Mixed Borders (3): Readings on Sat 13 June at Red Cross Garden

As part of my Mixed Borders residency with Red Cross Garden, the Poetry School, and London Open Garden Squares Weekend, I will be reading in Red Cross Garden (Redcross Way, Southwark, London SE1 1HA) at 2:30 and 4 PM on Saturday, 13 June. The readings will be pretty much identical - I am doing more than one so that different people can experience the poems. Anyone who is in London then and would like to come is very much welcome (it's free!).

Red Cross Garden has proved to be a rich source of material, and I'm happy to say that I have now written a few poems. I went back last week, and a few more pictures are below. There were a very few people in the garden (it was around 7 PM), but it was peaceful and airy, and different flowers were now in bloom. I met a gentleman named Paul, who I think lived in one of the Red Cross cottages or else nearby, who was in conversation with a black cat named Bobby. Paul and Bobby turned out to both be area residents and so I chatted with them for a few minutes - and later I wrote a poem about the cat. It was good timing.

I would love to see a few of you on Saturday, 13 June at 2:30 or 4 PM, for the readings.

 

Keith Douglas: 'The Knife'

THE KNIFE (Keith Douglas)


Can I explain this to you? Your eyes
are entrances the mouths of caves.
I issue from wonderful interiors
upon a blessed sea and a fine day,
from inside these caves I look and dream.

Your hair explicable as a waterfall
in some black liquid cooled by legend
fell across my thought in a moment
became a garment I am naked without
lines drawn across through morning and evening.

And in your body each minute I died
moving your thigh could disinter me
from a grave in a distant city:
your breasts deserted by cloth, clothed in twilight
filled me with tears, sweet cups of flesh.

Yes, to touch two fingers made us worlds
stars, waters, promontories, chaos
swooning in elements without form or time
come down through long seas among sea marvels
embracing like survivors on our islands.

This I think happened to us together
though now no shadow of it flickers in your hands
your eyes look down on ordinary streets
if I talk to you I might be a bird
with a message, a dead man, a photograph.

                                     [Wadi Natrun, October 1942]


'The Knife', published in Poetry London a few years after Keith Douglas's death, was originally dedicated to Milena Gutierrez, one of the subjects of one of his failed engagements. It has a touch of the swooning romantic which occasionally appears in his love poetry, to varied effect.

This poem has an unfinished quality (even to the extent of seeming to lack an essential word here and there), but beyond the heartfelt emotion and a few unforgettable images, it is the final stanza which really makes it special to me. Those bleak lines are so powerfully evocative of the end of a love affair, and the final lines have that cold, clear prophetic-foreshadowing quality of some of his finest poetry: "if I talk to you I might be a bird/with a message, a dead man, a photograph." 

 

Alun Lewis: 'Indian Day'

Birds over Gateway of India by Swaminathan. Used under Creative Commons license


INDIAN DAY (Alun Lewis)


I

Dawn's cold imperative compels
Bazaars and gutters to disturb
Famine's casual ugly tableaux.
Lazarus is lifted from the kerb.

The supple sweeper girl goes by
Brushing the dung of camels from the street
The daylight's silver bangles
Glitter on her naked feet.

II

Yellow ramtilla stiffens in the noon,
Jackals skulk among the screes,
In skinny fields the oxen shiver,
The gods have prophesied disease.

Hedges of spike and rubber, hedges of cactus,
Lawns of bougainvillea, jasmine, zinnia
Terraces of privilege and loathing,
The masterly shadows of a nightmare

Harden and grow lengthy in the drought.
The moneyed antipathetic faces
Converse in courts of pride and fountains
With ermined sleek injustices.
Gods and dacoits haunt the mountains.

III

The sun the thunder and the hunger grow
Extending stupidly the helds of pain
Ploughing the peasant under with his crop
Denying the great mercy of the rain

Denying what each flowering pear and lime
And every child and each embrace imply - 
The love that is imprisoned in each heart
By the famines and fortunes of the century.

IV

Night bibles India in her wilderness
The Frontier Mail screams blazing with such terror
The russet tribesman lays aside his flute
Rigid with Time's hypnotic surging error.

The kindness of the heart lies mute
Caught in the impotence of dreams
Yet all night long the boulders sing
The timeless songs of mountain streams.


In 2015, it is one hundred years since the birth of Alun Lewis, one of the Big Three of British World War II poetry along with Keith Douglas and Sidney Keyes. Like Keith Douglas, Lewis died in 1944, while Sidney Keyes died in 1943. All were young, but at 28, Lewis lived the longest by a few years. I have written a little more about him here.

Out of the Lewis/Douglas/Keyes trio (none of whom knew each other, although Douglas and Keyes may have crossed paths), Douglas is - to me - by far the most contemporary. He wrote cold, cutting poetry which in most particulars could have been written in recent years. Lewis and Keyes were more in a backwards-looking Romantic tradition, although Keyes was so young when he died that I hesitate to say which direction he would ultimately have taken with his work.

'Indian Day' is taken from Lewis's collection Ha! Ha! Among the Trumpets, the title of which refers to the description of a war horse in the Biblical book of Job. It was published posthumously in 1945. Lewis was posted to India in 1942 and was deeply moved by the striking sights and violent poverty of the country. This was one of the poems which resulted.

'Indian Day' doesn't exactly escape cliches about the subcontinent, especially those that would have been implicated in the colonial gaze of the time. The view of the "supple sweeper girl" is a bit voyeuristic (without being particularly perceptive) and the conclusion that "love...is imprisoned in each heart" isn't that exciting. But this is still a hugely evocative poem with unforgettable lines - "The sun the thunder and the hunger grow" and "Night bibles India in her wilderness" (the latter made me think of another Welshman, Dylan Thomas, who a few years later wrote the words "starless and bible black" in his play Under Milk Wood. The seriousness of the black-covered Bibles seems to me very evocative of nonconformist Wales.)

Mixed Borders (2): Visiting Red Cross Garden

I visited Red Cross Garden to properly start my poetry residency just over a week ago, on an evening when the weather was only somewhat less unpleasant than it is today. Fortunately, it cleared up for most of the time I spent visiting.

Mary O'Connell, who is the Volunteering and Education Facilitator at Bankside Open Spaces Trust (which administers this garden and other green spaces around the Bankside area), gave me a thorough and interesting tour, pointing out the botany of the garden, its features past and present, and some details about the restoration. Red Cross Garden was first laid out in 1887, and along with its cottages and community hall, it was part of Octavia Hill's social housing work. She believed strongly in the importance of decent housing, access to nature and exposure to culture for disadvantaged people. The cottages are still in use as social housing, and they are charming to look at. The community hall was used for concerts and poetry readings. After the garden fell into disrepair during World War II, it was restored by Bankside Open Spaces Trust in 2005-2006, with many of its original features such as the small bandstand and wildlife pond.

I took a number of photos, some of which you can see below. There are certainly a number of possible angles for poetry - history of the garden and the area, Octavia Hill herself, the work to restore the garden, the botany, and so on. I've written one poem so far, but it is under wraps for the moment. Suffice it to say that a fictional character who has played a major role in my life walked into the garden (as it appeared in my mind after visiting), and it made sense to write about him there as I could see him so clearly.

I'm off on holiday in a couple of days, for about a week, but I will certainly be visiting the garden again soon after that, and writing some more.

Mixed Borders (1): Poet In a Garden

Alhambra gardens, Granada, Spain. Photo by Clarissa Aykroyd


I'm very pleased to say that I will be taking part in Mixed Borders, a collaboration between the Poetry School and the London Parks and Gardens Trust, where a number of the gardens taking part in the London Open Garden Squares weekend (13-14 June 2015) will be hosting poets-in-residence. You can read more about the scheme in this blog post from the Poetry School.

I've been assigned the Red Cross Garden in Southwark for my residency, which has a great depth of Victorian and social history, and just looks to be a lovely little garden in a fascinating area - I am about to go and visit it for the first time.

What will I actually be doing for my residency? Writing poetry, of course. Our opening workshop included some exercises which proved fruitful, and various inchoate garden-poem ideas are circling in my head already. I'd like to explore different angles, such as the history, the associated people (particularly the founder Octavia Hill, also one of the National Trust founders), and the interaction with the Southwark area. Botany is far, far from being an area of expertise for me, but I want to have a look, at least. On the weekend itself I should be in the garden for at least a few hours on one or both days - watch this space. I might read, I might hand out poems, I might just sit there looking moody and trying to write. All shall be revealed in time (when I figure it out.) In a somewhat-related way, I might even get back to those translations from French of Rilke's 'Rose' poems which I've been neglecting so badly.

And obviously, I have been reading poetry of the garden, including selections from Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse, edited by Sarah Maguire, who herself worked as a gardener for some years.

Further blog posts should follow soon - about the garden, the poetry and more...

Here are a couple of garden poems worth reading, from either side of the pond, by Sarah Maguire (Britain) and Louise Glück (US).


ROSEMARY (Sarah Maguire)

THE SILVER LILY (Louise Glück)

Nikola Madzirov: 'The One Who Writes'

Nikola Madzirov. Photo © Thomas Kierok (Blue Flower Arts)


I met the Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov at Poetry International, on London's Southbank, last July. He was reading a few times during the festival and I saw him alongside other incredible poets such as Carolyn Forché, Anne Michaels and Robert Hass. We also spoke a few times - I had briefly been in touch with him on social media before, although some time previously, and he still remembered me, which was great but not that surprising. He seems to have a widespread reputation as not only one of the best poets out there, but one of the nicest.

In the course of one of these conversations I asked him if I could reproduce one of his poems (or one of the translations, anyway) in my blog, and he said yes, of course. This blog post is therefore something like nine months late, which I can only put down to procrastination, not being sure which poem to choose, and feeling slightly daunted.

Madzirov seems to be one of the hardest-working poets out there - every time I've googled him or looked him up on Twitter, he seems to be appearing at yet another poetry festival on yet another continent. His poems, on the other hand - which have appeared in English translation in Remnants of Another Age (Bloodaxe Books, 2013 in the UK; BOA Editions, 2011 in the US; translations by Peggy Reid, Graham Reid, Magdalena Horvat and Adam Reed) - are hard-working pieces which feel effortless. They seem like spiritual-secular prayers spoken inside the head, like the mind whispering of the most personal, trivial and essential things and weaving all the connections into a haunting whole.

These poems are very often about doubt, inbetween states, statelessness, travel, and a sort of forwards-and-backwards nostalgia. Madzirov was a descendant of refugees and he was coming of age around when the Balkans descended into war - unsurprisingly, the images of body and identity in these poems are often fragmented, beautiful but also broken. They are poems which, lightly but sometimes painfully, seem to be constantly moving, sometimes groping toward something, somewhere or someone.


We'll meet one day,
like a paper boat and
a watermelon that's been cooling in the river.
The anxiety of the world will
be with us. Our palms
will eclipse the sun and we'll
approach each other holding lanterns.

(from 'Shadows Pass Us By')


I had a hard time choosing a poem for this post, but decided my choice was 'The One Who Writes'. When Madzirov read this at Southbank, he said "People ask me if I am a poet. I say, 'I am the one who writes.'"


THE ONE WHO WRITES (Nikola Madzirov - trans. P Reid, G Reid, M Horvat and A Reed)


You write. About the things that already exist.
And they say you fantasize.

You keep quiet. Like the sunken nets
of poachers. Like an angel
who knows what the night may bring.

And you travel. You forget,
so that you can come back.

You write and you don't want to remember
the stone, the sea, the believers
sleeping with their hands apart.


I liked this poem partly because of a certain familiarity to the opening lines. Madzirov's poems, even when dark, usually have a considerable gentleness, but there is a kind of snap to "And they say you fantasize" which as a writer I recognised.

The final lines are both frightening and peaceful - to me, it seems an image of death, possibly violent death, and possibly with implications of trauma. If the one who writes can't forget, he might not be able to come back.



Poem  © Nikola Madzirov, 2011 and 2013. Used by permission.

London Book Fair: Poetry, Mexico and Tequila

The Mexico pavilion at the London Book Fair, Olympia, April 2015.



After several years of working in and around publishing in London, I finally made it to the 2015 London Book Fair (now at Olympia) last week. I spent a full day there on Tuesday and also returned near the end of the day on Wednesday. I was there for work purposes, but given that my publishing work involves a bit of everything from editing to sales to permissions to literacy issues, I had a pretty open remit, which obviously suited me quite nicely. In practice it meant that I traipsed happily around the entire LBF at least two or three times, went to several fascinating and relevant seminars and meetings, and also had some time for poetry matters.

I caught up briefly with George Szirtes, who was part of a very interesting panel on 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing and Reading in the Digital Age', along with Julio Trujillo, James Knight and Mauricio Montiel Figuieras - these writers are known for their Twitter-based literary explorations. Later on, I finally met Jo Bell, who I knew from online mainly through her inspiring 52 project and who was releasing her new collection, Kith. She talked about her Canal Poet Laureateship and her reading from Kith was bold and bright, which was much needed because we were in a very loud environment with no amplification... (perhaps something for LBF to think about if they do another Poetry Pavilion again?)

The country focus for LBF this year was Mexico, which was of particular interest to me as I have a growing interest in Latin America and have been working on my Spanish in the last couple of years - and I have also been to Mexico, although it was a long time ago and very much as a tourist. The country focus meant that many publishers from Mexico exhibited and I browsed through many interesting poetry collections and other books.

On my full day I also went to 'An Insight into Contemporary Mexican Poetry', which featured the poets Pedro Serrano and Tedi López Mills, reading their work and in discussion with poet and novelist Adam Foulds. Pedro Serrano read poems such as 'Serpiente' (Serpent) and 'Regents Canal', while Tedi López Mills read from her novel in poem form, Death on Rua Augusta. López Mills called poetry "a very significant way of being insignificant", while Serrano spoke of how there are "different ways of touching poetry, but at the same time with connections". In terms of influence, López Mills mentioned that Mexican poetry is very influenced by the French poetic tradition. Serrano pointed out that in Latin American terms, Colombia is generally more artistically conservative and Argentina is more adventurous, while Mexico finds itself somewhere in the middle. It was a very illuminating discussion and the poetry was great. 

On Wednesday, when I returned late in the day, I went to the launch party for Carcanet's re-release of the Collected Poems of Octavio Paz. I have been reading and admiring Paz increasingly in recent months, and there was also tequila and good conversation (one no doubt assisted by another). Also, I discovered that if the tequila has been flowing, publishers will probably start to just give you books.

 The deadly combination of tequila and Octavio Paz - London Book Fair 2015.


My final LBF event was on the Thursday at the Saison Poetry Library, where I attended another reading by Tedi López Mills organised by Modern Poetry in Translation and the British Council. López Mills gave some more insights into the incredibly intriguing Death on Rua Augusta, which I just had to buy. It is not just poetry but a perspective-shifting film noir-type narrative, set in Fullerton, California - according to López Mills, "a place where no one would pay to go." "Poetry is always on the defensive, always encased in barbed wire, afraid of getting hurt," she commented. Whatever the case may be, this poetry is taking a bold stance, and I can't wait to read more of it.

London Book Fair, Olympia, April 2015.



All photos by Clarissa Aykroyd, 2015. 

Keith Douglas: 'Caravan'

In a rather tired state, but still wanting to post something tonight, I thought I would share this poem written by Keith Douglas at the age of fifteen. It made an impression on me surpassed only by his much later work.

'Caravan' reminds me of the following: the song 'Secret Journey' by The Police, the poem 'The Disappearing Island' by Seamus Heaney, and some of the more allegorical work of Ursula Le Guin. 


CARAVAN (Keith Douglas)


Going beyond the gate they found these men
Sitting in the last light and regarding the great sun
With understanding. And one spoke to them presently,
Saying he had discovered the soul of music
At one time. And another said, that when 
The birds flow southwards, heading across the continent,

Then the wild sea, under the always rhythmic
Shutter of wingtips, only suggests to spent
Eyes slanting, the slope of green and mountainous moving
Country; familiar, only no priests in the cities
Handling the cold bronze, counting. The stones in panic
Chilled, the bright dust reflecting the heavens' faces.

Thus he revealed the perfect sources, the lost
Wisdom, seeing only the loved existent;
The clouds flying, Earth stretching in silence
Chameleon, the colours limited, dyes all lost.
All this he told them, speaking the tongue of the swallows.

But they not knowing the words, nor in his hands
Seeing the meaning, went thence over the sands.

                                                                                                1935