Different backgrounds and different reactions to our "same-time" lives
probably makes for our different judgments about Brown's poem, Dave.
For example, "Catholic" never entered my mind with the words "ingots and
incense"----I was seeing lovely gold bars and smelling Chinese prayer
sticks.
As to "cold star travels across the pane", the wonder with poeticking such
impressive AND "common" natural elements as stars, moon, sun, rain,
clouds---is that any attempt at all can succeed. Remember Kasper's (and
many of our) permutations on the moon moving through branches? Tricky to
present fresh, these beloved yet common Miracle Companions. I give Brown 3
1/2 _stars_ for his version. <g>
I earlier said "same-time lives". A couple generations away from "living on
the land" and therefore necessarily attuned to its rhythms, we
industrialised folk see and emphasise the Not Natural. We do it naturally;
it's what we know. Our industrialised view, and therefore, emphasis, has
led us away from much that brings peace, and has brought us, most
prominently, our Self. That Self has given us a frantic, frustrated,
unsettled culture and poetry.
The fact is that the average poorest person in the world now is a
middle-aged Asian male who works the soil. Is he frantic and unsettled and
Self-aborbed, despite being attuned to the land? Undoubtedly!
Yet so many more of us live most of the time away from essential close
connections---to the land and to other people. How to "get" those
connections? I'm not entirely sure.
Best,
Judy
2008/8/25 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> Hi Judy
>
> the rag of flame, I like, and the halving school-book, But the hearth
> turning Catholic, and the trite cold star, no, no, no.
>
> I don't recommend avoiding human actors, as that is what we all are.
>
> Christopher Grieve, in a 1950s copy of 'X' I also have, says: 'avoid
> minor poets like the plague'
>
> Just read 'The Spanish Tragedy' for the first time this morning -
> fascinatingly bad. It has a kind of tight-arsed oomph to it, the
> English behaving badly, as it were.
>
> 2008/8/25 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>:
> > "Outsplendours" is a tiny wart in this splendid poem, Dave.
> > All the rest gives me a hierarchy of shivers with its direct, concise,
> > unexpected-then-"felt" comparisons ("moth......troubles the rag of
> flame",
> > "school-book.....two yellow halves", "The hearth ingots and incense", "A
> > cold star travels across the pane").
> >
> > Objects do all the work, even summoning the "scythe-men"---a compound
> word
> > as if a compounded creature---that helps regenerate, prepares the soil.
> The
> > lamp, personal and universal, apprentices each season. [One is reminded
> of
> > Sharon Brogan's beautiful "Moon" series.]
> >
> > Brown carefully avoids human "act-ers": "....is match struck to wick".
> The
> > passive voice; the phrase's subject is not a person.
> >
> > One would be hard-pressed to succeed so grandly in such a little space.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Judy
> >
> >
> >
> > 2008/8/25 David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> >> Yes and no. I always thought of him as a poet I would like to like:
> >> when he was alive I would look at each book hoping that this time ...
> >> some of the Ikey Faa stuff he did, yes, some of the collisions of
> >> primitive statement, yes, but ... the poem Jon has quoted, it's ok,
> >> but behind lurks the spectre of stock association.
> >>
> >> I thought the second stanza best. 'outsplendours' oh dear, no. He
> >> falls for Parnassian a lot (vide Hopkins on Tennyson for that term)
> >>
> >> If I compare Mackay Brown to Garioch then the latter gets my vote.
> >>
> >> One has to be very ginger in handling the notion of vanished worlds.
> >> One might end up in Akenfield.
> >>
> >> Best
> >>
> >> Dave
> >>
> >> 2008/8/25 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>:
> >> > Yes, it is damned good.
> >> >
> >> > 2008/8/25 Jon Corelis <[log in to unmask]>
> >> >
> >> >> Saw from a notice in the London Review of Books that The Collected
> >> >> Poems of George Mackay Brown is available in paperback (John Murray
> >> >> 2006). which I hadn't known about. I've admired his poetry in the
> >> >> past, so will have look at this. The notice in the LRB quotes a
> >> >> little:
> >> >>
> >> >> ---------
> >> >> The lamp is needful in spring, still,
> >> >> Though the jar of daffodils
> >> >> Outsplendours lamplight and hearthflames.
> >> >>
> >> >> In summer only near midnight
> >> >> Is match struck to wick.
> >> >> A moth, maybe, troubles the rag of flame.
> >> >>
> >> >> Harvest. The lamp in the window
> >> >> Summons the scythe-men.
> >> >> A school-book lies on the sill, two yellow halves.
> >> >>
> >> >> In December the lamp's a jewel,
> >> >> The hearth ingots and incense.
> >> >> A cold star travels across the pane.
> >> >> ---------
> >> >>
> >> >> That is damned good. I suppose though that world is gone now.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> --
> >> >> ===============================================
> >> >>
> >> >> Jon Corelis http://jcorelis.googlepages.com/joncorelis
> >> >>
> >> >> ===============================================
> >> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> David Bircumshaw
> >> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> >> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> >> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> >> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
> >>
> >
>
>
>
> --
> David Bircumshaw
> Website and A Chide's Alphabet
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
> The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
> Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk
>
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