Going Into the Room: Turner, Mahon, MacNeice

JMW Turner, The Wreck Buoy, 1807 (reworked 1849)



Last weekend I went to the Turner and the Sea exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. I've seen a lot of Turner paintings and quite a few exhibitions, but this was really great, and got better as it went along. There were some of the great paintings which permanently reside in the London galleries, such as The Fighting Temeraire and Snow Storm, but there were also equally amazing oil paintings from galleries elsewhere in the UK and the US; paintings of shipwrecks; delicate watercolours and quick sketches which were exquisite; and a whole range which showcased both Turner's genius in different mediums and styles, and also all the ways in which the sea inspired him.

As I looked at these amazing works by a painter who I love, I felt a very welcome lifting of stress, though it also came with some heightened emotion. It was quite a cleansing feeling. The news has been particularly dark in the past couple of months; constant rolling coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, and the weirdly blank (because they have no news) coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, have all been mentally wearing, as well as the ongoing nightmares of Syria and other places. These events can be distressing even if we are only exposed to them through the media and are not, for now, caught up in the middle of them. The world is a difficult place to live in at this time. I have been reading Mark 13, where Jesus and his apostles discussed "the sign when all these things are to come to a conclusion" (Mark 13:4). "Moreover, when you hear of wars and reports of wars, do not be alarmed; these things must take place, but the end is not yet," said Jesus (Mark 13:7), pointing to conflicts and other "pangs of distress" that would afflict humanity. My strong belief that the increasingly acute world events of the past 100 years are an indication of coming changes, and that things won't always be this way, is incredibly encouraging. But these are still difficult times.

The arts can also have a therapeutic effect in stressful times, and I felt it at the Turner exhibition. I came to a realisation, too. Here it is:

Poetry is like going into a room. When you write it, or when you read it, you go into the room, and you try to work things out. The room could be the size of the whole world, or the size of your heart, or anything in between. You could open the windows and let in floods of light, or it could be completely dark and closed. You could break down the walls, or they could be transparent. There might be one other person there, or crowds, or no one. There could be blank walls, or great artwork, or something utterly unexpected. Perhaps you will feel better, or less confused, or perhaps more confused. But whatever happens, there is always a room, and you go in, and try to work things out.

Along with this, I thought of two poems. One is 'Everything Is Going to Be All Right' by Derek Mahon. Here's a video of him reading it:

The other is 'Order to View' by Louis MacNeice, one of Derek Mahon's greatest influences.

New Poems! New Poems!

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Hunters in the Snow (Winter), 1565. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna



On Friday three of my poems were published in one day, which was a nice record for me. Also a bit of motivation for 2014, because last year I was anything but prolific poetry-wise.

Shot Glass Journal published 'Wicklow Mountains After Rain' and 'Okinawa', here: http://www.musepiepress.com/shotglass/issue12/clarissa_aykroyd1.html

The 'Wicklow Mountains' poem is actually ten years old but I always hoped to find a home for it. The final lines are still among my favourites that I've written. 'Okinawa' was written after my trip to that part of Japan a few years ago - it's another travel snapshot, but I also think (and sort of hope) that it might just possibly be the only poem ever written (let alone published) to mention both JMW Turner and Def Leppard. If anyone knows of such another poem, I desperately want to read it.

Josephine Corcoran's wonderful blog/e-zine And Other Poems published my version of Rainer Maria Rilke's French poem 'Winter' (Hiver), here: http://andotherpoems.wordpress.com/2014/02/07/clarissa-aykroyd-2/

I subtitled this "after Rilke" because it was a bit too free to really be a "translation", I think. You can read the original French poem here. I had the (perhaps totally wrong and presumptuous) feeling that this poem was unfinished, that Rilke would like to have worked on it some more. So I think that a lot of the words are mine, building on the original, but the ideas are essentially the same as in Rilke's original poem. I chose not to try to reproduce the end rhymes which appear in the French poem, but my version is far more alliterative than Rilke's. The alliteration is perhaps the aspect in which it is the most my own. It was a very enjoyable poem to create a version of because, as so often with Rilke, his words seemed to speak from his heart to my heart.

"Close My Eyes and I'm a Vessel": Water Poems for National Poetry Day

Snow Storm, JMW Turner, exhibited 1842. Tate Britain.



It is once again National Poetry Day in the UK, and this year's theme is 'Water'.

I wanted to share three of my favourite water-based poems: 'Diving Into the Wreck' by Adrienne Rich, 'The Sea Is History' by Derek Walcott, and 'Rivers Into Seas' by Lynda Hull. It may not come as a huge surprise to those who know me that all of these water-based poems are also sea-based.


DIVING INTO THE WRECK (Adrienne Rich)


THE SEA IS HISTORY (Derek Walcott)


RIVERS INTO SEAS (Lynda Hull)


Enjoy.

Thom Gunn's 'In Santa Maria del Popolo' and Caravaggio's Conversion on the Way to Damascus

This painting is Caravaggio's Conversion on the Way to Damascus, painted in 1601. It is in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo, in Rome, and I saw it when I visited Rome with a friend three years ago.

By then, the painting had already held a great deal of personal significance for me for close to fifteen years. In my last year of high school, when I was sixteen years old, I took a course called Western Civilization, which (oddly enough) was based on the TV series and book Civilisation by British historian Kenneth Clark. I had never before taken a class which gave me such a good overview of the course of Western history over the last two thousand years, particularly in terms of religion, literature, art, architecture and music, and how they related to the events of history. I discovered Caravaggio and this painting through that class, as well as the paintings of JMW Turner, and Bernini's Apollo and Daphne statue, which we also saw in Rome. It was definitely a pivotal moment for me.

Seeing the painting in real life was a very moving experience. It is an incredibly powerful work, and it depicts an extremely crucial moment in one of my favourite Biblical books, the Acts of the Apostles. I'm always glad to not be disappointed when I see something like a work of art that I have waited to see for many years.

I have been thinking about the intersection between visual art and poetry: the places where they meet, or art inspired by poetry, or poetry inspired by art. I haven't reached many conclusions yet, except that the two mediums do two very different things and so it is hard to do one inspired by the other. Art is more immediate and visceral; poetry is subtle, cumulative and chronological - and even by saying that I am aware that I am simplifying far too much.

I tried to write a poem about this painting years ago, when I was about twenty. I doubt it was more than semi-successful. When I lived in Dublin and was discovering the wonderful art of Jack Yeats, W B Yeat's brother, I wrote a few poems inspired by his paintings, particularly For the Road and The Singing Horseman, both of which are in the National Gallery in Dublin. For the Road came out quite well, The Singing Horseman somewhat less so. I have a poster of his There Is No Night, which I used to go look at in the Hugh Lane Gallery. I love it but it has always bewildered me in some way I can't explain. I tried to write a poem about it - in fact, I tried on and off for at least a few years. I never really succeeded, which is still a source of frustration for me.

This is the poem 'In Santa Maria del Popolo', by Thom Gunn. Again, at this point of intersection between art and poetry, I am left uncertain. It is a rather analytical poem, more about Caravaggio's intentions and the poet's somewhat cynical questions, than about the painting itself, or the scene it depicts.


IN SANTA MARIA DEL POPOLO (Thom Gunn)

W S Graham's 'The Night City': London Is My Open Book

On Saturday I went to a poetry workshop on "Megacities and the Grotesque", led by poet and performance artist Siddhartha Bose. I think the most valuable thing that I took away from it for my own writing was how to work on speaking through the voices of others, something I haven't done very much. I might yet get something from the beggar in Hammersmith who snarls at everyone and recently called me a "#&%* posh girl". We spent a good deal of time discussing London and its possibilities; read New York poems by Lorca, Whitman and Walcott; and Siddhartha read to us from his shambolic beatbox of a poem, 'Shoreditch Serenade'.

Cities tend to inspire me when I write poetry myself. I've written quite a few poems about different aspects of London, and when I travel to other cities they often inspire some work. I've found that my poems tend to start out being about a place or a city, and later become a meditation on something I'm preoccupied with or struggling with. This is the city as mirror - Derek Walcott has done this quite wonderfully. Much as World War II bombs and Roman ruins sometimes come to light in the City of London during roadworks and the like, different cities uncover different aspects of my self.

We were asked if possible to bring city poems to read. One of the ones that I read was 'The Night City' by W S Graham, which can be found on this link:

THE NIGHT CITY (W S Graham)

I first read this poem some months ago and loved it right away. It instantly spoke to so much of what fascinates me about London, and it reminded me of my own first visit. I was 17 or 18 and travelling with my parents and brother. London had been an essential part of my mental and emotional landscape for years, and I was especially obsessed with Sherlock Holmes at the time (still am) and wanted to walk in his footsteps. London was everything I wanted, and when I arrived there in the flesh, I found that it was still everything I wanted. I'd probably dreamed about moving there even before that, but visiting the city solidified that dream. I later wrote a poem about that first afternoon, being overwhelmed by the sight of one great monument after another, and simply by being there. I remember that it contained the line about standing on Trafalgar Square, staring around awestruck: "Completion. This is it."

Graham arrives in the midst of a Turner painting (the above painting is Turner's depiction of the Houses of Parliament on fire - he didn't paint London a great deal.)


Unmet at Euston in a dream
Of London under Turner's steam


London is his "golden city", where he meets T S Eliot, and Holmes, and John Donne, and others. (Graham actually did meet Eliot in London - Eliot championed his poems and Faber became Graham's publisher.) I had to look up Paul Potts - interestingly, he was a modern poet who came originally from British Columbia, my home province. He wandered the dark streets of Soho, not bathing nearly often enough. I have not tracked down any of his poems yet, but would like to. It seems that both London and Canada claim him.

The poem stops on a dark, quiet note. The City is always empty when its workers have gone home. The speaker is still surrounded by the echoes of history and literature - the Great Fire, the Plague - and finds himself "In the stopped works of a watch"; both in time, and out of it. This is a feeling that I frequently have in London.

It is often good to be pushed out of your comfort zone by literature and art, but I admit that this poem is very much one of "my poems"; it describes my vision of London. I have always seen places, and London particularly, through the lens of literature and art. I think that this is my way of both participating and protecting myself. London, as well as being Unreal City and a literary dreamland, is also harsh and tough and violent. I keep my eyes open for the threatening elements, but imagining that I am in a book or a poem - that carries me through, in so many ways.

Louis MacNeice's 'Entirely': Some Days You Just Want Art to Calm You Down

I finished work early today, and when my errands were done I found myself first at the National Portrait Gallery, wandering amidst the artists and politicians and explorers and looking for the Isaac Rosenberg self-portrait which I included in my last entry. It's in storage, but if it comes out I might see it some day. My eventual port of call was the Turners in the National Gallery - my feet often seem to lead me there. I had the obligatory conversation in front of Rain, Steam and Speed, above, about the hare running in front of the train. Some day I'll set off the alarm pointing it out. Although I have known about the hare for a long time (the NG kind of spells it out for you by mentioning it in the blurb), I always see something in that painting I haven't seen before.

I had Rosenberg's lines on my mind and felt a bit overwhelmed. There is something about a poem like 'Break of Day in the Trenches' which brings me to the overall experience from the very personal - that is, one man's perspective makes me think about all the individual experiences, which is a very large-scale tragedy. So I couldn't think about that for much longer. I finally found my way to this poem by Louis MacNeice, 'Entirely'.

ENTIRELY (Louis MacNeice)

I don't have a great deal to say about this poem, but I love its truthfulness, and how succintly memorable it is, and how practical. Poetry can be very practical, especially because of its capacity for extreme accuracy, and it strikes me that MacNeice was a practical sort except when he was entangled in disastrous relationships or alcoholism (which seems to have been a lot of the time.) He just says it like it is in this poem, but very elegantly. I'm not sure he and I would have entirely agreed that "in brute reality there is no/Road that is right entirely", but I know what he means. Human nature is such that almost everything has ambiguity attached to it, and something difficult will accompany even the best decision, and you'll never quite say what you wanted to say:


And when we try to eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.


I also like the fact that he acknowledges: "Or again we might be merely/Bored" if things were simpler. But the question is moot, as he points out, so he is not going to worry about it too much.

MacNeice's poems tend to calm me down, much as my favourite paintings tend to do. I always feel better (even if I was already feeling fantastic) when I've had time to wander through a gallery, like today. Often that is just what we need from art.