At a U3A Poetry meeting discussion ensued concerning the power of poetry compared to the power of factual reporting. We were considering Ilya Kaminsky’s … book ‘Deaf Republic’. Here are some enormously powerful lines from one of the poems in his book ... That Map of Bone and Opened Valves I watched the Sergeant aim, the deaf boy take iron and fire in his mouth― his face on the asphalt, that map of bone and opened valves. It's the air. Something in the air wants us too much. The earth is still. The tower guards eat cucumber sandwiches. This first day soldiers examine the ears of bartenders, accountants, soldiers― the wicked things silence does to soldiers. They tear Gora's wife from her bed like a door off a bus. Observe this moment ―how it convulses― The body of the boy lies on the asphalt like a paperclip. The body of the boy lies on the asphalt like the body of a boy. I touch the walls, feel the pulse of the house, and I stare up wordless and do not know why I am alive. We tiptoe this city, Sonya and I, between theaters and gardens and wrought-iron gates― Be courageous, we say, but no one is courageous, as a sound we do not hear lifts the birds off the water. Ilya Kaminsky (1977 - Considering these three lines ... The body of the boy lies on the asphalt like a paperclip. The body of the boy lies on the asphalt like the body of a boy. We liked the removal of the paper-clip symbolism in the next line – the boy was like the body of a boy gives emphasis on the human being viewed, going from the poetic to the factual within the poem. The poem is purely fictional or a poetic statement of the sort of thing that does happen considering inhumanity, and of course the Ukraine is in the public eye. But these words were written well before the invasion by Russia. Here is a powerful 'factual statement' from The New Yorker media … “Back at the police station, Fedorov endured long interrogation sessions. His captors pushed him to resign and transfer his authority to Danilchenko. Fedorov took the opportunity to ask what they were doing in his city. They had three explanations, he remembers: to defend the Russian language, to protect Ukrainians from Nazis, and to stop authorities from mistreating veterans of the Second World War. “It was all funny and absurd,” Fedorov said. He told the soldiers guarding him that ninety-five per cent of Melitopol’s residents speak Russian; that he has lived in the city all his life and has never seen a Nazi; and that, by his count, thirty-four veterans live in Melitopol, and he knows just about all of them personally, has their numbers saved in his phone, and tries to visit them often. But his captors seemed to take their imagined picture of an anti-Russian, fascist--ruled Ukraine seriously. ‘They repeated it like a mantra, over and over, as if they were zombies,’ Fedorov told me. “An air of menace, even violence, was never far away. At night, Fedorov could hear the screams of people being tortured. The Russian soldiers said that they were Ukrainian saboteurs who had been captured in the city after curfew. At one point, Fedorov listened as a man in an adjoining cell shouted in agony; it sounded as if someone was breaking his fingers. ‘This was happening one metre away,’ Fedorov said. ‘What would stop them from coming to my cell and doing the same thing?’” Power in words is always dependent on the reader or hearer, their emotional state at the time. But here are my thoughts … The reporting does highlight reality in a factual statement compared to the artificiality of poetry. Both are powerful and thought provoking. Reality demands a response of some form – can we let this happen! Whereas poetry goes beyond actuality to give emphasis to that demand for change using language as a powerful word voice in effecting change. And in this case making us aware of what is happening far away from our individual lives because of the association with the terrible actuality of the Ukraine war. Ilya Kaminsky a YouTube reading from his Deaf Republic book
Poetry
Some ‘Reunion’ Words
Travelling back, going forward (at the village reunion) Of course you can’t go back, the mind plays tricks distorting, colouring at will, and you imagine what it will be like - to meet up again. But nothing prepares you for the actuality of that first encounter. There will be some you haven’t seen for fifty years along with some that you will never see again. You accept that initial shock of change before recognition and the acknowledgment of ‘yes it is him, or her’. Then it is the past living again, the past that attaches irrevocably, continuously, the past you can’t escape from. Someone says ‘do you remember’ and you likewise retort ‘do you remember!’ each triggering. And they are here now, with you again. Their memories coalesced with your understanding. The way it was. And smiles broaden in the wake of rekindled friendship when the world was opening wide before you. They say ‘you haven’t changed’. They are oblivious to the you that is now. But perhaps they are right, that there is something permanent beneath the skin. A certain character which you unwittingly showed in those formative years. But it was something quite unexpected that totally caught you off balance. A forgotten girlfriend recognised you instantly welcoming you with an immediate hug. She still slim in body and in that brief moment a perfect fit. Then time to disperse, to pick up the threads of ongoing life, to let that unsettling emotional swing subside. You were part of them and they will remain part of you. And the past continues irrevocably to define who you are. Richard Scutter July 2019
Election Day in Australia – The Political Environment
Tomorrow is Federal Election Day in Australia for both the House of Representatives and the Senate though many have already voted.
on the beach the plastic choke of humanity washes the skin
Voting for the environment is a world consideration, not just Australia. For the many who have never come to these shores the beach is typically synonymous when thinking of Australia. On the Beach is a well-known book by Nevil Shute in which Australia is the last place to suffer radiation after nuclear fallout has destroyed the rest of the world. It was made into a film in 1959 starring Ava Gardner and Gregory Peck.
Whatever Party wins, the environment must be of prime consideration. Australia like many parts of the world is experiencing extremes in weather involving drought, fires, and floods. And I would really like to see something done about the amount of plastic polluting the oceans and being washed up on our beaches. It is truly time to do something!
Australia is adorned with adorable awesome amazing Beaches VOTE YES and pick up a bit of litter!
… and here is a link to a new edition of Nevil Shute’s ‘On the Beach‘ – https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6582666/modern-messages-in-on-the-beach/
The Day Lady Died – Frank O’Hara – Comments
The Day Lady Died
It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille Day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me
I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness
and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it
and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing
Frank O’Hara (1926 - 1966)
The actual day in 1959 is particularly important and this is defined in terms of Bastille Day (14 July), three days after making it 17 July. And it is very hot in the New York summer indicated by the sweating in the last stanza. But what is it that is so important about this day and who was ‘Lady’ (she was known as ‘Lady Day’).
This is a poem about place, the place being New York and if you don’t know New York it is difficult with all the references. Frank O’Hara is walking the streets and picks up a paper. It was Billie Holliday on the cover of the New York Post he bought.
The sudden realisation that Lady, that great Jazz Queen, has died and he and like those who know her are momentarily stunned on hearing of her death.
If you appreciate Jazz and know New York this poem will have more depth of meaning as you walk the same path. For example, you would know that …
The Five Spot Café was a jazz club located at 5 Cooper Square (1956–1962) in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City, between the East and West Village. In 1962, it moved to 2 St. Marks Place until closing in 1967. Its friendly, non-commercial, and low-key atmosphere with affordable drinks and food and cutting edge bebop and progressive jazz attracted a host of avant-garde artists and writers. It was a venue of historic significance as well, a mecca for musicians, both local and out-of-state, who packed the small venue to listen to many of the most creative composers and performers of the era.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
And Frank O’Hara certainly knew New York. He was part of the New York Poetry scene and he frequented Five Spot where he appreciated the voice of Billie Holliday firsthand.
And even if you know nothing of the City, I am sure you can appreciate the bohemian flavour of a poet on his regular walk not exactly knowing how Mike and Patsy will feed him in the evening. It looks as though he buys something to take, alcohol for Mike and something to read for Patsy. Verlaine was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He details exactly what he did that day from the 12:20pm time he started walking to the name of the teller at the Bank. And he is obviously familiar with the theatre.
And it is a poem about the sudden notification of a death in the midst of on-going life that stuns a person ‘breathless’. There is a spiritual connection in the last stanza as Billie Holliday’s voice enters his mind, Mal Waldron was a jazz musician.
I can remember when Diana died, I was at an early morning church service that Sunday in the village of Hartley Wintney when the minister spoke about that tragic overnight car crash. Later that day we flew out from Heathrow with no delays despite possible pandemonium at the airport.
This is perhaps the most well-known poem by Frank O’Hara.
Frank O’Hara – Frank O’Hara – Wikipedia
Billie Holliday – Billie Holiday – Wikipedia
Nevertheless – An Easter Poem
Nevertheless
nevertheless, it is true
nevertheless, whether you believe,
believe elsewhere
or just don’t believe
for nevertheless He is latent,
the he that exists or doesn’t exist,
nevertheless, supporting you
recognised or not
nevertheless it is nice to know too,
that he cares!
and nevertheless his light
shines through this Easter
nevertheless, yes, nevertheless
you care to open the window
Richard Scutter Easter 2022
A follow up on my previous Easter Post where Michael Thwaites used that one word ‘Nevertheless’ in his poem ‘The Word’.
Easter greetings to all.
May you be brightened by the light that is the power of love.
‘The word’ Nevertheless – Michael Thwaites
The Word
The greatest word in the greatest book
is that conjunction, ‘Nevertheless’,
(‘Plen’ in the Greek: you could translate ‘However ’)
when the man of Galilee, very near his end
foreseen, self-chosen, with set face and foot,
came to the garden in agony of soul,
his sweat like drops of blood falling to the ground,
his friends sleeping (the heat was far beyond them),
the Son of Man, split by a human cry,
cried to his Father, ‘Father, some other way?
Something, not this! Father, I want, I fear:
Nevertheless, your will, not mine, be done.’
Michael Thwaites (1915 – 2005)
Conjunction – a word used to connect clauses or sentences
Plen – adverbially, at the beginning of a sentence, serving either to restrict, or to unfold and expand what has preceded: moreover, besides, so that, according to the requirements of the context, it may also be rendered but, nevertheless; (howbeit; cf. Buttmann, § 146, 2): Matthew 11:22, 24; Matthew 18:7; Matthew 26:39, 64; Luke 6:24, 35; Luke 10:11, 14, 20; Luke 11:41; Luke 12:31; Luke 13:33; Luke 17:1 L Tr text WH; ; 1 Corinthians 11:11; Ephesians 5:33; Philippians 1:18 (R G (see Ellicott)); ; Revelation 2:25; πλήν ὅτι, except that, save that (examples from classical Greek are given by Passow, under the word, II. 1 e.; (Liddell and Scott, under the word, B. II. 4)): Acts 20:23 ((Winer’s Grammar, 508 (473); Philippians 1:18 L T Tr WH (R. V. only that)).
Here is a clever Easter poem based on one word from the bible.
Easter is perhaps the time when we consider the incredible unprecedented self-sacrifice in the life of Jesus. What a situation if that nevertheless did not happen? And is the will of God active in humanity today?
Separation – Colin Campbell Analysis
Separation
a card arrives
“happy birthday fondest love”
i stand it on the fridge
whilst half a world away
she has forgotten that she sent it
but recalls the usual things
peeling the vegetables making the bed sweeping dusting
later her head nods over a page and
the once-friendly words turn away and hide
thin rain oozes from the mossy tiles and the bare brown trees stare through the afternoon and drip she tries to remember what it is that she must thaw for tea and the kitchen silent as lino will not tell her
dealt from a well-worn pack of tidy habits
(what ought to be done rather than the needful)
hours are laid out in patterns on the day’s thin fabric
(so much is to do with the turn
of one moment to cover the last)
whilst indifferent greedy thieving Time
gnaws the afternoon
rubbing a hole in the window’s condensation
she watches the cold flat Suffolk landscape
turn and shiver beneath the winter sky
and looking up she sees the cold rain in the trees …
… and i remember it
Colin Campbell (1941 -
Colin uses spaces in his text to denote a pause while reading. For example – and the kitchen silent as lino there are two spaces between kitchen and silent. So the more spaces between words in the text the longer the pause.
Colin is a member of our U3A Poetry Appreciation Group and this is a poignant poem from his book ‘Poems’ published at the end of 2021. Looking at each stanza I can give some context to give more depth behind the words which might help the reader.
S1 … The poem addresses Colin’s mother in England while he himself is living in Australia. The first three lines refer to Colin placing a card from his mother on the fridge. This is then a trigger to a reflection on his mother who is living with dementia in Suffolk, England. Maybe he has mentioned the card in a telephone conversation and his mother has no recollection of sending it.
But with a failing mind his mother is confined to keeping track of everyday happenings.
And I like the way words are personified as they hide their meaning as she struggles in daily life.
S2 … It is a dreary winter day … the trees have lost their leaves … it is fitting in connection with the loss or separation taking place in the struggle with domestic life. And little things once easily performed are now hard to fathom out … again, the wonderful personification of the kitchen lino – silent – and unable to help.
S3 … Habits do die hard … worn down by the years … she would like to keep her house tidy but is this really needed … and the day’s thin fabric give that sense that the day itself is fading akin to perhaps the fading of clothes now worn by his mother. And the complexity of each moment as it turns on itself in the effort to combat the lack of mind progression in dealing with dementia … clearly there is separation in the ability to deal with everyday life
And Time is capitalised to give strength to the personification as it gnaws away life … nicely connecting to the problem with trying to remember what’s for tea previously mentioned in the second stanza.
S4 … we have a picture of Colin’s mother looking out on the dreary winter Suffolk environment … creating a small window hole on life outside … the hole that is dementia in reducing life, and she sees the cold rain descending …
… and Colin too remembers the Suffolk scene … and there is a sense of beauty in his recollection of his Suffolk days … perhaps different to the way his mother sees the countryside … but although there is separation there is that strong personal connection.
This is a poem that will relate to those coming to terms with dementia in whatever way the condition manifests.
Vitai Lampada – Henry Newbolt – Comments
Vitai Lampada
There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—
Ten to make and the match to win—
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote
'Play up! play up! and play the game! '
The sand of the desert is sodden red,—
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; —
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
'Play up! play up! and play the game! '
This is the word that year by year,
While in her place the school is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind—
'Play up! play up! and play the game!
Sir Henry Newbolt (1862 – 1938)
Born in Bilston, Staffordshire in 1862, Newbolt was educated at Clifton School and Oxford University. After his studies Newbolt became a barrister. Higly respected, Newbolt was a lawyer, novelist, playwright and magazine editor. Above all, he was a poet who championed the virtues of chivalry and sportsmanship combined in the service of the British Empire.
Written in 1892 Vitaï Lampada was published in Newbolt’s first collection of poetry, Admirals All in 1897. It is probably the best known of all Newbolt’s poems, and for which he is now chiefly remembered. The title is taken from a quotation by Lucretius and means The torch of life. It refers to how a schoolboy, a future soldier, learns selfless commitment to duty in cricket matches in the famous Close at Clifton College. And of course, extension of duty goes far beyond the cricket field.
This is all about playing the game regardless, being part of the team is all important – and concentrating on doing your bit for King and country.
This is a propaganda poem using mate-ship to rally the war cause. And mate-ship is based on that old school tradition of loyalty to your friends. I think times have changed markedly and soldiers have now learned to think for themselves without blindly following orders! Unless of course, they are coerced by authoritarian regimes.
Here is my own propaganda. Seen on the back window of a car parked at the Balloon Festival in Canberra, the following words –
UNITED
in
TRUTH – LOVE – PEACE
Sir Henry Newbolt on Wikipedia … Henry Newbolt – Wikipedia
my word in your ear 