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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2013 10:48 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Tollund Man
Some day I will go to Aarhus To see his peat-brown head, The mild pods of his eye-lids, His pointed skin cap.
In the flat country near by Where they dug him out, His last gruel of winter seeds Caked in his stomach,
Naked except for The cap, noose and girdle, I will stand a long time. Bridegroom to the goddess,
She tightened her torc on him And opened her fen, Those dark juices working Him to a saint's kept body,
Trove of the turfcutters' Honeycombed workings. Now his stained face Reposes at Aarhus.
II I could risk blasphemy, Consecrate the cauldron bog Our holy ground and pray Him to make germinate
The scattered, ambushed Flesh of labourers, Stockinged corpses Laid out in the farmyards,
Tell-tale skin and teeth Flecking the sleepers Of four young brothers, trailed For miles along the lines.
III
Something of his sad freedom As he rode the tumbril Should come to me, driving, Saying the names
Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard, Watching the pointing hands Of country people, Not knowing their tongue.
Out here in Jutland In the old man-killing parishes I will feel lost, Unhappy and at home.
Seamus Heaney
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:10 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Translations December 25, 1972 You show me the poems of some woman my age, or younger translated from your language Certain words occur: enemy, oven, sorrow enough to let me know she's a woman of my time obsessed with Love, our subject: we've trained it like ivy to our walls baked it like bread in our ovens worn it like lead on our ankles watched it through binoculars as if it were a helicopter bringing food to our famine or the satellite of a hostile power I begin to see that woman doing things: stirring rice ironing a skirt typing a manuscript till dawn trying to make a call from a phonebooth The phone rings endlessly in a man's bedroom she hears him telling someone else Never mind. She'll get tired. hears him telling her story to her sister who becomes her enemy and will in her own way light her own way to sorrow ignorant of the fact this way of grief is shared, unnecessary and political Adrienne Rich Read more: Five Poems by Adrienne Rich | The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/167113 ... z2YMPUfExa
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2013 12:02 am |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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The Munich Mannequins
Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children. Cold as snow breath, it tamps the womb
Where the yew trees blow like hydras, The tree of life and the tree of life
Unloosing their moons, month after month, to no purpose. The blood flood is the flood of love,
The absolute sacrifice. It means: no more idols but me,
Me and you. So, in their sulfur loveliness, in their smiles
These mannequins lean tonight In Munich, morgue between Paris and Rome,
Naked and bald in their furs, Orange lollies on silver sticks,
Intolerable, without mind. The snow drops its pieces of darkness,
Nobody's about. In the hotels Hands will be opening doors and setting
Down shoes for a polish of carbon Into which broad toes will go tomorrow.
O the domesticity of these windows, The baby lace, the green-leaved confectionery,
The thick Germans slumbering in their bottomless Stolz. And the black phones on hooks
Glittering Glittering and digesting
Voicelessness. The snow has no voice.
Sylvia Plath
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 11:08 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Fri Aug 02, 2013 11:15 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Sun Aug 18, 2013 12:10 am |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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BBC4 7pm. THis week's poet is Matthew Arnold. Here's Dover beach to start us off:
Matthew Arnold - Dover Beach (1851)
The sea is calm to-night. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! Only, from the long line of spray Where the sea meets the moon blanch ‘d land, Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago Heard it on the Aegaean, and it brought Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow Of human misery; we Find also in the sound a thought, Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true To one another! for the world, which seems To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are here as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2013 8:39 am |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Remembering Seumas Heaney:
Casualty
I
He would drink by himself And raise a weathered thumb Towards the high shelf, Calling another rum And blackcurrant, without Having to raise his voice, Or order a quick stout By a lifting of the eyes And a discreet dumb-show Of pulling off the top; At closing time would go In waders and peaked cap Into the showery dark, A dole-kept breadwinner But a natural for work. I loved his whole manner, Sure-footed but too sly, His deadpan sidling tact, His fisherman's quick eye And turned observant back.
Incomprehensible To him, my other life. Sometimes on the high stool, Too busy with his knife At a tobacco plug And not meeting my eye, In the pause after a slug He mentioned poetry. We would be on our own And, always politic And shy of condescension, I would manage by some trick To switch the talk to eels Or lore of the horse and cart Or the Provisionals.
But my tentative art His turned back watches too: He was blown to bits Out drinking in a curfew Others obeyed, three nights After they shot dead The thirteen men in Derry. PARAS THIRTEEN, the walls said, BOGSIDE NIL. That Wednesday Everyone held His breath and trembled.
II
It was a day of cold Raw silence, wind-blown Surplice and soutane: Rained-on, flower-laden Coffin after coffin Seemed to float from the door Of the packed cathedral Like blossoms on slow water. The common funeral Unrolled its swaddling band, Lapping, tightening Till we were braced and bound Like brothers in a ring.
But he would not be held At home by his own crowd Whatever threats were phoned, Whatever black flags waved. I see him as he turned In that bombed offending place, Remorse fused with terror In his still knowable face, His cornered outfaced stare Blinding in the flash.
He had gone miles away For he drank like a fish Nightly, naturally Swimming towards the lure Of warm lit-up places, The blurred mesh and murmur Drifting among glasses In the gregarious smoke. How culpable was he That last night when he broke Our tribe's complicity? 'Now, you're supposed to be An educated man, ' I hear him say. 'Puzzle me The right answer to that one.'
III
I missed his funeral, Those quiet walkers And sideways talkers Shoaling out of his lane To the respectable Purring of the hearse... They move in equal pace With the habitual Slow consolation Of a dawdling engine, The line lifted, hand Over fist, cold sunshine On the water, the land Banked under fog: that morning I was taken in his boat, The screw purling, turning Indolent fathoms white, I tasted freedom with him. To get out early, haul Steadily off the bottom, Dispraise the catch, and smile As you find a rhythm Working you, slow mile by mile, Into your proper haunt Somewhere, well out, beyond...
Dawn-sniffing revenant, Plodder through midnight rain, Question me again.
Seamus Heaney
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Mon Sep 23, 2013 7:00 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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ONE FLESH
Elizabeth Jennings
Lying apart now, each in a separate bed, He with a book, keeping the light on late, She like a girl dreaming of childhood, All men elsewhere---it is as if they wait Some new event; the book he holds unread, Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.
Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion, How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch, Or if they do it is like a confession Of having little feeling--or too much. Chastity faces them , a destination For which their whole lives were a preparation.
Strangely apart, yet strangely close together, Silence between them like a thread to hold And not wind in. And time itself's a feather Touching them gently. Do they know they're old, These two who are my father and my mother Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?
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Journeymouse
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Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 7:55 pm |
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Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 8:30 pm Posts: 371 Location: Barnsley, England
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Poems by Ian Stuart may interest you: http://jackspratt823.wordpress.com/The latest up is a foxy one - Redcoat Flung like an old rug by the roadside. A dead fox big as a dog, his thick pelt clotted with muck, more brindled than chestnut. Only his brush blazes in the gutter like a dropped banner . I have seen him and other redcoats dragging, head down, over sodden moors, or peering out from cover, black eyes aimed and purposeful as musket muzzles. They fight an older war, living off the land, warm and stinking in dugouts under ground, then raid the city, treading shadows. Bellydown by henruns they plot murder, cast a thoughtful look at local cats, die quick, flung headlong in the gutter by passing cars. Leave nothing but a pelt of grubby fur, a broken grin a spattered russet flag.
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:29 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Hi, Jo - must admit I'd not heard of Ian Stuart before but that is an impressive poem - more than a little Ted Hughesian! I particulaly liked the parallel with redcoat soldiers.
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:32 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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The one furter down the page - Venice Morning - is stunning. Thanks for the heads up!
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Journeymouse
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Posted: Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:49 pm |
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Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 8:30 pm Posts: 371 Location: Barnsley, England
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Another poet I talk to over Twitter on occasion is Vicki Linde. Vicki's a jack of several trades (potry, art, playwrite) and her site's here: http://vicklinde.wordpress.com/(As I'm sure I've said before, I'm not really that up on poetry but every now and again I get struck by something.)
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Sat Oct 19, 2013 7:48 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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Marion Arnott
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Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 7:12 pm |
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Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 am Posts: 3347
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The Cloud
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream, The Spirit he loves remains; And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile, Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes, And his burning plumes outspread, Leaps on the back of my sailing rack, When the morning star shines dead; As on the jag of a mountain crag, Which an earthquake rocks and swings, An eagle alit one moment may sit In the light of its golden wings. And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love, And the crimson pall of eve may fall From the depth of Heaven above, With wings folded I rest, on mine aëry nest, As still as a brooding dove.
That orbèd maiden with white fire laden, Whom mortals call the Moon, Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor, By the midnight breezes strewn; And wherever the beat of her unseen feet, Which only the angels hear, May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof, The stars peep behind her and peer; And I laugh to see them whirl and flee, Like a swarm of golden bees, When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent, Till calm the rivers, lakes, and seas, Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high, Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone, And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl; The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim, When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl. From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape, Over a torrent sea, Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof, The mountains its columns be. The triumphal arch through which I march With hurricane, fire, and snow, When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair, Is the million-coloured bow; The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove, While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water, And the nursling of the Sky; I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores; I change, but I cannot die. For after the rain when with never a stain The pavilion of Heaven is bare, And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph, And out of the caverns of rain, Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I arise and unbuild it again.
PB Shelley
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Journeymouse
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Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 7:26 pm |
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Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 8:30 pm Posts: 371 Location: Barnsley, England
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Marion Arnott wrote: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179622
I was struck by this, Jo, ad I''m not even sure that I like it. But there's something... I agree. Ta for sharing 
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