I was thumbing through a copy of Contemporary American Poetry price six shillings, published 1962 that I borrowed from a friend at University. I couldn’t help noticing that there appeared to be only two woman poets in the collection by Donald Hall and of neither had I heard. At first perusal some of the poems by Denise Levertov seemed to be redolent of new perceptions of American springtime and then I read the blurb in the front-
DENISE LEVERTOV (b. 1923) comes from Ilford in Essex, England, and served as a nurse during the Second World War, when her poems were first published by Wrey Gardiner in London.She married an American and has lived in the United States since 1948. She published her first book, The Double Image, in England in 1946. Her American books are Here and Now (1957), Overland to the Islands (1958), With Eyes at the Back of our Heads (1960), and The Jacob’s Ladder (1961).
This delightful poem about origins and identities is immersed in beautiful place names both suburban and sylvan. Rivers run through it and there is the lovely image of the forlorn white statue standing in the old house garden. It is a reflection of childhood innocence and religious thoughts add to the majesty of the poetic voice. ( ” merciful Phillipa”, “multitudes” and “Simeon quiet evensong”) In the meeting and parting she brings together Belarus and Spain, the United States and Wales. It is about the expansion of the world as in the maps of a child’s imagination; the safety and containment of morning sunlight on garden walls.
The whole poem with it’s images of islands, sailors and the sea appeals to me- mostly through imagery rather than meaning. A friend comments, not unfairly I think……
She is a great enigma to me. I find her poetry both avant-garde and deeply conservative in its floundering eccentricity, like her life. She epitomises the remnants of a bankrupt class yet gives a voice to pertinent modern concerns. A voice that is both mesmerising in its clarity yet from an alien world.
Was it just show or does it present a living reflection of her/our times?
In both of these collections the sea and its various moods features. It is not just this that endears me in each case but it is that element that prompts me to write about them today. It is raining once again here in Cornwall and it is as the mists mizzle gather over the bay that I find myself in somewhat melancholy mood to respond to these collections.
Derek Mahon
Essentially this is a collection of essays by different writers together with Mahon’s poems. Here is one example- the poem-“The Sea in Winter” which was written for Desmond O’Grady. There are so many lovely passages in this poem which is fast becoming a favourite.-
Portstewart, Portrush, Portballintrae-
Un beau pays mal habité,
policed by rednecks in dark cloth
and roving gangs of tartan youth.
No place for a gentleman like you.
The good, the beautiful and the true
have a tough time of it; and yet
there is that Hebridean sunset,
The coast in winter, something familiar here in West Cornwall evokes feelings as in these engaging couplets:-
The sea in winter, where she walks,
vents its displeasure on the rocks.
The human factor appears too beside these images or pathetic fallacies-
………………………….; the spite
mankind has brought to this infernal
backwater destroys the soul;
it sneaks into the daily life,
sunders the husband from the wife.
Sunder seems a significant word here, perhaps evoking “thunder” and reminiscent of the biblical separation of “asunder”. ( The chariot and horses of fire “parted asunder” Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:11). So we are situated on the bleak edge of the sea. Though not quite in the same mood state as T.S.Eliot-On Margate Sands./I can connect/Nothing with nothing./The broken fingernails of dirty hands./My people humble people who expect/Nothing.
“I grew to love the poem’s complicit sense of ennui,bordering on but never quite reaching desolation, ‘living on the edge of space’; the memorable turns of phrase and allusive colour, both classical and contemporary; the sense of redemption just out of reach; the agonizing, trapped uncertainty of the writing life; all balanced against the consolation of confident, impeccable poetry.”
Evelyn Holloway
Evelyn’s book is published in English and German by Edition Sonnberg which is based in Vienna, where Evelyn was born in 1955. Perhaps the most interesting poem, it is for me, is Meeting which tells of Evelyn encountering Samuel Beckett in Oxford where she was a student in October 1973. I find that even with my poor German having the text in both languages somehow broadens the comprehension of the text.
Suddenly I see his face
stepped down from book covers,
a furrowed face, a landscape of thought
I waited for Godot,
saw people stuck in bins,
so many figures of his universe,
Now to return to the sea, a sea of memories- some perhaps repressed…….
ERRINERUNG IST EIN OZEAN OHNE SALZ
Ich kam hier um das Wrack zu sehen,
musste tiefer tauchen, tiefer.
Farben sind dort begraben,
Stimmen von der Zeit verschluckt.
Irgendwo in diesem Chaos,
ich bin irgendwo
verlassen,gefunden, und wieder verlassen
Atmen fällt schwer hier unten
Kunstweke hinter Mauern versteckt
Errinerung ist ein Ozean ohne Salz.
So that the memory can appear like a sea too, but one without salt. Memory and dreams have perhaps links to Vienna but the salty sea is close by in St Ives.
Here are just a few lines from WE ARE DANCING ROCKS (WIR SIND TANZENDE FELSEN)
We will outlast you.
Our salty eternity does not count the years.
We do not mourn the sand swallowed by the sea.
We are dancing rocks.
Her collection Words through Walls is published by Wieser Verlag ISBN 978-3-9504320-8-4
This is by my friend Ursula Ghee Wieckowska, who lives on the Island of Lewis not far from Stornaway
Snow Hills
March is turning out to be the month of Blue skies sun and brilliant snow Not overwhelming snow Pawprints made by the cats Prints by the chickens crows and ducks Then this morning all the prints were gone It must have snowed in the night Glistening crystals of snow now Covering the ground smooth and white By tonight the garden will be covered in prints again
Then over to the east the hills Beautiful white covered in snow The sun shining on them Showing off their features From a distance we see The individual hills Stac Polly Cul Beag Cul Mor Sulliven Canisp Different shapes Different personalities They only appear on some days This week we have been blessed Everyday against the blue sky They stand on the horizon They stand on the sea
In the town the roads are wet The traffic has melted the snow And the black tarmac appears Some snow is just lying On the verges and roofs and In between the trees
I head home and will look at the snow Through the car windows Then through my house windows As long as the sun shines Then it will disappear into the dark To come again hopefully tomorrow When I open the curtains in the morning I will once again be blinded by the Sun on the white snow
And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heart Than the children I watched in the woods on Saturday Shaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard’s merry play, Or the shaggy patient dog who followed me By Sheet and Steep and up the wooded scree To the Shoulder o’ Mutton where Edward Thomas brooded long On death and beauty – till a bullet stopped his song.
General Studies, the upper sixth, a doddle, a cinch
for anyone with an ounce of common sense
or a calculator
with a memory feature.
The lines above are from one of Google’s suggestions for Armitage’s top best poems. This poem is actually about teenage sexuality and has a surprising and mildly interesting ending, I think. However, having shared the poets exam room ambience as a youngster, as well as having invigilated many many tests and examinations it is the first few lines that I would like to peruse here.
Miri it is while sumer i-last With foulës song; Oc now neghëth windës blast And weder strong. Ei, ei, what this night is long, And Ich with wel michel wrong Sorwe and murne and fast.
Dis, quand reviendras-tu ?
Voilà combien de jours, voilà combien de nuits, Voilà combien de temps que tu es reparti, Tu m’as dit cette fois, c’est le dernier voyage, Pour nos coeurs déchirés, c’est le dernier naufrage, Au printemps, tu verras, je serai de retour, Le printemps, c’est joli pour se parler d’amour, Nous irons voir ensemble les jardins refleuris, Et déambulerons dans les rues de Paris,
Dis, quand reviendras-tu, Dis, au moins le sais-tu, Que tout le temps qui passe, Ne se rattrape guère, Que tout le temps perdu, Ne se rattrape plus,
Le printemps s’est enfui depuis longtemps déjà, Craquent les feuilles mortes, brûlent les feux de bois, A voir Paris si beau dans cette fin d’automne, Soudain je m’alanguis, je rêve, je frissonne, Je tangue, je chavire, et comme la rengaine, Je vais, je viens, je vire, je me tourne, je me traîne, Ton image me hante, je te parle tout bas, Et j’ai le mal d’amour, et j’ai le mal de toi,
Dis, quand reviendras-tu, Dis, au moins le sais-tu, Que tout le temps qui passe, Ne se rattrape guère, Que tout le temps perdu, Ne se rattrape plus,
J’ai beau t’aimer encore, j’ai beau t’aimer toujours, J’ai beau n’aimer que toi, j’ai beau t’aimer d’amour, Si tu ne comprends pas qu’il te faut revenir, Je ferai de nous deux mes plus beaux souvenirs, Je reprendrai la route, le monde m’émerveille, J’irai me réchauffer à un autre soleil, Je ne suis pas de celles qui meurent de chagrin, Je n’ai pas la vertu des femmes de marins,
Dis, quand reviendras-tu, Dis, au moins le sais-tu, Que tout le temps qui passe, Ne se rattrape guère, Que tout le temps perdu, Ne se rattrape plus
That’s how many days, that’s how many nights, How long have you been gone, You told me this time, it’s the last trip, For our hearts torn, this is the last shipwreck, In the spring, you’ll see, I’ll be back, Spring is pretty to talk about love, We will go together to see the flowering gardens, And stroll through the streets of Paris,
“Dis, quand reviendras-tu ?” est une chanson sortie en 1962, écrite, composée et interprétée par Barbara. Dans cette chanson, l’auteure-narratrice écrit une lettre à un amant dont elle attend inlassablement le retour pour l’inciter à revenir à ses côtés. La qualité exceptionnelle d’écriture de cette chanson ainsi que la sensibilité de l’interprétation de Barbara en font un monument de la chanson française.
I have been perusing in a somewhat feckless manner an introductory chapter in Blake Morrison’s carefully written “The Movement” subtitled, English Poetry and Fiction of the 1950s. Here he mentions a poem about Plymouth by Philip Larkin which begins-
A box of teak, a box of sandalwood,
A brass-ringed spyglass in a case,
A coin, leaf thin with many polishings,
(Collected poems page 166)
This appears to be an early poem which concludes with a stanza that explains in which Larkin says of his intentions for his poetry……
Let my hands find such symbols, that can be
Unnoticed in the casual light of day,
Lying in wait for half a century
To split chance lives across, that had not dreamed
Such coasts had echoed, or such seabirds had screamed.
Now when today mourning takes place with great pomp and ceremony it is somewhat salutary to turn to Keith Douglas killed fighting in the Second World War, admired by Movement poets, and his splendid and sparse poem-
I am not here following the caretaker Prime Minister who has resigned but not. He appears to live in some sort of borderland theatre which has become boring beyond belief; I am referring to Boris Drayluk’s collection of poems My Holywood published by Paul Dry Books. I have just finished Jonathan Coe’s Mr Wilder and Me and am currently reading Nicholson Baker’s The Anthologist which seem to form a suitable background on which to project Drayluk’s moving collection.
His collection begins with a mixture of recollection and nostalgia-
This much is clear :the good old days have passed
Some giant fig trees, a few pygmy palms
deep broken shade on disenfranchised grass;
This magnificent collection by the Editor-in-Chief of the Los Angeles Review of Books has many lovely poems. Dralyuk has a stirring feeling for the dilapidated landscape of Los Angeles and a wide understanding of the hinterland of European Culture. He is a skilled translator and his poems have a deep moving quality appropriately relieved by wit and humour. Here is one short example-
OLD FLAME
Above the tongue-tip is an air so blue
I can compare it only to how you
who once consumed me in a yellow heat,
now scarcely singe me when we meet.
Dralyuk writes of loss and passing time and of memory under the condition of exile. I particularly enjoyed Stravinsky at the Farmer’s Market; here are two stanzas.
Christopher Isherwood is a disciple, slipping
off to the Viertals on the weekends far from Swami,
swimming naked. In Brentwood, Schoenburg lobs grapefruits
and insults at Feuchtwanger’s wife.
Herr Doktor Faustus, exile is no bargin.
You move von heute auf morgen.
Stravinsky lunches at the Farmer’s Market.
The Firebird is plucked, Petrushka’s henpecked.
Here there are layers of sorrow portrayed in a dream-like landscape. Here is a photograph of the poet and a YouTube interview on this collection.
If I should go away, Beloved, do not say ‘He has forgotten me’. For you abide, A singing rib within my dreaming side; You always stay. And in the mad tormented valley Where blood and hunger rally And Death the wild beast is uncaught, untamed, Our soul withstands the terror And has its quiet honour Among the glittering stars your voices named.
Alun Lewis is a poet whose writing is associated with the Second World War in which he died in Burma in 1944. It is then naturally a poetry of partings, separation and yet shows the tenderness which is expressed in the poem above. See also https://allpoetry.com/Alun-Lewis
However, it is the following lines which grasped my attention and which are shown here from a poem called Destruction:-
In this intriguing passage, the viaduct arches feels like an image, perhaps from a dream suggesting transportation, crossing a gulf as well as the industrial Welsh scenery which it also evokes. The polluted river contrasts remarkably with the dreaming girl. I discover that attar of roses, also called otto of rose, essence of rose, or rose oil, fragrant, colourless or pale-yellow liquid is an essential oil distilled from fresh petals. This is followed by a striking consideration of the fragility of the poet’s writing and how it can be affected by the sudden hostility of his own feelings- the destructive feelings which he acknowledges. This too is beautifully expressed in a line of tragic s sounds- “Like a schoolboy’s sling that slays a swallow.” A swallow that might be otherwise be free to rise to otherwise unreachable places. Lewis goes on to compare this to the devastation of war with words that must remind a contemporary reader of the current conflict in Ukraine-“the impersonal drone of death Trembles the throbbing night” so that possible connection is broken as the viaduct is destroyed.
This link for what is possibly Alun Lewis’s most famous poem is also worth exploring:-
penwithlit 