Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Monday, November 19, 2012
Monday, March 19, 2012
Something indecent
In the very essence of poetry there is something
indecent: a thing is brought forth which we didn’t know we had in us, so we blink our eyes as if a tiger had sprung
out and stood in the light, lashing his tail.
Ars Poetica Czeslaw
Milosz
Something indecent. The writer (particularly the poet) sneaks over the border into territory unknown, territory best left undisturbed. The writer (particularly the poet) has a way of seeing through the veils. Veils which are there for a reason, to protect us from reality, from the monstrous reality which lurks inside all of us. Watch your daily news. Be honest about your purest rage. No, don't, because even though we feed off it in other people, it's not socially acceptable and we can't stand to look.
Something indecent. The writer (particularly the poet) sneaks over the border into territory unknown, territory best left undisturbed. The writer (particularly the poet) has a way of seeing through the veils. Veils which are there for a reason, to protect us from reality, from the monstrous reality which lurks inside all of us. Watch your daily news. Be honest about your purest rage. No, don't, because even though we feed off it in other people, it's not socially acceptable and we can't stand to look.
Art is theft, art is armed robbery, art is not
pleasing your mother…the true self is aggressive, rude, dirty, disorderly, sexual; the false self which
mothers and society instruct us to assume, is neat, clean, tidy, polite, content to cut a chaste rosebud with a
pair of silver-plated scissors.
Jeanette Winterson
Is this true? Have you looked in the mirror lately? No, I don't mean Facebook. I mean a real mirror, in someone else's eyes, someone who doesn't mind paring you down to the seedy core of your soul.
Art has quite a pair of hips and is barely contained by that dress. Art slinks. Art bites rather than kisses, draws blood. Why?
Theft, armed robbery, not pleasing your mother! Which is worse? Which is more heinous? Are we aggressive, rude, dirty, disorder. . . wait. No, that only applies to "them", the ones who have all the "nervous breakdowns", the ones who don't even earn a decent living wage but spend all their time screwing around with words.
Then why do so many people aspire to something so useless? Everyone's a novelist, and everyone can sing. Anyone can "epublish" and call themselves an author. But why?
Most of what they turn out is dishwater and requires no risk. They want the revelation without the "nervous breakdown", which is just a polite term for why doesn't she just pull herself together dammit.
Nobody wants human vulnerability shoved in their faces. Nobody wants these predatory females who not only want, but insist on sex. They're dangerous because they want want want want want so much.
Is this true? Have you looked in the mirror lately? No, I don't mean Facebook. I mean a real mirror, in someone else's eyes, someone who doesn't mind paring you down to the seedy core of your soul.
Art has quite a pair of hips and is barely contained by that dress. Art slinks. Art bites rather than kisses, draws blood. Why?
Theft, armed robbery, not pleasing your mother! Which is worse? Which is more heinous? Are we aggressive, rude, dirty, disorder. . . wait. No, that only applies to "them", the ones who have all the "nervous breakdowns", the ones who don't even earn a decent living wage but spend all their time screwing around with words.
Then why do so many people aspire to something so useless? Everyone's a novelist, and everyone can sing. Anyone can "epublish" and call themselves an author. But why?
Most of what they turn out is dishwater and requires no risk. They want the revelation without the "nervous breakdown", which is just a polite term for why doesn't she just pull herself together dammit.
Nobody wants human vulnerability shoved in their faces. Nobody wants these predatory females who not only want, but insist on sex. They're dangerous because they want want want want want so much.
There are hardly any exceptions to the rule that a
person must pay dearly for the divine gift of creative fire.
C. G. Jung
It's rude and not decent to climb into these caves, to curl up inside yourself, to listen. It's narcissistic to pour your lifesblood out onto the page in the full knowledge that because you will never make a living at it, it's a complete waste of time, not to mention mad.
Why's it so good, then, to have that "creative fire"? Why does everyone want to be Hemingway when Hemingway blew his brains out? Even Hemingway wasn't Hemingway, which was perhaps why he blew his brains out.
Art wears a triple-D cup and smokes too much and demands happiness and demands orgasm and demands Truth. It's much too much too much too much, much too much of everything and more, and more, and more.
"You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."
It's rude and not decent to climb into these caves, to curl up inside yourself, to listen. It's narcissistic to pour your lifesblood out onto the page in the full knowledge that because you will never make a living at it, it's a complete waste of time, not to mention mad.
Why's it so good, then, to have that "creative fire"? Why does everyone want to be Hemingway when Hemingway blew his brains out? Even Hemingway wasn't Hemingway, which was perhaps why he blew his brains out.
Art wears a triple-D cup and smokes too much and demands happiness and demands orgasm and demands Truth. It's much too much too much too much, much too much of everything and more, and more, and more.
"You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."
And thus Virginia Woolf loaded stones in her pockets and waded in, convinced everyone would be better off without her. Was she right? Why does every source continually mention her multiple "nervous breakdowns"? What is a "nervous breakdown"? It's nothing, it does not exist! It's a delicate lace-doily term for somebody who just can't cut it. Who is so pale and weak that they can't poke their head outside the door, who lives on tea and those brown digestive cookies. A nervous breakdown is an indulgence, a choice, something weak people embrace when they just want a little time off. Nothing to do with raging, wrenching, gut-hollowing, soul-haemorrhaging manic depressive illness which is infinitely worse than all the cancers of the human body put together.
It was not her choice to enter the cauldron, it just happened, she had that awful stamp of greatness on her which in her case meant unbearable pain and death. She knew how indecent and disorderly her soul was. No doubt this "drove" her mad. Would it have "driven" her to heart disease or cancer? Of course not. Madness is somewhere between self-indulgence and demonic possession. This is why we tiptoe around it so delicately.
Aggressive, rude, dirty, disorderly, sexual.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Poem of the Day
And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be
sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.
And
death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
Under the windings of the sea
They lying
long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give
way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands
shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends
up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.
And death
shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break
loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its
head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads
of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun
breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Νάνα Μούσχουρη - ΚΑΘΕ ΤΡΕΛΟ ΠΑΙΔΙ
This has a history, too, a very long one. I loved this song for years, at least since the late '70s, but had no idea what the words meant. On the British Concert Album, Nana Mouskouri announced the title as "Wilderness", so I assumed it was about a long, lonely walk through a barren landscape, or perhaps through a dark forest full of frightening sounds. Turns out it has nothing to do with any of that!
Since I am having trouble seeing the subtitles, I assume you will too, so I will transcribe:
That daybreak
I said good morning to him, oh, oh.
That daybreak
I said good morning to him, oh, oh.
Every madcap young man
is holding in his hand
a kiss given by Virgin Mary
and a knife
and his mother doesn't sing
and his mother doesn't sing.
When someone's slaughtering two doves
the night is burning in his two hands
and the girl doesn't speak
and the girl doesn't speak.
It's a strange, spare, paradoxical and somewhat frightening poem about the duality of humankind, the beauty and the violence of youth, and the ways in which people are silenced by fear - or does it mean something else? What's a madcap young man, anyway? Now that I finally have the English lyrics, it's more mysterious than ever. (I did find the composer's name - Manos Hadjidakis - vaguely familiar, though I don't know if he also wrote these incredible words.)
http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
After searching fruitlessly (saxophone poem)
AFTER SEARCHING FRUITLESSLY FOR A POEM BY BILLY COLLINS
CALLED THE INVENTION OF THE SAXOPHONE, THE AUTHOR TAKES IT UPON HERSELF
TO WRITE ONE OF HER OWN
i don’t know who invented this
but i think it was a good thing
for it’s great to look at,
with fat keys like frog eyesand a big bell like royal jelly
you could keep flowers in there if you wanted to,
extra socks
or even a clock
Snakes kink too
purply mauve as the deepest bruise
and raunchy
as a man in love
smoked as some cat of the night
disappearing over a fenceit makes leaps
(but only because it has to)
There is no
morning saxophone
this is a sound that
pulls the shades down
a hangover
howl
fading to twilight
or the blackmost
belly buttonof the night
Few can wrap their lips around
this gooseneckwithout some harm coming to them
for this is an instrument
with a long history of
hollowing out
all but the most hardy
Bird flew into a pane
of glass and wassmashed
we don’t know why it does this to people
(maybe it was mad at himfor taking it all to such extremes)
but how could you blow this thing
halfway
i ask you
how could you rear back
in some great pained whiplash of the spinewithout a sense of
terrible commitment
i never much cared for
saxophones myself
until i heard one blown correctly at last
jazz is a genre i will never understandbut perhaps that’s good
for like the priesthood, one must enter into it
without question
reservationor doubt
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