Friday 30 January 2009

Christian in Greenwich Village

Ink, Sweat & Tears' Charles Christian will be appearing in Sherry Weaver's Speakeasy along with Martin Dockery, Gautam Borgohai, Tracy Roland, Mathew Mercier and James Braby at the Cornelia Street Cafe´ (corner 6th Avenue) on Tuesday 3rd February at 8.30pm. Admission $10 plus one drink.
The event True Stories Told By Real People is subtitled Stories From The Back Room. More details, poster, phone number etc., on the Ink, Sweat & Tears website via Poet-in-Residence's alphabetical LINK in sidebar.

The first Ink, Sweat & Tears chapbook anthology of poetry, prose and haiga, titled Ink, Sweat & Years 2008 (ISBN 978-1-907043-00-0), is now available via the IS&T bookshop or from Amazon.
The publication contains a broad selection of the work featured on IS&T during 2008 (including that of your humble scribe). Other contributors, mentioned here at random, are Geoff Stevens, Mike Montreuil, Ron Koertge, Marguerite O'Callaghan, Will Collins and Ken Head. The full list of contributing poets, plus details of price, how to order etc. can be found on IS&T.

More haikutrio (4)

Another challenge with the haikutrio form is to use the same keyword in all three haiku. Today's subject is once again the Poet-in-Residence run. Incidentally, the pink pig sometimes seen on the morning run has rapidly grown a hairy grey overcoat. Only his nose remains pink. No sign of black pig, but faint squeals have been heard from the hut. Piglets? Could be.

pass an indian
braving austrian snow
in jack wolfskin

avoid ice
and deep snow
pass on caterpillar track

stop for dog to pass
to wipe his nose
on my thigh

Thursday 29 January 2009

Note on a glimpse of Bob Dylan

The following poem was quickly scribbled en-passant onto page 13 of John McDonald's collection of haiku The Throu-Gaun Chiel, a book that Poet-in-Residence carries around, and uses not only as a source of inspiration, but as a workbook, as a place to make notes.
John's haiku are not destroyed by the scribbled blue and red scrawls adorning the pages, but in a way they are enhanced. It's difficult to explain why; but try it for yourself and you will soon see that it is like that. It's a kind of contemporary way of reading and of writing and of using all of one's resources.

a short note

on a marine band harmonica
and he slipped like an eel
through the crowd
and onto the train,
and hung a strap near me

somewhere between eire
and russia
going around
the old beltway line

well, he was younger
than I had remembered
his curly black hair
and his thin red lips
his guitar in the bag on his back
the wide leather belt
girdling the hips

and I was gonna say
hey, Mr Dylan how's it going, ok?
but just then he was suddenly gone
lost from my view
and without his new song

___________
gw2009/2010

Tuesday 27 January 2009

A play for today, Arthur Miller's The Price

The Price by Arthur Miller
Vienna's English Theatre
Josefgasse 12, 1080 Vienna
from 26 Jan 09 to 6 Mar 09

One of Arthur Miller's most famous plays is The Price. In Vienna it is currently being performed in memory of the play's director Robert Prosky who died unexpectedly, on 8th December 2008, aged 78.

Robert Prosky's production opened in the summer of 2005 in Cape May, New Jersey, where it broke all box office records and received standing ovations every night. It was then transferred to the USA's oldest playhouse, Philadelphia's Walnut Street Theatre and from there to Washington DC's Theater J.

Of the Miller canon, which includes such masterpieces as The Crucible, A View From the Bridge and Death of a Salesman, Prosky claimed that The Price was second only to Death of a Salesman. If yesterday's edge-of-the-seat performance is anything to go by, he's probably right.

This poignant family drama opens in 1967 with the pensionable-age cop Victor Franz, a man with 28-years loyal service in the Force, mooching around in the attic of his dead father's 130-year old house, an old house scheduled for demolition. A modern New York building will soon replace it. Victor, mentally scarred and always one-step away from a psychiatrist's couch, is played with remarkable conviction by Andy Prosky, the late director's son.

Enter Ray Reinhardt, wonderfully philosophical and wise, in the role of the 89-year old second-hand dealer Gregory Solomon come to buy the house contents.

"So what have you got against money?" Solomon demands to know of the self-sacrificing, guilt-riven Victor, a man haunted by the suspicion that he has thrown the best years of his life away, as they haggle over the price.
"Have you got a licence?" counters Victor, always suspicious, always the cop.
"I'm registered, vaccinated and licensed," replies Solomon, "The only thing you can do today without a licence is to go up the elevator and jump out of the window."
"It took me 14 years to get my stripes," grumbles the cop, "Cos I wouldn't kiss ass."

As the exchanges continue old Gregory Solomon tries, in difficult circumstances, to remain philosophical, "The car, the furniture, the wife, the children; everything is disposable today," he tells Victor who demands a fair price for an ugly black dining table that Solomon can't possibly sell.
"What is salvation?" asks Solomon, "Go shopping," he answers himself. "I pick up the pieces," is how he defines his own role.
"You'll not walk away with the gravy and leave me with the bones," worries Victor, eyes growing ever darker, ever narrower.
"Every time I open my mouth you practically call me a thief," Solomon patters on, "The price of used furniture is nothing but a viewpoint. The chairs is worth something," he says, ignoring for now, the valuable piece in the corner.

It's the family heirloom, the golden harp, that Solomon is really after; the harp with the crack in the sounding-board, as he will keep reminding Victor and Victor's wife Esther (Leisa Mather), now back from the dry-cleaner's with Victor's best suit. To begin with, the long-suffering Esther is impressed by Solomon; she pats her new hair-do, smooths down her new twin-set and glances at her new shoes. She tells of her new ambitions for Victor, of the new direction his life must take. Victor panics, threatens to unravel. Solomon smiles benevolently, attempts to normalise the situation.

But then towards the end of the first act Victor's brother Walter (Gary Sloan), the wealthy doctor in the camel coat, suddenly arrives; and immediately the tension is ratched-up another two notches. The second half must produce a furious confrontation, one that will reveal the price the brothers must pay when they confront their past and their relationships to each other and to their father, or so we anticipate. And we are not to be disappointed.

Vienna's English Theatre is the ideal venue. Set designer Fred Kinney (Califorina State University) has taken Arthur Miller's claustrophobic attic, filled it with junk and one or two treasures and crammed it all onto the small English Theatre stage. It's exactly right. The family squabble, to put it mildly, as the second act builds to its climax cannot be escaped from. You are there. You are part of the whole damned and wonderful crisis-ridden experience.

It's the Wisdom of Solomon. It's the Wall Street Crash. It's the American Way of Life. It's the family skeleton. And it's the thing that goes bump in the attic. And right now, today, as millions of American families are suddenly thrown into their own particular family or financial crisis, Arthur Miller's play The Price is as relevant as ever.

Monday 26 January 2009

haiku moments (13) and 3rd haikutrio

Today was a bright, fresh, welcoming day and therefore ideal for some outdoor exercise. The following haikutrio describes the poet's run: slow start to gradually warm the muscles; faster bit in the middle; and then the gradual slowing down near the end of the run, near a small car park where walkers set off and return, where paths converge and one returns to 'civilisation' as it were. Today's route was about 8 kms.

early runner
on woodland trail
drawn out by sunshine

rock 'n roll beat
through the walkman
the tempo runner

end of the trail
bootprints pattern dried-up mud
assortment of soles

Sunday 25 January 2009

250th birthday haiku for Robert Burns

A Poet-in-Residence haiku to mark the 250th birthday of the world famous poet and songwriter Robert Burns, born in Alloway in the County of Ayrshire, Scotland, on the 25th day of January 1759. Here's to auld lang syne, dear Robbie!

reverentially remove cap
pour the spirit into the clean glass
consume the firewater



Take a look at ROBERT BURNS / LETTERS on line until 2010
(PiR's alphabetical sidebar LINKS)

Saturday 24 January 2009

Gert Voss reads Thomas Bernhard's Meine Preise

Yesterday Vienna's Burgtheater played host to Suhrkamp Verlag's sold-out book presentation of Thomas Bernhard's newest work Meine Preise (My Prizes). Burgtheater actor Gert Voss was on hand to read three chapters from the book. These were Der Julius-Campe-Preis, Der Grillparzerpreis and that jaw-breaking tongue twister Die Ehrengabe des Kulturkreises des Bundesverbandes der Deutschen Industrie prize.
What these prizes are called, or known as, is more or less by the way. What is more important about the book are the insider details that the author reveals about the business of prize giving and receiving; what his jaundiced and penetrating eye perceives to be the reality behind the gloss of literary back-scratching.

During his all too short career this thorn-in-the-flesh, this nest-soiler, this at-odds-with-the-catholic-fascist-political-establishment, this Austrian James Joyce, this multi-talented satirist, playwright, novelist, poet and master of the German written word received thirteen literary awards, and in Meine Preise he writes about nine of them.

Thomas Bernhard died after a long and troublesome illness at his home in Ohlsdorf, a small village in the Austrian Lake District, in February 1989. He left behind amongst his papers a typescript for Meine Preise on the front sheet of which was the scribbled note: 9 prizes from 12 or 13. And this is the book, marking the twentieth year of his passing, that is now published. It may generate controversy and it may open old wounds. It is an entertaining and informative document and it will surely be, in Austria and Germany, a best-seller.

The prizes are not listed in chronological order but rather in the way that artists place certain colours next to each other to enhance contrasts and bring out the desired quality in the colour; this arrangement gives much to the book as one prize-giving is contrasted with the next in the reader's mind.

The first story, Der Grillparzerpreis tells how Bernhard, who always went about in his trademark pullover and slacks, decided to buy a charcoal grey suit, a shirt, a tie and a pair of socks from Sir Anthony for the ceremony only two hours before the ceremony and how he took his old clothes and his old aunt to the ceremony and the subsequent chaos that resulted because nobody recognized him.
Bernhard brings the tale with great humour and skill to the point, and the point as in many of Bernhard's works is not always where you'd expect to find it. For instance the story of the Austrian State Prize for Literature is tucked away in the middle of the book. This prize giving caused uproar and outrage; politicians, VIP's, and invited guests stormed out of the auditorium during Bernhard's acceptance speech. The scandal, as it came to be called, made front page headlines in the national newspapers.

In Der Grillparzerpreis following the presentation of the award for the play Ein Fest für Boris (A Party for Boris) and the playing of closing music by the Vienna Philharmonic the following took place:
After a time the minister looked around and asked with inimitable arrogance and stupidity in her voice: yes, so where is our little poet then? I was standing quite near to her, but I didn't venture to identify myself. I took my aunt and we left the auditorium, unhindered and without anyone noticing [...] outside our friends were waiting for us. With these friends we went to eat at the so-called Gösser Bierklinik. A philosopher, an architect, their wives and my brother. Loud and jolly people.

The twentieth anniversary of Thomas Bernhard's death is being marked in Vienna with a series of performances and readings at the Burgtheater, and at two smaller theatres, the Vestibül and the Kasino.

Friday 23 January 2009

Red Byrd sings Purcell & co.

Red Byrd consists of songsters John Potter and Richard Wistreich, violinists Sharon Lindo and Naomi Rogers, guitarist Robin Jeffrey, and Jon Banks on cembalo. Last night they were in the Mozart Saal at the Vienna Konzerthaus as part of the annual Resonanzen week. 17th century songs and poems addressing this year's themes of love, lust and damnation were on the musical menu.

Love

As Amoret and Thirsis lay;
Melting the hours in gentle play;
Joyning Faces; mingling Kisses,
And exchanging harmless Blisses:
He trembling cry'd with eager hast;
Let me Feed; oh! as well as Tast;
I die if I'm not wholly Blest.

(William Congreve 1670-1729)

Lust

When Celia was learning on the Spinnet to play,
her Tutor stood by her to show her the way,
She shook not the Note, which anger'd him much,
And made him cry Zounds! 'tis a long prick'd Note you touch,
Surpriz'd was the Lady to hear him complain,
And said I will shake it when I come to't again.

John Isham (1680-1726)

and Damnation

Poor Celia once was very fair,
A quick bewitching Eye she had;
Most neatly look'd her braided Hair,
Her dainty Cheek would make you mad;
Upon her Lips did all the Graces play
And on her Breasts ten Thousand Cupids lay.

Then many a doting Lover came
From Seventeen till Twenty one;
Each told her of his mighty flame,
But She, forsooth, affected none:
One was not Handsome, th'other was not Fine;
this of Tobacco smelt, and that of Wine.

But t'other day it was my fate
To walk along that way alone;
I saw no Coach before her gate,
But at her door I heard her moan:
She dropped a Tear, and sighing seemed to say,
Young Ladies, Marry, Marry while you may.

(Roger Hill 16??-1674)

and bardic bacchanalia from Henry Purcell -

Since the pox or the plague of inconstancy reigns
In most of the women o' the town,
What ridiculous fop would trouble his brains,
To make the lewd devils lie down.
No more in dull rhyme, or some heavier strain,
Will I of the jades or their jilting complain,
My court I will make to things more divine;
The pleasures of friendship, freedom and wine.
We'll Venus adore for a goddess no more,
No more we'll adore; that old Lady whore.
But Bacchus we'll court, who doth drinking support;
Let the world sink or swim,
Sirrah! fill to the brim!

Bacchus is a pow'r divine,
For he no sooner fills my head
with mighty wine, but all my cares resign,
And droop, then sink down dead.
Then the pleasing thoughts begin,
And I in riches flow, at least I fancy so.

And without thought of want I sing,
Stretch'd on the earth, my head all around
With flowers weav'd into a garland crown'd
Then I begin to live,
And scorn of what the world can show or give.

Let the brave fools that fondly think of honour
And delight to make a noise and fight,
Go seek out war, whilst I seek peace and drink.
Then fill my glass, fill it high,
Some perhaps think it fit to fall and die,
But when the bottles rang'd make war with me,
The fighting fools shall see, when I am sunk,
The diff'rence to lie dead, and lie dead drunk.

(Henry Purcell 1659-1695)

Thursday 22 January 2009

Edward Hopper and the American Dream (part 2)

The poems in part 1 (below) were written in situ at the Western Motel Exhibition in Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, and are exclusively about Edward Hopper.
The Edward Hopper exhibition terminates on 15th. February 2009. On display are paintings and etchings by Hopper, but also works and installations from Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Tim Eitel, David Claerbout, Thomas Demand and several others. The exhibition's introductory leaflet tells that Alfred Hitchcock's Bates Motel in the classic Psycho was inspired by Hopper's work.
The following poems are also in situ works. They attempt to bring some of the exhibition's other threads and themes together.

something is gestating here

something timeless
may appear
something often does...

by slow rivers and broken boatyards
on the city's wrong tracks side
the bards and artists drawl and trawl
and know we are unsentimental
- realists all

know lives are lived
behind closed doors
and inward face away
from light
where couples brood
and breed

morning and faded paint
oblivious to the reverie
we find, or seek to find,
in the smokestack town
in the belching raw
and boisterous
crowds
on the lonely subway trains
some hideous beauty
to address
in words and paints


broken picket fences

make good neighbours
when budweiser flows
at the nite life lounge
where the broken down
litter the bar-room
and the buick rusts
at rest
having failed
the smog check
down at king's
its hood agape
in the palm tree shadow
it's owner gone
for coffee
and a
marlboro cigarette

The American Dream and Edward Hopper (part 1)

the western motel

is reached -
she drove down in the buick
through the dark blue mountains
and the pale blue sky
of her dreams
to the motel with the pink-covered
mahogany bed
the western motel
delux in green
and there she waits
impatient in reception
in the dark red chair
by the panorama window
ready to play the haughty blond
when he approaches
late as usual


the wise tramp

stands alone -
naked in the sunlit strip
by the motel bed
her cigarette unlit
her black high-heels
last night kicked-off
are under the bed
she stands
in sunlight's bare caress


office at night

they work -
or appear to work
she and him
secretary and grey-suited boss
working late again
as usual
he often signs his letters last thing
confidentially yours
under the desk lamp's light
and lipsticked elegant
in her blue dress contours
she files his copies away
in the steel green filing cabinets
figures in space
ceiling lit
window lit
working late
to catch the last post
all firmly sealed
on the blue blotter
on the mahogany desk

high noon

is hot -
the white clapboard house
with its red chimney
and grey shingle roof
casts its deep triangular shadows
and she stands
in the open doorway
with her blue housecoat open
fallen casually open
and she looks over
the dead grass
perhaps sees the horizontal shafts
of the sky
cerulean and mackereled
and perhaps decides
it's going to be
another sloppy hot day


dawn in penn

on the concrete platform -
the trunk cart
and on the tracks
the rusty locomotive
stands and waits
beneath the blue and purple clouds

Geoff Stevens awarded Ted Slade Award 2009

The late Ted Slade (1937-2004) was the founder of Poetry Kit (see PiR's LINKS), today one of the most popular poetry websites in the world. When Ted Slade died in 2004 the Poetry Kit site was taken over by the Liverpool poet Jim Bennett who continued to follow the original ethos of providing a service to readers by taking into consideration their many and various needs. Bennett, on the Ted Slade Memorial Page at Poetry Kit writes: For all his work Ted received no official thanks and no payment, he did it because it was necessary and if he had not done it some others with less integrity might have.
The Ted Slade Award was first presented in 2005. As Poet-in-Residence sees it, the Ted Slade Award honours those who give their time and energy, not for financial gain, but freely, so that the bardic roots of poetry are encouraged to grow, to survive, to spread and to continue to produce the new growth, and of course the poetic flowers. It is then, an award for those who toil on the poetry allotments as opposed to those ensconced in the golden towers; for they have their own awards in abundance.
The previous winners of the Ted Slade Award are:
2005 - Sally Evans
2006 - Gerald England
2007 - Michael Horovitz
2008 - Connie Pickard

Poet-in-Residence is delighted to learn that the 2009 winner of the Ted Slade Award is Geoff Stevens, editor of Purple Patch and the organizer of many poetry mics and other events in the libraries, shopping malls and public spaces of the UK. A poem from Geoff Stevens, himself a prolific poet whose books, Keelhauling through Ireland, Absinthe on your Ice Cream etc., may be found at the Poetry Monthly Press website is currently featured on Charles Christian's Ink, Sweat & Tears website (see PiR's LINKS).

Tuesday 20 January 2009

haiku moments (12) and 2nd haikutrio

Today for a change, a walk in the town, as opposed to the usual stroll in the country park or the nearby woods. The cityscape with its many and various characters is a rich and humbling source of material. Today's walk produced Poet-in-Residence's second haikutrio. Here it is:

mink coat
passes the beggar -
pursed lips

in snow and slush
from sale
with bargain shoes

a bank of snow
and a primrose alone -
her pale head trembling

Sunday 18 January 2009

George Szirtes' New & Collected Poems

In George Szirtes' garden poetry grows. George hails from Hungary, the land that produces the world's best garlic, as any cook worth his salt will tell you. Like the Welsh poet R S Thomas, George Szirtes is a poet in search of identity.
It's a curious coincidence, if coincidence it is, that the Hungarian-born poet writing in English and the Welsh-born poet also writing in English, apart from his biography Neb written in Welsh, are both attracted to the work of Wallace Stevens, a poet, "insured to the hilt" as R S Thomas famously said of him. Thomas wrote a fine poetic tribute, a poem beginning with the words "Greetings, Stevens" in honour of the American.
George Szirtes opens his life's work, his 500-page tome culled from a rake of previous publications commencing in 1978 plus the addition of new material, with a Stevens' quote, a quote that nutshells Szirtes' poem-osophy:
Look round you as you start, brown moon,
At the book and shoes, the rotted rose
At the door
.
Writers, whose native language is other than English, or who have a strong second language, can and often do enrich the English language with their choice of vocabulary and turn of phrase. And this is only one of many reasons for reading Szirtes. This prolific and green-fingered poet with Transylvanian roots in Rumania's Cluj, and in many and various other plots, turns over the rich earth, picks up the stones, roots out the weeds, stokes the allotment ashes glowing in the oil drum: explores the worlds of the Princes of Darkness, of the refugees, of the lost families, of the gentlemen & scholars; and it all stems from his obsession with identity and what is beyond identity. He cultivates the new flowers, herbs and weeds; the thorns and the roses, the garlic and the forget-me-nots. He plants more seeds. They grow. Each one is a unique creation. Each one is labelled and collected. Their names are "Who am I?", "Where am I?", "Why am I here?" and so on.

And so to the poems. In Goya's Chamber of Horrors we find(p94):

The Allegory of the Cloth

His waistcoat runs away down his elegant chest.
The colour pools somewhere just below his heart.
It shakes him with its colds and satins.

The tie that breaks from cavities around his neck
Is a waterfall. His eyes are very wet.
He is indisputably unwell.
Somehow appalled and sentimental all at once
He falls into his own puddle which turns out
deeper, colder, silkier than paint.

George Szirtes, who produced New & Collected Poems to celebrate his recent 60th birthday, often writes on his blog of poring over family snapshots, is an admirer of the work of Hungary's most famous photographer, the renowned Andre´ Kertesz. Szirtes pays homage to Kertez in Blind Field (1994). The following poem is part of a wonderful tribute:

The Accordionist

The accordionist is a blind intellectual
carrying an enormous typewriter whose keys
grow wings as the instrument expands into a tall
horizontal hat that collapses with a tubercular wheeze.

My century is a sad one of collapses.
The concertina of the chest; the tubular bells
of the high houses; the flattened ellipses
of our skulls that are open like petals.

We are the poppies sprinkled along the field.
We are simple crosses dotted with blood.
Beware the sentiments concealed
in this short rhyme. Be wise. Be good.

There's no doubt that the author of this poem strives, like the God-questioning-and-badgering Nobel Prize nominee R S Thomas, to be the wise and good man. Thomas, as we know, continued writing at top level into his octogenarian years, and there he produced some of his best work. The same will one day be said of George Szirtes who now has the book, the shoes, the rotted rose and the door; for below the brown moon the path runs on.

Poet-in-Residence has no hesitation in highly recommending George Szirtes' New & Collected Poems.

---
New & Collected Poems
by George Szirtes
is published by Bloodaxe Books

Saturday 17 January 2009

Edgar Allen Poe's poem To My Mother

On Monday evening Poet-in-Residence will have Moon the butler light the log fire in the library and fetch to the reading table a cobwebbed bottle of ruby port and a dusty crystal glass. It will be Edgar Allen Poe's 200th birthday. The transom window will be left slightly ajar on the off-chance that some passing owl or raven might want to enter and join the celebrations.
The Virginia mentioned in the following poem is Poe's wife. He married her when she was thirteen. She died three years before him. And Poe himself was orphaned by the age of three.

To My Mother

Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of Mother,
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you -
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother - my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.

---
Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

Friday 16 January 2009

haiku moments (11) and the haikutrio form

Poet-in-Residence enjoys the haiku form, both to read and to compose. A variant of the form is when a series of three haiku fits neatly together with some kind of common theme to form a linked haiku story. For this form of haiku Poet-in-Residence has coined the word haikutrio. He trusts that haiku purists will not be too offended by this. After all, poetry is nothing if it not a living, moving, developing art.

This morning dawned crisp and cheery. At long last the thaw had arrived. And so, an early morning walk through the nearby country park was a priority. Perhaps, encouraged by the weather and the With Words website (see A-Z sidebar LINKS) there was indeed an haikutrio to be found:

haikutrio

In the snow
looking for pigs -
I find cloven footprints

Caged parrot shrieks
when I hurry by -
hands deep in pockets

Dazzled by sunlight
an old woman greets me -
believes I'm the priest

---
gwilym williams
16/1/09

Thursday 15 January 2009

With Words Haiku Contest 2009

With Words Haiku Contest 2009 is now open. Award winning writer Alan Summers will judge the entries anonymously. Alan has his own haiku blog at Area17 (LINK in sidebar).

Poet-in-Residence tip:-
Alan writes, and therefore probably likes, off-the-wall haiku like these:

lime quarter...
an ice cube collapses
over jazz

and

an attic window sill
a wasp curls
into its own dust

The contest aims to raise money for literature projects in developing countries; therefore there is a nominal charge for entries. Details of this worthwhile contest can be found at With Words (LINK in sidebar). Closing date for entries is 31st May 2009.

Is Poet-in-Residence already working on his batch of ten entries? You bet.

Alan Summers writes:
Hi Gwilym,
Many thanks for publicising the With Words haiku competition, it's very much appreciated by me.
I can also assure you that no one need only send off-the-wall haiku to win the competition.
When I judge competitions I set aside my own taste, and become as neutral as I possibly can.
Due to the fact that we had the same winning poet for 1st and 2nd prizes (John Barlow managed to do this with another competition recently too) we decided to have a third prize which was a tie. So we are in the luxurious place of having four winning examples of haiku up on the webpage.
It won't necessarily mean the same style could win again, I'm very open to a number of styles, but they are useful as good examples. I believe one or more of the winning entries have been recommended for a respected anthology series and if that is so, I am really chuffed!
As you can see from the long list we had a lot of poets that I felt sent in extremely good haiku, and they certainly varied in style!
So the competition is wide open!
All my very best, and thanks again for the plug!!!
Alan

Wednesday 14 January 2009

Part 1 - Thomas Bernhard's White-bearded Man by Tintoretto

12th February 2009 is the 20th anniversary of the death of the novelist and playwright Thomas Bernhard. Bernhard's last novel was Alte Meister or in English Old Master. It was first published in 1988 under the Suhrkamp imprint. As regular readers of these posts will be aware, Poet-in-residence attended the 11th December 2008 launch of a new paperback edition of Alte Meister in Vienna and purchased a copy of the book which Thomas Bernhard's brother Peter Fabian was good enough to sign.
The tale revolves around a painting by Jacopo Tintoretto (1518-1594) which hangs in the Vienna Kunsthistoriches Museum. The main character, Reger, a man of routine, visits the museum's Bordone Saal to gaze at the White-bearded Man (c-1570), for an hour or two every other day. And so, having read Thomas Bernhard's book, Poet-in-Residence, took himself this very morning to the Bordone Saal to see the White-bearded Man's portrait for himself. But the White-beared Man wasn't there. He was now next door in Saal III, they said. But he wasn't there either. He was in Bilbao's Guggenheim. But he'll be back in Saal III in February, they said.
In the space on the wall normally occupied by the White-bearded man there was hung a grey-bearded man. His portrait was also painted by Jacopo Tintoretto but unlike the White-bearded Man this grey-bearded man had a name and an address. He was Senator Marco Grimani from Venezia. He wore his official dress, a red velvet gown trimmed with ermine. His left shoulder was to the viewer and the index finger of his left hand was touching the sleeve's furry white border near the right wrist. His head was turned half-left to look directly at the viewer standing square to the painting. His bushy-browed brown eyes hinted at a high degree of intelligence and his long nose and large left ear endowed him with an air of sympathetic authority. On his left cheekbone there was a suspicious dark patch like an old bruise which faded towards his left eye. His forehead was lightly wrinkled and his fine grey hair, thin at the temples, was brushed straight back. The grey beard, not overlong, had been brushed downwards and was rather ragged at the end; that is to say it was not of the neat and severe cut favoured by many officials.
The information card under the portrait stated the obvious. It's words were to the effect that details of the face were precisely observed and the official robe had been painted in a rapid manner with some highlights.
And so, back to the Bordone Saal where two paintings by Paris Bordone (1500-1571) were to be found. In the large painting Allegory the War God Mars has been stung by Cupid's arrow and has fallen in love with Venus. In fact there are two images of Venus in the picture. On the right she is dressed in green and is picking herbs for a love potion. Next to her is Cupid who is trying to recover his bow and arrow which Mars has stolen from him and is holding aloft. On the left of the picture is another image of Venus. She is leaning back against Mars' shield, axe and helmet. Her clothing is dishevelled, exposing her breasts and left thigh. Mars' only remaining weapon is his loosely girdled sword, the golden handle of which is pointing erotically in the direction of his prize, the Venus lying against his discarded weapons.
The second Bordone is a portrait of the same red-haired model who plays Venus. It is titled The Girl in the Green Coat. Once again her breasts are fully exposed. She holds her coat tightly against her stomach. In fact it may not be her coat, for it looks too large for her. Her flimsy blue dress is bound with a transparent ribbon of pink material which may or may not be undone. The coat appears to be concealing something heavy which she supports with her right hand.
Poet-in-Residence did not come away from the Kunsthistorisches empty handed. He invested €1.00 in a postcard picture of the White-bearded Man which will have to do until the White-bearded Man returns from Bilbao. Part 2 of this post will then follow.

Katharine Tynan's boys in colours

Dublin poet Katharine Tynan's two sons went to war. It was the war to end all wars they went to. Many other Dubliners joined them. For most it was a one way trip.

Joining the Colours
West Kents, Dublin 1914

There they go marching all in step so gay!
Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns.
Blithely they go as to a wedding day,
The mothers' sons.

The drab street stares to see them row on row
On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.
Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go
Into the dark.

With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
They pipe the way to glory and the grave;
Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys
Love cannot save.

High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
Run with them: they shall kiss no more, alas!
Out of the mist they stepped - into the mist
Singing they pass.


Katharine Tynan
(1861-1931)

Monday 12 January 2009

Yoram Kaniuk's Adam Resurrected

Yoram Kaniuk was born in Tel Aviv in 1930 and took part in Israel's War of Independence in 1948. His books have been translated into 20 languages and have earned him many honours including the Bialik Prize, the Prix de Droits de l'Homme, and the Israeli President's Prize. His novel Adam Resurrected was translated from the Hebrew into English by Seymore Simckes. It was first published in English in Great Britain in 2008 by Atlantic Books. Poet-in-Residence received a copy for Christmas, for which he is very grateful. Here is a review.

Most of the novel's action takes place in Mrs. Seizling's Institute for Rehabilitation and Therapy on a hill in the desert in Arad, Israel. The benefactor Mrs. Seizling is dead but not buried. Her body is in limbo, kept frozen in Cleveland, Ohio, and it is awaiting transportation to Arad. It was her money which built the so-called Institute for Rehabilitation and Therapy, which is in reality a mad house of Cuckoo's Nest dimensions. The mad house, or better called the lunatic asylum, appears to be a metaphor for Israel.
The book's hero Adam Stein is a Holocaust survivor. He is a circus clown who survived the Holocaust by pretending to be a dog. German concentration camp commander Klein, now back in civilian life as Weiss, took a liking to Stein the dog and kept him as a pet; fed him from a dog bowl alongside a real dog, fed him scraps under the table and allowed him to be petted affectionately by his long-suffering wife. This benevolence enabled Stein to come through the 1,000 year Reich almost without a scratch. Unfortunately his mind was damaged beyond repair, or almost so.
The book's foreword is the book's message and is echoed for example in the mouth of another candidate for the loony bin, in fact the twin whose idea it is to build the place, a twin sister known logically as one of the Schwester twins. "We are a nation," said the Schwester twin, "a nation that betrayed its God. And we paid the highest price possible - we became smoke and ashes [...] the Rabinowitzes, the Spiegel family, the English teacher Mrs. Spring, all of us."
And the foreword is this, from Josephus, The Jewish War: Elazar the son of Ya-ir said: God must have made up His mind irrevocably against the Jewish People, His former loved ones, for if He had continued to show us a friendly face or if He were angry for just a short while, He would not have been absent, so totally absent, during the Great Destruction.
When the Schwester twin spots Mrs. Seizling having a cup of tea she homes in on her with her idea. "It is all a matter of faith."
"Faith?" Mrs. Seizling tried to understand, it being crucial that she comprehend. [...]
"It all depends on what you're thinking," continued the woman with the small mustache, while sipping her hot tea. "Take me for example. I, madam, am thinking about God."
"Eh?"
"Day and night, He is in my mind," And once she began talking, the Schwester sister didn't stop.
Mrs. Seizling not only finances the building of the Institute which costs 12,000,000 liras; a 6,000,000 liras bribe to a government official and the other 6,000,000 to pay for the building of the luxury complex, but she travels the world in search of top quality staff. In Paris she finds Pierre Lotti the chef working at the Cluny Restaurant. His pioneer instinct finds him soon on his way to Israel's premier 5-star nut house. He cooks dishes that Israel hasn't ever tasted before. The word spreads to Ashdod, Ashkalon, Gedera, Rehovot, Tel Aviv and Haifa. People wait on pins for week-end invitations to the Sanitarium as they call it.
The attraction for Adam Stein, who hides whisky bottles behind all the Sanitarium's radiators, is not the cuisine prepared by Pierre Lotti but the insatiable sexual appetite of nurse Jenny. It's her discipline he loves. Her starched uniform. During sex he wants to shout Heil Hitler! They do it quickly in the storeroom when time is is pressing. Othertimes, when Jenny is not too busy, they do it in Adam's private room, and oftentimes in front of his invisible dog.
Other crazy characters pop in and out of Adam's room. Wolfowitz the Circumciser, Wolfowitz to whom the dog is nothing but the aide and ally of Satan can actually see Adam Stein's invisible dog. Wolfowitz roars at the dog. "Monster! Ashmodai! Scat, scat, scat!" he says. "If you're going to give him a name I think you should give him a dog's name," says Wolfowitz. He swallows the word him, afraid to utter it clearly..."
Adam Stein has not only a dog but also an invisible child who writes on an Olivetti typewriter. The child types messages to God. The dog smiles. Adam escapes from the whole bizarre scene, runs into the desert, into a sandstorm and raging rains pouring-jetting-gushing down from God. They find him and bring him back. So what does the child now type? Everibuddy runz away.
Susan Sontag ranks Kaniuk with Garcia Marquez and Peter Handke as one of the three best novelists she has discovered in translation. Le Monde say Kaniuk is one of the great writers of our time. Emerson says: A man is a god in ruins.
Now a major film, starring Jeff Goldblum and Willem Dafoe, is the message on the cover above the desperate heaven-seeking face of Adam Stein. In the Sanitarium Dr. Gross sits behind his desk, behind the metaphor that is Israel; jumbo-sized Dr. Gross, who moves like an awkward goon, sits there behind his huge desk and smiles.

Bohunice

Hungarian-born poet and translator George Szirtes asks if anybody knows where the post-1989 Eastern European poets are hiding. Perhaps there's nothing for them to write about anymore? suggests Szirtes.
In Hungary, there's much that poets could, and should, be writing about. One of the subjects, if they have not the imagination to think of one themselves, is the subject of Bohunice, the Slovakian Soviet-era Nuclear Reactor that the authorities propose to restart.
Millions of people live in the shadow of this dangerous nuclear dinosaur - in Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine, and in Austria where Poet-in-Residence has his bardic Schreibtisch.

Bohunice

Bohunice gently sleeps
in her soft golden bed
her silver haired head
on embroidered pillow
where the nightmares play out
in the cold and the dark
of her candlelit room
with its heavy drapes
closed
but open a chink
to let in the sunlight
when it comes
if it comes
and the long narrow windows
full-open
to let out the stink
from her bones
which are rotting with gangrene
and the smell from the mold
on the walls
for toadstools grow well
in the damp and the dark
of this winter's night
in this room of Bohunice's
where the fire is still laid
in the grate
where the spiders now hang
and patiently wait
for their day -
but the fire's not lit
and the papers are screwed
upwith kindling
for the blaze
she shall light
when she wakes
and burns down her house.

12.1.2009
Gwilym Williams

Sunday 11 January 2009

More haiku from R K Singh

It's been a while, in fact it's been far too long, since Poet-in-Residence featured the exotic and mysterious haiku of India's R K Singh. What better time than the start of a new year to put matters right. Here then, without any more ado, are three more haiku from one of India's finest practitioners:

After the repair
pink paint grows molds on the wall
autumn breathlessness

Sweet scent of nightqueen
reading a hundred haiku
for one real gem

Inhales sun
through the foggy morning
a leaping frog

c- R K Singh 2008, 2009

Die Rosenkriege or Henry VI, parts 1, 2, 3 and Richard III

A seven hour extravaganza of malfeasance, madness and greed. It was immense. It was the final performance of Die Rosenkriege at Vienna's Burgtheater.
Mylords, Cardinals and Kings were up to their old tricks, up to their crowns and coronets in corruption, scandal, double-dealing, espionage, plastic bottles, water and, of course, oil. It ended there. Richard III's stained armour standing prone like the broken flanks of a modern iron weapon in a pool of oil in a desert. "My Kindgom for a horse!", Richard's last words before the sudden blackness that marked his end. But not quite the end for the audience. For the battle weary cast trooped into the sea of the thousand discarded plastic water bottles to give the audience a poignant rendition of Ode to Joy. The audience responsed warmly. It was a wonderful way to end:

Joy, daughter of Elysium
Thy magic reunites those
Whom stern custom has parted,
All men will become brothers
Under thy gentle wing.

Nicholas Ofczarek as the scuttering, scuttling hunch-back Richard III was stupendous. The actor demonstrated with panache the subterfuge and subversivness required to gain power, qualities that were to drive him into madness. In the final tragic scene, as he lay dying on the deserted battlefield, only the ghosts of those he had slain were there, and there only to add to the torment.
Johann Adam Oest was suitably sinister as the Bishop of Winchester, cruel as Iden, degenerate as King Ludwig and gloriously incompetent as the clueless Lord Hastings. This is a versatile actor from the top drawer.
Veteran actor Martin Schwab played Gloucester to purple perfection. Martin Reinke as York and also Catesby was wonderful too, if a little quiet at times. Johanna Wokalek as Margaret and Dorothee Hartinger, with her pregnant lump (a real one), as Queen Elizabeth (Lady Grey) worked hard to good effect. A chronicler, Hermann Scheidleder, with bell, book, mirror and music kept the audience a posteriori aware of the connections between the unfolding scenes. It was forty-five scenes in all and Scheidleder performed his task with aplomb.
As in Shakespeare's day scenery was minimal and the costumes were a delight. When the costume is right, when the costume speaks volumes the scenery can be less. It sufficed that a couple of wrestlers performing the same throws over and over again in a revolving plastic box spoke for the senslessness of war. It was enough that black gold burbled gently out of a hole in the stage floor to demonstrate what all the slaughter was really about. It was appropriately symbolic that the throne being fought over was a thick cushion. It was a stroke of genius to have the Cliffords, the father and the son, joined at the hip and marching around inside one military overcoat, as mirrors of each other. It was enough that Jörg Ratjen as Cade walked around eating a raw cabbage to speak for the starving commoners.
Die Rosenkriege was, as the saying goes, much more than the sum of its parts. It was a complete piece of theatre for the here and now. Shakespeare is timeless. And this was certainly a message for the times, perhaps even a wake-up call.
Translators Albert Ostermaier and Thomas Brasch are to be commended for the Suhrkamp Verlag published text; the 220-page programme, with its many colour photographs is a souvenir to treasure. And it will be treasured here. It was a joy to bear witness to the marathon performance. The hours flew by. It was over all too quickly.

Friday 9 January 2009

Dappled things from Gerard Manley Hopkins

The following brings welcome relief from the recent downbeat and lachrymose tone found hereabouts. There is indeed something about the quality of dappledness. It is a quality that we find pleasing, military camouflage excepted. It's to do with the arbitrary positions of the various harmonious shades. Although there is a kind of uniformity in dappledness it is generally not rigid uniformity. It hints at something beyond. An almost relaxed attitude, a sort of laissez-faire. Hopkins brings it out in his poems:

Pied Beauty

Glory be to God for dappled things -
For skies of couple-colour as a brindled cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced - fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

---

A second poem by Hopkins contains a reference to dappled dew and demonstrates the poet's versatility and skill as he adapts the meter to the changing scene. Contrast for instance the beat of the first lines to the smoothness of the last. The poem was written at Inversnaid, Loch Lomond, Scotland. The poet followed the course of a stream back to its source.

Inversnaid

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

From Walt Whitman to Siegfried Sassoon

Andrew Motion in 101 Poems Against War writes that poetry reflects our strongest and truest feelings at moments of crisis. Whatever our faith - we compromise, betray or wreck our selves when we take up arms against one another, he says.
Before World War I, the infamous war to end all wars, there was no such thing as a war poet. Yes, there were poets who wrote about war. Walt Whitman in the American Civil War wrote standard glorious lines:

from Ashes of Soldiers

Now sound no note O trumpeters,
Now at the head of my cavalry parading on spirited horses,
With sabres drawn and glistening, and carbines by their thighs,
(ah my brave horsemen!
My handsome tan-faced horsemen! what life, what joy and pride,
With all the perils were yours.)

But it was in 1914-18 that poets became war poets and overturned the scrubbed tables on which the old stuff was dutifully written. No, not written, merely vaingloriously versified. Writing the truth is a nobler art. By World War II the Dulce et Decorum of war was dead and buried as this example of graffiti found in an Army latrine testifies:

Soldiers who wish to be a hero
Are practically zero,
But those who wish to be civilians,
Jesus, they run into the millions.

After the war to end all wars the striking coal miners of the UK were being branded as being worse than the Hun by the ruling class peeling its plovers' eggs and lifting its glasses of mellowed Chateau Rentier. Many of the coal miners demanding a better deal were men who had fought in the rat-infested mud and slime of the Somme trenches on behalf of the Chateau Rentier fraternity with its "Remember Belgium & Enlist Today" "Yes, I mean you young fellow!" and other such propaganda. Yes, those same solid chaps who had got the world into the bloody mess in the first place were now demanding coal to warm their 'members only' billiard rooms. The hypocrisy of it all was mind boggling.
On Sunday 3rd September 1939, as he listened to the declaration of war against Germany, Sassoon was depressed. It all makes me wish that the July 1918 bullet had finished me, he said.

Repression of War Experience

Now light the candles; one; two; there's a moth;
What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid flame -
No, no, not that,- it's bad to think of war,
When thoughts you've gagged all day come back to scare you;
And it's been proved that soldiers don't go mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.

You're quiet and peaceful, summering safe at home;
You'd never think there was a bloody war on!
O yes, you would...why, you can hear the guns.
Hark! Thud, thud - quite soft - O Christ, I want to go out
And screech at them to stop - I'm going crazy;
I'm going stark, staring made because of the guns.

Thursday 8 January 2009

from The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer

This fragment from The Knight's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) tells Poet-in-Residence that nothing has changed. Seven centuries have gone by and nothing has changed. It's a sorry state of affairs and it's high time that the world woke up and rejected the nightmare that is warfare. The poem has been 'translated' into Modern English for ease of reading. Chaucer's original appears below Poet-in-Residence's updated version.

from The Knight's Tale

There I first saw the dark imaginings
of felony, and all the scheming;
the cruel ire, red as any glowing coal,
the pick-purse, and yes pale dread;
the smiler with the knife under the cloak,
the stable burning with the black smoke;
the treason and the murder in the bed;
the open war with wounds blood-covered;
strife, with bloody knife and sharp menace.

All full of groaning was that sorry place.

The slayer of himself, yet I saw there -
his heart-blood covered all his hair -
the nail driven in the forehead by night;
the cold death, with upward gaping mouth.

And in the temple sat misfortune
with discomfort and sorry countenance.

And I saw madness, laughing in his rage,
armed complaint, outcry and fierce outrage;
the corpses in the woods, with throats cut;
a thousand slain, and not killed by plague;
the tyrant with the prey removed by force,
the town destroyed, there was no thing left.

And I saw the burnt ships dancing in the storm


from The Knight's Tale

Ther saugh I first the derke ymaginyng
Of Felonye, and al the compassyng;
The crueel Ire, reed as any gleede;
The pykepurs, and eek the pale Drede;
The smylere with the knyf under the cloke;
The shepne brennynge with the blake smoke;
The tresoun of the mordrynge in the bedde;
Contek, with bloody knyf and sharp manace.
Al ful of chirkyng was that sory place.
The sleere of hymself yet saugh I ther -
His herte-blodd hath bathed al his heer -
The nayl ydryven in the shode anyght;
The colde deeth, with mouth gapyng anyght;
Amyddes of the temple sat Meschaunce,
With confort and sory cotenaunce.
Yet saugh I Woodnesse, laughynge in his rage,
Armed Compleint, Outhees and fiers Outrage;
The careyne in the busk, with throte ycorve;
A thousand slayn, and nat of qualm ystorve;
The tiraunt, with the pray of force yraft,
The toun destroyed, there was no thyng laft.
Yet saugh I brent the shippes hoppesteres;

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Frederic Karinthy on the road from Zero to One

Frederic Karinthy (1888-1938) provides a suitable new year message.

Between One and Two there is a series of road-signs like "Be Bright" or "Take Care" or "Look Ahead" or "Live and Learn" or "Stretch Your Legs According To Your Coverlet" or "Work As Long As Your Wick Burns" or "Be Prepared to Fight" ... whoever follows them will reach the next station, and arrive from One to Two, from Two to Three, from Three to a Million ...
But between Zero and One, there are no such signs, and even if there were, they wouldn't do any good. For instance, how could you stretch your legs according to your coverlet if you have no coverlet? And how could you work as long as your wick burns if you have no wick? On the road from Zero to One is the "Well, there's nothing I can do about it" and the "I'm sorry, I'm too busy now" and the "Unfortunately, the President won't be able to see you," for between Zero and One lie murder and madness and impossibility.
Between Zero and One is Horror and Desperation. Between Zero and One is Instinct and Religion, Evil and Salvation. Between Zero and One is the Discovery of the World.
Yes, the mathematicians are wrong: the way from Zero to One is longer than from One to a Hundred-thousand-million...it is about as long as the way from life to death.

Glenn Gould contemplates Robert Zend

Glenn Gould contemplates Robert Zend on the back sleeve blurb of the jacket wrapped around From Zero to One. Zend: I do not believe in biographical notes: the poems should speak for themselves. All the rest is gossip.
Zend, born like George Szirtes, in that Hungarian hotbed of bards that is Budapest left Hungary in 1956 to live in Toronto, Canada. I lost everything except my accent, he says.
From Zero to One is a tribute to the great Hungarian writer, humorist and philosopher, and Zend's spiritual father, Frederic Karinthy. The collection was written in Hungarian and translated into English by the author and his good friend John Robert Colombo.
And so here is the back sleeve blurb from Gould:
If I were a gallery curator, Robert Zend would pose a problem.
"Where do you want the stuff to hang, boss," my assistant would ask, "in with the Mondrians, maybe?"
"No, I don't think so - the sense of line is similar, but there's more sense of humour in Zend - so try wedging them between the Miros and the Klees, and better set up an exhibit of Saul Steinberg in the foyer as a teaser."
If I were a symphony manager, the problem would be similar.
"Out of ze question," Maestro von Zuyderhoffer would declare. "I conduct no Zend before Bruckner, not even mit Webern to raise curtains."
"But, maestro, Zend takes the comsmos for a plaything, as does Bruckner, and wrings out of it an epigram, like Webern. However, I suppose we could try him on a chamber concert with early Hindemith, maybe..."
"Ja, besser."
"...and then, perhaps, Kurt Weill..."
"Viel besser!"
"...and finish off with Satie."
"Nein, kein Satie. Zat vun is not knowing secondary dominants, und ze vork of Zend is full of modulation."
Ah, well.
But if I were a book publisher, no such problem would exist.
Robert Zend could stand alone - his cynically witty, abrasively hedonistic, hesitantly compassionate, furtively God-seeking poems could mingle with each other, find their own program-order, and settle among themselves the question of what goes where and how much wall-space will be needed.
Gee, what an easy life book publishers must have.