rights (ii).,  make mention of the process involved in translation and dissemination of literature, in the face of some problems such as digitisation and author property rights. (including appalling clunky  non-collaborative online translations).

Delighted I was this morning to find an old copy of the PIR (Poetry Ireland Review , Ed. Liam Ó Muirthile. publ 1996) in which Thomas Kinsella discusses ’Translations from the Irish’ . I do know that the PIR is available Via Poetry Ireland Online, so its worth a search to look at some of the writer and writing process interviews that occupy a quantity of space in the review.

The Kinsella interview is quite short but does discuss some of his projects in detail including the process of translating one of my favourite books , An Duanaire, Poems of the Dispossessed 1600-1900. (there’s a link to that attached at the end of this post).

Kinsella also discusses translating Táin Bó Cuailgne , which many people are familiar with due to the work of Le Brocquy in illustration. These books, in translation comprise my recommended reading for this Wednesday.

UBUWEB and Homad.
Translation and Linguistic Rights
An Duanaire, Poems of the Dispossessed

Women Editors and Translators on Poethead (i)

Women translators and editors form the basis of much of what is published on Poethead.  Mostly they have a Western (English Language bias), although not always , (in the cases of Levertov, Ursu, Weil, Hassanzadeh, Nagy, amongst others for example ) though I do think that as readers and writers many women underestimate the small presses, the dedicated presses and the university presses. The areas of poetry that are translated are not necessarily specialisation; but  represent modes of communication of  those texts that are sorely neglected, and they are a virtual babel-tower of richness in literary inheritance.

Along with online resources, mentioned in the two short pieces on ethnopoetics and translations, which I will include as  links at the end of this piece are book resources, in which sometimes Amazon can be your friend, though you can do worse than checking out the college bookshops, the specialist bookshops, and at the posher end those shops that deal in first editions and artistic editions.

I have also found some beautiful artistic and poetic collaborations published here in Ireland as part of art exhibitions or in reviews such as PIR. In essence, it’s not always in regular bookshops that there are treasures to be had, indeed some of them present a paucity in choice unfortunately, though that depends largely on the buyer’s skill.

Two presses that I enjoy are the Exeter Press and SUNY, whose rendering of Julian of Norwich and of Simone Weil are faultless and are both edited by women writers, who have that empathy of learning essential to their job. I am not going about quoting them this morning, because both of them appear on Poethead in various guises, although probably Julian is more neglected than Weil because the effort of concentration in reading requires more free time than I have currently available. There are two posts on the site which feature Marian Glasscoe’s translations of Julian of Norwich (in relation to the Penelopiad) and Weil’s Necessity translator , Joan Dargan appears frequently throughout the blog.

On a short note, the PH ephemera section needs updating because for some undiscussed reason the dot’s spot, later the Mostly Art  blog have been cut (along with all blogs) from  Politics.ie .I dislike when such irrational decisions occur and it was for this reason that I decided to build up this blog, allowing (for once) my output to be self-determined. Decisions like adapting and censoring items are also outside the pale when it comes to choice of moderator , thus reducing and relinquishing all personal control of material to total strangers.

I think writers must become extremely careful about what type of site they publish on and look out for how their linked material is protected and disseminated when they sign up to the varieties of boards and foras that are available right now. This is especially relevant to material that one   may wish to one day publish. I will be doing a post on this at a later date.

Ethnopoetics and Translations.
Translation and Linguistic Rights.
Atwood and Julian of Norwich

Filíocht Uladh 1960-1985 (13/14-06-2010 )

Filíocht Uladh 1960-1985. Greagóir O Dúill a chuir in eagar.
Coiscéim 1986.

an tÉan Cuaiche , le Máire Nic Mhaoláin.

” Mhotaigh an scamallán an teas
trína chlúmh scáinte,
is scáil gréine is scáth faoi seach
sa duilliúr seimh,
is siosarnach ghaoithe sa ghiolcach,
is ceol srutháin faoi.
Rith driuch fionnadh tríd
-bhí rud deoranta sa nead leis !
Thar dhuibheagán an spáis
is dhiamhair na gcianta
thainig an treoir.
Trí dhamhna na réaltaí
tríd aigéad dí- ocsairibeanúicléasach,
ó aigne an Dúilimh,
scairt an dúchas.
Dhronn se a dhroim íogair, cigilteach
gur ardaigh an rud deoranta
that bhéal neide arnach.
Plab!
ón gcoill chraobhach
thainig guth a Mháthar
mar a bheadh sí ag sclogáil gháire,
agus glao na gcuach fireann ina diaidh.
Shoiprigh se é féin sa nead.
Is chonaic an Dúileamh
corp an ghealbhain
ag imeacht le sruth. “

le  Nic Mhaoláin .

A brief note on the Introductory to this book, which though published in 1986 had some interesting figures on the inclusion of Ulster Irish Poems in Publications and school curricula (1986) :

“Ni théann líon os chionn 10% de líon iomlán na bhfilí i gcas ar bith a phleann an nuafhilíocht. is Lú ná 3% de na filí gus de na dánta atá i gceist i Díolaim Filíochta don Ardtestiméireacht, eagrán oifigiúil DR C. Uí Ghóilidhe, 10% de na filí i Nuabhéarsaíocht 1939-1949 Uí Thuama, meán de 8% i dtrí imleabhar Nuafhilí 1942-1978 Uí Chéileachair agus 6% ag O Brien ina Dhuanaire Nuafhiliochta . Is mo ná 35% de dhaonra na tíre agus de dhaonra na Gaelteachta atá sa chuige. Níl staidreamh ann do chumas ná d’úsaid na teanga.” Réamhrá : Filíocht Uladh 1960-1985, Ó Dúill.

(I put in the comments because they are related to the post ” An Duanaire, Poems of the Dispossessed, 1600-1900″.)

I misplaced my copy of *CIC Cathal O Searcaigh today, meaning it worked its way to the back of some bookcase, so I decided to read his poems in the Filíocht Uladh , along with some Máire Nic Mhaoláin. So , after a longish day, in which  some amount of fruit preserving and cookery classes occurred in lieu of an afternoon nap- I decided to put the Nic Mhaoláin onsite and save the Ó Searcaigh Dídean for another occasion (like when we get  the summer electric storms!)

My translation skills btw are appalling, I can read Ó Searcaigh as if it was in English but have trouble with the nuts and bolts of Nic Mhaoláin, especially this word * dí-oscairibeanúicleasach* .

*CIC = Cló Iar-Chonnacht

‘Irish’ by Paul Celan (via poethead)

Its probably best for those who admire the writing of Paul Celan to get the books, there are a number of translations from ‘Fathosums and Benighted’. Carcanet 2001, Trans, Ian fairley, on the Poethead site.

The below is a re-blog of ‘Irish’ which is stunning. The Paul Celan files are embedded somewhat within the translations sections , which include the Ethnopoetics/UBUWEB and Homad links.

On a slight note, the Daily telegraph mentioned in the post have upgraded their blogs services and now are utilising a WordPress dashboard, which is quite handy (as many writer blogs are based in that WP system , thus allowing ease of publication and familiarity with the Dashboards, though the design permissions are limited to the owner).

*Re-blog of ‘Irish’ by Paul Celan is below this note, at link.. *

I published this is the My Telegraph blog and like it so much that I am publishing it here in advance of the usual Saturday Woman Writer bit… Irish, by Paul Celan “Grant me the right of way over the cornstair to your sleep, right of way over the path of sleep, the right to cut turf on the shelf of the heart, come morning”. Irish, by Paul Celan. from ‘Fathomsuns and Benighted’, trans Ian Fairley. Carcanet Books, 2001. : ‘dot’ … Read More

via poethead

Irish, by Paul Celan

“Grant me the right of way
over the cornstair to your sleep,
right of way
over the path of sleep,
the right to cut turf
on the shelf of the heart,
come morning”.

Irish, by Paul Celan. from ‘Fathomsuns and Benighted’, trans Ian Fairley. Carcanet Books, 2001.

• 
  

You’re currently reading “‘Irish’ by Paul Celan,” an entry on poethead

Published:

05/15/2009 / 11:19 am

Category:

How Words Play.

‘The Poet’s Circuits’ , a poem by Padraic Colum (in dedication).

Mention has been made before on the Poethead blog of The Poet’s Circuits, Collected Poems of Ireland indeed, the reference was to the Monuments section.

But I will mention them again anyway, for those readers who have an interest
in Medieval Ireland, the Guild System , and in Colum’s editing of this beautiful book.

Here are the Poet’s Circuits :

Circuit One: The House
Circuit Two: Field and Road
Circuit Three: Things More Ancient
Circuit Four :  The Glens
Circuit Five:   The Town
Circuit Six :  Women in the House
Circuit Seven: People on the Road
Circuit Eight: Monuments

I suppose it was incredibly disappointing to me and many others to realise, with all their high falutin’ that our government between 2001-2006, in their rush to manipulate the property bubble did not understand the cultural heritage of our natural and built environment. The Circuits indicate a closed Canton and Guild system that tied together a people with words and songs .

This is Colum’s dedication to his wife and to the book, the other circuit (8) is searchable through the search engine at the top right of the Blog page.

Mary Catherine Maguire Colum, by Padraic Colum

“ They come to it and take
Their cupfuls and palmfuls out of it ,
The well that’s marked for use and gossiping.
.

Who know
Whence come the waters? Through what passages
Beneath? From what high tors
Where forests are? Forests dripping rain,
Branches pouring to the ground, trunk, bark, roots
Letting their streamlets down? Through the earth’s dark
The water flows and finds a secret hollow.
Stones are around it and a thorn bush
And so the well is made familiar ,
Marked , used , resorted to day after day.
.
No users, gossipers, the half-moon above !
Come to the well, my own, my bright-haired one,
And let me hear
The rapture of your voice with some great line
Of verse your memory holds, the while your look
Ecstatic is your spirit is your spirit in your face,
And maybe in a depth below the depth
Touched by a pail, something desired will stir “.

(Padraig Colum) .

The Poet’s Circuits , Collected Poems of Ireland. Centenary Edition
Preface by Benedict Kiely. Pardaic Colum. Dolmen Press, 1981.

‘Forever Eve’ , by Eithne Strong.

Forever Eve

“Oddly I
got an urge to write in praise of compromise
odd in me who have been too keen
for proofs to ratify my excellence:
cleverer me, prettier me who ever must
unequivocally be above the common.

Scrutinised
this urge is no escape from pride:
its unclear need contains equation
of my finer metal with the general clay
but more than that , parade – my still
superior vision of humility.”

 by Eithne Strong.

This poem comes from the book Sarah, in Passing. The Dolmen Press, Poetry ,1974. Drawings by John Hodge.

‘In the Storm of Roses’ by Ingeborg Bachmann.

A Poethead reader who works here in Ireland as a translator, ( Hi  Paulina ), asked me if I had read Ingeborg Bachmann , to my appalling shame I had not. Interestingly, I have read quite a lot of the works by the men in her life !!! In order to rehabilitate this appalling lack ,I am on the lookout for more of her writing, bio and poems in Dublin and Galway (where mostly I do the book-shopping).

I have read a few of her poems online, which is wholly inadequate because they do not include the name of the translator or of the volume , it’s piecework to admire the work and have to go off to find this information elsewhere.

Ingeborg Bachmann

In the Storm of Roses, by Ingeborg Bachmann.

“Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, and the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.”

All the online resources for the poem have what looks like a Wikipedia history and a basic translation, so I shall be sourcing some more information about Bachmann and adding it in here. The volume recommended to me is Darkness Spoken, by Ingeborg Bachmann.

Darkness Spoken, by Bachmann.

‘Translation at the Mountain of Death’ ; Pierre Joris writes on Celan and Heidegger.

‘ In Heidegger’s Germany there’s no Place for Paul Celan ‘

I have just added this Joris essay as a comment elsewhere in the Poethead blog which hides it really, it’s an important essay on Paul Celan , whose poem ‘Irisch’ is linked under Celan/Translation here. I first read about Todtnauberg a few years ago, the two men that Joris delineates in the essay is a worthwhile (indeed excellent) read for those of us who like to understand more about the poems that we study or ponder upon.

There is a lot to ponder upon in the essay Translation at the mountain of death, in terms of dramatis personae and created image, so I am linking it here as part of the PH Translation (and Linguistics series). The link is from Nomadics, Joris’ early online blog, which is linked in Manifesto beneath the Todtnauberg essay.

Whilst searching out the Nomadics links( Pierre Joris is currently writing Homad ), I found his link regarding the creation of a Nomadics Manifesto, which is also of interest in terms of Outsider Poetry. Those readers interested in the areas of Nomadics and Outsider Poetry should continue their reading at the  P. Joris Homad site.

Excerpt from Joris’ essay here :

” Celan, like many other poets, is concerned with thought, with philosophy, and in his work we find, as Pöggeler puts it, Auseinander-setzungen with a variety of philosophers and thinkers: with Democritus in the poem “Engführung”; with Spinoza in the poems “Pau, nachts,” and “Pau,  später” ; or with Adorno in his  single prose work, Gespräch im Gebirg. It is therefore not surprising to find Celan concerned with the figure of Martin Heidegger. This concern is ambivalent, to say the least, involving both attraction and repulsion. Pöggeler reminds us that as far back as 1957, Celan had wanted to send his poem “Schliere” to Heidegger, but also, that, when  somewhat later Heidegger had his famous meeting with Martin Buber in Münich, Celan felt very uneasy and was not ready to give Heidegger a “Persilschein”, a ”Persil- passport” i.e. did not want to whitewash the politically compromised philosopher. Celan, at that time, was reading Heidegger’s
Nietzsche as well as Nietzsche himself, and seems to have thought highly of Heidegger’s interpretations. Nietzsche’s thought is also, albeit liminally, present in Celan’s poetry, for example in ”Engführung,”  where the line “Ein Rad, langsam, rollt aus sich selbst”, is a formula used by Nietzsche in the chapter “Von den 3 Verwandlungen” in Zarathustra. Heidegger himself was intermittently interested in  Celan’s work and came, whenever possible, to the rare public readings Celan gave in Germany.

Translation at the Mountain of Death.
Notes Towards a Nomadics Manifesto (Part One)
The Homad Site
Todtnauberg by Paul Celan (Harper’s Archive)

The Philosopher and the Birds. By Richard Murphy. (via poethead)

This Reblog is because I have just recommended the writings of Poet Richard Murphy to a friend in the US. Those who like Murphy will also enjoy his bio “The Kick” and his poems set around Mayo.

The other aspect of this is that the brief conversation was in relation not alone to Mayo but to the places In Ireland that attracted Ludwig Wittgenstein, his seat at the door of the Orchid House in the National Botanic Gardens, Rosroe which is beauteous, lonely and arid as well as areas of Wicklow (which I have not happened upon yet).

The link is attached at the base of this piece. Those readers interested in Plath and Hughes’ stay in Ireland might also like Murphy who was a close friend of Hughes and writes about them in ‘The Kick’

In Memory of Wittgenstein at Rosroe.

“A solitary invalid in a fuchsia garden
Where time’s rain eroded the root since Eden,
He became for a tenebrous epoch the stone.

Here wisdom surrendered the don’s gown
Choosing for Cambridge, two deck chairs,
A kitchen table, undiluted sun.

He clipped with February shears the dead
Metaphysical foliage. Old , in fieldfares
fantasies rebelled though annihilated.

He was haunted by gulls beyond omega shade,
His nerve tormented by terrified knots
In Pin -feathered flesh. But all folly repeats

Is worth one snared robin his fingers untied.
he broke prisons, beginning with words,
And at last tamed, by talking, wild birds.

Through accident of place, now by belief
I follow his love which bird-handled thoughts
to grasp growth’s terror or death’s leaf.

He last on this savage promontory shored
His logical weapon. Genius stirred
A soaring intolerance to teach a blackbird.

So before alpha you may still hear sing
In the leaf-dark dusk some descended young
Who exalt the evening to a wordless song.

His wisdom widens: he becomes worlds
Where thoughts are wings. But at Rosroe hordes
of village cats have massacred his birds.”

by Richard Murphy

 

In Memory of Wittgenstein at Rosroe. A solitary invalid in a fuschia garden Where time’s rain eroded the root since Eden, He became for a tenebrous epoch the stone. Here wisdom surrendered the don’s gown Choosing for Cambridge, two deck chairs, A kitchen table, undiluted sun. He clipped with Feburary shears the dead Metaphysical foliage. Old , in fiel … Read More

via poethead

An article on The Galway Arts Festival 2010 by Mamam Poulet

The Antiroom blog of women writers and commentators always has good things to read, there’s a link on site to the blog , along with an announcement of their recent restart. The Maman Poulet article is linked in full at the base of this post.

This post is essentially a link to the article regarding the lack of parity of esteem given to women writers and creators in this year’s 2010 Galway Arts festival. I had let the issue go somewhat, having enjoyed a nice weekend away but to my utter despair saw the below pasted letter published in today’s Irish Times !!!

It indicates for me that precise nasty response that genuine queries regarding the Arts get in this state, in how silly parallels are drawn against the right to question and also How a National Newspaper sees fit to ramp up that aggression by publishing a ludicrous letter which refuse to see the problems and attack the questioners.

I really think that people who enjoy women’s art, poetry and writing should read the attached response to the NUIG letter from women academics, it indicates a lot of the barely concealed aggressiveness that dominates a refusal to acknowledge the feminist discourse in Ireland. So, of course I am publishing it in toto here with specific emphasis on the last paragraph.

Feminism and feminist discourse has barely reached its infancy in Ireland where it is underfunded , ignored or treated with brutality by such a letter writer and hacked up onto the pages of a national broadsheet by a woman editor who evidently is little concerned with the issues raised.

Madam, – In response to the “Galway (Men’s) Arts Festival” letter (July 15th). It is not that Galway Arts festival shouldn’t be taken to task for many of its failings – most notably the undermining and low level of support of local artists for many years (which led to “Project 06” – a fringe festival created in order to draw attention to this). I would, however, like to highlight the many minefields created when someone (or even a large portion of a university department) starts to question the gender equality of any organisation.

In the organisational team of the Galway Arts Festival, as listed on its programme, there are 14 women listed as opposed to 11 men’s names. It doesn’t really seem to fit the profile of a chauvinist think-tank. Maybe there were fewer performance groups figure-headed by women putting themselves forward for consideration this year. Maybe the female-dominated organisational committee prefers male performers. Or maybe, just maybe, the acts were chosen purely on merit and not on gender grounds at all.

Finally, I must inquire why there isn’t a men’s studies course on offer in NUI Galway to contrast the women’s studies course there? *Maybe it’s time to change its name to NUI(W)G – National University of Ireland’s Women, Galway? Just a thought.** – Yours, etc,

Maman Poulet’s original Antiroom article.

Whale and Currach Oars, by Daragh Breen,from November Press

'Whale' by Daragh breen

Whale by Daragh Breen; November Press, Published 2010.

“In the Earth’s oceans,
the King Whale, like a worm trailing
silk, dragged the first lines
of Longitude and Latitude about the globe,
holding it tight in its mesh.”

Currach Oars

“They are carved from the bone of those same elk-antlers
that once scratched across the icy surface
of the original black winter sky,
leaving behind a trail of talon-scratches
the Milky Way-long.

The shorn Elk-God’s head is the blood-congealed
mess of the lower winter sun
towards which the men drag their six-legged currach
to gallop over the thrashing ocean in search of food.”

Alice Maher’s Sculptures in the After-Life.

“They crowded the narrow quay in their
gowns of hair,
stumbling over the uneven cobbles of
animal tongues,
their tongues and fingers were wired
together in prayer
as the icy water rattles and cackles with
empty snail shells
that are thrown against the harbour wall.

The low sky is studded with pure salt and
stings the
open wounds from which they bleed thorns
They must wait for everything to finally
grow still
again, returning to the silent state of
perpetual
penance. Somebody had dreamt them,
and now
they wait to be allowed to die again .”

Poems from : Whale , by Daragh Breen . November Press , 2010.

XLII- Sonnets From the Portuguese. By E.B.B (via poethead)

Quite apart from the events of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning‘s life , which are utterly fascinating, she added to the Poetic Canon some rather  appealing images.

I remember that whilst we studied her excerpts of ‘Aurora Leigh‘ in college that our (male) professor worked very hard to dismiss her feminism! The Irish University cycle of English literature wasn’t given much to gossip or discussion, so it was a few years later before I found that her name was the first woman’s name mentioned in connection with the British Poet Laureateship and while commentators have said it was so mentioned *in Jest* – she drove the establishment nuts with her rhyme schemes, it took until Carol Ann Duffy for a female Laureate to get the job.

Thats quite a period of ‘wait’ . Carol Ann was allegedly vetoed by Tony Blair’s government also ‘cos he did not believe that middle-england was prepared for a lesbian laureate. How caught up in politics is the art of poesy ! The poem XLII ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese‘ follows this paragraph.

‘My future will not copy fair my past- I wrote that once; and thinking at my side My ministering life -angel  justified The word by his appealing look upcast To the white throne of God, I turned at last, And there , instead, saw thee , not unallied To angels in thy soul! Then I , long tried By natural ills, received the comfort fast, While budding , at thy sight, my pilgrim’s staff Gave out green leaves with morning dew impearled. I seek no copy … Read More

via poethead

The Old King : a criminalisation for blasphemy remains on the Irish statute.

The Old King, a Criminalisation for Blasphemy remains on the  Irish Statute.

The Image of the Old King is by french expressionist/fauvist painter Georges Rouault who was accused by the predecessors of this Irish Government  of both blasphemy and incompetence. His paintings, mainly of religious themes, were refused exhibitionin Dublin. A spirited defence of Rouault was undertaken by Louis Le Brocquy in which he accused Fianna Fáil of chocolate-box sentimentalism in their refusal to appreciate art. I believe it is worse than that.

The development of the Arts in Ireland has since 2003 , under the O Donoghue Arts Act , been atrophied by the concerns of ministers more interested in sports and who appoint our Arts Council . The all-embracing silence of artists and thinkers on the criminalisation of blasphemy being a pointer to an inability to discuss anything outside of very narrow two-dimensional concerns of output and finance , which isn’t really about the realm of ideas and the intellect at all. It presents a paucity to our future generations in terms of leadership and discussion. We are not making art to reflect our ideas or for our children, we are making it to echo the narrow and constipated concerns of Government !

There were to be two referendums in October 2010. I have commented elsewhere on the postponing of the Children’s Rights Referendum which was to occur on the same day as the Blasphemy Referendum. It seems that alone in the developed world, we in Ireland have now got an entirely superfluous blasphemy amendment (to our 2006-2009 Defamation Legislation) which will for the forseeable future remain on our statute. Last week Barry Andrews TD confirmed another Referendum postponement,until 2011. (Edit : second anniversary of this innovation occurs Jan 2012)

This criminalisation for blasphemic utterance is based not in definition but in the offender’s ability to generate Outrage ! As the Roualt controversy showed, it is quite easy for outrage to be generated in Ireland and that the Arts are indeed
subject to the manipulations of governments whose inability to lead is propped by unnecessary legislation in order that debate does not occur. Debate generates ideas and discussions which create fear and are thus anathema to would-be leaders.

I have opened a page at the top of Poethead entitled Arts Act 2003, this page will be used to collate links and data on how the arts in Ireland develop beneath a cowardly pretension of propriety which is simply a projection of the whims and vanities of a government that has run its time and inherently believes that it provides a reflection of the concerns of a society that needs ideas and arts more than ever, rather than this shadow play of mealy-mouthed sentimentalism.

I have on my studio wall a wonderful early reproduction of the Old King, which stops people in their tracks because the observer can actually see the brush-strokes. I put it there in it’s simple wooden and glass frame as a reminder of the folly of the Rouault controversy and how simple it is to fall into a laughing-stock by virtue of personal vanity.

Georges Roualt 'The Old King'

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Blasphemy and the Arts in Ireland 2009-2010
Roualt in the NYT
The Arts Act 2003 PDF
Incentivising blasphemy in Ireland , the first anniversary of the blasphemy amendment.

Two poems by Liliana Ursu. (via poethead)

There appear to be minor problems with the blog this morning , after I’d changed the template. Only the most recent posts are allowing comments.

The Poems are taken from a slim volume of Ursu’s Poetry entitled ‘The Sky Behind the Forest’ which is discussed elsewhere on Poethead ( under the twin headings of Repression and Translation) for Liliana had to write during the Ceaucescu Regime. There are essays by her collaborative translators Tess Gallagher and Adam J Sorkin describing the inherent difficulties of this translation process accompanying the volume in the forewords.

The poems follow this short introductory , at link.

Poem with a Griffin, a Pike and Peacocks. I am reading a poem while it rains. The day blinks through windows guarded by a griffin; its talons flex, its tail switches. ~ Do you remember those summer showers high in the mountains? The dull pop of a toadstool beneath your bare foot in the dew-covered grass? ~ Under a cr … Read More

via poethead

The Library of Babel, by Borges

Herein a physical description of the Babel Library ,

” There are five shelves for each of the hexagon’s walls ; each shelf contains thirty-five books of uniform format; each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines , each line of some eighty letters which are black in colour. There are also letters on the spine of each book; these letters do not indicate or prefigure what the pages will say. I know that this incoherence at on time seemed  mysterious.”

The Library of Babel is a story in the Labyrinths Collection , by Jorge Luis Borges. I have even added in the poor tatty (much tattified) image of my copy as accompanying image, because the front of the book when photographed appears even worse. (I put that down to my incompetent camera-work more than the actual cover which is uniformly tatty front and back). Having just emerged from a Labyrinthe journey through re-installing a tiny bit of the data-corrupted software of my PC, I got to thinking about gestures, books, labyrinths, orthography and various losses connected to what was not stored off-site. The web (tangled or no) is a new  labyrinth of ill-digested babel-like proportions, wherein treasures and cul-de-sacs, which is why the following is most intriguing;

“I cannot combine some characters
dhcmrlchtdj

which the divine library has not foreseen and which in one of its secret tongues do not contain a terrible meaning. No one can articulate a symbol which is not filled with tenderness and fear, which is not , in one of these languages , the powerful name of a god. To speak is to fall into tautology. This wordy and useless epistle already exists in one of the thirty volumes of the five shelves of one of the innumerable hexagons-and its refutation as well. (Any  number of possible languages use the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and lasting system of hexagonal galleries , but library is bread or pyramid or anything else , and these seven words which define it have another value).”

Imagine that !!!!!

The same politicians using the same vaunted and irredeemable excuses to justify stupid behaviours such as attempting to site blasphemy in outrage, rather than go to the bother of pinning it through definition thus creating a stealth-tax based in vague albeit vain obfuscations !! The books written/unwritten/created/uncreated in Borges’ library are achieved despite the authors,who may have unwittingly made shadow-books. Those who destroy great works of writing have done little damage to the Babel library , I suppose that’s because great truths don’t come easily into profane hands-even if they are followed about by clerks who would justify reams of paper which is ultimately
worthless as MCV.

Circuit fifteen ninety-four

” four hundred and ten pages of inalterable MCVs cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical and rudimentary it may be “).

For information and further discussion on the influence of Circuit ninety-four and MCV , I’d suggest  that people should continue to read Borges’ on the Library of Babel (btw) , alongside his Book of Fabulous Beasts and anything else ye can get your hands on. I am only sorry that he did not write of the fabulous dishonesty of politics, in its encyclopaedic idiocy when it comes to defining  such pressing issues as illiteracy, dispossession and proper data-retention for the public record of all amendments, debates and majority voting of the  period 2003-2010 in Ireland.

Five Women Who Loved Love, by Ihara Saikaku.

Five Women Who Loved Love , Ihara Saikaku.

I have given up on an irritating verbal exercise about the uses of river pebbles and gone back to my book : Five Women Who Loved Love , by Ihara Saikaku ( 1642- 93). So glad that it came into my hands in the last couple of nights, given its dark comedy and use of morality tales that show Saikaku’s bird eye for comedic detail.

Heres a series of men and their women (and boys) trying to make sense of their Floating World and falling into traps of their own making. interestingly, the ends of the tales are not always happy and the subject matter would probably have made the educated classes of Japan squirm something awful.

The writer was a mischief, whose knowledge of aphrodisiacs and male desire borders on hilarity. Poor Gengobei is grieving the loss of two beautiful male lovers, one hastily arranged funeral has him burying his boy standing up in a pot , swearing to a life of celibacy and priesthood only to be seduced away from his path of abstinence by a boy and a girl (successively) – one of whom (again) dies. He is terribly unlucky in love .

A master of the arts, he finds the young boy/woman he adores not alone has no underwear on but is in fact a girl,

“Gengobei’s puzzled expression amused Oman, but it was her turn to be
puzzled when Gengobei took something from his toilet-bag and put it
in his mouth to chew on it.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

Without a word he hid whatever it was- perhaps what lovers of men call
nerigi. This too, struck Oman as funny and she turned away to lie face
downward.’

Oman, being a pragmatic woman and stalker of the bonze had no illusions about her lover and also being rich , restored him somewhat to the luxury of material wealth. They married and nothing more is really said , Saikaku quietly shuts the door and leaves it to the imagination of his many listeners to guess how the relationship panned out.

In Saikaku’s floating world there are witches, priests, courtesans and professional prostitutes, there are more gay men than you’d find in the Genet novel , Our Lady of the Flowers and priests generally tend to emerge from the classes of the broken hearts. Celibacy ain’t an issue either for them.

Stories (more properly tales) of luminosity abound here, so a brief list of the story names and a recommendation to read the book:

The Story of Seijuro in Himeji , The Barrel-maker Brimful of love, What the
Seasons Brought the Almamanac Maker, The Green-Grocer’s daughter with a
Bundle of Love and the aforementioned anti-hero Gengobei, the Mountain of love.

Be warned theses tales are peppered with morality lore, though it may seem weirdly topsy-turvy when even the true end up stabbed through the heart , lying exposed in the Field of Shame whilst her supposed lover is executed and laid beside the hapless victim of the heart… (according to the irate husband , whose voice alone carries weight in law)

I suppose the title comes from the sub-text that runs through all the stories , the women are generally both pragmatic and realist even to their deaths, whilst the men seem subject to the vagaries of the heart !

Five Women who loved love. Ihara Saikaku. Trans, WM Theodore De Bary  The New English Library Company 1962.

Two Poems by Mirjam Touminen.

Mirjam Tuominen

The Swallows Fly

“The swallows fly
high
in towards bluer sky
low
down beneath darkening clouds. “

from Under the Earth Sank (1954)

I Write

” I write it shows in the eyes of the dog
it creeps in the paw of the cat
it shimmers in the solitary fly’s pair of wings
it leaps in foaling withers
it flies in the flight of birds
it flies
it sinks
in the earth down under roots
it smiles in the infant’s eyes
it grows in the eyes of children
it wonders in young eyes
it yearns in human eyes.”

from Under The Earth Sank (1954)

There is a poem called Invocation on Poethead , by Mirjam Tuominen.

I shall be reading her stories and essays this week and may even put up a few notes about her, it seems that women writers tend to sink into oblivion with remarkable rapidity. Mirjam, like Weil and Sachs were writing at the time when the Second World War was occurring. Tuominen dedicated a poem to Simone Weil which I shall link to, given the high amount of searches under Weil’s name that occur on this site. Both women were incredibly important chroniclers and writers of their era.

In Weil’s case , apart from her centennial celebrations and dedicated biographers, its nigh impossible to access many of her works, which have provided interesting thoughts on religious totalitarianism and mysticism. Lots of her notebooks
have not been financed for publication which is irksome.

The two small Tuominen poems are taken from her Selected Writings, Publ. Bloodaxe 1994.

Transformations , fairytales by Ann Sexton

Rosaleen and Grandma from The Company of Wolves

Red Riding Hood

“There among the roots and trunks
with the mushrooms pulsing inside the moss
he planned how to eat them both,
the grandmother an old carrot
and the child a sly budkin
in a red red hood.
He bade her to look at at the bloodroot,
the small bunchberry and the dogtooth
and pick some for her grandmother.
And this she did.
Meanwhile he scampered off
to Grandmother’s house and ate her up
as quick as a slap.”

Excerpt from Red Riding Hood , Ann Sexton.

The image which accompanies this short introduction to Ann Sexton’s book Transformations is from that other mistress of the dark tale/fairy tale’s pen, Angela Carter. The image is from the Neil Jordan produced movie, The Company of Wolves , which Carter scripted based in her collection of Fairy Tales and Wolf stories of transformation and Metamorphoses. The tales did not include those which sit outside of the theme of the movie and are among her classic writing, so I’d generally urge readers who like women’s novels, fiction, prose and critique to seek out Ms Carter’s opus which is available in book shops and on Amazon. High on my list of personal recommendations is The Bloody Chamber (Bluebeard) , The Lady of the House of Love (Vampire) and her essays , Expletives Deleted.

I bought Transformations on Friday morning to read on the way home from a brief holiday in my usual haunt,  The Rare and Interesting Bookshop, in Mayo, as I have given up on Newspapers doing anything but horrifying me (and not in the delightful Carteresque manner).

Here are Briar Rose, Cinderella, wicked step-mothers, Rumpelstiltskin, The Little Peasant and the coterie of Grimm falling out of the slim but packed volume of tales of transformations and metamorphoses. The twist is in the language and schemes, as opposed to the twists and turns in Carter’s feminist and microscopic eye in her versions.

Briar Rose

” Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots
into the hypnotist’s trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She’s on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother’s pocketbook.”

Briar Rose, by Ann Sexton.

Do read the book, it isn’t by any means a new book , but all books are new when discovered , bought or found. And no-one can really tell how one will react to the images, content or stories therein. Always new books are something critics and interpreters forget are an adventure to the mind.

I have included at the end here the name of a collected Carter, the title of the Sexton and a link to another Ann Sexton poem which is on Poethead.

Angela Carter’s Burning Your Boats
Ann Sexton, Transformations
Angels of the Love Affair , Ann Sexton

Two Book Versions of Julian of Norwich’s Revelation

Julian at Norwich Cathedral

Middle English is not so Difficult…

I thought I had found a treasure today whilst browsing in my local bookshop and coming upon a ‘modernish’ version of the Revelations (shewings of ) Julian of Norwich.   Not so!! The book is a 1987 imprint which seeks (or sought) to bring the writings of the Anchoressat Norwich Cathedral to a wider audience, whilst sacrificing the beauty of her poetry to a clunky co-option of her unique expression. I am not opposed to the book per se, but would question the use of an editor (or set thereof) rather than working from the beautiful editing of the definitive book on Julian which captures her voice in all its sublimity,

Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love. University of Exeter Press, Ed Marian Glasscoe.

I thought for a while about how I would present what is my opinion on the matter of loss in translation, and in how wide dissemination of literature can sacrifice so much in what is an attempt to frame a book and reach an audience that may be unused to the language of Julian. It is highly beneficial for the reader to attempt to read some work in the original.
The Glasscoe version has an excellent introduction and glossary , which aids in one’s ability to work through this highly original work of a woman from the Middle Ages. The clunky and appalling book which I actually bought and will not name here had somehow managed to take the light right out of this seminal work of literature, so I am not going to name the version, editors or imprint. There are two pieces on Poethead about Julian already, both of which I will attach as link at the end of this piece. One is a discussion on the use of the word Shewings, which is how Julian of Norwich described her visions (in the language of the mid-wife), the other is an excerpt from the Glasscoe. To demonstrate the cause of the headache the book caused in me, I am excerpting two short pieces here. The first are from the UEP (Glasscoe Edition, 1976), the second is a modernist version of Julian which fills out her words to accomodate a modern audience who may not want to bothering themselves with attempting to read in the original adapted version.

” And when I was thirty yers old and halfe God sent me a bodely sekeness in which I lay iii days and iii nights ; and on the fourth night I tooke all my rites and wened not a levyed till day. And after this Iangorid forth ii days and ii nights. And on the iii night I wened oftentimes to passyd and so wened they that were with me. And in youngith yet, I thought great sweemeto dye; but for nothing [that] earth that me lekid to levin for .”

Revelation 3, Julian of Norwich, A Revelation of Love. University of Exeter Press, Ed Glasscoe,

“The when I was 31 years old God sent me a physical illness and I lay in its grip three days and three nights. On the fourth night I received all the rites of the holy church and did not expect to see the next day. I Lingered on for two more days and nights and on the third night I was convinced that I would die and so were all those around me.”

The example is not the best because it is not her visions but the structuring of the editing of the second version is pretty obvious. The first link attached herein gives a longer excerpt of Julian’s writing :

How the Visions worked on Julian, 8

Julian’s Shewings and Atwood’s Suicide Angel

Le Personne Et Le Sacré, by Simone Weil

Simone Weil  Le Personne et La sacré

Whilst awaiting this morning for a sheaf of three poems from my Saturday Woman Writer, I thought to add in an excerpt from the Notebooks of Simone Weil, whose Necessity is the most sought after poem on the Poethead blog. I will include at the end of the excerpt a link to Necessity in stand alone format (without comment). Here follows an excerpt from Le Personne Et Le Sacré :

“Beauty is the supreme mystery in this world. It is a brilliance that attracts attention but gives it no motive to stay. Beauty is always promising and never gives anything; it creates a hunger but has in it no food for the part of the soul that tries here below to be satisfied; it has food only for the part of the soul that contemplates. It creates desire, and it makes it clearly felt  that there is nothing in it [beauty] to be desired, because one insists above all that nothing about it change. If one does not
seek out measures by which to escape from the delicious torment inflicted by it, desire is little by little transformed into love and a seed of the faculty of disinterested and pure attention is created.“

I have used this paragraph before as a static text in this blog, because it epitomizes Weil’s writing. It was the centenary of her birth in 2009 and some of those notebooks made their way into general publication. Weil is placed with Paschal in terms of her philosophical and writing output, but it incredibly difficult to locate texts in ordinary bookshops in Ireland. I have quoted from Thinking Poetically, ed Joan Dargan.

I suppose that it is an approach to art that encapsulates the purity of the relationship between the individual and the transcendent work that I find attractive, living in a country (as one does) where people must fight to bring to Government the necessity and importance of the arts: in their funding, archiving, presentation and their preservation. There is always hope that the necessity of the arts in developing the intellect will be recognised and supported in Ireland.

Necessity, by Simone Weil

Waiting for God. Simone Weil 2008

National campaign for Arts Website.

Simile, by Ágnes Nemes Nagy.

Jorge de Aguiar Compass rose from Wikipedia.

……

Simile

” The one who has been rowing while the storm
Approaches near, who strains with every limb
Against the trusty footboard’s rigid form
And finds a sudden absence from the rim

Of the broken oar, weightless hand, and
Falling propulsion, falling
With the loosened, dropping shaft and
Whose whole body sags -

He knows what I know.”  by Ágnes Nemes Nagy

I have recommended before now the reading of Ágnes Nemes Nagy in both poetry and poetic prose (prose). The image I had chosen to illustrate the above poem was initially an adorable illustration from The Exeter University press edition of The Seafarer but the Aguiar Compass Rose suffices. There are some Poethead references to elegy in the Old English on the site and I may wish to link to the Seafarer image again.

The Poem above comes from the Corvina , Dedalus Edition of Between by Ágnes Nemes Nagy , in translation by Hugh Maxton and published in 1988. I recommend Maxton’s afterword discussion on Nagy’s Poetics.

Between , Selected Poems of Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Trans, Hugh Maxton.
Corvina Press (Budapest) and Dedalus Press (Dublin) 1988.

Pidgie and Katey, two girls written by Mary Lavin

Mary Lavin.

…….

‘Scylla and Charybdis‘ and ‘A Glimpse of Katey’ : Mary Lavin.

Mary Lavin wrote women incredibly well, indeed there is a post on site already which looks at her Island Women. The two short stories named above in the title refer to her writing of girls , Katey, from A Glimpse of Katey and Pidgie, the heroine of Scylla and Charybdis. Both  stories come from The  Patriot  Son, although there is a vast array of Lavin books to choose from.

Mary Lavin is today’s Saturday Woman Writer on Poethead. The  Patriot  Son edition that the excerpts are taken from is a 1956 Hardback, publ. Michael Joseph 1956. Other recommended reads by Lavin include In a Café and Tales from Bective Bridge.

This treasured edition contains within it my favourite Lavin story The Chamois Gloves, which I referred to in the Island Women piece (which is linked to at the base of this post).

A Glimpse of Katey ..

” In the elms the birds were making preparations for the night ; circling around the tree-tops as if about to settle there, and then darting away again capriciously to take a last flight in the glowing clouds. But each time the flock circled down on the trees a number of birds settled down for the night, and every time they flighted away again there were less and less of them, until soon only one or two rose from the branches, and these only ventured a short distance, and came back with nervous fluttering and a great amount of nervous chirruping. When the last bird seemed to have settled down and the leaves were no longer fluttered by shaken wings , there was silence everywhere, except for occasional faint and single notes that broke the air at random and which seemed to come from the sleepy throat of some sleepy bird already hovering the air of dreams. Katey lay and listened, and then her own day suddenly slipped away from her , and left her body lying on the old four-poster bed, as the feathered bodies of the birds clung upon the damp tree-boughs, while her spirit with theirs was gliding away into the branchy lands of dreams.”

Katey, like Pidgie is a stubborn and spirited little girl , whose beautiful dreaming is abruptly shattered by her need for food at midnight. The preceding tale had outlined her refusal of sustenance before going off to bed and her awakening into the bright, boisterous land of the older women of the house as a result of the hunger pangs.

Scylla and Charybdis .

Pidgie, much like Katey is a spirited and obstinate child whose trials and adventures bring her right down from her fantasy world to the station in her life that she had rejected. She is Cotter’s daughter , a servant-girl , whose natural ability and intelligence is not recognised by the golden birds of the house whose light-shattering tendencies as they seek her out of the basements draw her Prosperine-like into the sunlight of the world ‘above-stairs’, only to have her catapult back again when the rite which will equalise the servant and the lady is utterly shattered forever,

” out they went into the passage , Miss Gloria first , and Pidgie fluttering after her. And although the passage was dead level, as Pidgie’s little feet flew along after Miss Gloria it seemed to her that every minute she was being borne upward , out of darkness and cold into ever higher and higher reaches. The very air seemed to waft warmer around her until they flashed out into the main hall, where the doors stood open on all sides, showing the gilt and white rooms with their sparkles of mirror and splashes of flowery chintz”.

Gloria is described variously as a golden bird, Pidgie lives in the dark-dungeon and experiences her self as being snatched into the beak of the bird. Lavin’s women and girls are often described thusly, she adores and gently coaxes her characters into their freedoms , only to smack their little hands and put them right back into their places as they deal with their choices. Both girls , like the Heroine of The Chamois Gloves get their epiphanies and mostly the knowledge they bring isn’t welcome to them. Katey dreads the morning and Pidgie retreats to the dungeon but regains her cheeky character as a result of her brush with the reality of her life.

 From Mary Lavin’s , The Patriot Son . Publ 1956 , Michael Joseph

 Related Link : Lavin’s Island Women

PIP (Project for Innovative Poetry) and Poetry International Web : New Links on Poethead

I have added some new links to the Blogroll this morning . I have also removed a few and will be re-organising the blogroll later today. The New links are under the temporary name of Threads and may be found on the left-hand column at the base of the blogroll.

The frontpage of PIP which you will find here includes an image and biography, as well as a poem by Pierre Joris . Joris is familiar to readers of the Poethead blog, mostly from the links to his essay on Paul Celan , Celan/Heidegger : Translation at the Mountain of Death (Todtnauberg )

This Celan/ Heidegger essay is linked at the base of this introductory. Pierre Joris Blog is also linked in on the Poethead blogroll and he has kindly added the Poethead site in his blogroll (which I think an honour btw).

The link to the PIP project is the first link below this post. I do like innovative Poetry and the use of Web to read other poets and writers. Joris is a translator of Aramaic and other languages, who owns the Nomadics blog and the Homad Blog..

I have also added Poetry International Web to the Poethead blogroll, indeed I have joined the site. The link is listed in the Threads heading, beneath PIP. I am publishing here as third link their homepage, for those of us who like poetry and
find a dearth of it in the so-called cultural pages of our dailies and web-based media concerns. There really is an absence in traditional print media when it comes to introducing poetics and cultural innovations , especially in Ireland.

It appears , in Ireland, (at least) that innovation is almost as dirty word as new media, which somewhat explains the paralysis in our Arts- being afraid of innovation and new technology is cutting one of the sources of communication by writers and performers. This fear of innovation in Arts, Journalism and discussion is being carried out elsewhere so I will not belabour the point here.

Project for Innovative Poetry.
Translation at the Mountain of death, Todtnauberg
Poetry International Web
UBUWEB Ethnopoetics

A personal anarchist manifesto

……..

When Irish governments are derived from expertise and not from power-hungry groups of males, I may vote again… Right now, I believe that there is no expertise but instead   a bored media busily propping a profoundly disconnected political class.

.

The Arts and Cultural Heritage has been subject to unwonted abuse, vilification and censorship these last years which has resulted in be-suited little gurriers achieving Governmental portfolios and top-loading our cultural  expression with a bevy of extraordinary rule which alone makes jobs for fools  and loudmouths. This viral spread of inanity has been facilitated by social media .

Though I have to say the political talking-heads were slow on the uptake and haven’t really learnt the possibilities. In Paul Gogarty TD’s case , it would be best if someone tied him up and kept him away from computers.

Art is Art !!!! It is absurdist, nihilistic, surreal, creative, obnoxious and not defined by
a group of people who think that the 3 R’s will give them a god-fearing nation of plebs.

Art is not now subject and never will be subject to the vagaries of Government . It is not subject  the personal weirdness of a Justice Minister (Defamation Bill 2006-2010) who sought to criminalise blasphemy  under defamation of religions laws. Ireland alone in the Developed World introduced this measure !!! We have not even had debate on the issue of defamation and where a mechanistic Programme for Government based in majority voting has allowed personal vanity projects prevail for 13 years of Yawn.

“Human rights are attached to individuals, not to states or organized groups or ideas,” said International PEN President John Ralston Saul, who chaired the two-hour session entitled Faith and Free Speech: Defamation of Religions and Freedom of Expression. “When governments attempt to limit the rights of citizens, they are not seeking to protect faith or belief. They are seeking increased power over the citizenry.“

A Laundry List of Irish failure in Arts and Culture : A Catalogue of Inanity in Arts and Culture.

The Arts Act 2003  allows the Revenue Commissioners seek advice on endowments from the Government appointed Arts Council, who have managed to endow the ghost written biography of an ex-Taoiseach to be granted with an Artist’s Tax Exemption.

 Planning Acts 1998-2006  have allowed successive Environment Ministers contribute to the Destruction of Natural and built heritage to the point of the bisection of the Gabhra Valley and under the 2004 National Monuments Act allow the destruction of 39 sites along the M3 Route. Motorists pay for the Privilege of driving this road , which can clearly be seen empty from the parallel Tara Road any day of the week!

Legislations EU/Ireland : Not once in those 13-14 years of Government have they addressed the issue of a raft of legislation for the protection and conservation of our special areas of conservation in natural and built heritage. It has been plundered for urban sprawl, cheap petrol stations and simple profit. Hopefully EU investigation will untangle that mess of banks, developers and breach of directive under the FF/GN Government, where a Green Minister held up his hands and said he could do nothing about the previous incumbent’s legislative effortsVis (The revolving chair mechanism)

Our National Library Archives are dependent on the Dáil for heating and are not climate-controlled.

Our National Archives are under-funded and grossly under-staffed.

Our Office of Public-Works has been stupidly and expensively decentralised and is about two-three years behind in recording data on recent archaeological digs. Privatised companies preserve by record the generalised archaeological destruction and subsist wholly on limited graduate contracts.

Enough failure, self-defence and attacking of those who point out that we are a nation governed by the most limited of self-interested parties, whose idea of governance is wheeling-dealing, use of the whip and majority rules. The Arts are subject to simplistic attack, stripped funding and a boring facsimile of Irish culture based wholly in the fear of intellect, in the repression of ideas and of the twin tools of ignorance and attack.

Fianna Fáil has previously been accused of chocolate-box sentimentalism- that is a simplistic view of national expression , an absurdity of insularity based in constantly ignoring our a likeness to other countries who are also struggling in difficult times but none of them have attacked the root of expression or sent out barley literate fools into social media sites to make eejits of themselves and to show the government for what it is : a herd of gurriers in suits who don’t know how to recognise how loathed they actually are.

Hence, any ideas on places to go and things to read is always welcome. I have re-asserted my personal anarchy and will not be using my franchise to vote for those who have made a nonsense of their role in stewardship and protection of Arts, Heritage and Conservation 2001 -2010.

The 2006-2009 Defamation Bill
The 2003 Arts Act
The 2004 National Monuments Act
The 2006 Infrastructure Bill
Poethead link on Defamation of Religions

Marcel Duchamp : Alpha-Bets and Words.

” Paroi parée de paresse de paroisse
A charge de revanche et a verge de recharge
sacre de printemps, crasse de tympan
Daily lady cherche démelés
avec Daily Mail .”

indeed- (Marcel Duchamp)

first letter of the Alpha-bet

Anne Sexton, The Art of Poetry No. 15 (Paris Review)

Wikipedia Image of Ann Sexton , by Elsa Dorfman

I just saw this interview link which has been released today by The Paris Review to celebrate Ann Sexton’s Birthday and I have added it to my Facebook page. I thought to add it through an excerpted paragraph and hyperlink onto the Poethead blog also.

There is an existent link to Ann Sexton’s Transformations also available on the Poethead blog which will be carried at the end of this short piece, along with the Paris Review Interview on ‘The Art of Poetry No 15′ by Barbara Kevles.

” Until I was twenty-eight I had a kind of buried self who didn’t know she could do anything but make white sauce and diaper babies. I didn’t know I had any creative depths. I was a victim of the American Dream, the bourgeois, middle-class dream. All I wanted was a little piece of life, to be married, to have children. I thought the nightmares, the visions, the demons would go away if there was enough love to put them down. I was trying my damnedest to lead a conventional life, for that was how I was brought up, and it was what my husband wanted of me. But one can’t build little white picket fences to keep nightmares out. The surface cracked when I was about twenty-eight. I had a psychotic break and tried to kill myself. “

(excerpted Interview with Ann Sexton , The Paris Review )

A Scene from 'The Company of Wolves' from Angela Carter's Tales (Directed by Neil Jordan)

Briar Rose

” Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots
into the hypnotist’s trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She’s on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother’s pocketbook.”

Briar Rose , by Ann Sexton (Transformations)

The Art of Poetry No.15
‘Transformations’ , Ann Sexton’s Fairy-tales by Poethead

Exilic Conditions #1.

One of my favourite poems is The Seafarer , it is linked at the end of this short piece, in translation by Ezra Pound. The edition that I own is the Exeter University Press Seafarer ( I will add notes, translation, editor and ISBN later as I am away from my Poetry library). In the meantime, whilst playing with a very elderly book of school-french this morning, I happened upon the phonetic transcription section of the edition which I enjoyed so much that I am adding here a little poem called , Mon Bateau. Though I would gladly add La Cerise and Nocturne also, because they are of such light.

Alone

(Georges Rodenbach)

” To live as in exile, to live seeing no one
in the vast desert of a town that is dying,
where one hears nothing but the vague murmur
of an organ sobbing, or the belfry tolling.

To feel oneself remote from souls, from minds,
from all that bears a diadem on its brow;
and without shedding light consume oneself
like a futile lamp in the depths
of dark burial vaults.

To be like a vessel that dreamed of voyage,
triumphal, cheerful, off the red equator
which runs into ice flows of coldness
and feels itself wrecked without leaving a wake.

oh to live this way ! All alone…. to witness
the wilting of the divine soul’s white flowering,
in contempt of all and without prediction,
alone, alone, always alone, observing
one’s own extinction .”

Translated from the French by Will Stone.

Interestingly, I met a returned exile today who does not recognise Ireland anymore. He says there is a gentleness that has left the state, I tend to agree with him there.

“The heart’s thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
Moaneth alway my mind’s lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence
Seek out a foreign fastness.
For this there’s no mood-lofty man over earth’s midst,”

excerpted : The Seafarer  , translated by Ezra Pound

{Exeter University Press edition to be added}

Mon Bateau

“Quand mon bateau
S’en va sur l’eau
Poussée gaiment
par le bon vent,
je voudrais tant
Etre dedans!

mais quand la bise
la voile brise,
Que le navire
Soudain chavire,
j’aime bien mieux
Lui dire adieu. “

A. de Montgolfier

'The Oldest Joke' from the Exeter Cathedral Folio

Ezra Pound’s Seafarer from the Anglo-Saxon text.

Two pieces for discussion regarding Gender and Publication: Publication Bias ?

With thanks to Judith Buckrich (ex-Chair) of The International PEN Women Writers Committee, and Vice-President of The PEN Centre in Melbourne. I am attaching a linked Paragraph from : Women left on bottom bookshelf (Emma Young, full article at the base of this piece. (link#1)

“It’s hard to deny that this is a part of life in fiction. It’s a popularly condoned idea that novels written by men are neutral and on the shelves to be enjoyed by anyone but novels written by women can excite lower expectations and are looked at as exclusively feminine: a female voice for a female audience. In other words, books written for women are chick lit, while books written for men are just books. This idea also has legs in the world outside fiction.” (link#2)

Oh ! back to the vexatious Chick-lit question, where consumer-choice and empty lifestyle pretends to an Austen-like inch of ivory, and where in Ireland (at least ) vacuity is rewarded with attempts by certain media-types to include disposable novels on our children’s examination certificate syllabi!! Sure police-helicopters are sent in hunt for Jonathan Franzen‘s bifocals and this tittle dominates media-time. It appears one must have a testicular style to become the luvvie, though I expect it also helps to be a writer of merit, which cannot be denied . This doesn’t explain why women writers and makers of literature are shoved into the shadows, critically, academically and historically , until they acquire the label specialisation.

Further to the discussion, VIDA have recently published a forum on Gender and Publishing, excerpted here and linked beneath Dr Buckrich’s Website and Emma Young’s Piece here as third link. it is worth the read:

Tracy Bowling: “I do believe that bias is present in the publishing world such that women writers are underpublicized and undersold after their work is published, but it’s not a bias I feel very qualified to speak to. The more distressing evidence of a gender bias I see comes before publication, in that women writers often seem pressed to fit themselves very neatly into categories, to define a space for their work or to proclaim whose footsteps they’re following in. In the wake of Jonathan Franzen’s glowing reception, many writers have discussed the infrequency with which the word “genius” is applied to women writers; I’d be curious to see if the same is true of words like “breakthrough,” “innovative,” and “new.” I think that in order to attain success, especially in mainstream publishing, women often have to (often artificially) join a particular group or cohort of other women writers in order for their craft to be perceived as serious and studied. I’ve seen this a lot among women who write fantastic or fairy tale fiction, where, for example, no matter how little one’s work resembles or echoes that of Angela Carter, that work rarely gets discussed without heavy reference to Angela Carter. The really unfortunate side effect of having to strategize and situate oneself as one among many others, I think, is that women become less likely to write the Franzen-esque literary epics, simply because there is less precedent–less of a niche within which their work can be easily framed.” (link#3)

Personally, I expect that if you are a man, its easy to have a blind-spot on the under-representation of women in Government, in the Literary Arts and in Media. The fact that many (many) people do not equate media-time (luvvieness) and column inches with that strange heeled penile-worship of modernism and that frisson of tokenist gender-equality doesn’t mean that the issue of discrimination does not occur. It occurs, it is celebrated and it is a part of our lives wherein meritocracy is just another by-word for male dominance.

EDIT : (VIDA discussion re-posted this morning on the Web)

“I soon discovered that a lot of women writers routinely perform their own version of “the count” when surveying anthologies, journals, book reviews, and awards. At the time I was unaware of Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young’s essay “Numbers Trouble”; nearly all of the women I was in dialogue with directed me to it. I was astonished to discover that a sub-genre of poetry (which I’ll refer to by shorthand as “experimental”) I’d have assumed would most fairly represent the sexes may be as biased as the more “traditional” sub-genres in poetry, as well as the more commercial venues for prose. I would later be struck by the fact that women writing in all genres are affected by this disparity.

This experience was akin to peering over a very high wall to gaze upon a neighbor’s backyard—a neighbor I’d always assumed was living the good life—and discovering that this neighbor’s life was, in fact, quite similar to my own.”

Jonathan Franzen, whose lost glasses sparked a cop-hunt and media-dominance.

Judith Buckrich Website

Emma Young Piece ‘Women Left on the Bottom Book-shelf’

Vida Article on gender and Publication

A Saturday Woman Poet : Sarojini Naidu.

This Saturday’s Woman Poet is Sarojini Naidu. I have been reading quite recently Indian Poets from both the pre and post-independence period in India . The shatter of language that occurred and that is collated neatly in a variety of collections does not contain the simplicity of Naidu’s engagement with her poetics and with her cultural history. I do not believe that post-independence volumes of poetry can attain to canonical status without the inclusion of a poet such as Naidu, who though primarily working in the English language like many contemporary writers of her Indian heritage or
indeed of intellectual diaspora encapsulated the language struggle. In my opinion she has the weight of a Tagore but the sure simplicity of pre-independence classicism.

I am including a brief link to the Wikipedia page of Sarojini Nadiu and two short poems by the writer at the base of this post. I will add in later a brief edit which will include the titles of current reading in Contemporary and Pre-independence poets.

Sarojini Naidu with Gandhi 1930

Alabaster by Sarojini Naidu

“Like this alabaster box whose art
Is frail as a cassia-flower, is my heart,
Carven with delicate dreams and wrought
With many a subtle and exquisite thought.

Therein I treasure the spice and scent
Of rich and passionate memories blent
Like odours of cinnamon, sandal and clove,
Of song and sorrow and life and love.”

Harvest Hymn . By Sarojini Naidu

Mens Voices:

“Lord of the lotus, lord of the harvest,
Bright and munificent lord of the morn!
Thine is the bounty that prospered our sowing,
Thine is the bounty that nurtured our corn.
We bring thee our songs and our garlands for tribute,
The gold of our fields and the gold of our fruit;
O giver of mellowing radiance, we hail thee,
We praise thee, O Surya, with cymbal and flute.

Lord of the rainbow, lord of the harvest,
Great and beneficent lord of the main!
Thine is the mercy that cherished our furrows,

Thine is the mercy that fostered our grain.
We bring thee our thanks and our garlands for tribute,
The wealth of our valleys, new-garnered and ripe;
O sender of rain and the dewfall, we hail thee,
We praise thee, Varuna, with cymbal and pipe.

Womens Voices:

Queen of the gourd-flower, queen of the har- vest,
Sweet and omnipotent mother, O Earth!
Thine is the plentiful bosom that feeds us,
Thine is the womb where our riches have birth.
We bring thee our love and our garlands for tribute,
With gifts of thy opulent giving we come;
O source of our manifold gladness, we hail thee,
We praise thee, O Prithvi, with cymbal and drum.

All Voices:

Lord of the Universe, Lord of our being,
Father eternal, ineffable Om!
Thou art the Seed and the Scythe of our harvests,
Thou art our Hands and our Heart and our Home.
We bring thee our lives and our labours for tribute,
Grant us thy succour, thy counsel, thy care.
O Life of all life and all blessing, we hail thee,
We praise thee, O Bramha, with cymbal and prayer.”

Saronjini Naidu Wikipedia
Saronjin Naidu from ‘Poet-Seers’

Things More Ancient, by Padraic Colum.

Things More Ancient :  VIII

‘First , make a letter like a monument -
An upright like the fast-held hewn stone
Immovable , and half-rimming it
The strength of Behemoth his neck-bone,
And underneath that yoke, a staff, a rood
of no less hardness than the cedar wood.
-

Then , on a page made golden as the crown
Of sainted man. a scripture you enscroll
Blackly, firmly with the quickened skill
Lessoned by famous masters in our school,
And with an ink whose lustre will keep fresh
For fifty generations of our flesh.
-

And limn below it the Evangelist
In raddled coat, on bench abidingly,
Simple and bland : Matthew his name or Mark,
Or Luke or John ; the book is by his kness,
And therby his similitudes : Lion,
Or Calf , or Eagle, or Exalted Man.
-

The winds that blow around the World- the four
Winds in their colours on your pages join -
The Northern Wind – its blackness interpose;
The Southern Wind -its blueness gather in;
In redness and in greenness manifest
The splendours of the Winds of East and West.
-

And with these colours on a ground of gold
Compose a circuit will be seen by men
As endless patience; but is nether web
Of endless effort- a strict pattern:
Ilumination lighting interlace
Of cirque and scroll, of panel and lattice.
-

A single line describes them and enfolds,
One line, one course whose term there is none,
Which in its termlessness is envoying
The going forth and the return one.
With man and beast and bird and fish therein
Transformed to species that have never been.
-With mouth a-gape or beak a-gape each stands
-
initial to a verse of miracle,
Of mystery and of marvel (Depth of God)
That Alpha and Omega may not spell,
Then,  finished with these wonders and these signs,
Turn to the figure of your first outlines.
-

Axal, our angel, has sustained you so
In hand, in brain; now to seal that thing
With figures many as the days of man,
And colours, like the fire’s enammelling-
That baulk, that letter you have greatly reared
To stay the violence of the entering Word !
Adjutorium nostrum , in nomine Domini
Qui fecit caelum et terram’

From : The Poet’s Circuits, Collected Poems of Ireland . Centenary Edition with a Preface by Benedict Kiely. Dolmen Press , Dublin. 1981 The Monuments , by Padraic Colum

Ovid Among the Scythians , by Ruth Fainlight.

(Delacroix)

“Marshy banks of the Danube ,  reeds and bushes
and muddy crescents of horses’  hooves . Their
clothes are earth-coloured , his dark blue.
-
He feels the Autumn starting – that sky, those clouds,
the way the wind is moving them. The mountains
roll back , uncharted as far as China.
-
Ovid is writing another letter to Rome -
a gentle puzzlement to his watchers, which weapons
and dogs don’t quite shield them from.
-
He wonders whether a linen toga, his scrolls
and pens , and their unknowing admiration,
can be protection against such sadness,
-
if he can metamorphose Chaos to Order,
exile to Fate, the amorous summer weasel
into the noble winter ermine.”

Ruth Fainlight:  Ovid Among the Scythians , from The Knot , Publ.  Hutchinson 1990.

A Saturday Woman Poet , Moya Cannon

Viola D’Amore, by Moya Cannon

” Sometimes, love does die,
but sometimes , a stream on porous rock,
it slips down into the inner dark of a hill,
joins with other hidden streams
to travel blind as the white fish that live in it.
It forsakes one underground streambed
for the cave that runs under it.
Unseen , it informs the hill
and , like the hidden streams of the  viola d’amore,
makes the hill reverberate,
so that people who wander there
wonder why the hill sings,
wonder why they find wells.”

( by Moya Cannon )

From :  Poetry (October- November 1995) ;  Contemporary Irish Poetry, Ed Chris Agee.

UBUWEB : Avant-Garde Web Use.

UBUWEB was founded in 1996 by Kenneth Goldsmith and has been linked onto the Poethead site since 2008, I first heard their Celtic Mouth Music in that year and had sent the links to friends who did not know the site. Whilst searching this morning for publications that take Poetic Cycles, (rather than a limited amount of two to three poems) I visited the UBUWEB site again to put some music on and thought it a good idea to draw attention to what Goldsmith has achieved in terms of avant-garde web use. The site has been hacked recently which is a tremendous pity but I will leave the notifications from the team regarding recovery and support until the end of this short introductory piece.

“According to UbuWeb founder and publisher Kenneth Goldsmith, statistics indicate that visitors to the site, ”are as likely to download a Renaissance visual poem as they would listen to the MP3 of Louis Farrakhan singing ‘Is She Is, Or Is She Ain’t?’” Begun in 1996, UbuWeb hosts enough audio material, text, and graphic work to keep a reader occupied for months. While the site was created to highlight and archive visual and concrete poetry, increased bandwith and an influx of materials have broadened the site’s scope. As Goldsmith told Poets.org, “We’ve moved toward becoming a clearinghouse for the avant-garde.”

from : the Academy of American Poets ( Link #1)

UBUWEB

Goldsmith’s Comments on UBUWEB and the issue of costing, site use and how the Web benefits the transmission of ideas , information and poetry, is related to a Permanent Poethead page which contains the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights. Goldsmith , indeed , has achieved what many corporate entities set out to achieve (but often fail at ) in his ability to respect the translation and moral rights of UBUWEB linked authors, thinkers and performers ,

“Concrete poetry‘s utopian pan-internationalist bent was clearly articulated by Max Bense in 1965 when he stated, “…concrete poetry does not separate languages; it unites them; it combines them. It is this part of its linguistic intention that makes concrete poetry the first international poetical movement.” Its ideogrammatic self-contained, exportable, universally accessible content mirrors the utopian pan-linguistic dreams of cross-platform efforts on today’s Internet; Adobe’s PDF (portable document format) and Sun System’s Java programming language each strive for similarly universal comprehension. The pioneers of concrete poetry could only dream of the now-standard tools used to make language move and morph, stream and scream, distributed worldwide instantaneously at little cost.” (Link #2)

From : UBUWEB Wants to be Free, by Kenneth Goldsmith.

The third link at the end of this post is to the Wikipedia page detailing the history of UBUWEB, and the fourth link is to the UBUWEB site itself. This short post will go soon enough into archive, so I’d draw attention to the blogroll , which is in the second-half of the page : Ethnopoetics has three links, including one to the UBUWEB site.

The final link is to the Endangered PDF : A Declaration Of Poetic Rights and Values ,

” We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all languages are created equal, endowed by their creators with certain inalienable meanings. These meanings are embedded in sounds and texts; in words, imagination, and the poems that bind them. Poetry is the distillation of language; the uproarious babble of human thought, and the engaging patter of consciousness itself—in all languages—all 6,500 of them.”

I do hope listeners and readers enjoy the site and its ideals, mostly it is approached with curiosity and enjoyed by the many people who have gotten the link for one reason or another.

Academy of American poets
UBUWEB Wants to Be Free , by Kenneth Goldsmith
Wikipedia
UBUWEB Site
Endangered PDF

Wraiths III , White Nights , by Seamus Heaney.

Wraiths

III.  White Nights

“Furrow-plodders in spats and bright-clasped brogues
Are cradling bags and hoisting beribboned drones
As their skilled neck-pullers’ fingers force the chanters
.
And the whole band starts rehearsing
Its stupendous, swaggering march
Inside the hall. Meanwhile
.
One twilight field and summer hedge away
We wait for the learner who will stay behind
Piping by stops and starts,
.
Making an injured music for us alone,
Early-to-beds , white-night absentees
Open-eared to this day. “

.

from : Human Chain , by Seamus Heaney , published by Faber and Faber 2010.

Note : I am attaching to this short post a link entitled : Feis Teamhar , a Turn at Tara because I was there to hear the poets and musicians on that day. I believe that the Newspapers under-reported the day and did not attend to Mr Heaney’s words. He was there to celebrate Tara as a cultural centre and to support the Campaign to Save Tara . He was also there to support his nephew who was and is a Tara Campaigner .

Since that time , there have been other feiseanna at Tara, this was the inaugural one organised by : ” Paul Muldoon, Pulitzer prize-winner, will read his poetry to celebrate and honour Tara and will be joined by musicians: Grammy award-winner Susan McKeown, Laoise Kelly, Aidan Brennan and others “.

Save Tara Campaign release on Feis Teamhair

The Lace World, by Monica Ferrell

The Lace World - Modern Breton lace

The Lace World .

(after a piece of sixteenth-century Breton lace)

“How eerie it all is, as if linked by synapses;
a face stutters out of the cloud of lace,
a tiny decorative lion dances in a frieze,
a woman, needy arms outstretched, holds on

to thread bulwarks against some unseen flood
while her body dissolves into netting, the knots
widen and widen until the limn of her
is finished, she melted to loops of distance … and isn’t

that how you’ve transformed, once-love, while
this strait sleeping-car, this time
spirits me away from you and that night we lay
two palms folded to each other in prayer:

how the cat yowled to be let in! and the moths,
darting abortively forward, all ended up
by clinging to the screen in the sleep-sacs
of their wings, while I rolled to the top of my tongue

that word which would end everything and
like Sisyphus, let it fall.

Nothing
brings that second back, yet nothing gets lost;

hours that separate me from you only
tighten the memory-chain, where my thoughts
like these light acrobats trapeze;
in the white spiderwebbing, in the network

here’s a sea serpent, a helmeted soldier,
a boy pausing to sing, two dogs leaving a fountain,
someone pushing aside a harp.
The tiny o of her mouth. Those gouged-out holes, her eyes.”

Monica Ferrell , published 2005. Slate Magazine .

(from:   The Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, ed Jeet Thayil . Bloodaxe Books )

Michel Houellebecq has won the Goncourt prize for La Carte et le Territoire , Paris Review

from , Paris Review (RSS Link on Poethead main page)

“Michel Houellebecq has finally received the Prix Goncourt, France’s most prestigious literary prize. As Susannah Hunnewell suggested in our current issue, the honor is overdue. Click here to read the most in-depth interview with Houellebecq available in English.

As our diarist Nelly Kaprielian reported last September in The Paris Review Daily, Houellebecq is still living hard. He has aged visibly in the last couple of years. He even tells her that his latest novel, La carte et le territoire, may be his last. We hope and trust that time will prove him wrong.”

There is a permanent RSS link to Paris Review on the main page of the Poethead Blog, which readers can find beneath this post also. The above quote forms the opening two paragraphs to the announcement that Michel Houellebecq has won the 2010 Prix Goncourt  for  ‘ La Carte et le Territoire’ . Paris Review is today running an interview in English with Houellebecq .  Recommended  reads by Houellebecq (by me) include HP Lovecraft , Against the World, Against Life and Atomised. I have included links to both here,

The Paris Review
HP Lovecraft ,Against the World , Against Life
Atomised

Archives, Books, and a note on a renaissance for literary magazines.

In 2009 the Archives of Cologne collapsed , Speigel English reported it as ‘History in Ruins, Archive Collapse Disaster for Historians‘. It always interests me as a sometime collector of letters, books and such ephemera that Governments often do not prioritise our history in a manner that will benefit future students of culture and politics.

Yesterday morning there were reports of an ongoing dispute between French Archivists and the Government of Nicholas Sarkozy , or rather , more specifically Nicholas Sarkozy’s Legacy Museum Project, which is centred in the National Archives in Paris :

” It’s one of the grandest palaces in central Paris, housing treasured national documents from Napoleon’s will to the rules of tennis. But behind a makeshift barricade of box-files and banners, staff are camping out in sleeping bags, as France’s National Archives become the frontline in the biggest cultural revolt of Nicolas Sarkozy‘s leadership.

Historians are rising up against the president’s grandiose plans to immortalise himself by founding a national history museum in his own image. Just as François Mitterrand built the Louvre pyramid and Georges Pompidou lent his name to the landmark modern art museum, Sarkozy is searching for his own cultural legacy. But his planned museum, with its emphasis on “national identity”, has been attacked by academics as a dangerous, nationalistic attempt to pervert history for his own rightwing ideological purposes.”

(Guardian report 10/11/2010)

The questions really have to be grounded in how Governments see their role in preserving the past ?

(i). Do they protect the buildings which house archives from problems such as runaway development and gentrification ?

(ii). Are there adequate disaster management plans in place that are planned and strategised at governmental /departmental levels ?

(iii). Is Governmental funding for the provision of adequate storage and climate-control infrastructure a priority in terms of paper/data archival storage ?

Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive : IVRLA.

In terms of good news today , UCD celebrates the launch of the Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive ( IVRLA ). I am adding in a paragraph about the launch and a link to the Press release:

” The Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (IVRLA) digital repository draws on UCD’s extensive archival resources, allowing this material to be accessed in a digitised format from a single virtual location. The IVRLA presents 32 curated collections as well as a series of 17 research projects which demonstrate the research potential of this major digital repository.”

( from Library.ie)

There are ongoing problems with our National Library storage , including its dependence on Dáil Éireann for heat, but its good to see that resources and archive services are provided for in UCD. Visits by staff from the British library and skill-sharing in disaster-management form part of the NL’s policy here. I hope to update on the Archives of Cologne, the French National Archives dispute and Digitising Archival resources in a later post and will link further in the comments section.

A Renaissance for Literary Magazines,  from the Guardian:  adding a Guardian Books RSS Feed.

Note : I have added an RSS feed link to Guardian Books into the central column beneath this post, there is a very interesting report therein on how Tech advances a Literary Magazine Renaissance, which should be of interest to publishers, writers and readers. I am linking it here.

Collapse of the Archives of Cologne
French National Archives Protest
IVRLA from Library.ie
A note on Guardian Books and Literary Renaissance
Archives of Cologne collapse: reportage

Restored Music , Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’

Restored Music : Sylvia Plath‘s ‘Ariel‘

The first edition of Ariel was published by Faber and Faber , London , in 1965. I am not going to trawl the pit of controversy over the Hughes selection, it has been done. The arguments and counter-arguments are known to mostly all lovers of Plath‘s writing. I will point the general reader to Google and to the initial discussion by Hughes in The Collected Plath, the Winter Pollen set of essays and the foreword to the first edition of Ariel, for that information.

The Restored Edition Ariel was published in 2004, with a foreword discussion by Frieda Hughes. The full title of the edition is, The Restored Edition, Ariel. A Facsimile of Plath’s Manuscript, Reinstating her Original Selection and Arrangement .

This means that the MSS that Plath had left containing the interleaved and co-dependent set of themes has been restored to its original music.

This may be difficult for someone who is not a writer of poetry to understand , but strangely enough Hughes encapsulated the process perfectly in his essays when he alluded to Plath’s process of creation as hermetically sealed. A book of poetry is not necessarily themed but unified in the interrelationship of the poems, their internal music, and the alchemy of words. Sometimes a poem is related intimately to another through a strange labyrinthe undercurrent of word and energy which may not be visible to the critic or academic.

As Frieda Hughes points out in her foreword, the two words love and spring  form the first and last word of the Restored Edition, in the Poems , Morning Song and Wintering. This symbolises the internal music of Sylvia Plath’s volume and indeed the inter-relationship of every internal sound, chosen word and inter-leaved theme. It is restored because the binder was retained , treasured and read by the family and her children.

39 years might be a time to wait for that restoration of music to its meaning, but interestingly it was always preserved intact, which readers of literature are aware does not always happen historically with words that enlighten, provoke or hurt..

from Morning Song, by Sylvia Plath.

(first verse)

‘ Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.’

from Wintering , by Sylvia Plath.

(last verse)

‘Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying, they taste the spring.’

EDIT : I am adding in here as the final link a YouTube of Sylvia Plath reading  Daddy

‘The Restored Edition, Ariel’ by Sylvia Plath

Ariel, the Restored Edition , by Sylvia Plath
Winter Pollen, Occasional Prose, by Ted Hughes
Ariel 1965
Sylvia Plath reading ‘Daddy’

A Saturday Woman Poet , Nuala Ní Chonchúir.

These two poems, Corcracht and Iniata, by Nuala Ní Chonchúir are translated by the poet.

Image by Paddy McElroy , courtesy of Kristina McElroy

Corcracht
i gcuimhne Nessa

Céard tá ann nuair
nach bhfuil tú ann ach:

scáthaghaidh na bhfoirgneamh
faoi spéir fhuar na maidine,
camsholas ar cheann slinne
ag clúdach easnacha an tí,
d’fhéitheacha teann faoi
chraiceann do lámh,
an chraobh liathchorcra
ag tarraingt mí-ádh sa teach isteach,
tobar dúigh as a dtagann
línte doimhne, dothuigthe,
coinneal na hAidbhinte
ag comhaireamh i dtreo na Nollag.

Céard tá ann ach
dath ár gcaointe duitse?

Purpling . Translated by Nuala Ní Chonchúir

What is there
now that you’re gone,
but:

shadow-fronted buildings
under a cold morning sky,
the memory of veins
tightening under your skin,
twilight on grey-wet slates
covering the roof-ribs,
lilac branches that bring
bad luck through the door,
an ink-well, dark with
unintelligible lines,
the Advent candle
counting down to Christmas.

What is there,
but the colour of our mourning
for you?

Iniata

Iniata leis
an gcraiceann seo tá

meabhair
atá meadhránach
le himní

anam atá
chomh neamhshaolta,
dothuigthe le ceo

croí atá
féinbhriste,
brúite mar úll.

Má tá sé ar intinn agat
é a oscailt

bí ullamh:
doirtfear fuil.

Enclosed trans, by Nuala Ni Chonchúir

Within this skin
please find enclosed:

a mind
over-giddy
with endless worry

a soul
wispish as mist
alien to its owner

a heart
self-broken and
bruised like fruit.

If you intend
to open it

be prepared:
it will bleed.

 from  Tattoo  (Tatú ), le Nuala Ní Chonchúir. Publ.Arlen House 2007.

With thanks to Nuala Ní Chonchúir for the poems and translations from Tatú. Nuala’s new novel, You is available now. I have added a biographical hyperlink , so that readers may look up her books and enjoy her writing. The image which accompanies this post is courtesy of Kristina Mc Elroy, and is from the estate of her Late father , Artist Paddy Mc Elroy. I am adding some links here , to Nuala’s site, to my Cúirt 2010 visit , and to You (Via Amazon).

Nuala Ní Chonchúir’s Website
‘You’ a novel by Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Three Women at the Cúirt Literary Festival 2010
Response from Nuala Ní Chonchúir, with thanks from me

An Irish Imprint : Cló Iar-Chonnachta.

I have decided to build up a set of links on Small Irish Publishers, this will evolve over time and I hope to add to it. The two that come immediately to mind and that I enjoy immensely are Cló Iar-Chonnachta and the Columba Press, both of which I am adding to the Links that run down the  right side column at the base of this post. I have before now alluded to our wonderful book festivals and Culture Nights, these posts can be found peppered throughout the site and include The Dún Laoighre Mountains to Sea Festival, the Dublin Book Festival, the Forge at Gort, the Cúirt International Poetry Festival , Poetry Ireland‘s wonderful sponsorship of readings at the Unitarian Church in St Stephens Green and the countless library and literacy readings that occur under the aegis of the Independent Writers’ Centres and the Irish Arts
Council. It is at these wonderful and immensely important places that art occurs and the small presses advertise and sell their wares.

The books on my shelves come from there or from friends who have found them for me in small shops all over the world. I have been reading this weekend Celia de Freine ‘s Faoi Chábaisti is Ríonacha and Cathal Ó Searchaigh’s An Bealach ‘Na Bhaile, both from theCló Iar-Chonnachta Imprint. The work that such presses do in disemminating Irish Literary Work is wholly invaluable and we should support it as much as possible. The Celia de Fréine book was bought at the Dublin City Hall Book festival in 2010, I got Tatú (Arlen) there in 2009, and the Ó Searchaigh was purchased in Indreabhán in 1996 (possibly whilst staying near Spiddal for the Annual Cúirt Festival in Galway that year).

I am adding their website link here and below in the links section, the following poem is Dídean le Cathal Ó Searchaigh :

Dídean , le Cathal Ó Searchaigh.

“Tá stóirm air” , a deir tú. ” Stoirm mhillteanach.”
Míshociar, coinníonn tú ag súil an úrláir , síos
agus aníos go truacanta, do shúile impíoch.
Lasmuigh tá an oíche ag séideadh is ag siabadh
timpeall an tí, ag cleatráil ag na fuinneoga,
ag béicéil is ag bagairt trí pholl na heochrach.
“Dheanfadh sé áit a bhearnú le theacht isteach,”
a deir tú , ag daingniu an dorais le chaothair uilline.
Tagann roisteacha fearthainne ag cnagadh
an fuinneoige . De sceit, sciorann dallóg na cistine
in airde. Creathnaithe, preabann tú as do sheasamh
isteach i m’ucht, ag cuartú dídne.
Ag breith barróige ort, téann mo lamha i ngreim
i do chneas, ag teannadh is ag teannadh. Teas
is teas, scarann do bheola ag súil le póga
díreach is an stoirm ag teacht tríom ina séideoga.
Splancaim is buaileann chaor thineadh do chneas .

On this site readers will find links to The Western Writers and the National Campaign for the Arts  RSS, please feel free to connect to the sites and petitions, which discuss short-termism in cultural advocacy by the Irish Government in supporting the root of Irish Arts: those that support and nurture writers in the Irish regions:

“The Arts Council of the Irish Republic has withdrawn its funding grant to the Western Writers’ Centre, Galway. The Centre also runs the annual ‘The Forge at Gort Festival’ in Gort, Co. Galway and the literary news-letter, ‘The Word Tree.’ For almost seven years it has been the only such centre West of the Shannon. We are calling upon writers and those with an interest in writing to sign this petition to have the Arts Council restore our grant.”  (cf,  attached Petition Link for Western Writers)

Cló Iar-Chonnachta (CIC)
Wiki for Cló Iar-Chonnachta
Martin Cullen TD cut funding to the Western Writers centre in a breath-taking display of short-termism

A Saturday Woman Poet, Eavan Boland.

Whilst reading the Chris Agee edited Poetry (October – November 1995) , I happened upon the truly beautiful Mother Ireland , penned by Eavan Boland. I am adding a Boston Globe interview (excerpted) and  Eavan Boland link, entitled Exploring Poetry’s ‘Lesser Space‘ to the blog as this week’s Saturday Woman Poet , which is becoming a regular item on the blog. I have included the links to the Saturday Woman Poet archive and tag-set alongside other related links.

 The interview is companion to a post that I re-blogged this week , entitled Female Complexities, Dorothy Molloy and fits neatly into the theme of intimacy in writing, as opposed to the monumental writ  on a large-scale canvas . Sylvia Plath referred to this celebration of the small, the real and the domestic as a writing of the thinginess of things, the exploration of  poetic voice grounded in objects. it is most visible in the final poem of her Ariel sequence, Wintering. I have linked both of  these aforementioned posts on Plath and Molloy at the base of this post.

The Week In Irish Arts and Culture .

It has been an appalling and destructive week for Irish arts , this is grounded not alone in the economical situation but in what amounts to an ongoing policy or set of policies which have starved  Irish arts at their  root. A degradation of immense proportion has been occurring since at least 2004 , when the current Government initiated the National Monuments Act, which showed a scant attention to to the ideology of conservation, butrather favoured the ideology of destruction for profiteering. The swathe of heritage and cultural destruction reached its rational conclusion in three things , the bisection of the Gabhra Valley , the endowment of an Artist’s exemption to the ghost-written book of a former Taoiseach and the introduction of a Criminalisation for Blasphemy onto the Irish statute in January 2010, which has reduced our place in the press freedom league.

Exploring Poetry’s ‘Lesser Space’ , Boston Globe.

I do not believe that a Government should underestimate the alienation that occurs as a result of cultural self-vandalisation and ignorance  of its role in stewardship and protection, but it apparently does , as it celebrates its own myopia and abject failure in the teeth of Ireland’s  depression. From Exploring Poetry’s ‘Lesser Space’ (Boston Globe’s Interview with Eavan Boland).

“Explain how Irish women, as you write, went “from being the objects of the Irish poem to being its authors.“

A The archetypical poem I have in mind is Yeats’s “Cathleen ni Houlihan,” which was a very romanticized, static portrait. The woman was so iconic and so overlaid with images of Ireland that for women to become the authors of the poem they had to somehow leave that object behind or contest it.

Q How did this affect you?

A It made me very aware of how difficult it was in Irish poetry to have an ordinary, day-to-day subject. Nineteenth-century painting, by contrast, often depicted the details of everyday life — people sitting in
rooms, at tables; nobody questioned the value of those images to an artist. But when I was a young poet
it was easier to have a political murder in the Irish poem than a baby.”

The Black Lace Fan my Mother Gave Me.

by Eavan Boland                   

It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy…

They stayed in the city for the summer.
The met in cafes. She was always early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.

She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines.
She ordered more coffee. She stood up.
The streets were emptying. The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning.

These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand,
darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience
of its element. It is
a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps,
even now, an inference of its violation.
The lace is overcast as if the weather
it opened for and offset had entered it.

The past is an empty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way to know what happened then—
none at all—unless ,of course, you improvise:

The blackbird on this first sultry morning,
in summer, finding buds, worms, fruit,
feels the heat. Suddenly she puts out her wing—
the whole, full, flirtatious span of it.

Related Link-Sets :

Exploring poetry’s ‘Lesser Space’ (Boston Globe)

Female Complexities , Dorothy Molloy

Restored Music , Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’

Mary Lavin’s Girls , Pidgie and Katey

A Saturday Woman Poet

A Saturday Woman poet (Tags)

John O Donoghues Arts Act 2003
The Old King , Blasphemy in Ireland

A Saturday Woman Poet , Eithne Strong.

Eithne Strong

Up and Out

” At this empyrean time when we have gained the moon
in our nineteen seventies’ boots we smash barbarian heels
on bowels and balls
.
of internees ;  jag flesh on spikes of glass, fry babies,
sear with liquid fire old men, depose the irretrievable
brain ; slit , mutiliate,
.

in cruelty far outlashing jungle terroritorial lusts.
North or brown, black or west , there is no clear difference
as to time  nor place
.

in our nice savageries -perhaps a finer point of torture
here or there : electronics has its undeniable innovative
advantages  -
.

but the vomit of prehistory reeks curiously
identical with that of the twentieth century. “
.

Dolmen Poetry Press (began in 1951)

Up and Out by Eithne Strong , from Sarah in Passing . The Dolmen Press Poetry , 1974.
The Dolmen Press
Eithne Strong
Women Poets Category on Poethead
A Saturday Woman Poet on Poethead

Statement from the National Campaign for Arts on Budget 2010.

Campaign for Arts , Ireland

First of all we want to say well done. We achieved a lot this year. An unprecedented effort was made to meet as many local and national politicians face to face to explain why the arts are vital and why public funding is needed. More than 85 TDs were met. Presentations were made to Oireachtas Committees, local councillors, as well as a variety of conferences, seminars and university groups. Members of the public and many of us who work in the arts sent nearly 12,000 emails to their TDs. Thanks to those of you who helped make this happen. You have helped the arts in Ireland. Funding will be down in 2011. The impact on individual artists and organisations won’t be known until next year. However we made the case. We were listened to. The cuts at national level are nothing like as bad as many had feared.  (We won’t know how much local funding is cut by until later next year). Here’s the initial news we have about the Budget and the arts:   * The cuts are biggest on the capital side rather than current spending. * Culture Ireland got a big increase of 71%.This huge increase is to roll out its programme Imagine Ireland in the USA next year. Item 2010 Spend €m 2011 Total €m Change 2011 over 2010 €m National Archives €1,720 €1,514 -12% IMMA, Chester Beatty Library , National Concert Hall, Crawford Gallery €14,069 €12,896 -8% Cultural Projects (e.g Dublin Contemporary, Hunt Museum, Foynes Flying Boat Museum, Science Gallery, James Joyce Centre, March’s Library) €4,420 €4,297 -3% Cultural Development(ACCESS Arts Capital funding & the Cultural Technology Grants) €16,491 €8,265 -50% Culture Ireland €4,083 €6,997 71% The Arts Council (part funded by the National Lottery) €68,649 €65,167 -5% National Museum of Ireland €15,125 €14,240 -6% National Library of Ireland €9,348 €8,084 -14% Irish Film Board €19,272 €18,431 -4% National Gallery €10,163 €9,850 -3% In terms of how the constituent parts of the Department break down, see below. Department Breakdown 2010 €m 2011 €m Change 2011 over 2010 Tourism €153,120 €147,827 -3.46% Culture €153,177 €136,891 -10.63% Sport* €117,721 €86,525 -26.50% Administration costs of Department €11,282 €11,002 -2.48% *Sports funding dropped significantly because some of the major sports infrastructure projects e.g Aviva Stadium, National Sports Campus etc are completed. But elsewhere an additional €5 million is allocated in grants to sporting bodies.

 

NOTE:  This post will be archived and migrated onto the Poethead Campaign for Arts page in a short time. It helps to keep all related materials near each other so that the reader can trace exactly how FF/GN have consistently undermined and eroded Arts  Development in Ireland.

Twitlonger here from the Secretariat NCFA 
National Recovery Plan , Impact on the Arts in Ireland
Fianna Fáil /Green and the Arts in Ireland
Western Writer’s Centre Appeal , Petition and letters

A Saturday Woman Poet , Ágnes Nemes Nagy.

Ágnes Nemes Nagy

Hemisphere ,  by Ágnes Nemes Nagy.

“Here , is the upper hemisphere. Still grey,
where grey and liquid white
meet a liquid stairway,
and with the white whiter yet.
.
Here, is the upper zone where
on frosty grass thaw starts,
where the dew
stitching grass and air
makes the field seem higher -
an uncertain rainbow.
.
Then suddenly , God’s optic,
with its expanding triangle
like snap mutation
in prolonged epochs -
and from then, metal,
this concave height is metal
which sucks the last drop of haze
as the cursive traces
of a rising vertigo ;
.
because here,  is the horizon of white metals,
upper-half of the sphere-world,
late morning’s theology,
.
where midnight is a motionless
black cauldron in the big lakes.

from Between , by Ágnes Nemes Nagy , Trans Hugh Maxton.

Above the Object,

by Ágnes Nemes Nagy.

” For there is light above every object.
Like polar circles, the shining trees are decked.
Comes one by one a glowing skybound regiment,
in caps of light , the ninety-two elements,
bearing on each brow the image of each mode -
I believe in the resurrection of the body.”

Above the Object , by Ágnes Nemes Nagy.

Between, by Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Trans. by Hugh Maxton. Corvina Press , Budapest and Dedalus Press, Dublin. 1988.

‘Between’ , reviewed by C Murray at Poetry Ireland
‘Between’ Translated by George Szirtes

Do Arts Cuts hit the right note? Irish Times (10/12/2010)

” This week’s Budget, of course, represents the Coalition Government’s thinking on the role of the arts. Both Fine Gael and Labour, who are likely to form the next government, are due to issue cultural policy documents in coming weeks. The fact that they are putting the arts on their pre-election agenda indicates that both parties have taken note of the case that has been made for the relevance of the arts in any recovery programme – both economically and in the re-establishment of national identity.”
By Gerry Smith (Irish Times 10/12/2010)

This is the ultimate paragraph of The Irish Times article Do arts cuts hit the right note? I am adding it in here , along with a link to my post on Fianna Fáil Arts policy , Scribbling in the Margins. It’s my opinion that something other than attrition is what is required in terms of cultural support, including a review of the 2003 Arts Act, which has brought the work of Government too close to what should be a naturally evolving area of concern. I am looking forward to seeing oppositional party  papers on the issues of Arts, Conservation and Heritage over the coming weeks, and I will of course link them in these pages.

” in only a few years Culture Ireland has become something of cornerstone of arts policy and it would appear that into the future, the potential for a company or artist to represent Ireland abroad could become a consideration in how well they are funded.

If such a criterion were to be cast in stone, the danger is the formation of an elite with advantaged access to State support and a loss of the risk-taking that is needed in the case of those who are only beginning their careers.”

The Full Irish Times article link is attached , along with my critique of Fianna Fáil’s policy in this area since the 2003 Arts Act.

Do Arts Cuts hit the right note ? , Irish Times 10/12/2010
‘Scribbling in the Margins , Fianna Fáil’s arts policy
Ionad scribhneoirí Chaitlín Maude , The Western Writer’s appeal

Campaign for Arts

A Work for Poets , by George Mackay Brown.

'Following a Lark' , By George Mackay Brown

To have carved on the days of our vanity
A sun
A star
A cornstalk

Also a few marks
From an ancient forgotten time
A child may read

That not far from the stone
A well
Might open for wayfarers

Here is a work for poets -
Carve the runes
Then be content with silence.

by George Mackay Brown

I have two reading recommendations this sunny cold morning in Dublin,  Interrogation of Silence , The  writings of George Mackay Brown . Rowena and Brian Murray. Publ. John Murray 2004. and The Absence of Myth , by Georges Bataille. Publ. Verson (1994/2006).

 .

I am sad to hear the John Hurst, proprietor of Rare and Interesting Books in Westport died this past weekend, he always got the exact book that I sought and I had put him alongside Charlie Byrne’s In Galway for his excellent  collection of books. Indeed I had been re-reading a certain book this weekend that I had bought from him in the last years, RIP.

from Following a Lark:

Lux Perpetua.

“A star for a cradle

Sun for plough and net

A fire for old stories

A Candle for the dead “.

For those readers interested in  George Mackay Brown , I include here the GMB website , along with a link to a  short Poethead post on John’s lovely bookshop in Mayo.

George Mackay Brown website and Index
Rare and Interesting Books, In Westport, Co Mayo

Ireland, by Richard Ryan

'Treeline' (1977) by TP Flanagan , from 'The Delighted Eye'

Ireland

“That ragged
leaking raft held
between sea and sea

its long
forgotten cable melting
into deeper darkness where,

at the root
of it, the slow
sea circles and chews.

Nightly the dark-
ness lands like hands
to mine downward. springing

tiny leaks
till dawn finds
field is bog , bog lake. “

by Richard Ryan

Ravenswood. The Dolmen Press , publ. 1973

Purdah 1, by Imtiaz Dharker.

Nancy Spero 'The Torture of Women' ( image Siglio Press)

Purdah 1

by Imtiaz Dharker.

“One day they said
she was old enough to learn some shame.
She found it came quite naturally.

Purdah is a kind of safety.
The body finds a place to hide.
The cloth fans out against the skin
much like the earth that falls
on coffins after they put dead men in.

People she has known
stand up, sit down as they have always done.
But they make different angles
in the light, their eyes aslant,
a little sly.

She half-remembers things
from someone else’s life,
perhaps from yours , or mine -
carefully carrying what we do not own:
between the thighs, a sense of sin.

We sit still , letting the cloth grow
a little closer to our skin.
A light filters inward
through our bodies’ walls.
Voices speak inside us,
echoeing in the spaces we have just left.

She stands outside herself,
sometimes in all four corners of a room.
Wherever she goes , she is always
inching past herself,
as if she were a clod of earth,
and the roots as well,
scratching for a hold
between the first and second rib.

Passing constantly out of her own hands
into the corner of someone else’s eyes…
while doors keep opening
inward and again
inward. “

Imtiaz Dharker  “grew up  a Muslim Calvinist in a Lahori household in Glasgow and eloped with a Hindi to live in Bombay”. This poem is taken from  The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poetry,Ed, Jeet Thayil. I will be linking the review of this book onto the about Poethead page, when it is published.

The image is from The Torture of Women , images by Nancy Spero and is linked at the bottom of this post.The most interesting thing about the Thayil edition is that women writers  are collected and represented in that book. Those women poets’  voices are quite clear and lovely , rather than providing a simple passive objectification for someone else to write.

Siglio Press edition of Nancy Spero’s ‘Torture of Women’ , reviewed by Guernica Magazine
Guernica Magazine Homepage
Women writers on Poethead 2010

Vatican, by Daragh Breen.

Vatican

by Daragh Breen

” In a glass specimen-jar in the Vatican Archives is one of
the blue bottle flies (Calliphora vormitoria), that festered
in Christ’s wounded side as He was taken down from
the Cross. In the catacombs of the fly’s eye is a moon
suspended in darkness. On this sphere is a single, mast-
like Crucifix , at the base of which is a simple white skull.
In the empty right eye socket are the three nails that
rivetted the body to the Cross. In the left socket, a new
weak sun rises once a year, its light colouring everything
the hue of the fox fur that was worn around the shoulders
of a 15th Century Cardinal as he stepped out into the
winter’s first snow, that made the marshes around Rome
look lunar. Across those marshes stole the shadow cast
by my figure , stitched into a crow costume that I made
from a thousand dead wings. Just then an arrow pierced
my side and I tumbled to the ground and waited for the
hunters to gather me up as flies began to nest in the wet
red ink of my wound. Then my bizarre, splayed form was
borne by torchlight and set in a giant jar amongst all the
other oddities and specimens in the Vatican Archives. “

from , Whale , by Daragh Breen. Publ. November Press 2010.

The accompanying image is a still from David Wojnarowicz‘s A Fire in My Belly, which the Smithsonian Museum thought to ban on World Aids Day, bowing as some museums do to the pressure of certain mildly hysterical and somewhat uneducated Catholics. I have added the  discussion links to the base of this short post.

It interests me greatly that David Wojnarowicz’s image would be considered controversial and/or blasphemic , given the visualism of Roman Catholic Art History and its burgeoning apocrypha. My first instinct regarding the banning was quite simple; no-one owns the intellectual property rights to  human suffering, and the defacing  or censoring of images generally does not work because these archetypes from whence such  images are derived are indeed universal .

You may as well attempt to censor Luis Bunuel, Dali or the surrealists,as cave in to the pressure of people who do not understand the development of pictorial , or indeed three-dimensional images that have become apocryphal, but are there in our collective unconscious and our art history as guides and won’t just go away because someone screams blasphemy.

Indeed the problem of indelicacy in artistic representation of images that some people may consider to be in extremis visualisation has been the subject of discourse for centuries. Blasphemy and incompetence being charges against the very artists whose bone-close expression seems more to uncover a desire for ownership – rather than an understanding of visual art , or indeed of the messages conveyed by David Wojnarowicz , amongst others.

Washington Post on the Smithsonian Debacle
Excerpt from ‘A Fire in My Belly’ by the late artist David Wojnarowicz
Covering Paintings and Twiddling with Art, Berlusconi’s Tiepolo
Ireland’s Blasphemy Criminalisation, ‘The Old king’
Across the Sound, by Daragh Breen

Still Image from A Fire in My Belly by David Wojnarowicz, recently banned from the Smithsonian Museum

Anne Hays, a letter to the New Yorker Magazine.

The following letter by Anne Hays was published on Facebook  on January 2nd 2011, and since  it is a day for correspondences , I thought to link it herein. Thus far the letter has had 31 likes, numerous replies, and is linked onto Twitter via VIDA, women in the literary arts.

January 2nd, 2011

The New Yorker

4 Times Square, 20th Floor

New York, NY 10036

Dear Editors of the New Yorker,

“I am writing to express my alarm that this is now the second issue of the NYer in a row where only two (tiny) pieces out of your 76 page magazine are written by women.  The January 3rd, 2011 issue features only a Shouts & Murmurs (Patricia Marx) and a poem (Kimberly Johnson).  Every other major piece—the fiction, the profile, and all the main nonfiction pieces—is written by a man.  Every single critic is a male writer.

We were already alarmed when we flipped through the Dec 20th & 27th double-issue to find that only one piece (Nancy Franklin) and one poem (Alicia Ostriker) were written by women.  A friend pointed out that Jane Kramer wrote one of the short Talk of the Town segments as well, though it barely placated our sense of outrage that one extra page, totaling three, out of the 148 pages in the magazine, were penned by women.  Again, every critic is a man.  To make matters more depressing, 22 out of the 23 illustrators for the magazine are men.  Seriously!

Women are not actually a minority group, nor is there a shortage, in the world, of female writers.  The publishing industry is replete with female editors, and it would be too obvious for me to point out to you that the New Yorker masthead has a fair number of female editors in its ranks.  And so we are baffled, outraged, saddened, and a bit depressed that, though some would claim our country’s sexism problem ended in the late 60’s, the most prominent and respected literary magazine in the country can’t find space in its pages for women’s voices in the year 2011.

I have enclosed the January issue and expect a refund.  You may either extend our subscription by one month, or you can replace this issue with a back issue containing a more equitable ratio of male to female voices. I plan to return every issue that contains fewer than five women writers.  You tend to publish 13 to 15 writers in each issue; 5 women shouldn’t be that hard.”

A dismayed reader,

Anne Hays

One aspect of the 2011 reviews in literature, in the literary Arts was the absence of women from both the editorial panels which chose (overwhelmingly) writing by male authors, there were profound absences particularly in the US , of women, black and Hispanic authors. I shall add in a selection of Books of 2010 lists at the base of this link.

In fact heres Jezebel Magazine’s analysis of the New Yorker Debacle:

Jezebel Magazine on the New Yorker Magazine.
2010 discussion on Gender bias in literary publication

My Letter to The Irish Times , regarding Fianna Fáil Conservation policies

This letter , published 3rd of January 2011, is regarding a lack of balance in policy initiatives by the current Irish government, who have not in my opinion balanced their environmental ‘policies’ with an ethos of conservation. I thought to publish it here and will migrate it onto a conservation page when I have that set up. I have added in a related link regarding the destruction of the Gabhra Valley (at Tara) at the base of this post.

Buying land for roads hit by cutbacks

Madam, – I find myself unsurprised by Frank McDonald’s report (Home News, December 27th) regarding the National Roads Authority’s buying of farmland. (The article states that an environmental group claims the National Roads Authority is continuing to buy up farmland for road schemes that no longer have Government approval due to cutbacks in the capital spending programme).

The NRA appears to be about the only statutory agency in Ireland that has had any power in construction terms.

Between 2001 and 2010 the Fianna Fáil ­ government set about abolishing those agencies charged with protecting our natural and built environment, Dúchas was abolished in 2003 by Martin Cullen TD, the OPW was split and even the Heritage portfolio was “dropped” temporarily in a Bertie Ahern cabinet reshuffle.

If the Fianna Fáil government of 13 years had dedicated itself as wholeheartedly to conservation, excellence and adherence to EU directive laws as it has done to fast-track planning and critical infrastructure, Ireland would indeed be a nice place to live in.

As it is, there has been no legislation directed toward conservation, and a war of attrition has been carried out against heritage through planning, abolition and under-funding. The ideal of “stewardship” has been cheapened toward profiteering and short-termism.

I believe that the whole ideology of Fianna Fáil planning is encapsulated in the National Monuments Act 2004, which is a shaming indictment of a Government which indeed lost the run of itself years ago. Our agencies, such as the NRA have left us little to boast in our concept of cultural preservation. – Yours, etc,

CHRISTINE MURRAY.

EDIT : Link to the IT Letter, published here.
EDIT : the Save Tara Campaign Group

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

an opened grave at the Lismullin site , Tara

A Saturday Woman Poet : Kerry Hardie.

Tapestry Bird from Fine Art, America.

The Valley

by Kerry Hardie.

‘The first valley is the Valley of the Quest,
the second the Valley of Love
the third is the Valley of Understanding
the fourth is the Valley of Independence and Detachment
the fifth of Pure Unity
the sixth is the Valley of Astonishment
and the seventh is the Valley of Poverty and Nothingness
beyond which one can go no further.‘

That is a Sufi story
about a whole crowd of birds getting ready
to go on an Awful Journey.
They elect the Hoopoe as leader
because he knows a thing or two,
for instance the lie of the various valleys,
and which one comes after which.
What I like is the way it’s all more or less as expected
until you hit the sixth.

I should like to go
to the Valley of Astonishment.
I wonder where it lies
this astonishing Valley of Astonishment ?
In China perhaps?
Or Peru?
I wonder if you could stay there
Out of your wits with astonishment,
or if , in this witlessness, you might find yourself
stumbling on , over the mountain -

Note : the first stanza is quoted from The Conference of the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar, written in
the second half of the twelfth century AD. This rendering in english is by C.S Nott.

Taken from The Stinging Fly , 25th Issue. Ed Declan Meade.

Kerry Hardie bio page from Poetry International Web
Women writers on Poethead 2010

Frail things in Eternal Places, the Dialogues blog.

I have added Dialogues to the Art and Image link-set on Poethead, which can be found on the left-hand  column of the main-page, or just beneath this post. It’s a wonderful find in my opinion and a good edition to the Art and Image grouping here on the site. I was completely captivated by two essays therein which I am excerpting here :

“If the exchange of ideas between architecture, the arts, and the sciences may be described as a trichotomy, it is certainly a complex, fascinating and relevant group of interactions to examine. And if this thesis is an attempt to extricate, firstly, a set of themes through which Architecture may be compared to language, and second, to investigate and question those themes, then it is within the subject of memory that we encounter a most difficult theme. Memory and language are interconnected, even interdependent. Theirs is an interaction studied in disciplines from cognitive neuroscience to philosophy, linguistics and literature. But how does memory, then, relate to architecture, if it does at all? In what ways does it relate? Does its relation exist in the exchange of metaphors or , alternatively, can architecture be a physical manifestation of memories? In the history of architecture memory has been understood, employed and denied in dramatically different ways.“

link here to ‘Frail Things in Eternal Places ‘, from the Dialogues blog

The following two links are to another essay on the Dialogues blog, entitled A Connemara Fractal penned by Ian Pollard and including the poem Iar Chonnachta. I hope that readers will go over and examine this wonderful blog. The following is a short piece on the Poem Iar Chonnacht, which is linked below in toto  :

“The poem also considers the often bleak history of a beautiful, unique place on the western seaboard of Europe; where ancient walls made by unknown men protect grazing sheep from a vertiginous demise. This is the real Ireland; seen not as the romantic, pastoral sentence of the peasant’s noble struggle on a land they did not own, but as a place with a social history ravaged by the forces of  isolation, colonial avarice and the vicious and endemic disregard of Ireland’s institutions for the plight of the individual.”

Iar Chonnacht from Mat.zine 5 [Views] .
jpg from Mat.zine 5 [Views]

 

Art and Image Links on Poethead.

• Alice Maher.
• Annie West
• Ágnes Nemes Nagy
• Charlotte Salomon
• Critical Art Ensemble
• Critical Art Ensemble/biotech
• Dialogues
• Dictionary of War + links
• Discussion on Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Art
• Frances Castle : Maker of ‘Green Veggie Monster’
• Frida!
• in pursuit 3.
• Leonard Baskin Collection
• Louis Le Brocquy Celtic Heads and Catalogue
• Madden Review
• Maria Llopis
• National Campaign for Arts
• National Museum of Women in the Arts
• Punk Victorian: The Stuckists.
• RB Kitaj
• RB Kitaj and the Art of Memory
• War + Tony Harrison
• Westwood Censorship
• Wiki Stuckism

The Arts and the Elections, a notice by the National Campaign for the Arts

THE ARTS AND THE ELECTIONS

The election has been called and a new government is imminent.  That means new policies and new priorities – with no guarantees for funding and continued investment in the arts. Once again, we must make a case for the arts.  We must: lobby to maintain a full cabinet Minister for Arts promote the role and value of the arts campaign for continued and increased investment in the arts advocate for the provision of appropriate social protection for artists and those who work in the arts. Once again, we need your help.  You can help in five simple ways: 1. ATTEND THE HUSTINGS In Dublin the arts spokespersons from all 5 political parties will attend a meeting to outline their respective arts policies and answer your questions. There will be a similar format in Galway with candidates from  Galway East and West constituencies invited to present their local arts policy and answer your questions. Come along and make the arts an election issue. It’s important we show politicians the arts matter! Monday 14 February Dublin: 10.45am – 12.15  Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar Galway: 11.00am Radisson Blu Hotel If you would like any further information about our activities this year please contact Tania Banotti.  The website will be updated with all relevant information about the campaign by next week.

Campaign for Arts

A brief note on arts policy and the 2011 General Election.

I note that Fine Gael has released a policy document in relation to arts, this is
press-released from the National campaign for Arts website, which I am linking
here,  beneath this brief excerpt. This link is to the National Campaign for Arts index
page . I will add in other political party policy papers if they become available during
the election campaign.

Fine Gael Arts Policy 2010.

• The arts and culture “will have a seat at the cabinet table” in any future FG government.

• Commitment to a flagship Literature Centre in a landmark building in Dublin, given the UNESCO City of literature designation and possibly a new arts and film channel.

• A much greater commitment to the arts in the school curricula & the cultural rights of children as well as core funding for organisations providing arts programming for children

• As part of 2016 commemoration, a range of new commissions beginning immediately.
.
• National Endowment Fund for the Arts to be set up.

• Arts Council vacancies in future will be in future advertised.

One hopes that ‘ the seat at the cabinet table ‘will comprise a full portfolio…

Document from the NCFA on Arts Policy
Policy doc. of the FG Party.
Arts articles on Poethead

 

• EDIT :  So no word ,as yet about the full-cabinet post for arts in Ireland
• <a href=”http://www.ncfa.ie”>Campaign for Arts in Ireland 2010-2011</a>
  

Campaign for Arts , election 2011.

A Saturday Woman Writer, Mirjam Tuominen.

Mirjam Touminen.

Travels

I.

” I came to a land where freedom had been realised or was at least believed to be very close to its full realisation. For the people here the word freedom  could consequently not be applicable to themselves but only to other peoples who had not yet discovered the happiness-making formula that means the realisation of freedom. In this land, therefore, the people talked much and with a strong sympathy for all the people beyond the frontiers of their own land who were not free. It was said that one ought to exert oneself to  the uttermost in order to liberate all the lands and peoples of the earth. On the other hand, it would hardly have been the right thing if it had occurred to some compatriot to longingly, invoke, for example, the concept of freedom in an internal context to himself or any of his fellow-countrymen. To be sure, it was not forbidden by law to use the word freedom in that last-mentioned way, but a universally sanctioned convention in reality liquidated the word from any contexts other (than) external ones.

Since everything in this land was so new, so thrillingly and inspiringly new,  I became like a child, reborn, receptive and avid for knowledge, and also became involved in teaching in a school. By day and by hour I received proof which confirmed that freedom really was being realised  in this land as in no other. On the way to work, in buses,  trams and underground trains the workers sat studying books which promised them the chance of experiencing freedom completely realised  in their own lifetimes; a mother married to a simple sailor told me with eyes moist from emotion that there was every reason to expect that her son would attain the rank of admiral one day, and everywhere  there was testimony to the fact  that here women were acknowledged as beings equal to men with all their human rights acknowledged; among other things the fact that within the military profession they possessed the rank of captain, major and even colonel.

In the light of such experiences, the old world I had left behind receded even further into my consciousness, like some primeval night, half-real. Here I had been born anew, here everyone was happy – there was no talk of anything else- and everyone was resolved to save the whole world , against the world’s will if necessary. Everyone lived for the mutual welfare of everyone else. But of course, I could not forget the old world completely, and as is often the case when one tries to repress painful memories, the past returned in my dreams at night.
.

And I dreamed that I was trying to invoke the word freedom. That merely to succeed in uttering and adducing freedom on my own inner-melancholy, for example-personal behalf would offer me the most nameless solace and happiness. But I could not utter the word, so strong on the other hand, also in the dream, was my conventional awareness : countless inhibitions made the syllables stick in my throat, until, sobbing with anguish, I reached the point where the four letters :  f,r,e,e - got over the threshold of my consciousness. I knew they were there, but I did not utter them,I did not even think them.
.

When I woke up I was soaked through as after the most terrible nightmare.
.
And I said to myself that this was not suffering but imagined or pretending suffering. But in this dark night my repressed primeval consciousness refuted this assertion and said that it is precisely when we tell ourselves that we are only pretending to suffer that we really do suffer, for why acknowledge a suffering about which we can do nothing ? The soul is mortally sick- but the soul’s suffering is always imagination.”

The short prose Travels , written by Mirjam Tuominen, is from Theme with Variations, published in 1952.

There are two short poems by Mirjam Tuominen on Poethead, one of which I am excerpting here, with link attached at the base of this post.

A Poem by Mirjam Touminen.

The Swallows Fly

“The swallows fly
high
in towards bluer sky
low
down beneath darkening clouds. “

from Under the Earth Sank (1954)

Poems and prose by Mirjam Tuominen from Selected Writings, trans David Mc Duff. Bloodaxe Books 1994

Two poems by Mirjam Tuominen

The Count 2010, VIDA data for publishing women in literary magazines

So are Newspaper literary supplements and literary magazines not employing women reviewers,editors and /or  critics or are they just riddled with meddlesome misogynists who think that fellating the alpha-male  poet/ fiction writer is a recognition of women’s contribution to the literary arts ?

At the end of 2010 the editorial and best books lists began to emerge, list after list evinced a paucity of women writers in poetry, in fiction and in the arts. Interestingly,the horizontal media feeds like Twitter and Facebook hardly picked up on the issue of the profound absence of women writers from the 2010 lists.

Article 1 

4 Times Square, 20th Floor

New York, NY 10036

Dear Editors of the New Yorker,

“I am writing to express my alarm that this is now the second issue of the NYer in a row where only two (tiny) pieces out of your 76 page magazine are written by women.  The January 3rd, 2011 issue features only a Shouts & Murmurs (Patricia Marx) and a poem (Kimberly Johnson).  Every other major piece—the fiction, the profile, and all the main nonfiction pieces—is written by a man.  Every single critic is a male writer.

We were already alarmed when we flipped through the Dec 20th & 27th double-issue to find that only one piece (Nancy Franklin) and one poem (Alicia Ostriker) were written by women.  A friend pointed out that Jane Kramer wrote one of the short Talk of the Town segments as well, though it barely placated our sense of outrage that one extra page, totaling three, out of the 148 pages in the magazine, were penned by women.  Again, every critic is a man.  To make matters more depressing, 22 out of the 23 illustrators for the magazine are men.  Seriously!

Women are not actually a minority group, nor is there a shortage, in the world, of female writers.  The publishing industry is replete with female editors, and it would be too obvious for me to point out to you that the New Yorker masthead has a fair number of female editors in its ranks.  And so we are baffled, outraged, saddened, and a bit depressed that, though some would claim our country’s sexism problem ended in the late 60’s, the most prominent and respected literary magazine in the country can’t find space in its pages for women’s voices in the year 2011.

I have enclosed the January issue and expect a refund.  You may either extend our subscription by one month, or you can replace this issue with a back issue containing a more equitable ratio of male to female voices. I plan to return every issue that contains fewer than five women writers.  You tend to publish 13 to 15 writers in each issue; 5 women shouldn’t be that hard.”

A dismayed reader,

Anne Hays

Anne Hays letter to the New Yorker Magazine

Article 2 : From VIDA , The Count ( December 2010):

“The truth is, these numbers don’t lie. But that is just the beginning of this story. What, then, are they really telling us? We know women write. We know women read. It’s time to begin asking why the 2010 numbers don’t reflect those facts with any equity. Many have already begun speculating; more articles and groups are pointing out what our findings suggest: the numbers of articles and reviews simply don’t reflect how many women are actually writing. VIDA is here to help shape that discussion. Please tell us about the trends you’ve witnessed in your part of the writing world. Let us know what you think is going on. We’re ready and anxious to hear from you. We’re ready to invest our efforts and energy into the radical notion that women are writers too“

Link to ‘the Count’, VIDAWEB

Article 3 : The Harriet blog, published by Poetry Foundation has taken up the issue , and I am excerpting here:

“Here at Poetry we were all interested in “The Count” that VIDA recently produced. Interested, but not especially surprised. The count shows—with pretty devastating consistency—that women are under-represented in all of the major literary magazines, including Poetry (though Poetry fares much better than the others).

This didn’t surprise us because the issues that VIDA are raising have long been of concern to us. The disparity is something I first noticed seven years ago when I commissioned Averill Curdy to write an essay wondering where all the women poetry critics were. Subsequent issues contained responses from well-known women poet-critics of another generation . The aim was to provoke a conversation, first of all, but more importantly to get more women writing in the back pages of the magazine. More recently, senior editor Don Share participated in a roundtable on gender and publishing sponsored by VIDA.”

Poetry, The Harriet Blog (Poetry Foundation)

Article 4: Guardian Discussion on the VIDA figure which elicited a quote from Peter Stothard (TLS) :

“The TLS is only interested in getting the best reviews of the most important books,” and “while women are heavy readers, we know they are heavy readers of the kind of fiction that is not likely to be reviewed in the pages of the TLS.“

A Poet in Prison, Tal Al-Mallouhi.

You will remain an example

(To Gandhi)

“I will walk with all walking people
And no
I will not stand still
Just to watch the passers by
.

This is my Homeland
In which
I have
A palm tree
A drop in a cloud
And a grave to protect me
.

This is more beautiful
.

Than all cities of fog
And cities which
Do not recognise me
.

My master:
I would like to have power
Even for one day
To build the “republic of feelings.”

.

Translated from the Arabic by Ghias Aljundi.

“The Writers in Prison Committee of PEN International condemns the five- year sentence handed down on 14 February 2011 to blogger, poet and high school student Tal Al-Mallouhi on the charge of “divulging information to a foreign state”. No evidence has been provided for the charge against her, and PEN International believes that Al-Mallouhi is sentenced for her online writings and poems. This violates right to freedom of expression as guaranteed by Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Syria is a party. PEN calls for her immediate and unconditional release.”

International PEN WiPC alert , re Tal Al-Mallouhi.

English PEN WiPC Report

Two Poems by Ingeborg Bachmann for International Women’s Day 2011.

In the Storm of Roses, by Ingeborg Bachmann.

“Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, and the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.”

The Broken Heart by Ingeborg Bachmann

“News o’ grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi’ breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi’ grieven,
Vell her head, wi’ tears a-creepen
Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,
An’ there wer still the hans that tied it
Hangen white,
Or wringen tight,
In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.

When a man, wi’ heartless slighten,
Mid become a maiden’s blighten,
He mid cearelessly vorseake her,
But must answer to her Meaker;
He mid slight, wi’ selfish blindness,
All her deeds o’ loven-kindness,
God wull waigh ‘em wi’ the slighten
That mid be her love’s requiten;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know
What weight o’ woe
Do break the heart ov ev’ry griever.”

 

Ingeborg Bachmann on Youtube

International Women’s day 2011 at the NWCI

Simone Weil 08/03/2009

Elizabeth Barrett-Browning 08/03/2010

Cóiced, by Mark Patrick Hederman.

Cóiced.

‘ The word for a ‘province’ in Irish is ‘fifth’.
The fifth one : Meath or ‘middle’ place,
is secret : a drawer, or priest-hole,
Omphallos
a sliding door oiled into space
rock-faced , as in sheer of cliff.

‘We’ll find them’, callow children laughed
on mid-term breaks
in plastic macs.
‘Don’t drive. We’ll walk.’
They held a compass : North, North-West
and tied a thread to leave a trail.

We found one body in a field
metal-detected teeth through lime
walking-shoes out on a ledge.
One child survived. Now ninety-nine
one plain, one purl, hand-knitted
time of sorrow. For
‘Wherever you walk in Ireland
you reach the edge.’

by Mark Patrick Hederman

Discussed here

A Saturday Woman Poet, Margaret Fuller.

Daguerrotype of Margaret Fuller from Wikipedia.

Flaxman.

by Margaret Fuller.

” We deemed the secret lost, the spirit gone,
Which spake in Greek simplicity of thought,
And in forms of gods and heroes wrought
Eternal beauty from the sculptured stone,-
A higher charm than modern culture won
With all the wealth of metaphysic won
With all the wealth of metaphysic lore,
Gifted to analyze, dissect, explore.
A many-coloured light flows from one sun;
Art, ‘neath its beams, a motley thread was spun;
The prism modifies the perfect day;
But thou hast known such mediums to shun,
And cast once more on life a pure, white ray.
Absorbed in the creations of thy mind,
Forgetting daily self, my truest self I find.”

This poem comes from the wonderful Norton Anthology, The Making Of A Sonnet, Edited by Edward Hirsch and poet Eavan Boland, Norton, 2008. Information on Margaret Fuller’s feminism, journalism and poetry can be gotten from her  Wikipedia page and online. In the context of discussions begun by VIDA on women reviewers,poets and literatry advocates, I thought it an excellent idea to place here a poem by the first full-time female book-reviewer in journalism. Calls have been made to explain the absences of women from the 2010 lists. I am adding in here the relevant links :

Margaret Fuller’s Wikipedia Pages

Anne Hays letter to the New Yorker Magazine

VIDA articles and Links

A Saturday Woman Poet Archive on Poethead

The Making of a Sonnet, Hirsch and Boland

Strip-Tease, by Eithne Strong.

Strip-Tease.

by Eithne Strong.

“A poet
must talk in riddles
if he will not risk himself

for fear
of public eye and tongue
blaspheming privacies :

a host
of leeches sucking parallels
carnivores to strip his shivering secrecies

wrapped
intricately. he should be
silent or speak out.

No one
asked for
his arbitrary offerings. “

from Sarah in Passing , by Eithne Strong. Dolmen Books 1974.

Poetry and digitisation, how derivatives occur.

This article is written in the context of the March 22nd Judgement on the Google Book settlement digitisation project (hereafter, GBS).

The meaning of collaborative work in Poetry and Literature.

The author is entitled to ownership of their work. In poetic terms derivatives do occur , mostly in music and in translations. As stated before on this blog, derivatives are seen as adding to the original works, once attribution is established. The fact that there are appalling non-collaborative translations online of  great poets is irritating.The issue of copyright and fair use has been linked here Via the Poetry Foundation and it really is a most important text.

Digitising bodies of works  and  how  derivatives occur

Digitisation is widespread , many authors will need to learn to establish their rights on blogging platforms, and indeed how to use such services as Scribd. Not all original works are necessarily confined to publishing contracts.  Thus we have  access to licensing  services  like Creative Commons.

Literary and poetic work is meant to be shared and to be accessible , for that reason innovating is necessary , but there are conventions and respects for authorship in place , which take cognisance of  the rights of ownership to original works. Some issues in the GBS row which were not fully discussed were  concerned in the area of pictorial, collaborative translation, and forewords ! A book or piece of digital-work does not come in snippets and it is really up to the author if they wish snippets to be made available to online communities.  Using CC is one way of doing so .

Libraries are mostly works of collaboration and are already digitising at that level !

The ideality of a library making original works available online is a wonderful one in many ways, everyone has seen how vulnerable libraries are to attack, to cuts and to censorship. The idea of building up a digital library should be based in the highest understanding of the merits of literary and artistic works, and to the best in copyright law which takes cognisance of the author’s rights to ownership. This would mean involving authors at a level of understanding which is evinced in my first link above,  to the Poetry Foundation.

Related links and extracts, Poetry Foundation, Poetry Ireland,  Google Judgement extracts.

Code of Best practices in Fair-use for Poetry, Centre for Social-media.

“Poetry is more than a body of writings or a typology of forms; first and foremost, it is an evolving set of practices that engage, and are engaged by, the creative work of others. During the extensive conversations leading up to this document, a few central themes about poetic practice emerged. The first was that poets generally (though not universally) want their poetry to be as widely available to potential audiences as possible, both during their lifetimes and beyond. However, poets, especially those not working in and for new media formats, expressed anxiety about how new media might affect their ability to make money from their work and to establish and advance academic careers. And they were concerned about the ease with which new media enable others to distribute and alter their poems without permission. At the same time, poets urgently expressed their need to use material derived from the poems of others (including twentieth and twenty-first century writers) in their own work, and their desire to do so in ways that were both ethically and legally appropriate.”

Poetry Ireland Discussion Doc. on The Google Book Settlement (GBS)

“To spread awareness about the Google Book Settlement, Poetry Ireland and theIrish Copyright Licencing Agency have joined resources to provide rights-holders with the most up-to-date, unbiased, and clear-cut information available.*

A number of seminars on the settlement have taken place around the country. One of the most important messages that emerged from these meetings was that whether or not the settlement stands, digital publishing is part of the future, and similar digitalisation projects are in progress. Rights-holders need to decide how to deal with Google and other such projects.

With the advice and help of Samantha Holman (Director of ICLA), Poetry Ireland has put together a compact, but in no way comprehensive, fact-sheet on the settlement.”

You may want to begin at the end: the last page is a very use ful set of questions that should help to put the dizzying complexities of the settlement into perspective and will direct rights-holders on what their next steps may be.

March 22nd Judgement on Google Books Settlement digitisation.

“While the digitization of books and the creation of a universal digital library would benefit many, the ASA would simply go too far.  It would permit this class action – -  which was brought against defendant Google Inc. (“GoogleI1) to challenge its scanning of books and display of  ”snippets” for on-line searching – -   to implement a forward-looking business arrangement that would grant Google significant rights to exploit entire -2-books, without permission of the copyright owners.  Indeed, the ASA would give Google a significant advantage over competitors,rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission, while releasing claims well beyond those presented in the case.”

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use/related-materials/codes/code-best-practices-fair-use-poetry

http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html

http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/cases/show.php?db=special&id=115

http://www.poetryireland.ie/resources/googlebooksettlement.html

http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/link-to-my-article-on-licensing-poetry-and-original-work-at-writing-ie/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/opinion/24darnton.html?_r=1 

http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use/related-materials/codes/code-best-practices-fair-use-poetry

http://www.poetryireland.ie/resources/googlebooksettlement.html

Just One Book Campaign, Salt-Publishing appeal

Salt Publishing, that wonderful house of Poetry and Literature today lost out in the English Arts Council Funding rounds for 2011. The house has set up a Twitter campaign to ensure that it stays in the market called the #JustOneBook Campaign . The issue is of relevance to those amongst us who support the  literary house and publishers of quality poetry.
I am linking here to the Salt Publishing Blog, Twitter Account, and current booklist for those who wish  support this campaign.

Salt Publishing blog and Links.

http://www.saltpublishing.com/

http://www.saltpublishing.com/shop/index.php

https://twitter.com/#!/saltpublishing

‘The New North – Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland’

Cathal Ó Searcaigh, Jean Bleakney, Chris Agee, Moyra Donaldson, Gary Allen, Andy White, Matt Kirkham, Geróid Mac Lochlainn, Frank Sewell, Paul Grattan, Sinéad Morrissey, Alan Gillis, Leontia Flynn and Nick Laird, as well as classic poems by Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Ciaron Carson, Paul Muldoon, Medbh McGuckian and Michael Longley.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/culture-cuts-blog/2011/mar/30/arts-council-funding-decision-day-cuts

http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/anth/9781907773037.htm

Poetry Book Society PETITION  LINK : http://www.petitiononline.co.uk/petition/save-the-poetry-book-society/2631

An Anna Akhmatova poem.

Evening Room.

” I speak in those words suddenly
That rise once in the soul. So sharply comes
The musty odour of an old sachet,
A bee hums on a white chrysanthemum.

And the room , where light strikes through slits,
Cherishes love, for here it is still new.
A bed, with a french inscription over it,
Reading : ‘ Seigneur , ayez pitié de nous.’

Of such a lived-through legend the sad strokes
You must not touch, my soul, nor seek to do…
of  Sèvres statuettes the brilliant cloaks
I see are darkening and wearing through.

Yellow and heavy , one last ray has poured
Into a fresh bouquet of  dahlias
And hardened there. And I hear viols play
And of  a clavecin the rare accord. “

by Anna Akhmatova

.

From:  Anna Akhmatova, Selected Poems , Trans. D M Thomas with a foreword by Carol Ann Duffy.Vintage Books  2009.

Image of Anna Akhmatova by Olga Della-Vos-Kardovskaya

Alla Bayanova sings Anna Akhmatova: “Chernye kosy”

She Grows Her Own Standing, by Anne Seagrave

A Saturday Woman Poet , Vona Groarke.

 Indoors

by Vona Groarke.

” It breaks apart as water will not do
when I pull ,  hard, away from me,
the corners bunched in my two hands
to steer a true and regulated course.

I plunge the needle through and through,
dipping, tacking, coming up again.
The ripple of thread that follows pins,
out of its depth , a shallow hem.

I smooth the waves and calm the folds.
Then, to ensure an even flow,
I cast a line which runs from hook to hook
and pulls the net in overlapping pleats.

Which brings me to the point where I am
hanging a lake, by one shore, in my room,
to swell and billow between the light
and opaque , unruffled dark.

I step in. The room closes round me
and scarcely puckers when I move my limbs.
I step out. The path is darkened where I walk,
my shadow steaming off in all this sun. “

.

from :  The New Irish Poets , Edited by Selina Guinness . Bloodaxe Books 2004

David Orr is entitled to question the relevance of modern poetry.

I thought to add a link to the ongoing discussion about relevancy in modern poetry centred in a critique (Huff Post) of the book ,  Beautiful and Pointless, a Guide to Modern Poetry, by David Orr.

The question of relevancy in poetry is somewhat allied to a misunderstanding of the form and purpose of poetry :  form is a moveable feast  (there are many poetic forms)  and poetry is generally purposeless  but never irrelevant.

.
At this point in my brief diatribe , I could cite the works of many writers  (unlike Orr), who understand that in order to read poetry, it is necessary to suspend the question of relevancy and enter into the poem as it stands in its unique expression , as an object of eternity.  Simone Weil encapsulates this idea in a set of essays published by SUNY , entitled Thinking Poetically (ed Joan Dargan). In Thinking Poetically, there is just one Weil  poem  Necessity, this is no accident, Weil , a poet, writer, thinker and philosopher of the Modernist era endlessly wrestled with the issue of futility in poetic expression , as a result of her experiences in Spain, In Vichy and in France.  Her Necessity is a clarion call for poetic clarity and for human triumph against the evils of war, of violence and of poverty.  Her notebooks are full of unfinished thoughts and ideals that seek to wrestle with and understand form. The issue of relevance is never entertained, as poetry for Weil and for countless other poets and artists has been a matter of survival and  of questioning. Whilst the reader of Weil, or Celan or Plath may be stupefied by a simplicity in form, they will always react to the poem on the page which becomes a distilled and profound object of visual art, capable of engaging the reader on many levels . 

.
Maybe  David Orr is correct  that Modernist poetry  is wholly irrelevant, he would have some support amongst those people in England and Ireland who have savagely cut funding to independent presses which form the life-source of poetic-publication, or maybe his treatise on relevancy misses the point altogether :  beauty of form is not subject to relevancy,  and  that far greater minds than his have more successfully engaged with the necessity of poetry,  and with the  development of poetic form .

.

Beautiful and Pointless

.

David Orr’s critical disenchantment seems symptomatic of  an intellectual disengagement with poetry and form Vis poetry as an object of eternity, and thus should be considered irrelevant by those poets who are  wrestling with form in technocratic societies wherein the ossification of language is encountered as a mythological death in this his  language of modernist critique : one that seeks for relevancy as  function (utilitarianism) ,  or as  by-product of beauty.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anis-shivani/beautiful-and-pointless-poetry_b_847197.html

” Once
I heard him
he was washing the world,
unseen, nightlong, real.
One and infinite,
annihilated,

ied.

Light was. Salvation.”

Once, by Paul Celan ( Fathomsuns and Benighted, trans Ian Fairley 1991 , Carcanet Books)

David Orr is entitled to question the relevancy of modern poetry by C Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at poethead.wordpress.com.

The issue of relevance in poetry, or in any art-form is a relative issue, though one is surprised that

a poetry editor should make such a fundamental mistake !

Silicon Republic, an article regarding Radical Copyright Law Reform in Ireland.

Silicon Republic article regarding ‘Radical Copyright Law Reform’ in Ireland.

This morning (09/05/2011) Silicon Republic reported on a radical overhaul  of Ireland’s Copyright Law, this is interesting given that most discussions in this area have been limited in recent times to the three strikes and  you’re out nexus of anti-innovation. I am adding here the current link to the SR reportage, and a couple of links which focus on originators of work and their options in publication . In this case, mostly my focus is on poetry and poetics, as that is what this blog is  about.

Poets have been innovating in this area for quite a period of time and have produced documents on fair-use , creative commons and best practices in  digitisation and social-media. I consider the issue of copyright (and especially of artist-led discussion in this area) to be of the utmost importance, therefore I have added a permanent link to the Poetry Foundation website onto my landing-page. This page shows at the top of all posts and articles, along with three others which form the impetus of what this blog is about, women-poets (editors and translators),the literary arts, the Universal Declaration of Linguistic Rights,  and about the poethead blog.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/21695-radical-copyright-law/

This morning Minister Bruton said: “I am determined that government will make whatever changes are necessary to allow innovative digital companies reach their full potential in Ireland. These companies make an enormous contribution to jobs and economic growth, and government must do everything it can to allow them to flourish and expand in Ireland.

“Some companies have indicated that the current copyright legislation does not cater well for the digital environment and actually creates barriers to innovation and to the establishment of new business models. Moving towards a US-style “fair use” doctrine is one suggestion that has been made.

“I am determined to respond to these suggestions in a comprehensive and timely manner. It is not wise to make changes to this extremely complex area of legislation without first considering the issues in detail.

“Therefore I have commenced a time-limited review of the law in the area to be conducted by three industry experts. The review will include a full consultation process with all relevant stakeholders, and the entire process will be complete within six months.”

Barriers to innovation at all levels of creative output include the misunderstanding of copyright conventions, or inability to properly utilise such innovations as Creative Commons licenses, which allow  artists to set up copyrights (including derivative rights).

Derivatives in poetics include: translations, adaption (incl.musical) pictorial adaptions, film,musical references, translation from (both collaborative/non-collaborative) and quotations from,   it is in the nature of poetry to lend itself to innovation. A simple example of derivation  is (for instance) Leonard Cohen‘s adaption of Federico Garcia Lorca‘s ‘Little Viennese Waltz‘. (or we could go with Dante!) The adaption would not occur if artistic inspiration were stymied by copyright law that sought to lock-in how a piece of material is used. To this end , I  am linking in a discussion  regarding digisation, adaption and transmission from the Harriet Monroe institute which  is titled ‘code of best practices in fair use for poetry‘ to illustrate how artists are  driving discussions in this area of  concern. The problems with previous discussions here in Ireland included that the  consultation process was limited to big organisations who were perceived as  the only stakeholders on the issue of copyright by our previous Govt,  and quite ignorantly leaving out the artist/originator’s  perspective on derivations.

We cannot forget that the creative arts have many stakeholders who are already  concerned in this area and who have created and developed manifestos based on  their understanding of the development of original works ! I am adding here an  article relating to current  Portugese problems , which imo do not take cognisance of the right of the artist/originator to set and maintain their own copyright . The onus is on  politicians to read and understand that artists better get the process of creation and adaption,  and in order to radicalise from that point, the consultation should necessarily be wide.

Additional Notes , The Harriet Monroe Institute , centre for social media discussion, Portugal to make Creative Commons illegal ?:

“Embracing the overarching value of access to poetry as its theme, the group saw that business, technological, and societal shifts had profound implications for poets publishing both in new and in traditional media, and also that poets have an opportunity to take a central role in expanding access to a broad range of poetry in coming months and years. Almost immediately, the group’s conversation focused on barriers to poetic innovation and distribution caused by clearance issues. Some of these clearance issues develop from the business structures underlying poetry publishing, but a significant number, the group discovered, relate to institutional practices that might be reconsidered, including both poets’ and publishers’ approaches to quoting and other types of possible fair use. Soon after its first meeting, the group began discussing the possibility of developing “best practices” for poets and publishers.“

 Reported problems with Creative Commons in Portugal.

“Article 3, point 1 – The authors have the right to the perception of a compensation equitable for the reproduction of written works, in paper or similar support, for instance microfilm, photocopy, digitalization or other processes of similar nature.

[...]
Article 5 (Inalienability and non-renunciability) – The equitable compensation of authors, artists, interpreters or executives is inalienable and non-renunciable, being null any other contractual clause in contrary.”

1. [  From ] > http://www.technollama.co.uk/is-portugal-about-to-make-creative-commons-illegal
2. [Source docs ]  >  http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/fair-use/related-materials/codes/code-best-practices-fair-use-poetry      http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/poetry-and-digitisation-how-derivatives-occur/   
3.     Submissions to the Copyright Review Committee should be sent to  copyrightreview@deti.ie or posted to: Copyright Review, Room 517, Department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Kildare Street, Dublin 2. Submissions should be received by close of business on Thursday 30th June 2011.
4.  Edit January 2012:  ”Is Ireland about to introduce a law that will allow music companies to order Internet service providers to block access to websites? I rang up the Minister of State at the department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation, Sean Sherlock, to find out. “The statutory instrument to be introduced is completely different to Sopa [Stop Online Piracy Act] in America” he told me. “We are simply addressing the High Court judgment handed down by Mr Justice Peter Charleton in relation to copyright law… I will introduce this imminently, by the end of January.” That’s a yes, then … ”  from http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2012/01/adrian-weckler-confims-that-irelands.html

Online sounds , the spoken word.

Writers encounter archives mostly, and sound-work is no exception, for instance I encountered UBUWEB whilst researching Celtic mouth Music and Joesph Beuys. Kenneth Goldsmith’s idea to make film, poetry and music available online was sheer avant-gardeism.

I have written about UBUWEB before now here, and I recommend the Poetry Foundation link at the top of this page as an introductory to what has been happening online in terms of dissemination across literary genres.

Other access points include the major US universities who archive readings, the first link of that type included here is of Allen Ginsberg reading ‘Epithalamion‘ (Reed Edu) linked in the Threads section, which runs down the left-hand column of the Poethead site, and YouTube. YouTube has a wealth of surprising poetry readings, including the unforgettable first-time I heard Sylvia Plath reads ‘Daddy‘ (BBC recording). I have also added some Bachmann and Schwitters (Anna Blume) on to Poethead, though I must admit to  under-using sounds on this site. Poet‘s Pages has a ‘Spoken Word’ section, allowing mp3 uploads.

I am recommending today a huge cache of Kerouac poetry , that I got via email. Coolidge on Kerouac (Pennsound) , and the Clark Coolidge Pennsound pages.

“ After all, Kerouac’s first language was not English, it was a kind of Quebecois called Joual, which is a totally vocal language. He says he heard it from his mother before he learned English.”

from :  http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/kerouac-per-coolidge.htmlOnline Poetry :  http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/silicon-republic-article-regarding-radical-copyright-law-reform-in-ireland/Harriet Monroe Foundation:   http://poethead.wordpress.com/code-of-best-practices-in-fair-use-for-poetry-poetry-foundation/Anna Blume : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TQjyf_HmNs

Secret waters, by Eva Gore-Booth. 17/05/2011.

Secret Waters

BY EVA GORE-BOOTH

“Lo, in my soul there lies a hidden lake,
High in the mountains, fed by rain and snow,
The sudden thundering avalanche divine,
And the bright waters’ everlasting flow,
Far from the highways’ dusty glare and heat.
Dearer it is and holier, for Christ’s sake,
Than his own windy lake in Palestine,
For there the little boats put out to sea
Without him, and no fisher hears his call,
Yea, on the desolate shores of Galilee
No man again shall see his shadow fall.
Yet here the very voice of the one Light
Haunts with sharp ecstasy each little wind
That stirs still waters on a moonlit night,
And sings through high trees growing in the mind,
And makes a gentle rustling in the wheat. . . .
Yea, in the white dawn on this happy shore,
With the lake water washing at his feet,
He stands alive and radiant evermore,
Whose presence makes the very East wind kind,
And turns to heaven the soul’s green-lit retreat.”

by Eva Gore Booth.

( also published the OSG ‘The Whores will be busy’ poem elsewhere, and they were….)

Eva Gore-Booth’s papers archive is at UCD, Belfield :   http://www.ucd.ie/library/special_collections/archives/modern_lit/gore_booth.html
Biography here : http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/eva-gore-booth / http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/10521/

Simone Weil, the quintessential outsider : women and mysticism.

Simone Weil was an outsider, this she clearly stated in her personal letters and essays which are gathered in fragments or in small volume , such as in Waiting for God.

Those meagre fragments that have been published are not really readily accessible save on the curricula of theological colleges (in modular forms) and presented in a contextualised and safe manner. I do not think that her writings on mysticism are done justice in contemporary thought.

Weil’s themes are of her intellectual alienation from Catholicism ( and her desire of it), poverty, philosophy, war, struggle and totalitarianism ,

” A collective body is the guardian of dogma and dogma is the object  of contemplation for love, faith and intelligence, three strictly individual  faculties. Hence almost since the beginning the individual has been ill at  ease in christianity and this uneasiness has notably been one of intelligence, this cannot be denied” (I: 314)

and yet , in further essays on education, philosophy and the need for frontline nurses , Weil rejects civil law as aberrant and only necessary to prevent religious totalitarianism. Her dividedness is a mark of her deep and enduring thought on education and its uses , which can be reduced to the cultivation of attention. Here , Weil’s thoughts could be placed alongside other catholic women thinkers but her refusal of baptism puts paid to that. Her ideas culminate in the magnificent and difficult work Necessity.

I question why the work of Weil is not put on a par with her contemporary Paschal , or any comparative writer of religious mysticism. I can only imagine that her desire to be an outsider has been readily and promptly answered by those guardians of her letters (thoughts) in their failure  to categorise her sufficiently in the annals of the catholic thinking which she so desired and yet so readily and completely rejected,

” Nearly all our troubles come to us from not having known how to stay in our room” said another sage, Paschal, I think , thereby calling to mind in the cell of recollection all those crazed people who seek happiness in movement and in a prostitution I might call fraternal, if I wanted to use the fine language of my century. ” ( I:314)

I suppose it is difficult if one approaches the writings of a female mystic and powerful writer to safely categorise  and apply a workable label  to her, when her outsider status was so firmly delineated by a writing that does not really achieve for the reader a comfort-zone that can be safely  and inalienably tagged as pedestrian. She presents a difficulty for those guardians of dogma who would rather  not approach the questions of the post war-time era in a manner that may jolt sensitivities in  those  areas of agnosticism, anarchism and mysticism discussed by Weil in her letters . There are many such neglects in  contemporary thought on issues of philosophy and religion, though mostly they (or their  invisibilites) apply alone to women writers of depth and clarity, such as the great Simone Weil. I am excerpting  Le Personne Et La Sacré by Simone Weil, in which she develops her ideas regarding the individual cultivation of attention as the most necessary of those approaches to study and whilst I may not agree with her ideas on dogma and justice, I find her constant and integral struggle with the problems of developing the intellect to be almost pressing when so much of post-modernism is directed toward the degradation of the intelligence in favour of wilful and negligent consumption,
Le Personne et la Sacré : by Simone Weil

“Beauty is the supreme mystery in this world. It is a brilliance that attracts attention but gives it no motive to stay. Beauty is always promising and never gives anything; it creates a hunger but has in it no food for the part of the soul that tries here below to be satisfied; it has food only for the part of the soul that contemplates. It creates desire, and it makes it clearly felt that there is nothing in it [beauty] to be desired, because one insists above all that nothing about it change. If one does not seek out measures by which to escape from the delicious torment inflicted by it, desire is little by little transformed into love and a seed of the faculty of disinterested and pure attention is created.”

Simone Weil , disregarded voice.

Necessity :  http://poethead.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/necessity-by-simone-weil/
Thinking Poetically :http://www.amazon.com/Simone-Weil-Thinking-Poetically-Studies/dp/0791442241
Waiting for God :  http://www.amazon.com/Waiting-God-Simone-Weil/dp/0060902957
Le Personne Et la Sacré :  http://poethead.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/excerpt-from-simone-weil-le-personne-et-le-sacre/

Knowing the shape of your cell , women mystic writers.

'The Repentant Magdalene' by Georges de La Tour

Dedicated to the Irish Magdalene Women, whose government chose to ignore their plight at the UN  Committee  on  Torture  23/05/2011 :

“Some of the issues that are raised and looked at in the Ryan report and that have been raised in relation to the Magdalene laundries relate to a very distant, far-off time,” said Mr Aylward in his initial response to the committee’s questions and observations.” (Seán Aylward, Irish Govt Rep to the UN Committee on Torture).

I have alluded before now on this blog to four women writers in particular who embraced the mystic ,or quasi-mystic traditions, their names are familiar to regular readers, Marguerite of Porete ,  Barbro Karlén, Mirjam Tuominen and Simone Weil. I wrote about some of Weil’s themes last week here .

These women writers, ( possibly excepting Karlén , who did not handle the label mystic so well after the success of A Moment in the Blossom Kingdom ) wrote from the prison of the body and of  the intellect in a manner that is unrivalled , and should be celebrated but instead it is mostly apocryphal  in its hiddenness.

I have often wondered at the shape and constitution of apocryphas , given that nothing that is ever part of the collective consciousness of humanity can be entirely obliterated and indeed often tends to  re-emerge in  a surprising manner. To take an example from art history for instance , wherein the pattern-books that constituted the architectural language of cathedrals often led to a generalised iconography, however, popular sentiment refused the destruction or partial obliteration of some iconographies, thus the new and the old were cast together in a tension  not always apparent to the eyes of the participant in ceremony of religious worship, but nonetheless present.

It is impossible to completely obliterate what was in essence an integral part of our societies, though there are faces hacked from statuary or black-marks on books or public records tend to add  poignancy to choices that are made. Most often an incorporation occurred, wherein that which had been cast away became transformed and emerged differently. Literary incorporation is no different to art-historical, what Marguerite of Porete wrote ( before her inquisition and eventual murder) in Le Miroir des simples ames aneaties et qui seulement demourent  en  vouloir et desir d’amour has been consciously referenced by John Moriarty in What the Curlew Said  and subconsciously tapped into In Joyce’s Anna Livia soliquoy from Finnegan’s Wake. What comes from an  identical archetype source, in this case dissolution, does not disappear because it inconveniences those who do not have time to read with attention in a constant pursuit of  novel ways of saying the same thing:  the voicing of  women’s experiences, including those our society would rather forget.

“Being completely free and in command of her sea of peace the soul

is nonetheless drowned and loses herself through God- with him

and in him. She loses her identity, as does the water from a river-

like the Ouse or the Meuse- when it flows into the sea. It has done it’s

work and can relax in the arms of the sea, and the same is true of

the soul. Her work is over and she can lose herself in what she has

totally become: Love. love is the bridegroom of her happiness

enveloping her wholly in his love and making her part of that which is.

This is a wonder to her and she has become a wonder. Love is her only

delight and pleasure.”

Marguerite Porete , from Le Miroir des simples ames aneaties et qui seulement demourent  en vouloir et desir d’amour

Mirjam Tuominen wrote of war and of torture but her name is eclipsed by those of her post WWII contemporaries, as Weil’s is eclipsed by Paschal’s.The experience of the anchorite, the woman tithed, or the female prisoner of torture is absent from the literary canon by stint of the greatness we perceive in the male voice, though both wrote on the same theme but from a differing perspective. I have dedicated this post to the Irish Magdalene women , who were incarcerated by their society in the hope that they will use their voices again to tell of what happened to them in the institutions, in their own voices.

Related article  links 

Mirjam Tuominen : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/a-saturday-woman-writer-mirjam-tuominen/

Simone Weil :  http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/simone-weil-the-quintessential-outsider-women-and-mysticism/

Barbro Karlén : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2009/01/15/modern-visionary-womens-writing/

knowing the shape of your cell by C Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work atpoethead.wordpress.com.

‘Shelmalier’ by Medb McGuckian

Medb McGuckian

Shelmalier.

by Medb Mc Guckian.

“Looked after only by the four womb-walls,
if anything curved in the ruined city his last hour
it was his human hands, bituminous, while all laws
were aimed at him, returning to the metre of a star:
like a century about to be over, a river trying
to film itself, detaching its voice from itself,
he qualified the air of his own dying,
his brain in folds like the semi-open rose of grief.
His eyes recorded calm and keen this exercise,
deep-seated, promising-avenues, they keep their
…kingdom:
it is I who am only just left in flight, exiled
into an outline of time, I court his speech, not him.
This great estrangement has the destination of a
…rhyme.
The trees of his heart breathe regular, in my dream. “

from, The Making of a Sonnet, a Norton Anthology. Eds ,Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland. Published 2008.

.

Bio link for Medb McGuckian here :  http://english.emory.edu/Bahri/McGuckian.html
The Dream Language of Fergus here : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2008/09/21/the-dream-language-of-fergus-medbh-mc-guckian/

Mallika Sengupta 1960-2011.

The death of Mallika Sengupta , poet, academic, feminist, and polemicist  has been announced. This short post comprises a poem and  links to  interviews  excerpted mainly from the Poetry International Web site.

“Sengupta has consistently refused to be squeamish about mixing her activism with her art. As she tells poet, critic and translator Sanjukta Dasgupta in the interview included in this edition, “Ideology ruins poetry, but not always. Rather every poet has to face this challenge at some period of her life… I think a good poet can always insert ideology into poetry without destroying aesthetic conditions.”

I am adding in here some poems by Mallika Sengupta alongside some words by Poet Yashodhara Raychaudhuri,

“Mallika Sengupta’s voice has been one of the most prominent among the new breed of feminist poets of the 80s. Bengali poetry has seen its Kavita Singhas and Debarati Mitras of the 50s and 60s who have had minority status in poetry as women. Their voices were bold but were seen as exceptions among a mostly male bastion. Mallika belonged to a generation of educated, highly sophisticated young poets who were busy trying to erase the marks of their womenhood from the body of their poetry, and is in the company of at least 4-5 more woman poets. However, she made her mark early on with her discovery of a very strong and confident voice.  and that way mallika’s diction was dramatic, and paradoxically  ” masculine”, if one is allowed to use the word. Her selection of themes were conscious, depending on the theoretical basis of her sociological studies, and she was mature at the outset . However there was an evolution in her voice. Her poetry was initially full of imagery and play of language. But she developed her skills to write in a  radically  different way, she left subtlety for directness and immediate communication. Sometimes her poetry was criticised for its posterlike quality.  Both KHana and “the husband’s black hands” belong to the same genre.

Mallika uses strong imageries here, and mostly categorical  statements.  the issues she wants to address are of the prime importance here. the second poem is more of a personalized experience , mediated through a clinical third eye precision. the social situation is always the first priority for Mallika, and   “personal is political” here.

Mallikas Bangla renderings had very meticulously drafted metered phrases which are lost in translation. She knows where to stop, and how much to tell. the reader is taken on a stormy ride with her, with her relentless criticism of the status quo, the situation as it is.”

By Yashodhara Ray Chaudhuri

Condolences to Albert Ashok and members of PEN West bengal who are feeling her absence most acutely at the moment, you have lost a wonderful activist, writer and person.

Mallika Sengupta RIP

WOMEN.COM

“Today, on our Computer Day
Come let’s place our hand on the women.com button
This very own history of women
From illiteracy to women.com.
Once upon a time from this woman
You snatched the chance of reading the Vedas
All of you said women were just housewives
Men had the right to Sanskrit
Women’s language, the language of the Sudras was different.
After a thousand years when the girl
Prepared herself for a girls’ school
Bethune and Vidyasagar stood by her
All of you said
Women who read and write
Are bound to become widows.

Then when the woman entered the office space
Mother-in-law’s sullen face, and the husband was suspicious
All of you said
What’s the use of a family run with a wife’s money?
The woman had to fight the storms and tempests.
Inch by inch in the thousand years the woman
Has earned knowledge and power
Inside a fiery heart, tranquil outwardly
Today half the sky is in the woman’s palm
The world is an amlaki held in the woman’s fist
Just a touch of a button
One day you who had denied her knowledge of alphabets
In her hand today is the computer world.”
© by Mallika Sengupta
The Husband’s Black Hands.

“The moment she tucks in the mosquito net and goes
to bed, her husband’s black hands fumble after
the snakes and frogs of her body:  ”You’re hurting me!
Let go!”  In anger, those black hands twist her breasts.
He says, “Listen here, Sweta, don’t be coy.
If ever I find even the evening star
gesturing to you, or making eyes,
I’ll see that you fall into a hellish pit.”
Sweta’s white thighs swing back and forth in space
clinging to the back, her husband’s black back.”

© Mallika Sengupta (b.1960)/ Translated by Carolyne Wright and Paramita Banerjee

West Bengal PEN  :

http://penwestbengal.blogspot.com/2011/02/little-magazine-mela-and-kolkata-pustak.html

http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=2728

http://india.poetryinternationalweb.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.php?obj_id=2687

Jacket 2 , ‘Poetry, arts, collaborative responses’.

Here follows the J2  introduction for readers and word-workers ,

“Jacket2 publishes articles, reviews, interviews, discussions and collaborative responses, archival documents, podcasts, and descriptions of poetry symposia and projects. Not unlike a daily news forum, we will publish content as it is ready. Visit our index for an ongoing and comprehensive list of all J2 content.”

“Because of its Enlightenment associations with notions of genius and taste, poetry often can be read as an aesthetic and private discourse that resides beyond the realm of civil society. But I show how some poets after 1960 use poetry to shape discourse over controversial public topics, such as urban conservation; wars in Vietnam and Iraq; and civil rights. I argue, too, that civil discourse is always complicated by poesies, and that belief and desire are produced, engaged, expanded, or challenged in circulations of public texts, images, and performances.

These performative dimensions of public speech always carry tones, gestures, forms of acting out, contradictions, and self-corrections that contribute to new actions and capacities in others. The quote you have singled out to me suggests that poetry can show engaged citizens how to listen to, or respond to, public issues or actions. “

from :  http://jacket2.org/commentary/poetry-and-enactments-public-space

Imo the practicioners of poetry are already enacting quite interestingly upon the public and shared spaces of the internet, as discussed here at this Harriet Monroe institute doc.  from the  Centre for social-media.

Poethead is about serious poetry and is mostly dedicated to showing how serious an art-form it is.  Mostly I  believe that our  governments do not understand its importance when it comes to  funding and nurturing the  literary arts .

Tomorrow,  Hannah Weiner will be  featured on Poethead in the Saturday Woman Poet section . I will be linking  to her The Book of Revelations (J2)  , and urging Poetry readers to take the time to explore her work and the work  of the J2 site.

The Castle of the Pyrenees

Come to my summer house. 
It’s  damp floating over the sea,
But you can light a fire in any French Horn.
Eagles bring you there.

by Hannah Weiner 

       

from, Hannah Weiner’s ‘The Book of Revelations’

http://jacket2.org/article/notes-on-this-edition

http://jacket2.org/galleries/book-revelations-diplomatic-transcript-gallery-view 

A very public room of one’s own, online writing

“These performative dimensions of public speech always carry tones, gestures, forms of acting out, contradictions, and self-corrections that contribute to new actions and capacities in others. The quote you have singled out to me suggests that poetry can show engaged citizens how to listen to, or respond to, public issues or actions.”

The above statement is about poetic engagement derived from a piece at J2, entitled Recasting poetry, the long biography of a poem.  (at Link) . It is interesting indeed  how writers use the internet and multi-media resources  for poetics , but this piece is not about practice or  gesture, it is about creating poetic spaces in the most public of places , the web. I saw this republished Atlantic article last week and wish to set this short post into that context.

Lots of readers will note the allusion to Virgina Woolf’s statement about writing spaces  in the title of this post, indeed we know all about the oubliettes, the locked-doors, the time stolen or negotiated that forms the woman writer’s battle for self-expression. There are also varieties of instances of perceived adulteries caused by women musing upon their muses, written most poignantly by Mirjam Tuominen which could have net-applications… I may link that one soon.

I am concerned now with the issue of public writing , with space, and with the diary-form translated and updated to the web-blog form, and in  how that impacts upon  the practice of writing, specifically  mine. I recently wrote a piece about writing  practice ( for another blog) on the subject of transcription, which got   me to thinking about how my writing- practice has changed. There is an awkwardness about myleft-handedness which does not lend itself to copying and pasting much and most of the poems on this blog  are transcribed directly from books, except the original works which are just written-down and eventually  typed out. However , I do a lot more in the way of communicating than I necessarily would just sitting in a room reading and writing (or doodling). –

It has been excellent in many ways to be able to access other writers and discuss subjects such as poetry, gender, women’s presence online and imbalances in publication of women writers , most particularly literary women writers.

What hasn’t been excellent is that the scrawly-jotty , associative thinking and lateral imaging things are a bit neglected. No matter how much one refuses to admit it, blogging is a very public method of getting to the essentials of writing , it has its own space, time and decorative element. Blogging has rather severe limitations in terms of tailoring what one thinks people wish to read, and it is not a  spontaneous or creative way of writing.

This very public space  which is defined by what I want to go on the page lacks a creativity that is often exasperating – I don’t doodle here, or cross out things.  Poems  that  I like or think others maylike  are what this space is about, it does not have the busyness of sets of inter-related note-books, folders , pencil-cases or writing smells like inky leaks. It is too neat. I am looking for ways to make it more natural at the moment.

One thing which annoys me beyond anything else about women who write is their constant referral to themselves as scribblers and not writers. The two acts, that of writing and that of scribbling are not really related , scribbling is more a mode of generation than of connection . Very few male authors tend toward that type of florid self-description.

 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2003/03/caring-for-your-introvert/269

Affixing the Imprimatur, queer art and blasphemy in Cork.

Alma Lopez Painting

 Wherein the definition of art and who gets the imprimatur ?

I find myself at a loss regarding how the problem of blasphemy is being discussed in Cork. There  has been no art-historical analysis of  queer art, there has been little media reference to the issue of the 2006-2009 Defamation Bill, and discussion on one political site is limited to the idea that art should be subject to market-force and consumer popularity. Rather than to even attempt to deal with the paucity of discussion on this issue which is limited, unimaginative and striking in its poverty,I thought to look at the issue of leadership , or in this case , lack thereof.

There are two posts on Poethead concerned with context in Irish censorship, specifically the use of blasphemy as a means of censoring art,  I refer to the issue of visual art and blasphemy in the historic sense in relation to the Rouault controversy , an Irish historical precedent for art censorship based in the accusation of blasphemy. 

The charge against that painter (a Fauvist catholic) was of  ‘blasphemy and incompetence‘, his art was refused exhibition solely because the fledgling government of the Irish State judged an incompetence in his expression. In the case of the queer art of Alma Lopez the complaint of blasphemy is quite clearly sited in an accusation of blasphemy based in representation. The Irish Government had apparently dropped the pairing of blasphemy with incompetence, and in the new Defamation Bill (2006-2009) has sited the offense of blasphemy in the ability to generate outrage.

There has not been much development in how our previous Government (FF/GN) viewed visual arts, or indeed publication. Ireland has supported international moves to abolish Defamation of Religions law , whilst codifying national laws which create a criminal offence for blasphemy. The history of the 2006-2009 Defamation bill is here . The necessity  for a referendum in Ireland on blasphemy is here detailed.

It is quite clear that one can no longer bandy about terms like blasphemy in the realm of the visual and literary arts  as an accusation  (based in the ability of the artist to generate community outrage) it now carries with it a criminalisation. What interests and concerns me in the Cork debacle is that two leaders, (a bishop and a political leader) should know better than to use terms  for which the Fianna Fáil and Green Government were roundly and globally criticised in introducing a Bill which both had denied would effect the arts. An accusation or complaint of blasphemy will continue to effect visual arts until the issue of censorship is fully and openly discussed. The fact that the word blasphemy was so blithely and ignorantly applied to visual art , in this case the visual  art of a gay woman, suggests to me that any discussion on blasphemy and the arts will not happen where it is supposed to happen , but on the airwaves by tub-thumping ill-educated commentators whose easy manipulation of emotive issues is wholly without context , either legal or art-historical. This is how things are done in Ireland , the government will go to their holidays  rather unconcerned at the lack of debate which pretty much reflects what happened in 2009 when the Defamation Bill was initially  introduced.

CC > C Murray

Map, by Katherine Duffy.

This poem, by Duffy is taken from the 1996 Poetry Ireland Review (PIR) ,  issue 49. Ed, Liam Ó Muirthile.

Map.

.

Islands, lovingly described,
unfold.
.

Each day, from its catalogue
of wonders, we choose
the cockle strand, the puffing holes,
the temple of the four beautiful saints
.

and wander the ceathrúnas’
ancient longitude and latitude
of sea-weed rights ; piecemeal intimations
of a people’s pressing wish
to green the stone world.
.

We follow the coast -
line’s chequered fortune avidly,
eventful geology rendered decorative
as medieval pageantry. Crosshatched
cliffs joust with a stippled sea.
.

The man we rent our caravan from
knows the map-maker – an englishman
who speaks Irish – nach bhfuil sé sin
i gcoinnne an nádúir ? he asks,
only half-joking.
.

Anxious for dragons,
we slither to Poll na bPéist.
The map rustles,
governs our journeys gently “

.
by Katherine Duffy

a Curvimeter from Wiki

All Things Can Tempt Me From This Craft, a poem by Eilis Ní Dhuibhne.

All Things Can Tempt Me From This Craft

by Eilis Ní Dhuibhne

” Rain twists like a tornado in my distracted head.

Ideas drip slow as saline into my dreaming bed.”

from  Mark my Words , Meditations by Eilis Ní Dhuibhne,  The Night Garden , Alice Maher. 2007 RHA, Ely Place.

The Night Garden

My Fucshia, by Ruth Fainlight.

” My fuchsia is a middle-aged woman
who’s had fourteen children, and though
she could do it again, she’s rather tired.

All through the summer, new blooms.
I’m amazed. But the purple and crimson
have paled. Some leaves are yellowed or withering.

These buds look weaker and smaller,
like menopause babies. Yet still
she’s a gallant fine creature performing her function.

-Thats how they talk about women,
and I heard myself using the same sort of language.
Then I understand my love for August :
it’s exhausted fertility
after glut and harvest.

Out in the garden, playing
at being a peasant forced
to slave until dark with a child on my back

another at the breast and probably
pregnant, I remember
wondering if I’d ever manage

the rites of passage from girl
to woman : fear
and fascination hard to choose between.

Thirty years later, I pick the crumpled flowers
off the fuchsia plant and water it
as if before the shrine
of two unknown grandmothers -
and my mother who was a fourteenth child.”

by Ruth Fainlight

From The Knot , by Ruth Fainlight. Hutchinson 1990.

Willy-Wag and Sparrow , by Nancy Cato.

'Bird in the Sun', by Leonard Baskin.

 ” Willy-wag and Sparrow
sat on a stone.
Said Willy, it’s cold
when the sun is gone.

But my heart beats hot
in my white silk breast;
time enough later
for me to rest.

Said Sparrow, It’s dark
in the green willow,
and the cat may lurk
in the shade below.

He fluffed his feathers
and shook his head;
by now the others
are safe in bed.

Said Willy, the sky
is full of light,
and a juicy fly
is quickly caught.

I’ll flirt my fan
awhile the cold,
and I won’t go in
till the moon is gold.

Said sparrow, the tree
is full by now,
and I’m off to my perch
on the topmost bough.

But Willy said, whether
it’s dark or light,
if I feel like singing
I’ll sing all night. “

 By Nancy Cato

 In remembrance of the children of Utoeya, whose play was so grievously wounded and destroyed. RIP

From The Dancing Bough, 1957.

Linked here :  http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poems-book/the-dancing-bough-0063000

The Eye Itself is a Lily , by Ileana Mãlãncioiu.

After the Raising of Lazarus.

” Behold the lily repeating itself eternally
Three lilies in one the divine bouquet,
So many more bouquets a wedding and a deathbed
All the weddings and funerals the same lily.

.

Out of the lily my love the bridal dance,
Out of the lily the funeral procession,
Like a dragon with a thousand heads the lily
Leaps out eternally to meet us.

.

The wind carries the lily seeds
Lilies sprout from the stones of the great boulevards
Lilies burst from the smooth plastered walls
And out of the sun that burns us.

.

Like some eternal stalks the rays,
The eye itself is a  lily and its core is empty,
Sight looks out through the white petals
Where acid has eaten its way. “

.

by Ileana Mãlãncioiu.

This poem , by Ileana Mãlãncioiu, is taken from the Southword edition of After the Raising of Lazarus,  translated by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.

A Turn at Tara , August 28th 2011.

 FEIS TEAMHRA: A TURN AT TARA 

” The fourth annual Feis Teamhra: A Turn at Tara, which features readings and performances by internationally-recognized Irish writers and musicians, will be held between 3 and 5 o’clock on Sunday August 28 2011 on the Hill of Tara itself. Those taking part this year are Aidan Brennan, Peter Fallon, Laoise Kelly, Susan McKeown, Paul Murray and a surprise musical guest who just happens to be one of Ireland’s greatest singer-songwriters. The MC for the event is Paul Muldoon. Admission is free.

While the Hill of Tara has in recent years become a contested spot, symbolizing less the sacred site where ancient Ireland crowned its kings than the desecrated site where modern Ireland gave in to crass consumerism and, as it were, drowned in things, the note the organizers hope to strike is not one of confrontation but celebration. Feis Teamhra: A Turn at Tara is a celebration of the continuity of the linked traditions of Irish writing and music, traditions that have almost certainly flourished here since at least 2000 BC.

We’re delighted to welcome Paul Murray, the Dublin-based author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes (2003), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award, and Skippy Dies (2010), a book quite accurately described by the New York Times as “extravagantly entertaining.” The New Yorker, meanwhile, praised its “remarkable dialogue, which captures the free-associative, sex-obsessed energy of teenage conversation in all its coarse, riffing brilliance.” Skippy Dies, a book that’s reminiscent of A Portrait on peyote, was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, the National Book Critics’ Circle Prize and the Irish Book Award.

We also extend a particular welcome to the Meath-based poet and publisher Peter Fallon, who is celebrated for the unfussy but nonetheless fusillading nature of his poems. They speak softly but carry a big stick, one cut from a local hedge. Some of Peter Fallon’s best work is to be found in News of the World: Selected and New Poems (1998) and his translations of The Georgics of Virgil (2004/2006). A member of Aosdana, Peter Fallon received the 1993 O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award from the Irish American Cultural Institute.

The musical component of Feis Teamhra: A Turn at Tara is curated by Susan McKeown, the Dublin-born, New York-based, Grammy-winning singer-songwriter. Susan McKeown released her seventh solo album, Singing in the Dark, in October 2010. In addition to her career as a solo artist, Susan McKeown’s heart-felt, heart-breaking singing has led her to work with, among others, Natalie Merchant, Linda Thompson, Pete Seeger, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Billy Bragg, Arlo Guthrie, and the Klezmatics.

Among the other musicians featured this year are Aidan Brennan and Laoise Kelly. Aidan Brennan is an inspired guitarist who has worked not only with Susan McKeown (Sweet Liberty, 2004), but Kevin Burke (Kevin Burke in Concert, 1999) and Loreena McKennitt (Book of Secrets, 1997, and Midwinter Night’s Dream, 2008). Born in Dublin, Aidan Brennan now lives in Laois.

Laoise Kelly, generally considered to be the foremost Irish harper, lives in her native Mayo. The Irish Times has described her as “a young harpist with the disposition of an iconoclast and the talent and technique of a virtuoso.” In addition to her own CD (Just Harp, 2000), Laoise Kelly has worked with Sharon Shannon, The Chieftains, Natalie MacMaster, Sinead O’Connor and Kate Bush. “

On adding new social media links to the Poethead site

Regular Poethead readers may have noticed that I have created a new column, which appears on the left beneath this post, and of course on the homepage of the site. There are three links currently available, my Google+, Twitter and Scribd accounts. The Scribd account is a bit under-used, as I have not really examined its potential yet. I have been putting links to copyright reviews there, but not really adding in original works yet (as I am a bit cagey about publishing everything I can think of online , and I am also an appallingly slow editor of my own writing).

I am of the opinion that poetry, and literature are undergoing a vast renaissance as it adapts to multi-media, social-media and web. There are numerous posts on this site which refer to issues of publication, licensing and copyright, and I will not be referring to these here. The essential point is that other groups that appear on a collaborative basis in outlets like Facebook, and Google+ are experiencing a great interest from new and more experienced writers. This has led to some groups evolving web-strategies to meet collaborative demand. At this point, I have become very attached to the Google+ space,  (despite the names policy) because my access to writers like Ron Silliman,  Maud Newton, Pierre Joris and Jacket 2 has enhanced considerably. I often missed their links on Twitter , which I found slightly more frenetic. I am still a Twitter fan btw. I thought to add  the above-mentioned links to the permanent column of links, as I will be collating interesting poetry data on these services there also.

Sometimes what I read or wish share does not quite fit this blog , or it may be inter-related,  but I do not have the time to write an article or post to introduce these writer’s ideas or their works . I am inviting PH readers to make use of the collated links that are embedded on site to further their reading in poetics and avant-garde web-use. Enjoy !

A list of pages related to Poethead

• Google+
• Scribd
• Twitter

Two Poems by Colette Ní Ghallchóir.

The Spark of Joy / Dealan an Aoibhnis

” When I lit the sparkler
long ago on the hearth,
I ran the house with it screaming with delight.
They scolded me,
but grandfather said,
‘Let her be,
let her be,
there is no use talking.
She will always light
any flame she wishes.’

by Colette Ní Ghallchóir, trans,  Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill

Trans, Dealán an Aoibhnis

” Nuair a lás mé an dealán
Fadó ar an teallach,
Rith mé leis ar fud an tí
Go háthasach.
Bagraíodh orm,
Ach dúirt no sheanathair leo -
‘Lig di lig di,
Níl  gar a bheith léi,
Lasfaidh sisi i gconaí
Na dealáin is mian léi .’

le Colette Ní Ghallchóir.

Divorce 19th-century Style.

‘That is not the way
things are done
in this townland,’
she said.

‘Well , if it isn’t,’ said he,
‘then go and do it yourselves.’
And he had crossed Gleann Tornáin
before nightfall.

‘How come you never told me,’ said I
to my father, ‘that they had been separated for a while?’
‘You don’t broadcast
all news,’ he said …
‘Anyway the end of the matter
is that he died here at home.’

le Colette Ní Ghallchóir, trans, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Colscaradh na Naoú hAoise Déag.

‘Chan sin an dóigh
A bhfuil rudaí déanta
Ar an bhaile seo,’
A duirt sí.

‘Munab é,’ arsa seisean
‘Déanaigí féin é.’
Agus thrasnaigh sé
Gleann Tornáin
Roimh thitim na hóiche.

 

‘Char inis tú dom,’ arsa mise
Le m’athair, ‘go raibh siad scarta tamall.’
‘Ní churieann tú an nuacht
Uilig sna páipéir,’ ar seisean…
‘Cibe scéal de,
Fuair sé bás sa bhaile.’

Le Colette Ní Ghallchóir  ,

from The New Irish Poets, ed, Selina Guinness. 2004, Bloodaxe Books. Bio of Colette Ní Ghallchóir , Colette was born in the Ghleann Mór Gaelteacht in central Donegal. Her poems are published The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Volume 5, her book Idir Dha Ghleann was published by Coiscéim 2005.

Poet-Bloggers, a new category introduction for Poethead.

This post is about poet-bloggers, the vehicles they use, and how online journals are using web and social-media to increase the profile of poetics. The area is huge, as I found out when I began compiling this Google+ list.  There are multiple groups and individuals connecting across Twitter, and Facebook also. The emphasis here will be on the individual writer, and the journals that are emergent, or already fully developed.

I thought to begin with some of the artists who have caught my eye through consistent use of online resources to bring their poetry to the public eye, these writers include, Aíne Mac Aodha, Nuala Ni Chonchúir, Ron Silliman, Charles Bernstein, Al Filreis , Mick Rooney, Pierre Joris , Elizabeth Kate Switaj and Robert Peake.

There are many more poets and writers using online and social-media, but the above inparticular have a great online presence. They regularly and consistently post about poetry through PENN Sound, personal websites, journals and Facebook.  Publishers such as Salt, Poetry Ireland, Poetry London ,Over the Edge , Munster Literature, Jacket2  and Women Writers Women Books , use online media in a very effective manner also. There are also The Dublin Poetry Review, The Western Writers Centre, Anon Poetry , the Arvon Foundation ,  The Paris Review, Poet’s Pages, Crannóg and Caper Literary Journals.

Any other poet will name a score more reviews ,  journals or poetry-centred blogs. These are the ones that I know and enjoy reading. Last week I added a new category called Poet-bloggers. This short piece along with its related links serves as an introduction to what is currently happening online for poets.

Related Poethead Links.

The spoken word : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/05/14/online-sounds-the-spoken-word/

UBUWEB / Homad :  http://poethead.wordpress.com/2010/05/28/ubuweb-and-homad-ethnopoetics-and-translation-i/

T+LRC : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/translation-and-linguistic-rights-ii/

Jacket2 : http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/jacket-2-j2-poetry-arts-collaborative-responses/

Harriet Monroe:http://poethead.wordpress.com/code-of-best-practices-in-fair-use-for-poetry-poetry-foundation

HTML Giant : http://htmlgiant.com/technology/poetgramming/

Poet Bloggers category http://poethead.wordpress.com/category/poet-bloggers/

Banned Books Week , September 24 -October 01 2011

This is a direct link to PEN American on Banned Books Week,  24/09/2011-01/10/2011. The list of banned or  frequently challenged books may be perused here , and they include,

1.The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck

PEN American is asking writers and members to use the submishmash system to upload a 300 word piece along with a book recommendation to celebrate the week. There will be a virtual read-out at this youtube channel. Details and information of the week are available at the American PEN site.  

2011 list : Check Out This Year’s Top Ten Most Banned or Challenged Books

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sex education, sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

5. The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: sexaully explicit, violence, unsuited to age group

6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
Reasons: drugs, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group

7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones
Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

8. Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

9. Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: homosexuality, sexually explicit

10. Twilight (series), by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence, unsuited to age

http://www.pen.org/blog/?p=3187

A poem by Tal Al-Mallouhi to kick off Banned Books Week

This is a reposting  of Tal Al-Mallouhi’s You will remain an example, dedicated to Gandhi. Tal’s story is linked  here.

There is another post which I wish refer to in brief, it is called Books written , ‘The Library of Babel‘ and it is by Borges. This short fiction from Borges’ Labyrinths, describes  a mythological library of great density, proportion, and uniform. The library exists ab aeterno , from the eternal.

It contains everything  ever written,  expressed ,  or conceived   in all languages, including , ” false catalogues and the demonstration of the fallacy of  those catalogues.”  The link I have included in the second short paragraph of this post looks at the design of the fictive Babel Library.

I like to think of it as  an almost entirely true tale , as so many books of wisdom have  been destroyed or made inaccessible by people who find human thought to be an inconvenience to their wishes and plans. The narrator of  the library is an old man, who intends to die  there amongst the books, he recounts his searches, his  attempts to translate the orthography of the library and  his relation to books in the piece.

A good friend in Catalunya once wrote an amazing piece on book-burning centred in the celebration of St Jordi’s Day, when people give to each other books and roses. I have not his excellent writing ability, but I do tend  to believe that the books  not written  in this instance, will not stop her words emerging or her book from existing.

Words when uttered and written cannot not be taken back and must have their effect. There is something wholly infantile about banning and brutalising a youthful poet, I think it may be because the words used to commit the brutalisation have become empty of their validity and symbolism for a great many people. The same goes for those people who wish to censor the great Walt Whitman from classrooms in CA, you do not encourage critical discernment by labelling books of genius as ‘bad’ because the singer of the poems was gay!

 You will remain an example

(To Gandhi)

“I will walk with all walking people
And no
I will not stand still
Just to watch the passers by
.

This is my Homeland
In which
I have
A palm tree
A drop in a cloud
And a grave to protect me
.

This is more beautiful
.

Than all cities of fog
And cities which
Do not recognise me
.

My master:
I would like to have power
Even for one day
To build the “republic of feelings.”
.

Translated from the Arabic by Ghias Aljundi. Tal Al-Mallouhi

A Saturday Woman Poet, Kate Dempsey

It’s What You Put Into It

For Grace

On the last day of term
you brought home a present,
placed it under the tree,
a light, chest-shaped mystery
wrapped in potato stamped paper
intricate with angels and stars.
..

Christmas morning
you watched as we opened it,
cautious not to tear the covering.
Inside, a margarine tub, empty.
Do you like it? eyes huge.
It’s beautiful.
What is it, sweetheart?
A box full of love, you said.
…

You should know, O my darling girl,
it’s on the dresser still
and from time to time, we open it.”

Kate Dempsey’s poetry is widely published in Ireland and the UK including Poetry Ireland Review,The Shop, Orbis and Magma. She won The Plough Prize and has been shortlisted for the Hennessy Award for both poetry and fiction. She was selected to read for Poetry Ireland Introductions and Windows Publications Introductions, as well as at various arts and music festivals with the Poetry Divas. She is grateful for bursaries received from the Arts Council, Dublin South County Council and Kildare County Council. Kate blogs at Writing.ie and Emerging Writer . You can catch her on Twitter at PoetryDivas. Reviewed here , http://writing.ie/writers-toolbox/writing-better-poetry/words-in-many-forms/412-the-moth-collection-little-editions.html

Verbatim

” i.m Barbara Ennis Price

It’s all the fault of the British, she said.

The cursing came in with the troopers,

the other ranks and their wives as bad.

Before that, we Irish never swore.

No curse would pass our tender lips,

no drop of whiskey,

no beatings, no casual cruelty.

Sure, weren’t we a gentle race

until the squaddies boated in?

We were milk and honey,

the soft heads of babes, the pigs at Christmas,

root vegetables and stone walls.

What did we have to swear about

until the British came?”

© Kate Dempsey

A poet-companion,Tess Gallagher translates Liliana Ursu.

There are two posts on this blog which link to short poems by Lilian Ursu.  The poems are from the Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation of The Sky Behind the Forest, by Liliana Ursu. The volume had two translators, Adam J Sorkin and Tess Gallagher. Interestingly, the volume does not initial the translators work beneath the text , so  it is very hard to identify which poems were translated by Gallagher. This blog is dedicated to the work of women writers, editors and translators, so I thought to examine Gallagher’s approach to the poet and to her work.  I am referring to  the  published notes on the translations throughout.

Liliana Ursu is Romanian, she was born in Sibiu in 1949 and  lived in Bucharest during the Ceaucescu regime. She graduated in English at Bucharest University and taught part-time there for ten years. Ursu has published two books of short stories, six books of translation and  books of poetry. She travelled as a  visiting professor to Pennsylvania State University on a Fulbright Grant in 1992-1993. I have decided to include here a Bloodaxe page about Ursu, as well as a link to Lightwall.
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 Tess Gallagher describes herself as a poet-companion in her preface to the Poetry Book Society edition of Ursu’s The Sky Behind the Forest. It is an apt description for a fellow-traveller in the arts. Interestingly, I had a conversation this week regarding poetic translations and how to accomplish them. Mostly poets will want to read the original works or in bilingual editions. It helps readers to get the music of the poem.

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Bad translation has been a bugbear of mine for some years, given that  wide internet dissemination has  sometimes led to appalling and quite inflexible machine-spewed translation. The ability to translate  from an academic, collaborative or empathetic base is what wholly contributes to the poetry reader’s pleasure in coming as close as it is possible to the spirit of the poem and to the intent  of the author.

I chose The Gallagher translation of Ursu as an exemplar of collaborative translation, but I could just as easily point to Hugh Maxton’s wonderful  translations of Ágnes Nemes Nagy’s Between , or Marion Glascoe’s edition  of Julian of Norwich. Gallagher is a collaborator  both  as a poet and as a woman, and her ability to communicate the Ursu text , along with Sorkin, hinge on collaborations and on  poetic sympathy.

Her approach is not solely academic but  occurs at a  level of universality, which is indicated in her approach to the work here ,

In the Dusk.

by Lilian Ursu.

” In the dusk the statues smile more enigmatically.

Not a breath of wind troubles their gaze.

You look at me and know how autumn makes its way.

In the dusk, under our bodies the hill sinks to ruin -

weightless, at last.“

from The Sky Behind the Forest. Publ. Bloodaxe ,  1997.

Some little books.

The pictured editions carry a huge poetic punch, though it would be unfair to compare them as like. The Moth Little Editions were released this month, the Ginsberg is pre-1960and Hannah Weiner’s books as objects of art were made in the 1970/80s. They are all serious books in small form,a virtue of City Lights and other makers of accessible arts books.

This post was advised by a brief Twitter discussion on portable poetry, i.e the carrying  of  T.S Eliot‘s Four Quartets about for reading .

Quite recently I was genuinely amazed  to receive four poetry books nestled  within one (white) standard office-sized envelope from Moth Editions , and although the books are small they each contain 32 poems.  This post is about physical books  rather than about code , or indeed the storage and the dissemination of poetry through sites like Kenneth Goldsmith’s UBUWEB , which I have referred to before now here . I carry books around in a variety of  bags, in fact ,  the type of bag I will choose for a day is never  dependant  on as a fickle a thing as fashion , but upon how big a bag I will require for a notebook , diary, book , ( mostly poetry or  biography), and pencil-case and letters  (yes  letters , I write those).

Poets Dermot Healey, Kate Dempsey, Ted McCarthy and Ciarán O Rourke form the quartet of poets that make  up the first of the Moth Little Editions, I had introduced two of Dempsey’s Poems from the series quite recently.

Of course distillation and new formats can lead to the strangest of  visual concentrations, such as using QR  Code to bring a whole new audience to writers, including  to Herman Melville and James Joyce. In  the fictional sense, the creation of a Babel Library has it’s  own interest and weird beauty. This post is about  the mobility and adaptability of small texts, and how wonderful it is to be able to choose a good book  like the Four Quartets  to bring out with one to read !

The beauty of poetry is that it is highly adaptable to both book and technology formats and thus very versatile.
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moth magazine's 'little editions'

Ginsberg's Kaddish (City Lights)

'Little Books/Indians' by Hannah Weiner

Poems by Doris Lessing.

Fourteen Poems

Fable

“When I look back I seem to remember singing.
Yet is was always silent in that long warm room.

Impenetrable , those walls , we thought,
Dark with ancient shields.  The light
Shone on the head of a girl or young limbs
Spread carelessly. And the low voices
Rose in the silence and were lost as in water.

Yet, for all it was quiet and warm as a hand,
If one of us drew the curtains
A threaded rain blew carelessly outside.
Sometimes a wind crept, swaying the flames,
And set shadows crouching on the walls,
Or a wolf howled in the wide night outside,
And feeling our flesh chilled we drew together.

But for a while the dance went on -
That is how it seems to me now:
Slow forms moving calm through
Pools of light like gold net on the floor.
It might have gone on, dream-like, for ever.

But between one year and the next – a new wind blew ?
The rain rotted the walls at last ?
Wolves’ snouts came thrusting at the fallen beams ?

It  is so long ago.
But sometimes I remember the curtained room
And hear the far-off youthful voices singing.”

Fable,  1959 Copyright Doris Lessing, is reprinted by kind permission of Jonathan Clowes Ltd., London , on behalf of Doris Lessing.

Pictured are two books of published poetry by Nobel Laureate and writer Doris Lessing.  I am intrigued by each of the books. I thought to add some information on the status of the  books and their current locations, but information is quite scanty. Thus I will be blogging the process.

Fourteen Poems by Doris Lessing , published 1959 by Scorpion Press, is  unavailable, although I have located a copy in a library in a University library in Dublin !

The  Scorpion Press closed in  the 1970s, according to this Wikipedia  entry. Some  articles from the press were obtained by the McFarlin Library, Special Collections at the University of Tulsa. I am adding here the link.

The original link (Lessing’s  Scorpion/ Northwood titles) details the names of the Fourteen Poems which  were published in 1959, 

•  Under a Low Cold Sky
• Older Woman to Younger Man (1)
• Older Woman to Younger Man (2)
• Plea for the Hated Dead Woman
• Bars
• Dark Girl’s Song
• New Man
• Night-Talk
• Song
• Exiled
• Oh Cherry Trees you are too white for my heart’
• Fable
• In Time of Dryness
• Jealousy

McFarlin obtained Lessing’s correspondence in relation to the pamphlet: Lessing, Doris Correspondence in reference to Fourteen Poems.

Inpopa Anthology

 The list of poems from The Inpopa Anthology 2002 are:

The Wolf People 

• In the Long Dark
• The Misfit
• As If They Had Always Known It
• Cave Wolves

• Something Speaks
• The Sky-fire
• The Ice Comes

Both  sets of  poems from Ms Lessing’s Opus are listed in her published works, I for one, am incredibly curious to read her poetic writing and have applied for more information to the special collections at the McFarlin Library at Tulsa University.   I will update this post when I get  more information about the poems.

I am adding here Lessing’s list  of published works,

http://www.dorislessing.org/herbooksalphabetically.html

Lessing and Scorpion Press collections at the McFarlin Library, Tulsa University.

http://www.utulsa.edu/mcfarlin/speccoll/collections/lessingdoris/index.htm

 Additional papers of John Rolph/Scorpion Press:

http://www.utulsa.edu/mcfarlin/speccoll/collections/rolphjohn/index.htm

Scorpion Pres Archive :

http://www.utulsa.edu/mcfarlin/speccoll/collections/scorpionpress/index.htm

.

Since it is Saturday and the day that I generally highlight the work of a woman writer, editor or translator. I thought to link to a story by Doris Lessing from the New Yorker Magazine, as a special treat:  The Stare , Doris Lessing.  Fourteen Poems by Doris Lessing .The poems are published here, http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/fable-and-oh-cherry-trees-you-are-too-white-for-my-heart-two-poems-by-doris-lessing/

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Thanks to Alison Greenlee,  Special Collections Librarian at the University of Tulsa, for information about the Scorpion Press archive.

A link to a VIDA conversation with poet Jane Hirshfield.

“ I discovered sexism’s glass walls—which do exist still, to a shocking degree—later rather than earlier. A great blessing, that belatedness. As a young person, I felt the world’s heritage of art and literature was mine to forage.” (Jane Hirshfield)

This week’s blog post contains just two small links because family duties had called me away from  my desk . Whilst I was away I got totally enraptured by Paul Celan‘s Todesfuge, translated by John  Felstiner, which I am writing about elsewhere. For today I am adding a discussion document about  Women and Poetry which  is related to two published posts here at Poethead. I am also adding my  review of the moth magazine’s little editions , from the Writing.ie site.

To preface my first excerpt and link, I want to say  that the VIDA interview resonated with me in relation to a  letter by Anne Hays which I published in January of 2011. The letter has been hit 4,819 times , it details a lack in women’s literary publication which I can only describe as a deadener. I am adding the letter here .  I thought to publish excerpts from the VIDA interview and link in the context of the Hays letter.

 “We each need the speech of reason and we need the speech of feeling. And when I’m asked the unanswerable question about the origins of poetry, my speculation is similarly multiple: prayer, courtship, work song, grief song, rituals of passage and of harvest, war song, lullaby, memory-keeping mnemonic. Each of these must have pulled poetry onto early human tongues. Most are experiences shared by both men and women, and if war-making’s drum cry has more often been the domain of men, that’s counterbalanced by the murmur that sends an infant to sleeping. If one had to guess which came first, lullaby’s as plausible a guess as any.” (Jane Hirshfield)

I wonder often about how we dream a poet, I imagine that in Ireland, we think of him as a speaker of our truths.

The above paragraph is so critical to our understanding that there are areas in poetic experience in which the gender of the poet cannot be ignored, and that is hugely important to emerging women poets to see and to read other women. If  all we think about are our great male-poets when we imagine our singer of tales, then the  experience of the woman-poet achieves an invisibility, a chorus. Think of T.S Eliot‘s chorus from  Murder in the Cathedral,  Atwood’s serving girls from The Peneliopad, or themother nodding beside the cot in Sylvia Plath‘s art . Those are the voices of the harem, the brothel, the nursery and of the chorus-line.

Poetic invisibility becomes not a diminishment of the voice of woman but a nowhere for a woman writer  to hang her hook,  or to  resonate with women’s experiences of war, of birth , of death. VIDA alluded to this  issue in The Count, which I have linked here.  Eavan Boland spoke of this lack in our imagining here .

The second short link that I am adding to today’s blog is my Review of Little editions for writing .ie, which is linked to this Poethead post.

Links to  the Jane Hirshfield and Eavan Boland  interviews are here,

http://vidaweb.org/human-lives-a-conversation-between-jane-hirshfield-and-leslie-mcgrath

Exploring Poetry’s Lesser Space ,Interview with Eavan Boland http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2007/03/11/exploring_poetrys_lesser_space/

John Felstiner, a translation of Todesfuge, by Paul Celan

“Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at morning and midday we drink you at evening
we drink and we drink
A man lives in the house he plays with his vipers he writes
he writes when it grows dark to Deutschland your golden hair Margareta
Your ashen hair Shulamith we shovel a grave in the air where you won’t lie too cramped”  (Todesfuge/ ST 2)

(from Paul Celan, Poet, Survivor, Jew .  John Felstiner ,Yale University Press, 2005 )

The above poem is excerpted from John Felstiner’s biography of Paul Celan, Paul Celan, Poet,  Survivor, Jew  , published 2005 by Yale University Press.  I lived with the poem  for a week in Mayo recently , where I transcribed it a number of times in order to get its music. 

During my transcriptions, I came across another rendering of the poem on YouTube, which I am adding here,  that  translation is by Gerald Duffy. I am unhappy with the YouTube , possibly because I think it is read too fast, and maybe in this case some of the music feels lost. I am adding an onlineversion of this masterful work here for Poethead  readers , as I feel that the poem should be read for the reader to hear Celan’s movement and music.

John Felstiner devotes a considerable amount of his text discussing the reasons for his choice of words in his translation of the poem,  and for that reason alone I would recommend the books and his notes on the difficulty the poem presents to the translator. I do not know if the book is online but the relevant chapter of the book is,  A Fugue After Auschwitz (1944-45 ) /your ashen hair Shulamith.

Felstiner discusses the state of the  poet  who had lost both parents to the camps, his MS work and Todesfuge as the Guernica of post-war European literature.

Todesfuge is immense, challenging and multi-layered as a work. The story of the Death Tango is known to many people, there are images available to us. Celan composed the work in 1944 ,when information was beginning to emerge about the Final Solution.  Well over a decade later Sylvia Plath would struggle with those images and convert them into her  tropes and archetypes, Sachs and Bachmann struggled with words and images to convey the horror. Celan wrote it in 1944 with immediacy and utter control. Felstiner admits that it took him years to render as faithfully as possible the movement and symbols within the poem. His discussion of the problems with the poem is worth the book alone. Here in this poem is encapsulated the fear and helplessness of the final solution. I have read and listened to the poem over and over but nothing quite brings it right home than its transcription (in Felstiner’s translation).

“He shouts play death more sweetly this Death is a master from Deutschland
he shouts scrape your strings darker you’ll rise up as smoke to the sky
you’ll then have a grave in the clouds where you won’t lie too cramped ” (Todesfuge /ST 5)

The entire poem is at the following link ,though I would recommend the Felstiner chapters for discussion on the translator’s art and Paul Celan’s poetry :  http://caterina.net/paw/archives/000053.html

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/paul-celan-john-felstiner/1022714270?cm_mmc=borders-_-sku-_-na-_-na&ean=9780300089226&redir=borders

 I wrote a short-story with an embedded poem based on my  transcriptions ,  though I am still reading  the  poem.

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‘Fable’, and ‘Oh Cherry Trees You are Too White For My Heart’ , two poems by Doris Lessing

Author and Poet Doris Lessing

Fable

When I look back I seem to remember singing.
Yet is was always silent in that long warm room.

Impenetrable , those walls , we thought,
Dark with ancient shields.  The light
Shone on the head of a girl or young limbs
Spread carelessly. And the low voices
Rose in the silence and were lost as in water.

Yet, for all it was quiet and warm as a hand,
If one of us drew the curtains
A threaded rain blew carelessly outside.
Sometimes a wind crept, swaying the flames,
And set shadows crouching on the walls,
Or a wolf howled in the wide night outside,
And feeling our flesh chilled we drew together.

But for a while the dance went on -
That is how it seems to me now:
Slow forms moving calm through
Pools of light like gold net on the floor.
It might have gone on, dream-like, for ever.

But between one year and the next – a new wind blew ?
The rain rotted the walls at last ?
Wolves’ snouts came thrusting at the fallen beams ?

It  is so long ago.
But sometimes I remember the curtained room
And hear the far-off youthful voices singing.

 Fable  from Fourteen Poems by Doris Lessing

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Oh Cherry trees you are too white for my heart

‘ Oh Cherry trees you are too white for my heart,
And all the ground is whitened with your dying,
And all your boughs go dipping towards the river,
And every drop is falling from my heart.’

Now if there is justice in the angel with the bright eyes
He will say ‘Stop!’ and hand me a bough of cherry.
The bearded angel, four-square and straight like a goat
Lifts a ruminant head and slowly chews at the snow.

Goat, must you stand here?
Must you stand here still?
Is it that you will always stand here,
Proof against faith, proof against innocence ?

Oh Cherry Trees You Are too White For My Heart, from Fourteen Poems , by Doris Lessing.

Oh Cherry Trees You Are Too White For My Heart and Fable, two Poems 1959
Copyright Doris Lessing, are reprinted by kind permission of Jonathan Clowes
Ltd., London , on behalf of Doris Lessing.

Blogging Doris Lessing’s  Poetry , two posts on Poethead.

 http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/11/12/i-have-been-reading-doris-lessings-fourteen-poems-this-week/

http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/doris-lessings-poems/

A Saturday Woman Poet, Enda Wyley .

Socrates in The Garden

In his world he moves, 
January light fooling
this place into beauty - 
broken glass glittering 
on the flats’ side lane, 
white graffitti translucent
on the school wall; 
Pushers out!…Egg head… 
Fuck off…Wanker Meehan.
Old shoes, their laces tied, 
dangle over electricity wires,
beside pulled-apart phones
flung there, high above 
burnt mattresses, gutted cars 
and rusting bikes -
used needles jabbing the way 
the children go to school.

Parents yell,
their calls like cigarette ash
billowing out
in front of their washing
hung from shabby balconies,
the grandmothers busy below
with Moore Street prams piled
with fruit, football hats, lighters
fireworks and wrapping paper -
all the stolen seasons trundling
their way to the market
down roads Matt Talbot roamed
with drink, then manic prayer,
his chains the size of a horse’s trace
wrapped around his body
one hot June day,
where he fell on Granby lane.

And in this world, 
Margaret goes to get married
in a horse- drawn carriage 
around Stephen’s Green.
All skin and bone, 
pneumonia choking 
her final days,
her name will become a ribbon 
and light, on the Christmas tree,
an embroidered square 
on a patch-work quilt 
hung in a vast, cold place, 
where the young priest 
talks only to old women, 
the wind outside blowing litter -
caged pigeons set free from rooftops,
rising up oblivious as Liffey gulls.

In his world he moves, 
his head slanted 
against doorways, 
his cheeks bruised 
with the cut of a city night. 
Hearing the cathedral chime 
hourly, cheeky, melodic -
Three Blind Mice… 
In Dublin’s fair city,
he queues at the soup kitchen’s door 
choosing food 
over the bell-ringer’s charm. 
His hunger slouching 
in second-hand clothes
against the city wall, 
is so acute it sends 
early morning nightmares -

How the stained glass 
in Nicholas of Myra cracks,
how Major Sirr rises from his grave
pulling St Weburgh’s apart, 
strutting  down Thomas Street to watch 
Emmet’s delirium beheaded!
And sometimes into his world 
you move, cooling his fever,
wetting his mouth
with fresh basil leaves
of hope, lifting his thoughts,
so that far away,
over the copper domes, lifting his thoughts, 
so that far away, over the copper domes, 
the shut-up, run-down flats, 
he can see in the garden
Socrates -

His toes cracked, his robe 
thrown across shoulders
chipped with neglect, 
part of his nose fallen lost 
among polite glass-houses, 
herbaceous borders
and Victorian signs. 
But his stare is deep-eyed
and his thoughts are river sounds 
original like rain 
on this bright day.
He is finding a space for you both 
in the otherwise wild

of your mid-lives, letting 
your hard city fall way
with each push of the gate 
inwards to his green heaven.

Run to his shape
the willow trees whisper,
Pull our leaves,
like hair from his face -
find his eyes staring,
questioning you.

from  Socrates in the Garden, Dedalus Press, 1998.

Enda Wyley

ENDA WYLEY was born in Dublin in 1966. She has published three collections of poetry with the Dedalus Press: Eating Baby Jesus (1994), Socrates in the Garden (1998) and Poems For Breakfast (2004). She has twice been a winner in the British National Poetry Competition and was the inaugural recipient of The Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. She has also received an M.A. in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She has been widely anthologised, including in the Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Irish Women’s Writing and Tradition, Vols. 4 & 5. In 1997 and 2001 she was awarded bursaries in Literature from the Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.

Published with the kind permission of Dedalus Press , Dublin  http://www.dedaluspress.com/poets/wyley.html

Mick Heaney , Arts vs politics: We haven’ t got the balance right

This brief post comprises a link to Mick Heaney’s article in the Irish Times of  18/11/2011,  regarding a symbiotic relation between the politics of the State and Irish Arts in Ireland.

I have decided to link the article here,  as blogging is a way of retaining record of items of interest that might otherwise be subsumed beneath current issues. I was unsure whether I should provide excerpts from  the Heaney article , or to try and create a contextualisation for my reaction to the piece in terms of previous arts posts that are collected here on Poethead.

In the end I decided that the issue of Arts vs Politics is too important against any attempt of mine to extract pithy comment from it for readers. I have decided to limit this post to a full link to the piece, and some relevant links to what I consider to be a deep and unchallenged cultural ossification that was set in motion in 2003 by the De Valeresque  Arts Act introduced by Seán O Donoghue T.D (Fianna Fáil), that not alone remains on our statute but was unchallenged by the current government in a single party manifesto in the run up to the last Irish general election.

It seems that our current politicians do not have any ideas about art in its cultural context save their continued financing through the flawed 2003 Act, and the realisation of the arts as an extension of the business of government, which was the main thrust of that Act. A symbiotic relationship between the narrative of the state and the work of the artist can only lead to one thing , the lessening of the independence of the arts rather than the ennobling of the State:  State Art , or art as an expression  or extension of the concerns of  state.

Related links for Mick Heaney ‘Arts vs Politics ‘ : 

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/features/2011/1118/1224307762758.html

Do Arts Cuts hit the right note ? http://poethead.wordpress.com/2010/12/10/excellent-irish-times-article-on-arts-and-culture-do-arts-cuts-hit-the-right-note-10122010/

The 2003 Arts Act and Related links : http://poethead.wordpress.com/the-2003-arts-act/ The Arts Act (2003) can be downloaded at the following link, http://www.oireachtas.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/acts/2003/a242003.pdf

Post III , Poetry at the Games

Post  is a Review of Poetry Studies from the Irish Centre  for Poetry Studies at the Mater Dei Insititute , Dublin City University (D.C.U). The third issue of Post was launched this week and there is  .pdf copy available to interested readers now online,  I have linked it at the base of this piece.

Derek Beaulieu's poem-conundrums appear throughout Post III

Michael Hind’s editorial about Post  III,  and the poetry of sport sets the framework for the third issue,  and sets  some difficulties with it into their proper context.  Contributors are Katelyn Ferguson on  (Brendan) Kennelly on and off  the blocks ,  Jonathan Silverman ‘trackside vigilance’, Christodoulos Makris , Stephen Wilson,  Niall Murphy, Roy Goldblatt , Alexandra Tauvray , Ian Leask ,  and there’s even a review by me about Jeet Thayil’s selection of Contemporary Indian Poets for Bloodaxe.  

Christodoulos Markis’  read from Spitting Out The Mother Tongue on the evening of the launch ,  and the poems are available in the Post III .pdf  ,  Christodoulos’  blog is here . The above image is by Derek Beaulieu,  I am also linking to his blog .

My contribution to Post III was to look at Jeet Thayil’s book, and I greatly enjoyed his approach to it’s editing which was of a non-chronological construction and was well-populated with women writers , who have stepped from behind  the classical  Indian constructs of beauty and silence to speak at last . I hope Jeet likes the review , as I have sent it to him (with some trepidation). Two of the women from the Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets have appeared on the pages of Poethead before now . I am linking Imtiaz Dharker’s site , as I have become incredibly fond of her writing as a result of the introduction she received in Jeet Thayil’s book. My review is on pages 130-134 of Post III.

Imtiaz Dharker image from her gallery

I am adding here an excerpt from Imtiaz Dharker’s  Living Space ,

 ”Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space

and even dared to place

these eggs in a wire basket,

fragile curves of white

hung out over the dark edge

of a slanted universe,”

‘Living Space ‘ , image and poem by Imtiaz Dharker.

.

Poetry by Imtiaz Dharker is available at her website  , and linked in at Poetry international Web . Thank you to Jeet Thayil who contacted me about the review of his book, and who appreciates my emphasis on the women poet’s emergence from behind the classical  ( and often constructed) representations of women. I have published a brief link to Dharker before now,  here. 

Post III , Poetry at the Games 

.

T.S Eliot and the death of poetry

The image is from this BBC report.

Poetry was once  important as a part of  our culture,  and as an  art.  

This week , the Ted Hughes memorial-stone  made headlines , it  is sited near to T.S Eliot’s memorial-stone in Poet’s Corner  at Westminster Abbey.  I have linked the report above here. Unfortunately, T.S Eliot’s memory, and  his work for poetry has reached the headlines for entirely different reasons this week. Two poets had withdrawn from the T.S Eliot Prize , as of Wednesday the 7th of December. Alice Oswald withdrew on the 6th of December, citing her ethical refusal to accept the sponsorship of Aurum (a hedge-fund group), she was closely  followed in what amounted to an ethical boycott of the prize by John Kinsella on the following morning (7th of December).

The T.S Eliot Prize was targeted for ACE funding cuts in 2011 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition, alongside nine other poetry publishers or groups. I blogged about this at the time, but I am adding here a Guardian report on the issue. It interests me that small groups dedicated to the art of poetry were treated with such disdain in England, although it happened in Ireland also (in 2010). 

Those amongst us who read poetry and indeed the biographies of poets like Ted  Hughes, Richard  Murphy, T.S Eliot and others ( William Trevor) will be aware that the idea of poetry was supported by the BBC, by successive U.K  governments and by the reading public. Poetry was a recognised art form, uncheapened by celebrity-status , or the red-carpet treatments meted out to the sorriest attempts at biography here in Ireland (for instance). I expect that this was because poetry’s  place was recognised as having a literary value, which cannot be equated to a monetary-value. 

When I looked at the Hughes memorial  images ,  although it does not show the proximity of the Hughes and Eliot stones, I truly wondered if it were not actually poetry that was being memorialized as a literary-form ?  Societies like the Poetry Book Society have for the current government in the U.K  little or no value. I believe that the same thing is happening here under the aegis of the 2003 Arts Act which saw cuts to two Irish Writer’s Centres,  and a city  council cut to the Poetry Now Festival !  These festivals and centres provide the life-blood of small press buying and selling,  and thus fund poets. There are quite a few pages and posts on this site about the unwonted closeness that exists between funders and politicians,  which I believe was created in the 2003 Arts Act and that I discussed here. It would really be tragic if poetry as a form was set to cultural ossification because government (who support and appoint arts organisations) saw it as not a seller.

Already too much art is caught into utilitarianism here in Ireland, and what was not considered art is being supported by government in the form of tax-reliefs and other incentives. I do believe that we are gone quite topsy-turvy in how we read , or do not read, in this instance.  I’d be scrutinising the lobby-groups that got arts money…..

BBC Film here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-16055750

T.S Eliot and the death of poetry by C Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

‘Geasa’, le Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.

Geasa/The Bond

Má chuirim aon lámh ar an dtearmann beannaithe,
má thógaim droichead thar an abhainn,
gach a mbíonn tógtha isló ages na ceardaithe
bíonn sé leagtha ar maidin romham.

Tagann  aníos an abhainn istoíche bád
is bean ina seasamh  inti.
Tá coinneal ar lasadh ina súil is ina lámha.
Tá dhá mhaide rámha  aici.

Tairrigíonn sí amach paca cartaí,
‘An imréofá brieth?’  a deireann sí.
Imrímid is buann sí orm de shíor
is cuireann sí de cheist, de bhreith is de mhórualach orm

Gan an tarna béile a ithe in aon tigh,
ná an tarna oíche a chaitheamh faoi aon díon,
gan dhá shraic chodlata a dhéanamh ar aon leaba
go bhfaighead í.  Nuair a fhiafraím di cá mbíonn sí,

‘Dá mba siar é soir, ‘ a deireann sí, ‘dá mba soir é sior.’
Imíonn sí léi agus splancacha tintrí léi
is fágtar ansan mé ar an bport.
Tá an dá choinneal fós ar lasadh le mo thaobh.

D’fhág sí na maidi rámha agam.’

Geasa,  le Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill,  as Pharaoh’s Daughter.  Gallery Press. 1990. This poem is from Pharaoh’s Daughter by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, 1990, Gallery Press (Editor Peter Fallon).  With thanks to Gallery Press for permission to reproduce here. I have added poet Medbh McGuckian‘s translation at link http://poethead.wordpress.com/2011/12/17/the-bond-by-nuala-ni-dhomhnaill/

‘The Pharaoh’s Daughter ‘, Gallery Press,1990.

The Bond, by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, translated by Medbh McGuckian.

2011 poetry news, and online information for poets.

Given that the Irish Times Books of the Year did not make mention of poetry books for 2011 , I thought to add some links to Irish poetry  presses and imprints for those readers of poetry who are not catered for in the list-system. I have to say that I do not think of such ephemera as dates when I approach a book of poetry and my reading included some 2010 volumes (and earlier).  The beauty of poetry is that it is timeless and  poetry books are always relevant. I am going to add links for some poetry publishers, and then some good online resources for readers and writers of poetry. I wonder how many of the books at link will survive the test of time ? (or even taste,  ” So good, so funny, so real, so very, very sad” , is what amounts to review in the article).

Irish presses and poetry journals.

The Gallery Press  have an eminently worthwhile list of poets and writers, I am adding a link  to their online catalogue for this and for previous years. http://www.gallerypress.com/wprs/shop/category/poetry/

Dedalus Press  is a vibrant and industrious publisher of Irish titles , their catalogue can be found here

Salmon Press  has a wonderful list of poets, and this year published Ann le Marquand Hartigan and Nuala Ní Chonchúir amongst other titles,  http://www.salmonpoetry.com/bookshop2.php?c2=2

Cló iar-Chonnacht  has an eclectic  list of Irish Language artists, both musical and poetic , http://www.cic.ie/books.aspx for all ages of readers

I can add to this list Poetry Ireland , The SHOp Magazine , Moth (Little Editions) , Post (DCU) , Crannóg , Burning Bush , The Munster Literature Centre ( and Southword), The Western Writers Centre, Over the Edge, Tigh Filí , and The Irish Writer’s Centre . Online Poetry concerns include Writing.ie , Emerging Writer , Wurm in Apfel , Nuala Ní Chonchúir, and all of the above mentioned presses that use online as a source of income and connection for writers.

2011 bits and pieces.

I reviewed a few books this year and I have blogged these over the past twelve months, I liked Jeet Thayil‘s edition of Contemporary Indian Poetry and told him too, The moth magazine ‘Little Editions’  , Susan Lindsay’s ‘Whispering the Secrets, John Walsh’s ‘Chopping Wood with T.S Eliot, Human Chain by Seamus Heaney. I intend to get Memorial, by Alice Oswald and I  will probably blog that too. AND this year 2011, I published some almost lost Doris Lessing Poems Here , in all a wonderful poetic year for me as a reader and writer.

This year saw the cutting of funds to Poetry Now ! and barely a whisper of protest in the media, and there was some controversy at the T.S Eliot Prize . My  favourite story of the year had to be the restoration of  Sue Hubbard’s ‘Eurydice’.  The fourth annual Turn at Tara occurred, although some newspapers would rather not look at the wound created by rampant planning unbalanced by a single heritage and conservation bill in over a decade!  Poetry happens in the most wonderful places , although these places are generally  not full of  literary- liggers. Two wonderful editors had a spat, although Irish media coverage of same was void ,empty. I really do wonder if poetry loses importance due to the glitter and tinsel of PR management, and souped-up interest in disposable tales (the type that makes it to the charity-shops within  three-four week periods of publication and sells for 1-2 Euros ?).

As is usual , I have to say that good poetry discussion occurs at  Jacket2, UBUWEB, The Poetry Foundation , Salt , Anon. Pierre Joris’  Nomadics is an interesting site for those interested in translation and outsider poetics.

Other newspapers have published poetry lists for 2011.

Boston Globe list http://bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2011/12/18/best-poetry-books/EMwDBZdDcYcbfbVNhLyh6L/story.html

Independent, http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/poetry-songs-of-elegance-and-of-experience-6278591.html

Guardian List  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/poetry

And some New Yorker choices from 2011: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/

The Harriet Blog, 2011 list http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2011/12/the-poetry-foundation-staffs-favorite-books-of-2011/ (Poetry Foundation)

and then there was this…..http://zito.biz/fuckyou/?p=2533 (Fuck You Blog)

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2011/12/the-year-in-reading-poetry.html (New Yorker 2011 Poetry List)

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/29/144197310/truth-and-beauty-2011s-best-american-poetry?sc=tw&cc=share David Orr’s Selection of 2011 Poetry books

Trees, by Ágnes Nemes Nagy

Trees

“Learn. The winter trees.
Hoarfrosted crown to root.
Immovable curtains.
-
And learn too of the zone
where a crystal steams
and trees merge into mists,
as the body in recollection of it.
-
And behind the trees , the river
mute wings of the wild duck
the whiteblind blue night
of hooded objects standing:
it is here we must learn the trees’
inexpressible deeds.”
-
Trees by Ágnes Nemes Nagy, from Between , Selected Poems of Ágnes Nemes Nagy, translated by Hugh Maxton, Corvina Press , Budapest and Dedalus Press , Dublin. 1988. I reviewed the book here for Poetry Ireland. I am adding here a small sample of Nagy’s poetic prose from the Between volume (Corvina and Dedalus, 1988).

‘Song’ by Edith Sitwell

‘Said the Bee to the Lion
‘ My life is a gold prayer-’
Said the laughing Sun
‘My life is the gold air’
.
Said the Lion to the Bee
‘My life is that of the sun ; in hot gold, I rage through
the gold air’
.
But I who have known the weight of the August air
And the gold heat in the heart
.
Am like a bright small star in a starry sky
Bright to myself only.’

by Edith Sitwell.

This poem is from the 1962 edition of The Outcasts, Macmillan and Company Limited. I am adding here the Poetry Foundation link to Edith  Sitwell’s  archive and bibliography. There is a short note linked on this blog about Transcribing Edith Sitwell, from the Women Writers, Women Books site.

Cutting the cloth to fit the wearer, recent press about women-poets.

This post is a short-form critique based on recent media-coverage of those women poets who had not alone dared to hoist their poetic-petards , but to have achieved a popularity which is  altogether more meaty than winsome-domestic. Last week, I alluded in my Tweets and indeed in this blog to the issue of poetic critique. I am taking the idea of critique a step further now, and examining the acreage of press devoted to a negative representation of women-poets that somehow manages to generate column inches but ignores the actual material :  the poems that the women write.

Unlike Rita Dove,  Helen Vendler,  and Alice Oswald , Carol Ann Duffy has (this time) escaped the pariah-like status conferred on women poets by a media more interested in looking for gossip than adequately reviewing their books. The recent rows between Dove and Vendler, have, I believe , been generated by a bored media that needs to play fire with the writers rather than examine the middle-ground in what has become a race-row. Very few editors looked at the Dove/Vendler row in it’s proper context; anthologies nearly always involve controversial choices. Nope ! far better to  have a bit of mud-wrestling between two women editors of great merit , than to question the limits on  their editorship, or why indeed so few women attain the level of literary acceptance to achieve an editorship in the first place.  It is all about the row between the women , and not the relative merit of two women’s work and what they both have contributed to literary-America.

Alice Oswald had the temerity to withdraw from the T.S Eliot prize, and for this acres of column were devoted to examining the finances of poets and the perceived silliness of her principles. The issue of her withdrawal even made it into a paragraph in the Loose Leaves column of the Irish Times. The book itself, Memorial, has not achieved a critique within some of the very papers that reported her  withdrawal from the T.S Eliot prize. Memorial apparently has no merit for the poet-critic,  but the row is highly important to the people who collate the gossip-inches.

Is this is what it is about ?

Women’s poetry becomes a reductio ad absurdum in terms of what editors consider to be marketable variety, whilst also ignoring the books, the work and their devotion to their medium?  Where is the discussion on the Iliad, the discussion on the merit of editors like both Vendler and Dove ? I am only glad that commissioning editors in these cases actually mentioned the books, I’ll do my own reviews and reading rather than be lead by low gossip-mongers and silly headlines.

The question of the visibility of women writers raised by Boland in God’s Make their Own Importance can indeed be qualified with ‘maybe sometime they will actually review the books  of those authors that they so casually traduce in their (er) newspapers‘.

Edit January 20/01/2012: More incisive critique in the London independent today by Boyd-Tonkin , using a stock-image of Alice Oswald, and of course reminding the reader that T.S Eliot was a banker (as the Telegraph did in December 2011)

Women Poets from the Blog (page) 

Cutting the cloth to fit the wearer, recent press about women-poets. by C Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

An evening of women’s literature at the Irish Writer’s Centre (06/01/2012)

The Irish Writer’s Centre,  last evening  06/01/2012,  hosted along with Dublin City Council a celebration of women’s poetry, music and literature to mark Oíche Nollaig Na mBan (Women’s Christmas). The event was presented by June Considine.

And what a night it was.

The event was bi-partite in structure, with readings by three poets and story-tellers to begin, a brief interval filled with music was quickly followed by three more readings by three more women writers. The first half was decidedly poetic, with readings in English and Irish by Celia de Fréine, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill and Eilis Ní Dhuibhne.

Celia De Fréine read In Relation to Each Other, Dearbhail , Celia Óg , and Ophelia. Dearbhail was indeed heart-breaking, the tale of the murder of Dearhbail by jealous women.

Eilis Ní Dhuibhne read two tales , The Man Who Had No Story and The Blind. 

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill read from a few collections, Including from my favourite Pharaoh’s Daughter, with translations by Paul Muldoon,  Michael  Hartnett,  and Dr. Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.  Poems read included , The Language, Dán do Melissa, and Closure.

Music flowed along with wine  as Jane Hughes on cello & Ellen Cranitch on flute played a selection from Carolan and Tchaikovsky, including the much giggled upon Fanny Power.

Interval over, the business of literature reared it’s head in the shape of Mary O Donnell ,who read from a WIP about Northern Ireland , alongside two  poems which were tremendous and indicate a wonderful talent in two quite distinct areas of writerly discipline.

Sarah Clancy charmed the crowd with her Argument Poems , which included Ringing in Sick  To Go Mermaid-Hunting,  Cinderella Backwards , and Riot Act. 

Mia Gallagher topped the evening off with some reading from her upcoming book.

This should not have been a unique evening in the calendar. There  are hints of more such evenings being planned, the audience was mixed  between the sexes and they were always interested. It was utterly charming, eclectic and beautifully balanced. I expect that people who wish more detail on the music and books can contact the Irish Writer’s Centre directly. Kudos to the board, volunteers and organisers for a great evening.

Pic by Stephanie Joy

WordPress release on SOPA/PIPA (11/01/2012)

I am adding here both excerpt and full link to the WordPress appeal to Help Stop SOPA/PIPA. Many people use the WordPress brand from design-level through to hosting. I have used it since 2006 in numerous ways including being part of a group blog, personal blogs and with PEN. The question has to be about who benefits from internet-repression? What vested interests are secured by taking down the innovators , and of course why Congress would attempt laws as repressive as those they have criticised globally ?

It really should not be a case of codifying domestic laws that one appears opposed to on the international stage, nor are the media discussing the possible ramifications of censorships on innovators. As is usual there appears to be an inability to examine the issues.

The  Wordpress excerpt follows :

• In the U.S. our legal system maintains that the burden of proof is on the accuser, and that people are innocent until proven guilty. This tenet seems to be on the chopping block when it comes to the web if these bills pass, as companies could shut down sites based on accusation alone.
• Laws are not like lines of PHP ; they are not easily reverted if someone wakes up and realizes there is a better way to do things. We should not be so quick to codify something this far-reaching.
• The people writing these laws are not the people writing the independent web, and they are not out to protect it. We have to stand up for it ourselves.

Blogging is a form of activism. You can be an agent of change. Some people will tell you that taking action is useless, that online petitions, phone calls to representatives, and other actions won’t change a single mind, especially one that’s been convinced of something by lobbyist dollars. To those people, I repeat the words of Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

We are not a small group. More than 60 million people use WordPress — it’s said to power about 15% of the web. We can make an impact, and you can be an agent of change. Go to Stop American Censorship for more information and a bunch of ways you can take action quickly, easily, and painlessly. The Senate votes in two weeks, and we need to help at least 41 more senators see reason before then. Please. Make your voice heard.

‘and her yellow music caught in the throat of birds’ , by C Murray

and her yellow music caught in the throat of birds

I waited a minute on the wind,
on your roof, outside.

She had been awaiting me in the middle of the day,
having come warm over those seas to find me

high over the little streams and the lakes
she came

and she playing,
and she jumping.
Crying and talking in my ear.

She had carried her warm music over those streams
and over the frail blue flowers that grow on the lakeside.

And you were sleeping soundly.
I left you, I left the city for a little time.

I left the noise of the city, to wait on
the little breeze to bring me news.

and her yellow music caught in the throat of birds

agus a ceol buí a thógail i scornach na h’éanaithe.

© C Murray 

 

and her yellow music caught in the throat of birds by C Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at poethead.wordpress.com.

‘Hippy Get a job’, by Sarah Clancy

Hippy Get a Job

“You might not realise your predictability
but when you caught my eye on Shop Street, at the demo,
I could see the thoughtless words forming in your brain
so before you shout them at me pass-remarkably
let me just stop you there for once, and in the gap between
now and when those words make it from your mouth
into the air between us, let me tell you something;
because I have wrestled with a pitchfork the same size as I was
and shovelled unknown tons of horse manure from sheds
before your mother brought you breakfast toast and tea
on school mornings before your leaving cert.

And when you daydreamed out the window of maths class
from an overheated room into the driving rain
I was lifting bales of sodden hay through the mud and bitter wind
to the bottom field where the old cow died in spring
and because I had small hands I woke a hundred early mornings
to turn unborn lambs around inside their mothers. While you were
filling college application forms and when you were accepted,
bringing weekend washing home on student discount busses
I was pitting my eight stone against half a ton of pulling racehorse
and couldn’t feel my fingers or open my eyes with the rushing wind

You then, qualified and interviewing in your shirt and tie and nerves,
while I was taking sweating tourists on foot through humid rainforests
carrying longhouse chief’s heavy gifts of pineapples nine hours back to base
in a country you don’t have the breath of mind to even imagine,
and nearer home when you guffawed into your pint glass and refused to leave
Taylor’s bar on Sunday early closings I washed your glass, swept the floor
and woke before the county to spend frozen hours putting
rubber bands on live lobster claws in a concrete tank in Bearna

And then I bet you were promoted for your clever corporate antics,
while I did three years mortgage-paying on the night shift
with bleary day time TV addicts and stoners manufacturing,
things you might one day have inserted after too many business lunches
then later on when I decided I needed education and you sat,
with popcorn consuming the latest Hollywood blockbuster
you couldn’t see me upstairs splicing your next bit of entertainment.
You have no idea how long a day is invigilating young accountants
in tedium and silence in dusty exam halls with the smell of fast food fat
still clinging to my clothes from my night time cash in hand gig.

You won’t realise that I have the streets of Galway imprinted on my brain
from delivering pesto and goats cheese pizza to your Knocknacarra sofa
or that I’m an expert on late night radio, and all night petrol stations;
secondary benefits of an un-free education, and now and here,
when I‘ve finally got myself some work I think has merit, and
I chose to use this day off, working to defend the rights of others
don’t be surprised at all at how quickly I abandon my principles of non-violence
and use this placard on you, as a weapon, if you say what you are thinking.”

© Sarah Clancy

Thanks to Sarah Clancy  for the poem,  Hippy Get a Job, which is taken from Thanks for Nothing Hippies , which will be launched in April 2012, by Salmon Poetry. I have featured Phrase Books Never Equip You For The Answers , here.