Sarajevo by Lazhar Neftien. Used under Creative Commons license
After I wrote about Miklós Radnóti and 'Letter to my wife' a couple of months ago, I thought of the poem 'Sarajevo' by Lawrence Durrell, and kept thinking about it for several days at least. Then I forgot to write about it, but tonight it came back to me.
SARAJEVO (Lawrence Durrell)
This was one of my "these poems feel linked, but I'm not sure why" moments. There seem to be echoes between the poems, anyway. Most obviously, it could be the Balkan settings; the war settings, whether death march, or start of war, or aftermath. There is something in the opening lines of both poems that is both soaring and tragically grounded, too: "the mountain roads/Earthbound..." and the distances that just can't be crossed in Radnóti's 'Letter to my wife'.
In any case, that "echo of a pistol-shot" went around the world one hundred years ago and it is still echoing.
I know the pistol shot is the start of WWI but what is Durrell doing here. In Ithaka I am sure he links to Odysseus or his son. There is a strange almost erotic mix of Christ's crucifixion and the sensuality of his lines and 'The heart's dark anvil' ... This and 'Sarajevo' are puzzling poems, almost symbolist.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! I would agree that this is an oblique, mysterious poem and that there may be symbolist elements. The thing that seems strangest to me is perhaps that he's not specifically describing the scenes and landscapes as devoid of people, but they seem that way to me anyway.
DeleteI agree. It is as if people disappear or don't matter in many of his poems. But as I have the Penguin Modern Poets (in the first series) I decided to read through poets unread. When young I read more by his brother the zoologist or biologist, Gerald Durrell. It said in part of a bio I saw of Lawrence that he felt in some ways he was in a dreamm in his life. You have a lot of writers that interest me on here. I must get back. I saw a short poem you published it was good.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much! I think people are more used to commenting on Twitter, Facebook etc these days and less so on blogs themselves, so it's nice to get comments here. To be honest, I spent more time in discussion and analysis of poems in the earlier days of this blog (I always feel like I need to get back to more of this) so there is some good stuff in the "archives"! I like Gerald Durrell a lot, especially My Family and Other Animals. I have a bit more of a gap where Lawrence is concerned, overall...
DeleteAll good. I make long posts everywhere. I am a writer myself -- poet. But I have wide interests. I agree. Poetry and literature can be very difficult. I have a project and have been taking my own books of my shelves and reading or re-reading them. I started on science and am up to history and psych etc but I also keep a range of poetry books. Just looked at some poems by Durrell (his 'Prayer Wheel" which I thought great, reminded me in some ways of Eliot's 'Four Quartets' but not obviously, then read a couple of poems by Carol Ann Duffy who I find good. Also I will read some more of such as Diane Ward, Bruce Andrews (Language Poets), Charles Simic, Michelle Leggott (a NZ poet who was once a lecturer to me) Bruce Dawe (was an Australian poet), various other poets. I take notes out of many writers or texts and recombine them. I am also reading some philosophers. This is all part of a kind of Project-Hobby. No purpose, just like doing it. I take notes by hand into a book. When I got to 65 I wondered whether to get a "device" to make it easier but I wanted to keep hand writing from books. So I also take notes from the many other books I read from the library or novels I have or books on other subjects. The reason is partly that in a sense I find that my writing thus becomes my reading. I thus have what I call 'The Infinite Project' but that is linked to my 'What I have been reading thing'. I am open to any kind of writing. Yes, re Durrell I and my brother, mother etc all read Gerald Durrell but I have Durell's novels so I want to read the famous Quartet. The reason I got to Durrell is he is the first poet in the Penguin Modern Poets (First Series). I decided to read through them so Jennings is next. Ashbery and Tom Raworth in that series were two of my favourites but there are a lot of good poets hidden in those and also in the other series of those. All the best.
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