This one just jumped out of nowhere. For some reason I was researching tylosis (how trees stop themselves from rotting in the middle) this week. Went for a walk in the woods, saw lots of fallen trees with hollow middles. Then last night out this one popped. This is draft 1. Don't know whether I like it or not yet. But here it is.
How to Mummify your Heart
First, you must plant your feet in the ground, and draw
up water by capillary action until your toes go pruney
(this shrivelling is essential - it's part of the magic).
Then take a deep breath and hold it. Stay as still as Saint
Kevin until you have sucked in all the CO2, then breathe out
the nitrogen and oxygen. You may find it easier
to whittle out the unwanted air by whistling
as you exhale. Step three is to wait for some bright
sunshine. Savour its warmth on your skin. Your eyes
will turn green. Keep them open, and stare into the sun.
Now you are photosynthesising. You'll feel a tingle
in your bloodstream - try not to panic, ladies and gentlemen,
this is perfectly normal. When you have photosynthesised enough
to have built up some stores of waste products,
set aside your resins and gums.
Now, here's one I made earlier. Watch as I unscrew my ribs
and open up from the sternum; you will see a hard and woody
centre. It's dead wood. As I have expanded
my core has died. But so that I do not become
all hollow on the inside I plug
my frail veins with the resins and gums. This we call
tylosis. When you've practised, this will come
as easily as transpiration, as reflexive as osmosis.
But for now, concentrate really hard. Be aware
of your spinal column, your veins, your aorta.
This should feel almost like a meditation. Imagine
the waste resins and gums pumping through your bloodstream.
Direct them to your heart. Don't get confused between
the pulmonary vein and artery, they're not the same
as your other tubes. Madam, you on the left -
I see that you are getting there. Watch, everyone, the colour leaving her face,
her expression blankening. Very good, very good. Now
open up your ribs - that's it - let's check.
Your xylem is as hard as concrete, madam.
Keep trying everyone else! If you want to mummify your heart
perseverance is key. Look at madam here. There's a breezeblock in her chest.
Excellent!
(c) stays with me.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
'What the Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo' by Pascale Petit
This book has been haunting me for a while, and today I finally bought it from Bookish, an independent bookstore in Crickhowell, Wales (can't recommend it enough - lovely little shop, and a brilliant budding events calendar). I've been dipping into poetry unstoppably over the last few days, maybe because it feels like a worthwhile distraction from my upcoming deadlines (7 of them!) or perhaps because it gives me a short burst of literature-related ecstasy and I'm too tired to bother with a whole novel. Anyway, literally 45 minutes ago I bought 'What the Water Gave Me' and I've been reading it. At last!!
First of all, a bit of background. I've loved Frida Kahlo's paintings since I was about 12 (I remember first reading her name in a Jacqueline Wilson book). I'm an art and literature student, and although in the next stage of my studies I hope to concentrate on literature, art is my second love, so I've been very interested to see how Pascale Petit blends the two together. Frida Kahlo in particular is fascinating: she lived through so much, not just her personal experience, but world events, and she was one of the few Surrealist artists who were women. She had a turbulent life. She remains a figure of mystery and semi-myth. As an equality-of-the-sexes-ist (okay, FEMINIST. There we go, I said the scary word) she fascinates me - she must have had so much strength to survive all that she did, but at the same time she was vulnerable and Diego Rivera trod on her a bit. She's an interesting character. Yes, as I said, semi-mythological.
Background to the story of me and this book: first saw it in Waterstones months ago, it's been popping up all over my Amazon recommendations, read up about it, bought a tutorial of Petit's from The Poetry School (Towards a Collection - very good, wish I had the time and money to take one of her courses), saw it in Waterstones again left to think about it, went back and they had run out of copies. So after all that I now have it.
When I first heard about the book, I was a bit sceptical; it seemed quite a strange thing to me for a poet to try and get under the skin of another REAL person, someone who had their own internal experience that they chose not to put into poetry, and Petit seems to do this more intimately and intensely than other poets (those I have read) who are inspired by paintings or other arts. But now, after reading some of her work, and after the Poetry School tutorial, I understand better what it was that Petit is doing with Frida Kahlo. One of the reviews on the back of the book describes it as 'ventriloquism', and I think that this is a helpful analogy. Petit is exploring the woman and the myth of Frida Kahlo, and how the two reinforce and contradict one another. Kahlo's paintings, her expression of her experience, are interpreted into words by another artist. If we imagine Kahlo and her experience as the word of 'god', Petit is writing the King James bible. It isn't Kahlo herself, but boy is it beautiful English, and it distills her myth into delicious words.
If any of that makes sense. Basically what I'm trying to say is that despite my early misgivings, Petit's relationship with the spirit of Kahlo isn't weird at all. I feel that Petit isn't trying to write or be or sell anything that isn't her, herself. It's just that shes doing it through the exploration of the myth of Kahlo, and what might have been behind the myth.
Anyway, onto the poetry.
Petit writes concisely. Her poems take a variety of forms on the page. She's clearly a poet who really crafts her poems - every word works for its place (my teachers are always spouting on about how this is what makes poetry poetry, but it's amazing the number of published poets who do dilute their message through wasteful words. Petit isn't one of these). Just look at 'a zoo of pinks' ('A Few Small Nips'), 'lightning jigs like skeletons' (She Plays Alone...) and the simple but perfect 'violet morning' of 'The Suicide of Dorothy Hale'.
Petit's vision absolutely sucks you in. Her training as a painter is obvious in her deft use of colour, texture, and the senses. Unike Annie Freud, she shows, rather than tells. Although Petit uses the first person a fair bit, I don't feel that it is monotonous as in Jo Shapcott's 'Of Mutability', as she uses it to express a variety of voices - not just Kahlo's, or her own, but even the characters of the paintings themselves (see 'The Wounded Deer', where it is the deer of the painting speaking to Frida the painter).
I compare Petit's style to that of Ruth Padel; they are two poets who can stick disparate words together to create the perfect image, and who write about beauty and emotion beautifully and emotionally. Petit has done something really clever in these poems - taken the uncomfortable disjointedness of Kahlo's paintings and made beautiful poetry from all that pain - still as haunting but more dreamlike than Kahlo's nightmare reality.
OK, lots of waffle in this review. But basically, three points:
First of all, a bit of background. I've loved Frida Kahlo's paintings since I was about 12 (I remember first reading her name in a Jacqueline Wilson book). I'm an art and literature student, and although in the next stage of my studies I hope to concentrate on literature, art is my second love, so I've been very interested to see how Pascale Petit blends the two together. Frida Kahlo in particular is fascinating: she lived through so much, not just her personal experience, but world events, and she was one of the few Surrealist artists who were women. She had a turbulent life. She remains a figure of mystery and semi-myth. As an equality-of-the-sexes-ist (okay, FEMINIST. There we go, I said the scary word) she fascinates me - she must have had so much strength to survive all that she did, but at the same time she was vulnerable and Diego Rivera trod on her a bit. She's an interesting character. Yes, as I said, semi-mythological.
Background to the story of me and this book: first saw it in Waterstones months ago, it's been popping up all over my Amazon recommendations, read up about it, bought a tutorial of Petit's from The Poetry School (Towards a Collection - very good, wish I had the time and money to take one of her courses), saw it in Waterstones again left to think about it, went back and they had run out of copies. So after all that I now have it.
When I first heard about the book, I was a bit sceptical; it seemed quite a strange thing to me for a poet to try and get under the skin of another REAL person, someone who had their own internal experience that they chose not to put into poetry, and Petit seems to do this more intimately and intensely than other poets (those I have read) who are inspired by paintings or other arts. But now, after reading some of her work, and after the Poetry School tutorial, I understand better what it was that Petit is doing with Frida Kahlo. One of the reviews on the back of the book describes it as 'ventriloquism', and I think that this is a helpful analogy. Petit is exploring the woman and the myth of Frida Kahlo, and how the two reinforce and contradict one another. Kahlo's paintings, her expression of her experience, are interpreted into words by another artist. If we imagine Kahlo and her experience as the word of 'god', Petit is writing the King James bible. It isn't Kahlo herself, but boy is it beautiful English, and it distills her myth into delicious words.
If any of that makes sense. Basically what I'm trying to say is that despite my early misgivings, Petit's relationship with the spirit of Kahlo isn't weird at all. I feel that Petit isn't trying to write or be or sell anything that isn't her, herself. It's just that shes doing it through the exploration of the myth of Kahlo, and what might have been behind the myth.
Anyway, onto the poetry.
Petit writes concisely. Her poems take a variety of forms on the page. She's clearly a poet who really crafts her poems - every word works for its place (my teachers are always spouting on about how this is what makes poetry poetry, but it's amazing the number of published poets who do dilute their message through wasteful words. Petit isn't one of these). Just look at 'a zoo of pinks' ('A Few Small Nips'), 'lightning jigs like skeletons' (She Plays Alone...) and the simple but perfect 'violet morning' of 'The Suicide of Dorothy Hale'.
Petit's vision absolutely sucks you in. Her training as a painter is obvious in her deft use of colour, texture, and the senses. Unike Annie Freud, she shows, rather than tells. Although Petit uses the first person a fair bit, I don't feel that it is monotonous as in Jo Shapcott's 'Of Mutability', as she uses it to express a variety of voices - not just Kahlo's, or her own, but even the characters of the paintings themselves (see 'The Wounded Deer', where it is the deer of the painting speaking to Frida the painter).
I compare Petit's style to that of Ruth Padel; they are two poets who can stick disparate words together to create the perfect image, and who write about beauty and emotion beautifully and emotionally. Petit has done something really clever in these poems - taken the uncomfortable disjointedness of Kahlo's paintings and made beautiful poetry from all that pain - still as haunting but more dreamlike than Kahlo's nightmare reality.
OK, lots of waffle in this review. But basically, three points:
- Beautiful, evocative imagery
- Unique and vibrant vision, an ambitious collection
- Read it, it's really good.
The Mirabelles by Annie Freud, and Gillian Clarke's Collected Poems
'The Mirabelles' is Freud's second collection, has a very pretty front cover and is a Poetry Book Society choice. It is also the first of Freud's work that I have read.
I haven't read the whole of this book, but it's quite an unusual one. It's been very interesting to see a range of what contemporary poetry can be, and The Mirabelles is a good introduction to different styles for someone new to contemporary poetry (like me). It isn't earth-shattering, or ground-breaking, but is unusual.
The collection is split into three different sections, which each showcase different styles and structures. The second section, 'The Inexplicable Human Gorgeousness', is the one I am reading now, and contains a few found poems - i.e. poetry made from an existing text. Although I have enjoyed quite a fair bit of the book so far, the found poems annoyed me. This is just my opinion, but I feel it rather strongly: sticking a few line breaks into someone else's writing does not make a poem. Poetry requires a creative input of vision and skill from the writer. Freud's found poems don't deliver this. To me, these aren't poetry. They're taking credit for someone else's legwork (and I say 'taking credit for', because one of the found poems is mentioned in the blurb, and makes the book sound much more interesting than it really is!).
I enjoy Freud's original work however. The opening poem, 'Squid Sonnet', is one that I particularly liked. In some places her voice seems undeveloped - a bit 'tell', rather than 'show', a bit less vital and vibrant than the work of the fully-formed, mature poetry of Jo Shapcott, for example - but I can see that there is a unique vision under there. I'd recommend borrowing this book from the library and studying it - for me personally, it's poetry to study, rather than to savour.
Gillian Clarke's 'Collected Poems'. Now there's a completely different kettle of fish. Some poetry to really get stuck into. Images and words that you can really taste. And I've only read one section so far!
Gillian Clarke is the Welsh equivalent of Poet Laureate, and I can see why. She writes beautifully, in a variety of forms and styles, with a fully-formed voice that is all her own. She touches so many subjects, absolutely expertly. My favourites include 'Pipistrelle', 'Today' and 'Oranges'. I love the way that she sticks in little bits of Welsh, words that have no exact translation in English, but that fit the meaning perfectly (they are explained - 100% English-speaker friendly, and aren't too numerous, so don't be put off).
I may write a fuller review when I've read more. But for now, all I can say is that if you enjoy poetry, read Gillian Clarke!
I haven't read the whole of this book, but it's quite an unusual one. It's been very interesting to see a range of what contemporary poetry can be, and The Mirabelles is a good introduction to different styles for someone new to contemporary poetry (like me). It isn't earth-shattering, or ground-breaking, but is unusual.
The collection is split into three different sections, which each showcase different styles and structures. The second section, 'The Inexplicable Human Gorgeousness', is the one I am reading now, and contains a few found poems - i.e. poetry made from an existing text. Although I have enjoyed quite a fair bit of the book so far, the found poems annoyed me. This is just my opinion, but I feel it rather strongly: sticking a few line breaks into someone else's writing does not make a poem. Poetry requires a creative input of vision and skill from the writer. Freud's found poems don't deliver this. To me, these aren't poetry. They're taking credit for someone else's legwork (and I say 'taking credit for', because one of the found poems is mentioned in the blurb, and makes the book sound much more interesting than it really is!).
I enjoy Freud's original work however. The opening poem, 'Squid Sonnet', is one that I particularly liked. In some places her voice seems undeveloped - a bit 'tell', rather than 'show', a bit less vital and vibrant than the work of the fully-formed, mature poetry of Jo Shapcott, for example - but I can see that there is a unique vision under there. I'd recommend borrowing this book from the library and studying it - for me personally, it's poetry to study, rather than to savour.
Gillian Clarke's 'Collected Poems'. Now there's a completely different kettle of fish. Some poetry to really get stuck into. Images and words that you can really taste. And I've only read one section so far!
Gillian Clarke is the Welsh equivalent of Poet Laureate, and I can see why. She writes beautifully, in a variety of forms and styles, with a fully-formed voice that is all her own. She touches so many subjects, absolutely expertly. My favourites include 'Pipistrelle', 'Today' and 'Oranges'. I love the way that she sticks in little bits of Welsh, words that have no exact translation in English, but that fit the meaning perfectly (they are explained - 100% English-speaker friendly, and aren't too numerous, so don't be put off).
I may write a fuller review when I've read more. But for now, all I can say is that if you enjoy poetry, read Gillian Clarke!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Jo Shapcott's 'Of Mutability'
I first read Jo Shapcott in Ruth Padel's '50 Ways of Looking at a Poem' which I started dipping into a few months ago. I'd been eyeing up 'Of Mutability' since then, and when it won the Costa prize I knew I had to just bite the bullet and buy it.
I've raced through it, which probably isn't the way to get the most out of a poetry book, but it was very readable. None of the poems in there are too long, which I like. I always find that if I'm flipping through a poetry book, I skip the long ones. I like short to medium length poems. I like concise punchiness.
So does 'Of Mutability' deliver? Certainly the length of the poems fits my personal preferences, but I am in two minds about this collection. There's no denying that it's good. And there's no denying that Shapcott is a talented, well-honed poet with a very clear, recogniseable voice. But at the same time I feel that the collection lacked, in general, a bit of variety. Apart from two stand-out poems (about halfway through the collection), I remember it as kind of homogenised lump. The poems don't vary in length, tone, subject, even voice (3rd/1st person. I find that it's always difficult to decide which voice to use, and it's usually easier to just settle for 1st person, a strategy that Shapcott seems to have followed religiously. It's obviously a very personal, almost intimate collection, so 1st person suits it, but I did find the use of 1st person almost...(I hate to use the word, becuase it really is a good collection, but there's no other word to describe it concisely)....slightly monotonous). In short, it works as a collection. But for me, most of the poems don't stand up on their own.
Shapcott's style and use of language is something I really admire, however. I love how she plays with half-rhyme, alliteration, internal rhyme, and her mixing of specialist, kind of scientific vocabulary with everyday musings. My favourite poems have to be 'Somewhat Unravelled', about dementia, and 'Tea Death', about drowning in tea. For me these two stand out because they deal with serious, difficult subjects with a slightly lighter tone. 'Somewhat Unravelled' contains such lines as 'Don't you want to sell your nail-clippings/ online?' and 'you are a plump armchair...you are a sofa/ rumba', lines that are outwardly humourous but at the same time reveal unflinchingly the difficulty of aging and losing one's memory. 'Tea Death' finishes with a lovely stanza that mentions 'wobbling/ belly buttons'.
Verdict? On the whole not interesting, but enjoyable. One to dip into. I'll reread it, but slower next time, and in tandem with something a little more innovative and with a bit more bite.
I've raced through it, which probably isn't the way to get the most out of a poetry book, but it was very readable. None of the poems in there are too long, which I like. I always find that if I'm flipping through a poetry book, I skip the long ones. I like short to medium length poems. I like concise punchiness.
So does 'Of Mutability' deliver? Certainly the length of the poems fits my personal preferences, but I am in two minds about this collection. There's no denying that it's good. And there's no denying that Shapcott is a talented, well-honed poet with a very clear, recogniseable voice. But at the same time I feel that the collection lacked, in general, a bit of variety. Apart from two stand-out poems (about halfway through the collection), I remember it as kind of homogenised lump. The poems don't vary in length, tone, subject, even voice (3rd/1st person. I find that it's always difficult to decide which voice to use, and it's usually easier to just settle for 1st person, a strategy that Shapcott seems to have followed religiously. It's obviously a very personal, almost intimate collection, so 1st person suits it, but I did find the use of 1st person almost...(I hate to use the word, becuase it really is a good collection, but there's no other word to describe it concisely)....slightly monotonous). In short, it works as a collection. But for me, most of the poems don't stand up on their own.
Shapcott's style and use of language is something I really admire, however. I love how she plays with half-rhyme, alliteration, internal rhyme, and her mixing of specialist, kind of scientific vocabulary with everyday musings. My favourite poems have to be 'Somewhat Unravelled', about dementia, and 'Tea Death', about drowning in tea. For me these two stand out because they deal with serious, difficult subjects with a slightly lighter tone. 'Somewhat Unravelled' contains such lines as 'Don't you want to sell your nail-clippings/ online?' and 'you are a plump armchair...you are a sofa/ rumba', lines that are outwardly humourous but at the same time reveal unflinchingly the difficulty of aging and losing one's memory. 'Tea Death' finishes with a lovely stanza that mentions 'wobbling/ belly buttons'.
Verdict? On the whole not interesting, but enjoyable. One to dip into. I'll reread it, but slower next time, and in tandem with something a little more innovative and with a bit more bite.
Friday, February 18, 2011
Woman in a Blue Anorak redraft
Here we are at about draft 7. Often I write more drafts but with some poems I find that they are what they are, there is only so much tweaking you can do and only so far the poem can be pushed. In this draft I didn't change much, just the couple of words shown in bold italics, which just flitted into my head as I was rereading. The ommission of the word 'like' is shown with a hat ^
Woman in a Blue Anorak
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
Courting blackbirds before her capoeira
their tails treacle and syrup fans.
Her face is blank flesh, melted ^ ice.
She flicks a cigarette, and as the ash falls like dice
she shifts her weight sideways and
the blackbirds switch to samba.
She could be made of sand,
disintegrating in a breath, leaving only
frozen folds of navy PVC.
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
She flicks her cigarette, and ash falls like slo-mo dice.
(Copyright (c) 2011 stays with me).
So why did I change it, and what does changing only a couple of words achieve?
This poem is very different to my usual style. It works with a couple of different rhymes and/or half-rhymes repeated throughout the poem (along with alliteration, something which I find myself using a lot of and that I sort of consider a key characteristic of my work). These rhymes run throughout the poem, broken up here or there but carrying on over both stanzas.
The rhyme scheme echoes the structure of the poem, in that the structure echoes itself between lines. Apart from repeating one or two lines in their entirety or near-entirety, various images are repeated, almost motif-like. The dance (capoeira...samba), the repetition of the idea of liquidity (treacle and syrup...melted ice)... The poetry of the piece comes from the repetition of these ideas, images and the words themselves.
These qualities kind of came out of the poem of their own accord. I redrafted it and at about draft 5 I thought, 'ooh, it appears that I have subconciously stuck in some rhymes and repetition!' However, I like the effect. I like the way the poem kind of flows, then it broken up by the only/PVC anomaly, kind of a little flicker in the poem, and then continues again. This absolutely captures the flickering ghostliness of the woman.
Woman in a Blue Anorak
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
Courting blackbirds before her capoeira
their tails treacle and syrup fans.
Her face is blank flesh, melted ^ ice.
She flicks a cigarette, and as the ash falls like dice
she shifts her weight sideways and
the blackbirds switch to samba.
She could be made of sand,
disintegrating in a breath, leaving only
frozen folds of navy PVC.
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
She flicks her cigarette, and ash falls like slo-mo dice.
(Copyright (c) 2011 stays with me).
So why did I change it, and what does changing only a couple of words achieve?
This poem is very different to my usual style. It works with a couple of different rhymes and/or half-rhymes repeated throughout the poem (along with alliteration, something which I find myself using a lot of and that I sort of consider a key characteristic of my work). These rhymes run throughout the poem, broken up here or there but carrying on over both stanzas.
The rhyme scheme echoes the structure of the poem, in that the structure echoes itself between lines. Apart from repeating one or two lines in their entirety or near-entirety, various images are repeated, almost motif-like. The dance (capoeira...samba), the repetition of the idea of liquidity (treacle and syrup...melted ice)... The poetry of the piece comes from the repetition of these ideas, images and the words themselves.
These qualities kind of came out of the poem of their own accord. I redrafted it and at about draft 5 I thought, 'ooh, it appears that I have subconciously stuck in some rhymes and repetition!' However, I like the effect. I like the way the poem kind of flows, then it broken up by the only/PVC anomaly, kind of a little flicker in the poem, and then continues again. This absolutely captures the flickering ghostliness of the woman.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
D. H. Lawrence's 'The Rainbow' and 'La Cle Sur La Porte' de Christiane Rochefort
I'm struggling through 'The Rainbow' by D H Lawrence at the mo. It's a good book. I'm about a third of the way through. He writes beautifully, descriptively and very romantically. But he doesn't half waffle on!
I love Thomas Hardy, despite his 'wordiness' and instrusive narration, but Lawrence seems to take this to a whole new level! In Chapter 2 'They Live At The Marsh', about 40000000 paragraphs in a row described Tom and Lydia's distance peppered with brief flashes of carnal-caused closeness. THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH YOU CAN SAY ABOUT THIS, SURELY. By about the 2nd paragraph I'd got the idea but no, there were another 39999998 left to go on the subject.
It's a good book. I'm enjoying it. I like the way Lawrence writes. Apart from his waffle. It's a frustrating book. I'm avoiding it at present. It is lurking at the bottom of my handbag and only comes out after I've had a stiff drink and have mentally prepared myself. It's a good book. It's a frustrating book. I'm enjoying it. I can't wait to get through it.
So as part of my avoidance strategy I am reading a simplified version of 'La Cle Sur La Porte' by Christiane Rochefort.
Pour eviter D. H. Lawrence alors, je lis une edition simplifiee de 'La Cle Sur La Porte' de Christiane Rochefort. Ce livre s'agit d'une femme de vers quarante ans qui raconte la jeunesse de ses trois enfants et leurs amis, a qui elle ouvrait son appartement tout le temps. Elle raconte les epreuves des vies des ados ce qu'elle connait. Je l'ai commence hier soir et je trouve que c'est un bon livre, l'edition simplifiee est facile pour moi a comprendre pourtant j'apprends plus de la langue en le lisant aussi. Une progression parfaite apres 'Le Petit Prince', je me sens de plus en plus confiante en lisant les livres francais.
The book is about the experience of a woman of about forty years of age, who tells the story of the teenagerhood of her three children and their friends, to whom she opens her flat 24/7. She recounts the challenges the teenagers face. I started this book yesterday evening and I think it's a good book (certainly light relief from Lawrence) and the simplified edition is easy for me to understand, although I am still learning loads of French from it too. It's a perfect progression from 'Le Petit Prince' and I'm beginning to feel more and more confident about reading French literature.
I love Thomas Hardy, despite his 'wordiness' and instrusive narration, but Lawrence seems to take this to a whole new level! In Chapter 2 'They Live At The Marsh', about 40000000 paragraphs in a row described Tom and Lydia's distance peppered with brief flashes of carnal-caused closeness. THERE IS ONLY SO MUCH YOU CAN SAY ABOUT THIS, SURELY. By about the 2nd paragraph I'd got the idea but no, there were another 39999998 left to go on the subject.
It's a good book. I'm enjoying it. I like the way Lawrence writes. Apart from his waffle. It's a frustrating book. I'm avoiding it at present. It is lurking at the bottom of my handbag and only comes out after I've had a stiff drink and have mentally prepared myself. It's a good book. It's a frustrating book. I'm enjoying it. I can't wait to get through it.
So as part of my avoidance strategy I am reading a simplified version of 'La Cle Sur La Porte' by Christiane Rochefort.
Pour eviter D. H. Lawrence alors, je lis une edition simplifiee de 'La Cle Sur La Porte' de Christiane Rochefort. Ce livre s'agit d'une femme de vers quarante ans qui raconte la jeunesse de ses trois enfants et leurs amis, a qui elle ouvrait son appartement tout le temps. Elle raconte les epreuves des vies des ados ce qu'elle connait. Je l'ai commence hier soir et je trouve que c'est un bon livre, l'edition simplifiee est facile pour moi a comprendre pourtant j'apprends plus de la langue en le lisant aussi. Une progression parfaite apres 'Le Petit Prince', je me sens de plus en plus confiante en lisant les livres francais.
The book is about the experience of a woman of about forty years of age, who tells the story of the teenagerhood of her three children and their friends, to whom she opens her flat 24/7. She recounts the challenges the teenagers face. I started this book yesterday evening and I think it's a good book (certainly light relief from Lawrence) and the simplified edition is easy for me to understand, although I am still learning loads of French from it too. It's a perfect progression from 'Le Petit Prince' and I'm beginning to feel more and more confident about reading French literature.
My Own...Poetry: Woman in a Blue Anorak
The other day as I was walking home through a housing estate I was watching a blacbird and his wife dancing and hopping about. Then suddenly something moved in my vision and I saw a woman standing outside a house smoking. I turned to go but for some reason I looked back, and she was gone. Hard to explain why, but this really freaked me out at the time and I decided she must have been a ghost (not sure I actually believe in ghosts but sometimes I let my imagination take me places). This poem was the result.
This is about 3rd draft. When I write a poem it usually starts off as verbal diarrhoeawhere I just get the initial spark down and then the other ideas that flow from it. Then I stick the bits of the verbal diarrhoea together to make draft 2, and then draft 3 refines it further. This all happens very quickly. Then I leave the poem for up to a period of several months and come back to it and tweak it, although by this point it is rare that I rewrite the whole thing (might start something new based on it though). So this one needs to be left for a while to incubate, but here it is as it is now.
Woman in a Blue Anorak
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
Courting blackbirds before her capoeira
their tails treacle and syrup fans.
Her face is blank flesh, melted like ice.
She flicks a cigarette, and as the ash falls like dice
she shifts her weight sideways and
the blackbirds switch to samba.
She could be made of sand,
disintegrating in a breath, leaving only
stiffened-water folds of navy PVC.
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
She flicks her cigarette, and ash falls like slo-mo dice.
Copyright (c) remains with me.
This is about 3rd draft. When I write a poem it usually starts off as verbal diarrhoeawhere I just get the initial spark down and then the other ideas that flow from it. Then I stick the bits of the verbal diarrhoea together to make draft 2, and then draft 3 refines it further. This all happens very quickly. Then I leave the poem for up to a period of several months and come back to it and tweak it, although by this point it is rare that I rewrite the whole thing (might start something new based on it though). So this one needs to be left for a while to incubate, but here it is as it is now.
Woman in a Blue Anorak
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
Courting blackbirds before her capoeira
their tails treacle and syrup fans.
Her face is blank flesh, melted like ice.
She flicks a cigarette, and as the ash falls like dice
she shifts her weight sideways and
the blackbirds switch to samba.
She could be made of sand,
disintegrating in a breath, leaving only
stiffened-water folds of navy PVC.
She snatches at the corners of eyes.
She flicks her cigarette, and ash falls like slo-mo dice.
Copyright (c) remains with me.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
My Own...Poetry: Holding a Dead Rabbit
Everything is opposites: you fell asleep lying down
so your top is your bottom, and your bottom is your top
and you are solid in the wrong places and soft where you should be strong.
A drop of blood at your nose, congealed around the roots of whiskers,
and a gap between your smiling moustachioed lips showing ivory incisors
and a gash of pink tongue that once felt like soft raindrops.
Puffs of velvet fur spring in angles I have never seen before, in my arms
so close your very crimp is visible, I can see your molecules,
beneath the rigid lids there might still lie
the swimming moon of your cataracts. But why would they
when the curls of your legs are as unstrung as
Odysseus' abandoned bow and your middle
doesn't flutter like it used to. Down you go to the Eternal Burrow,
with Brussels sprouts for the afterlife
and a drop of blood on your nose.
Copyright (C) stays with me.
so your top is your bottom, and your bottom is your top
and you are solid in the wrong places and soft where you should be strong.
A drop of blood at your nose, congealed around the roots of whiskers,
and a gap between your smiling moustachioed lips showing ivory incisors
and a gash of pink tongue that once felt like soft raindrops.
Puffs of velvet fur spring in angles I have never seen before, in my arms
so close your very crimp is visible, I can see your molecules,
beneath the rigid lids there might still lie
the swimming moon of your cataracts. But why would they
when the curls of your legs are as unstrung as
Odysseus' abandoned bow and your middle
doesn't flutter like it used to. Down you go to the Eternal Burrow,
with Brussels sprouts for the afterlife
and a drop of blood on your nose.
Copyright (C) stays with me.
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