Thursday 30 August 2007
Monday 27 August 2007
SEXT - one of WH Auden's Horae Canonicae
Beowulf was donging his dinger on the radio over lunchtime. Did anyone else hear him?
Here is a poem by W.H.Auden. I think it's the only sympathetic description of a 'crowd' that I have ever read - but I also like his description of the "eye-on-the-object look", which I must say I think is very attractive.
I
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
To ignore the appetitive goddesses,
to desert the formidable shrines
of Rhea, Aphrodite, Demeter, Diana,
to pray insted to St Phocas,
St Barbara, San Saturnino,
or whoever one's patron is,
that one may be worthy of their mystery,
what a prodigious step to have taken.
There should be monuments, there should be odes,
to the nameless heroes who took it first,
to the first flaker of flints
who forgot his dinner,
the first collector of sea-shells
to remain celibate.
Where should we be but for them?
Feral still, un-housetrained, still
wandering through forests without
a consonant to our names,
slaves of Dame Kind, lacking
all notion of a city
and, at this noon, for this death,
there would be no agents.
II
You need not hear what orders he is giving
to know if someone has authority,
you have only to watch his mouth:
when a besieging general sees
a city wall breached by his troops,
when a bacteriologist
realizes in a flash what was wrong
with his hypothesis when,
from a glance at the jury, the prosecutor
knows the defendant will hang,
their lips and the lines around them
relax, assuming an expression
not of simple pleasure at getting
their own sweet way but of satisfaction
at being right, an incarnation
of Fortitudo, Justicia, Nous.
You may not like them much
(Who does?) but we owe them
basilicas, divas
dictionaries, pastoral verse,
the courtesies of the city:
without these judicial mouths
(which belong for the most part
to very great scoundrels)
how squalid existence would be,
tethered for life to some hut village,
afraid of the local snake
or the local ford demon,
speaking the local patois
of some three hundred words
(think of the family squabbles and the
poison-pens, think of the inbreeding)
and at this noon, there would be no authority
to command this death.
III
Anywhere you like, somewhere
on broad-chested life-giving Earth,
anywhere between her thirstlands
and undrinkable Ocean,
the crowd stands perfectly still,
its eyes (which seem one) and its mouths
(which seem infinitely many)
expressionless, perfectly blank.
The crowd does not see (what everyone sees)
a boxing match, a train wreck,
a battleship being launched,
does not wonder (as everyone wonders)
who will win, what flag she will fly,
how many will be burned alive,
is never distracted
(as everyone is always distracted)
by a barking dog, a smell of fish,
a mosquito on a bald head:
the crowd sees only one thing
(which only the crowd can see)
an epiphany of that
which does whatever is done.
Whatever god a person believes in,
in whatever way he believes,
(no two are exactly alike)
as one of the crowd he believes
and only believes in that in which
there is only one way of believing.
Few people accept each other and most
will never do anything properly,
but the crowd rejects no one, joining the crowd
is the only thing all men can do.
Only because of that can we say
all men are our brothers,
superior, because of that,
to the social exoskeletons: When
have they ever ignored their queens,
for one second stopped work
on their provincial cities, to worship
The Prince of this world like us,
at this noon, on this hill,
in the occasion of this dying.
Here is a poem by W.H.Auden. I think it's the only sympathetic description of a 'crowd' that I have ever read - but I also like his description of the "eye-on-the-object look", which I must say I think is very attractive.
I
You need not see what someone is doing
to know if it is his vocation,
you have only to watch his eyes:
a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon
making a primary incision,
a clerk completing a bill of lading,
wear the same rapt expression,
forgetting themselves in a function.
How beautiful it is,
that eye-on-the-object look.
To ignore the appetitive goddesses,
to desert the formidable shrines
of Rhea, Aphrodite, Demeter, Diana,
to pray insted to St Phocas,
St Barbara, San Saturnino,
or whoever one's patron is,
that one may be worthy of their mystery,
what a prodigious step to have taken.
There should be monuments, there should be odes,
to the nameless heroes who took it first,
to the first flaker of flints
who forgot his dinner,
the first collector of sea-shells
to remain celibate.
Where should we be but for them?
Feral still, un-housetrained, still
wandering through forests without
a consonant to our names,
slaves of Dame Kind, lacking
all notion of a city
and, at this noon, for this death,
there would be no agents.
II
You need not hear what orders he is giving
to know if someone has authority,
you have only to watch his mouth:
when a besieging general sees
a city wall breached by his troops,
when a bacteriologist
realizes in a flash what was wrong
with his hypothesis when,
from a glance at the jury, the prosecutor
knows the defendant will hang,
their lips and the lines around them
relax, assuming an expression
not of simple pleasure at getting
their own sweet way but of satisfaction
at being right, an incarnation
of Fortitudo, Justicia, Nous.
You may not like them much
(Who does?) but we owe them
basilicas, divas
dictionaries, pastoral verse,
the courtesies of the city:
without these judicial mouths
(which belong for the most part
to very great scoundrels)
how squalid existence would be,
tethered for life to some hut village,
afraid of the local snake
or the local ford demon,
speaking the local patois
of some three hundred words
(think of the family squabbles and the
poison-pens, think of the inbreeding)
and at this noon, there would be no authority
to command this death.
III
Anywhere you like, somewhere
on broad-chested life-giving Earth,
anywhere between her thirstlands
and undrinkable Ocean,
the crowd stands perfectly still,
its eyes (which seem one) and its mouths
(which seem infinitely many)
expressionless, perfectly blank.
The crowd does not see (what everyone sees)
a boxing match, a train wreck,
a battleship being launched,
does not wonder (as everyone wonders)
who will win, what flag she will fly,
how many will be burned alive,
is never distracted
(as everyone is always distracted)
by a barking dog, a smell of fish,
a mosquito on a bald head:
the crowd sees only one thing
(which only the crowd can see)
an epiphany of that
which does whatever is done.
Whatever god a person believes in,
in whatever way he believes,
(no two are exactly alike)
as one of the crowd he believes
and only believes in that in which
there is only one way of believing.
Few people accept each other and most
will never do anything properly,
but the crowd rejects no one, joining the crowd
is the only thing all men can do.
Only because of that can we say
all men are our brothers,
superior, because of that,
to the social exoskeletons: When
have they ever ignored their queens,
for one second stopped work
on their provincial cities, to worship
The Prince of this world like us,
at this noon, on this hill,
in the occasion of this dying.
Monday 20 August 2007
Home from the City of Literature event at the EIBF, promoting the new Young Scottish Publishers project - which hitherto existed only in London and Oxford.
The Canongate MD spoke, with a good quote: "reason and rationality pursue us - but we are much faster".
SPL in evidence, and intending to promote reading circles at the 6 October Edinburgh Libraries Fair.
The Canongate MD spoke, with a good quote: "reason and rationality pursue us - but we are much faster".
SPL in evidence, and intending to promote reading circles at the 6 October Edinburgh Libraries Fair.
Saturday 18 August 2007
Wednesday 8 August 2007
The Island's Prayer
here is my attempt...
Our Islands, which art in Water
Shallow be thy shores.
Thy Vikings come
Shetlands be done
In Unst as it is on Mainland
Make our fair way to western isles
And forgive us our sea journeys
As we forgive them that build bridges between us
And lead us not into renaming
But deliver us from Eilean a' Cheò.
For thine is the Rassay, the Islay and the Barra
With Mull and with Jura
Arran.
Our Islands, which art in Water
Shallow be thy shores.
Thy Vikings come
Shetlands be done
In Unst as it is on Mainland
Make our fair way to western isles
And forgive us our sea journeys
As we forgive them that build bridges between us
And lead us not into renaming
But deliver us from Eilean a' Cheò.
For thine is the Rassay, the Islay and the Barra
With Mull and with Jura
Arran.
Tuesday 7 August 2007
Edwin Morgan (he's rather wonderful)
Bonsoir!
I shoved Morgan's 'Selected Poems' into my bag my the way out of the door to Paris to get a sense for him beyond the couple of poems given to me at school. I discovered he's rather wonderful and had great fun reading bits of him to my friend Mary on the bridges and banks of the Seine. Unfortunately I also managed to leave him on one of the said bridges and banks (I hope that whichever Parisian finds my book comes to love him too) and can't find my very favourite poems to post up here, mainly because I've forgotten the titles. There was one about Grendel's mother that might be interesting for the Beowulf lovers in our midsts but its text has escaped me for the moment.
Anyway, I have managed to track this one down elsewhere and did think this was rather good. It also rifts slightly on the Billy Collins Cigarette poem Lorraine brought along to the SLP earlier this year, or at least is also about cigarettes Enjoy! and please trade me other Morgan poems if it would please you to...
One Cigarette
No smoke without you, my fire.
After you left,
your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray
and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey
I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal
of so much love. One cigarette
in the non-smoker's tray.
As the last spire
trembles up, a sudden draught
blows it winding into my face.
Is it smell, is it taste?
You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.
Out with the light.
Let the smoke lie back in the dark.
Till I hear the very ash
sigh down among the flowers of brass
I'll breathe, and long past midnight, your last kiss.
I shoved Morgan's 'Selected Poems' into my bag my the way out of the door to Paris to get a sense for him beyond the couple of poems given to me at school. I discovered he's rather wonderful and had great fun reading bits of him to my friend Mary on the bridges and banks of the Seine. Unfortunately I also managed to leave him on one of the said bridges and banks (I hope that whichever Parisian finds my book comes to love him too) and can't find my very favourite poems to post up here, mainly because I've forgotten the titles. There was one about Grendel's mother that might be interesting for the Beowulf lovers in our midsts but its text has escaped me for the moment.
Anyway, I have managed to track this one down elsewhere and did think this was rather good. It also rifts slightly on the Billy Collins Cigarette poem Lorraine brought along to the SLP earlier this year, or at least is also about cigarettes Enjoy! and please trade me other Morgan poems if it would please you to...
One Cigarette
No smoke without you, my fire.
After you left,
your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray
and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey
I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal
of so much love. One cigarette
in the non-smoker's tray.
As the last spire
trembles up, a sudden draught
blows it winding into my face.
Is it smell, is it taste?
You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.
Out with the light.
Let the smoke lie back in the dark.
Till I hear the very ash
sigh down among the flowers of brass
I'll breathe, and long past midnight, your last kiss.
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