The Guttural Muse

Late summer, and at midnight
I smelt the heat of the day:
At my window over the hotel car park
I breathed the muddied night airs off the lake
And watched a young crowd leave the discotheque.

Their voices rose up thick and comforting
As oily bubbles the feeding tench sent up
That evening at dusk – the slimy tench
Once called the ‘doctor fish’ because his slime
Was said to heal the wounds of fish that touched it.

A girl in a white dress
Was being courted out among the cars:
As her voice swarmed and puddled into laughs
I felt like some old pike all badged with sores
Wanting to swim in touch with soft-mouthed life.

Seamus Heaney

This poem was originally published in the June 25, 1979 issue of The New Yorker. It was reprinted in the September 9, 2013 issue just after Heaney’s death on August 30.

Guttural – deep throated sound with the connotation of coming from the gut
Muse – inspirational motivation voice from within that excites the senses for response

S1 – I think his room is high up … that the window is open … that in the evening he has been walking near the lake … it has been a hot day (late August is my guess as to the time of year) … overlooking the car-park gives the sense that it is not a great room

‘the muddied night air’ … this may say something of where he is personally … he is disturbed and can’t sleep … and takes interest in the young crowd leaving the disco … he becomes distracted

S2 – you now have the sense that he is alone … that the voices comfort … ‘thick’ linking with guttural. These voices are perhaps bubbles of oxygen to him … and he knows the story of the tench … a fish associated with the healing other fish … does he need to be healed … perhaps healing already started by the connection with the group of young people

S3 – ‘a girl in a white dress’ … white is essential to contrast with his dark mood … and a girl … the male to female fit … her voice ‘swarmed and puddled into laughs’ – well he has been stung and puddled again links with guttural … as well as being a little playful as puddles are with children … especially as laughter flows …

‘old pike badged with sores’ … he now tells of age and of having survived as a fish … but fish-life has given many sores … he wears his experiences in life in his body

All he wants … ‘to swim in touch with soft-mouthed life’ … to be healed of his ache to be young again … to be inspired … the guttural sounds are soft to him … and all he wants is a touch … to be connected … or is it re-connected with his youth

I am reminded of a Phillip Larkin poem.

To Keep a True Lent

Is this a fast, to keep
The larder lean?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep ?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish ?

Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour ?

No ;  ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate ;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent ;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin ;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick 1648

Well we are in Lent … and how many of us are refraining from a usual activity of some sort … my guess is not many. Above is a clear message in carefully chosen rhyming words to not ‘close down’ and make a mournful show but to open up and give heartily … ‘a fast to dole / thy sheaf of wheat and meat / unto the hungry soul’ … and your soul as well as other souls perhaps.

So the question is what should/(or can) you do to nourish your soul?

The suggestion is to go to the heart of the matter and … ‘to starve thy sin / not bin.‘ … I really like the nice play of simple easily digested words in this poem … and I think I would not be too far wrong if I said that most people think of Lent as a period of denial in some area of food or drink.

Another interesting thought is on old debates that are passed their use-by-date … in the poem – whether or not to circumcise – so another question … the extent that we are harbouring dead issues (I nearly said tissues).

Musee de Beaux Arts

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W H Auden (1907 – 1973)

In this poem Auden considers suffering … it is brought to our attention in the very first line … and of course the poem is written in relation to Breughel’s Icarus painting where life goes on all around the dramatic event of Icarus falling to earth. Well life does go on for those that are not suffering … however the suffering of others does impinge on our live in some way … especially as nowadays the events of the world are so easily brought to the attention of the wide-world. I guess it is easy to get depressed with what is occurring in other parts of the world … especially so if we have some personal connection to that part of the world. So what should be our response? and how do such events effect our everyday life? These are the questions that came to my mind when reading this poem.

It would be nice to be ignorant of all the problems in the world … ‘the torturer’s horse scratches its innocent behind on a tree’ … and children go on playing while grown-ups perhaps grown too much with worldly affairs. I think this poem says something about living life at the micro level … about concentrating on where we are and what we are doing.

… and perhaps it is all a question of balance and for all the worries in the world there are far more wonderful things happening in the everyday movement of ordinary life. So for those that can sail calmly on enjoy the day!

To hear W. H. Auden read this poem go the following YouTube link … and at 44 mins 11 seconds you will here the words …

A documentary by BBC 4 on Auden and Love Poetry … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvezOvM_VgQ

Of Language

I

How now, Horatius! Hath language hours?
Sleeps it awhile to wake again renewed,
As chrysalids pupate the many-hued?
Or aging, man-like, hath it mellowed powers?
Sometimes (I dream) language, like Time, devours
The end that earliest it urgent wooed,
Changing its dandling to still stranger brood
As flowers will change to seed, and seed to flowers!
And this crude speech of ours we use today,
Crude as new must, Time-ripened may seem fine
As anything we heard great Sydney say,
Or Shakespeare plunder from the muses Nine;
While future times may, even here, unpack
All that these few poor words, so halting lack!

II

Flower turns to seed, and seed returns – a flower
One seed makes many flowers, one flower much seed.
Thus from a word shall mighty thinking breed,
And single thoughts to words increase the dower.
Are not all words old thought new-set to power,
Late-visible where we, late-come, may read,
Losing in them the habit of the weed,
And climbing where, unlearned, we still must cower?

Speak not of history in stone! For I
Can show you history written deeper yet –
The simple words nor youth nor age forget
Passed lip to lip as centuries went by;
The caravans of years these leave behind,
Shards for which man made ladders for the mind.

Mary Gilmore 1919

Well what is the nature of language? How does it vary with time and interpretation over time. These two sonnets by Mary Gilmore explore these questions. Much thought has been given to the nature of language as well as adherence to sonnet structure.

Looking at the first line – ‘Hath language hours’ … well ‘hath’ is not a word used nowadays but quite common years ago – so here we see a word that has changed in usage over time so in this sense language has hours. Definition (or understanding) may have hours too … for example the common association and meaning of word ‘gay’. But will words (or text) have a deeper or new understanding that future generations might unravel, for example an insight laying latent for many years. I think more the case that new generations will extend or use the words of the past in new creations of their own.

Of course context at the time of writing is highly in the mind of the reader who lives in that time. For future generations may not understand the relevance or appreciate any sting that might have been in the words at the time of writing. But I do like the notion of words as seeds.

Seeds lie in the ground and they are dead until they germinate. Words only come alive when they are read or heard by a person. The understanding, interpretation and associative images and thoughts conveyed by words is in many ways a highly personal and unique experience. I may mention a ‘wheel barrow’ – you may see a red one straight away for what ever reason – so the ‘flowers’ that are generated may be many types – not too mention any vegetables suddenly appearing out of the ground because of strong personal association.

From a word mighty things may breed. Well all words are the product of thought – we think before we speak or write. I think this is the case even for spontaneous output – what do you think? … it doesn’t have to be true of course … that’s another issue. So all words are reflective, history … the product of old-thought … and as Mary Gilmore says, – ‘are not all words old thought new-set to power’.

Of course it could be argued that poetry is often the product of much thought but whether that makes the words more or less powerful in the mind of the reader is of course debatable (I nearly said food for thought).

… and I do like the last lines … history is not cold stone … history is living a history linked by the words expressed from generation to generation … history is attached to every word as death is attached to life.

For those reading this from Oz have a look at a $10 note and you will see Mary Gilmore.

Words

Axes
After whose stroke the wood rings,
And the echoes!
Echoes traveling
Off from the center like horses.

The sap
Wells like tears, like the
Water striving
To re-establish its mirror
Over the rock

That drops and turns,
A white skull,
Eaten by weedy greens.
Years later I
Encounter them on the road—-

Words dry and riderless,
The indefatigable hoof-taps.
While
From the bottom of the pool, fixed stars
Govern a life.

Sylvia Plath (written in the same month that she died – February 1963)

S1 – Well axes are sharp and cutting their purpose to bite into wood. Words when released for consumption can be sharp and cutting – very true for SP as I think TH would surely agree! They can move from the centre of the person especially if they have been well thought out … and like horses travel … to whom they go is another matter … and what they mean as they are met by travellers who take any notice is again another matter entirely, but once released they can travel far and forever perhaps … SP’s words are at this very moment reaching the minds of many.

S2 – SP’s words were always part of her very being … the sap in the wood … and when released it is impossible for her to recover completely perhaps … or at least settle back to where she was before … you could say it was as though each of her poems was her own baby – I can accept a certain poetic life to this view … however, in this poem we have the intensity of the release of her words in terms of tears and sap, the essence of wood is sap … tears flow from her passion and of course from the head (link to skull) … and we know she put her very soul into much of her writing … and indeed her writing was at times a desperate cry for help given her mental instability.

S3 – words come from the head and thought … and years later this will be the fate of the body … an empty skull … empty after the initial disclosure … and many years later SP perhaps looks back, reflects on what she once wrote … dry and riderless … they are beyond her control and they never have the intensity that they had when first written … I guess the same for everyone who writes from the heart.

S4 … they are indefatigable … never tiring they will travel forever … and in line with horses in the first stanza they are as hoof-taps that will never lose their sound. They come from the rock the solid bottom of the pool … in line with stanza 2 … SP the rock and a rock that is governed by the stars – a distinct spiritual dimension to her life … governed by something outside herself … something fixed and external as the stars above the universe.

The Walk

You did not walk with me
Of late to the hill-top tree
By the gated ways,
As in earlier days;
You were weak and lame,
So you never came,
And I went alone, and I did not mind,
Not thinking of you as left behind.

I walked up there to-day
Just in the former way;
Surveyed around
The familiar ground
By myself again:
What difference, then?
Only that underlying sense
Of the look of a room on returning thence.

Thomas Hardy

Very poignant simple direct words straight to the point and from personal experience.

  S1 – TH speaks of the ritual of a familiar walk without the usual accompaniment of his spouse because she is unable to come due to ill-health … but TH took her with her so to speak remembering the many times they had walked together … he did not mind – ‘not thinking of you as left behind’ … (and when he returned she would be there in the room to share his return … we can infer this after we read the second stanza).
S2 – TH again takes the familiar walk … and what difference then … he was again walking by himself and with his wife in mind … but as he walks he is painfully reminded that the room will be different when he returns and there will be no communion and sharing.

… and here is a link to some images of Thomas Hardy’s home ‘Max Gate’ in Dorset now a National Trust property … he would have had his dogs for company too

No Coward Soul is Mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — Undying Life — have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men’s hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou — Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

Emily Bronte (1818 – 1848)

According to Charlotte Bronte, these were the last lines written by her sister.

A very powerful personal declaration of her understanding of life and God … and in no uncertain terms! The second stanza in particular affirms her internal knowledge in the context of an eternal connectivity … and a connectivity that can never be broken … declared emphatically in the last line.

The third stanza negates the conventional institutional religion of her day. She was brought up in the small parsonage at Haworth and would be well versed in religion. Two strong similes (withered weeds, and froth on the main (ocean). She breaks through the constrictions of ordinary life … the freeing of the spirit against convention.

The fifth stanza emphasing the creativity of life … by one who had great creativity herself (Wuthering Heights) … as well as passion.

When I read this poem at a poetry meeting … one fellow said  ‘nailing your flag to the mast’ … what an apt expression … appropriate task for one nearing death.