Hello again Grasshopper,
Thanks for your comments. The horseman is bronze and he sits on a horse which is standing on a granite rock. Thatīs at least the case with the bronze horseman in St. Petersburg and I have used the design of that real statue for my poem, although this is not a poem `aboutī that statue. The idea of conflating the metal and the stone is probably not very scientific. I derived it from two sources; first my understanding from popular science books (which probably give real scientists apoplexy) that all matter in the universe originated at the big bang, hence interstellar dust eventually forms all the other materials we know. The second inspiration was a comment I read recently that Paul Muldoonīs project is to show that everything in the world is everything else. This seemed so eminently reasonable to me that I decided to adopt it as my own though Muldoon is such a great poet that what works in his hands is probably courting disaster in mine. Whatīs that phrase about fools rushing somewhere?
In the poem I thought I would like to extend the transformation of material beyond the inanimate to include the development of human consciousness. Hence the bronze horseman is not only a statue but also mankind. I donīt know what the force is that has created life and consciousness but it is the force in the poem that has placed the horseman on his horse, that makes us create works of art like statues of bronze horsemen, or poems about them, to strain to reach for the stars, to understand what we are and where we come from, even though, as I think, such knowledge will always be beyond us. I have a feeling you will think this a bit like writing philosophy?;-)
Best wishes, Mike
--- Alkuperäinen viesti ---
Dear Mike,
I'm very behindhand, I'm confused here-probably my stupidity. Is this a
bronze horseman -not one carved from stone? If so, why the implication it's
made from rock?
I think we make a distinction between a metallic ore and the matrix, just as
when we burn coal, we don't think of it as burning rock.
L6 :I'd have from which it rears, rather than rears up.
L13, what is the object of strain- the force?should it be strains, then?
Kind regards,
grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 12:19 PM
Subject: [THE-WORKS] New sub: The Bronze Horseman
The Bronze Horseman
As if stone had become articulate
after its journey from interstellar dust,
across the galaxy, through ore and metal
to alloy, the body of his horse,
balanced on its hind legs and tail,
grows out of rock from which it rears up.
Granite springs into the upward surge
of starting muscles and bursts like Ariel
out of rigid space into the movement of bronze.
He sits astride the beast, the pinnacle and triumph,
his arm raised along the line of stoneīs leap,
metalīs surge, the force that placed him there
to shout into the night, strain to reach
for the sky, those very stars whence he came.
Mike
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