Bowled Over – Ted Hughes – Analysis

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Bowled Over

By kiss of death, bullet on brow,
No more life can overpower
That first infatuation, world cannot
Ever be harder or clearer or come
Closer than when it arrived there

Spinning its patched fields, churches
Trees where nightingales sang in broad daylight
And vast flaring blue skirts of sea –
Then sudden insubordination
Of boredom and sleep

When the eyes could not find their keys
Or the neck remember what mother whispered
Or the body stand to its word.

Desertion in the face of a bullet!

Buried without honours.

Ted Hughes 1930 – 1998 (fromWodwo, 1967)

Wodwo – the first release from Ted Hughes following the death of Sylvia Plath in February 1963.

Looking at this poem in the context of the personal life of TH and SP and not just the loss of first love euphoria …

S1 … well that first intense feeling of love, falling in love when young and foolish, never to come again perhaps – in short being bowled over (apt cricket words for a Yorkshire man) – and a knock-out blow as in a kiss of death or bullet on the brow … this is a reflection looking back to that feeling – and what a feeling it was – the world never harder never clearer – my immediate thoughts on that first encounter of TH with SP, reflecting back some four years after her death … would that feeling ever come again … a very hard road after the death of SP and the catering for his two children from their marriage

S2 … this is what it is all about … love sending the mind spinning – a dizzy feeling as the environment adjusts to the euphoria and nightingales sing in daylight … shows how the world changes with emotional state – but then the last two lines – insubordination, disobedience, a rebellion boredom and sleep … the coming down from the hilltop … putting into the context of his broken marriage a self-disobedience (but living with SP and her mental instability not easy)

S3 … the resultant effect of his disobedience – eyes could not find their keys – what a wonderful way of saying that he could never unlock the door to the way it was … and
the neck never able to remember – thinking of the comfort of a mother to a boy in bed who could not rest … and then in terms of words – false to the word, false to the word of love by his disobedience

S4 … desertion in the face of a bullet (love) … perhaps this maybe the way he feels … well it was his initiative when he left SP – however, he didn’t completely desert her and cared very much for her well-being and helped her find accommodation in London

S5 … Buried without honours … a sense of depression on the way things had turned out … perhaps a wish he had stayed with SP – especially after the aftermath resultant from her tragic death … love buried without honours.

Independent of the personal context of TH and SP. This poem is a look back on the common life experience of first love euphoria after the relationship has ended for whatever reason. The relationship always remains part of us in some form or other. Whether it is buried without honours or carried forward as a latent embellishment is another matter.

TH served as  UK Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death in 1998. A link to Ted Hughes on Wikipedia.

The Conclusion of Joseph Turrill – Andrew Motion – Analysis

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The Conclusion of Joseph Turrill
Garsington, Oxfordshire, 1867

I suppose I was cut out for a quiet life;
whether I have managed any such thing
is another matter,
what with larks to shoot,
and harvesting, gooseberries, and whatnot.

Then there was all that with Netty:
would she or wouldn’t she;
did I or didn’t I?
It is my belief
I spent more hours kicking my heels at her gate
than happy the other side.

Be that as it may,
Anno Domini drives out stern matters of fact,
and faults that appear to us
when we compare the lives we have
with those we imagine…
There’s nothing a gentle stroll
in the woods by moonlight can’t put right.

I tried that just now.
I saw swallows on the branches like clothes pegs,
which put me in such good humour
I brought home one of their nests and also four chicks.

Andrew Motion (1952 –

Andrew Motion was the UK Poet Laureate prior to Carol Ann Duffy.

Anno Domini – Medieval Latin and means “in the year of the Lord”, but is often translated as “in the year of our Lord”.

The problem with this poem is that many readers may not know anything about Joseph Turrill. Google is always there to help. JT lived in the period 1841-1925 and he was an Oxfordshire market gardener and diarist.

Perhaps if you read his diaries knowledge of a conclusion might be evident. But without such knowledge this poem independently tells us something about his nature.

S1 … JT thought he was in for a quiet life being a market gardener and close to nature and all the associated work … but here is a lamentation … it is a very busy life with all that his job entails … perhaps overwhelmed with all the work in a busy time of the year … of note is the shooting of larks something that may have occurred in his day, not sure of the reason – perhaps a food delicacy? … but the main thrust is the lamentation that time is being taken away from him … a loss of the life he wanted … not a quiet life

S2 … a different lamentation a loss of time in all his wasted efforts in courting Netty … would she or wouldn’t she … facilitation in the development of a relationship … again the loss of the life he wanted … perhaps wanting the permanent relationship of marriage

S3  … this is the way it is so he must face reality against his mind imaginings of what he would like to happen … how he would like life to be … so to get over these feelings of annoyance with his life … the solution a walk into the woods under moonlight … the escape to be himself alone with nature (I think I can remember JC doing something like this in the bible – escaping into nature when frustrated with the crowds)

S4 … well it worked, and moreover he saw ‘swallows like clothes pegs on the branches’ an added bonus, he could take a nest of young birds back home … something which would abhor readers of today!

So the conclusion (or my thoughts) – have time to yourself alone with nature when stressed … but to what extend this helps recovery and the continuance of everyday life is another matter! … time to enjoy a little exercise outside!

This is a link to details on Andrew Motion courtesy of Wikipedia.

Love after Love – Derek Walcott – Analysis

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Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott (1930 -2017)

S1 … a time of joy (hopefully) when you confront yourself … this is not a daily mirror glance … we see as we read the poem that this is an end of life reflection on who you really are … the face in the mirror who has known you all through your life now speaks back with a smile as you and your personified reflection welcomes each other … it is the door that opens to eternity … that time will come for all of us … but of course there is nothing stopping us reflecting at any stage on our journey … as we get older we have more to reflect on and we become more reflective as we slowdown in life.

S2 … it is only through life and living that you really come to know yourself … this person is a stranger at the start … at the end of life it is a time to love this person with wine and bread like a holy sacrament … the person that has loved you from the start … love being an inherent attribute in your creation – from a religious perspective

S3/4 … whom you ignored for another suggests a coming to a terms with yourself … in becoming you … who you really are … and independent of traditional trappings that define life such as letters and photographs … peel back the image that is you – your own image … then sit back and feast on you – forget those mistakes and all those parts not to your liking and celebrate your existence as you would sitting down at a table for a meal with a friend – that wonderful friend that is you.

Sir Derek Walcott was a West Indian poet and dramatist who died this year on 17 March. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992.

More background on this eminent poet via Wikipedia

 

The Human Seasons – John Keats – Comments

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The Human Seasons

Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.

John Keats

Spring = lusty
Summer = dream-time
Autumn = age
Winter = death

Are these the four seasons of human life?

The seasons have always been a subject for poetic expression and I’m sure there are many words that can be linked to each! It is an interesting exercise to associate one word with each of the seasons. Looking at this poem winter = misfeature – what does that conjure up in the mind of the reader and I guess winter = mortality is a common association.

In similar fashion one day can be associated with a lifetime – remember a certain Shakespeare sonnet.

More commentary on this poem 

A link to John Keats on Wikipedia

 

The Snow Village – Glyn Maxwell – Analysis

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The Snow Village

In the age of pen and paper,
when the page was a snow village,
when days the light was leafing through
descended without message,

the nib that struck from heaven
was the sight of a cottage window
lit by the only certain
sign of a life, a candle,

glimpsed by a stranger walking
at a loss through the snow village.
All that can flow can follow
that sighting, though no image,

no face appear – not even
the hand that draws across it –
though the curtains close the vision,
though the stranger end his visit,

though the snow erase all traces
of his passing through the village,
though his step become unknowable
and the whiteness knowledge.

Glyn Maxwell (1962 – ) used by permission of the author
from The Nerve (Picador, 2002)

S1 … we are talking of times when things could be written down … when communication could take this form – the age of pen and paper … the page likened to a snow village – waiting for some ‘prints’ … just as plants wait for a break through based on light … the poet waits for a breakthrough all he or her has is the white sheet of paper

S2 … it appears communication was initiated from ‘heaven’ – the nib struck from heaven … the mind connected with some spiritual force … to a window in a cottage in the village where life is the simple flame of a candle … indicating somewhat tenuous beginnings … but there is a certainty of this life, this flame, this fire which shows some importance … the window indicating an ‘opening’ … and the poet is able to make a start – there is inspiration and footprints in the snow can be seen as the stranger (poet) starts to make his mark on his journey

S3 / S4 … the stranger (poet) is at a loss lacking understanding on where to go … and only glimpses what has happened in the window, not seeing how the message was born but everything flows from that brief encounter, that sighting of the candle. The inspiration is only momentary and the curtains close on the window and the sighting lost but of importance there is impact on the stranger … akin to making a start by a poet in the creation process … enough for something to follow – All that can flow can follow that sighting – not being privy to the initiator or the process, not seeing the motivator or understanding the fire of inspiration that brought the message-flame to life – but the stranger takes something away with him or her – from this insight there is some direction on where to go and he or she takes up the journey and leaves footprints (writing) in the snow.

S5 … after passing through the village the snow (white pages) cover up again … the poet leaves snow or white pages behind as time erases … but although the snow covers up the snow has that latent knowledge within from the printing that has taken place by the stranger. The snow is more than just snow. Time has a continuous history.

Perhaps we all live in a local snow village of some sort and as we pass through pick up the lost prints of those that have gone before who left some message and created knowledge, in particular thinking of the poet who leaves a poem for posterity.

Glyn Maxwell (born in 1962) is a well regarded British poet, playwright, librettist, and lecturer.

A reading of this poem by Glyn Maxwell can be heard from this link.

‘Poetry on the Move’- Canberra 2017

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POETRY ON THE MOVE is a festival of poetry, taking place in Canberra University and other local venues from the 14th to 21st of September 2017. Paul Munden, Festival Director,  explains this year’s program …

The theme for this year is ‘Border Crossings’ …

The theme emerged naturally. ‘Borders’ of all sorts are very much in the news, and poetry reflects that. We have an event at the National Portrait Gallery (Saturday the 16th), exploring issues of identity and migration. Another session considers cultural boundaries within Australia, led by poets who have done exceptional work with regional communities. And we’re fortunate to have a number of distinguished Japanese poets attending, so poetry in translation became another major focus, relating to the theme.

The poets-in-residence this time are …

Two wonderful poets, both from the UK. Vahni Capildeo won the prestigious Forward Prize last year for her collection Measures of Expatriation(yet another connection to the Boundary Crossings theme). And Glyn Maxwell, whose collections have also won major prizes, is particularly well known for his book On Poetry. Simon Armitage, one of last year’s guests has called it ‘the most compelling, original, charismatic and poetic guide to poetry that I can remember’.

Full details can be referenced here

 

Walking Away – Cecil Day-Lewis – Comments

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Walking Away

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –
A sunny day with leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.

I have had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show –
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

Cecil Day-Lewis

Apparently this poem is dedicated to Day-Lewis’s first son, Sean, and recalls a day when he was watching Sean go in to school, reflecting back after many years.

This poem is all about moving on … leaving behind that which has been … and growing up you can never return to the way it was … whether it be childhood or not … but you have this something to take with you and carry latent as a force in your future … whether or not that childhood has been happy or not … and for those left behind as you walk away it is always a sad affair but part of life. Love must be proved in the letting go.

It is particularily hard for parents to release their off-spring when they are moving away from home. And in the same vein it is hard for those that have had strong personal bonds in a relationship when it is time to say good-bye whether or not of a permanent nature.

Rhyming in the first, third and fifth lines of each stanza. And an interesting thought in the last stanza. God gives and walks away expecting some development. How selfhood begins with a walking away – humanity standing on its own two feet so to speak but I do think it kind of needs a little direction at times even if from a far away place. Hopefully there is still some form of contact!

Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis) CBE (27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972) was an Anglo-Irish poet and the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake. He is the father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis and documentary filmmaker and television chef Tamasin Day-Lewis.

More on Cecil Day-Lewis via Wikipedia

 

Adlestrop – Edward Thomas – Comments

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Adlestrop

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas (1878 – 1917)

It was as though the train stopped on purpose so that all the passengers good savour an early summer day when the world itself seemed to stop and all was peace. The joy of nature showing contentment voiced in the beautiful birdsong of the English countryside. It is moments like these, unexpected moments of joy, that become so meaningful when we reflect back. I think we all have such images that retain lifelong pleasure on recall.

It is a very simple four stanza poem with rhyming in the second and fourth lines. The short factual statements are all that is needed in defining the essence of the moment as experienced by the traveller as he looks out the window. The text ‘And for that minute’ is pivotal in holding the image in the eye of the reader.

And of course many will relate to the experience of a train stopping before reaching the destination but whether thay will be relaxed about it is another matter.

Edward Thomas will be remembered by this poem more than any other just as Adlestrop will always be associated with this poem. An example of how a poem can define a specific place due to experience. Adlestrop was axed in the Beeching cull of railway stations in the Sixties as were many other sleepy country stations. However the railway sign displaying the name is still very much in evidence.

And from Wikipedia …  it was due to Edward Thomas that Robert Frost came to write his famous poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ …

The American poet Robert Frost, who was living in England at the time, in particular encouraged Thomas (then more famous as a critic) to write poetry, and their friendship was so close that the two planned to reside side by side in the United States. Frost’s most famous poem, “The Road Not Taken”, was inspired by walks with Thomas and Thomas’s indecisiveness about which route to take.

Tragically Edward Thomas was killed soon after he arrived in France during the first World War.

And more details of Edward Thomas via Wikipedia