I’m finding it hard to ‘get going’ this New Year. I managed to extend Christmas as far as possible with a gathering on Epiphany, the Night of Twelfth Night, Russian Orthodox Christmas Eve, before tidying away the Christmas paraphanelia yesterday and then failing to really tackle a list of tasks, many left-over from last year.
At 5am this morning, I woke with a familiar litany of regrets and failures going through my head, got up but then forced myself back to bed and was rewarded with a dream. I ‘m writing a play about Bishop Benson of Truro, later Archbishop of Canterbury. In my dream, I’m giving a party at a neighbour’s house. My neighbour is being very understanding about the increasing number of friends of friends turning up, some rather disreputable, and we are cooking together. Eventually, an old boyfriend of mine, unseen for decades, unexpectedly arrives – his surname is Benson. In my dream, he’s dressed in women’s clothing and as he sits down to talk, in what’s now my house, it’s apparent he’s completely transvestite, spends all his waking hours wearing clothes in a style reminiscent of Mrs Thatcher, or the teachers at my old grammar school. So far, I haven’t a clue about how this will inform my play but the dream is a gift in that it’s energised me and set me thinking.
Since my post that referred to ‘talking poems’, see here, I have been corresponding with poet David Hart who coined the phrase. He sent me some examples including this extract from Ezra Pound’s version of The Seafarer.
I re-read it this morning and it seemed, to borrow T.S. Eliot’s phrase, an objective correlative of my 5am thoughts.
Elements are powerful metaphors. Certainly being ‘at sea’ is one we can all identify with and the list of sea-faring terms used in everyday language seems disproportionate to the role of the sea in most people’s lives.
One poem that never fails to open further and further avenues of thought in a group, is Robert Frost’s Fire and Ice. It is ‘about’ so many things and every time I hear it discussed, I hear new insights.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Yesterday’s stasis felt like ice, I was moving slowly, expending a lot of effort to do small things and it was destructive. I long for some fire in the belly today to cut through and create energy. I read that the active planets at the moment are slow cold Saturn and fiery Mars – bring on some Mars please!
On another note entirely, I guest-blogged yesterday on Writers Retreat about a course, Introduction to Therapeutic Writing due to run at Falmouth University, 4th – 8th February, led by Anne Taylor and me. We need a few more participants so please spread the word to anyone who might be interested.
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VIcky I think that this post-New Year is very debilitating and it’s hard to pick up the threads again – Phil and me both low with flu and bugs. I wrote something about the sea in its elemental sense and its metaphorical self that both energises and also drowns. I hope you won’t mind if I share it with you:
At Sea
On sultry days
the sea lays its grey arms
against the rocks
cradling them
in slow heave.
We think of sea as roister
or else confusions we are in
when we are all at sea
rain on the windows salty
goldfish swimming in the bay.
I want to go night fishing
for words, for the sound of water
draining through the pebbled beach
the slurry of sand as the boat’s
prow carves its way to shore.
I want the birds to burst up behind the boat
to finger the swell like a bosom,
or the sound of music lapping its notes
against a breakwater. The boat slices water;
stormy petrel veering in the wind.
At sea there is no calm without a tremor,
the boat lingers in doldrums that require a storm.
This owes of course to WS Graham and his playing around with language metaphors and images – The Nightfishing is a poem I go back to again and again although this morning I woke with the poem about the side flute in my head Johann Joachim Quantz’s Five Lessons..what about ‘ ……It is best I sit
Here where I am to speak on the other side
Of Language.’? to be able to think it through like him. Mmm.
That phrase ‘I want to go night fishing’ touched a chord – took me to memories of Cornwall too where the sea is so omnipresent. You are right how it energises and drowns. Now I’m further inland and in a bit of the country where the weather is more stable and sunnier, I remember what a strong effect, for better or worse, the constant shifting of sea and sky had on me in Falmouth. What’s on the other side of language? Some fascinating thoughts in R4’s book of the week, The Examined Life. Love to you and Phil xx
I have spent the early part of this year investigating Viking Runes, and one of the things I notice are all the turbulent fricatives. Those ‘v’s in one of the runes I examined look like rows of teeth and there is something primal about their urgent demands for attention.
I love examining the elements of words, especially individual syllables. I feel we should adapt the dictionary as we go along. I could punctuate or divide into stanzas; but one of the things that impresses me most about the Vikings is the combination of solid and liquid and their absolute refusal to be caught. To be able to mix choices without compounding them into a compromise requires vigorous courage.
ice
solated
with radiance
shards
located
in dissolution
men
templated
in animation
land
which stated
fluidity
runes
created
from skaldic spring
04.01.2013 © Katrina
Mainly my inspiration has come from Australian linguists I have met on LinkedIn; but I copied the gist of it onto a Plog this morning: http://www.writingtank.com/a-voyage-of-discovery/
This year, each month I shall be selecting a strand of ancient language and trying to inhabit it until a poem takes shape. It may be too ambitious for a serious objective, but I hope to experience a taste of Greek, Hebrew, Sanskrit and whatever else my beachcombing washes up.
Very interesting Katrina – please try some Georgian! Have a look at the Poetry Translation Centre’s site …
I am hoping that the fire was warming you today or if not, that you found a cozy way to spend the day instead. I myself go between what is required and what feels right — a cozy book to read. Currently I am making my way through Blue Nights by Joan Didion. I really want to make this winter a book reading one. But you have a grander goal of writing your play. I wish you well! Thanks for the learning about “talking” poems and the reminder about Frost’s great poem. Fire or Ice. Which would I choose? I think I’d rather go the fire route, myself. It consumes all and transforms. Hugs to you!
My head has been a bit full and over-active for much reading recently but I plan to start some new books soon. Fires are doing terrible things in Australia at the moment – but yes, transformative. Happy new year and hugs and love to you and Brad xx