The Flight of the Turtle: New Writing Scotland 29

My prose poem "Renata Perry" has been published in: The Flight of the Turtle: New Writing Scotland 29 published by the ASLS.

There’s nothing pure about Renata Perry except the pure cries of abandon of Renata Perry nothing so pure as the pure abandon of Renata Perry under the pure blue skies of Italy that Renata Perry can see from her bed the balcony opposite all covered in aerials pointed at transmitters waiting for signals Renata Perry is lying down under the weight of an angel waiting for signals under pure blue skies Renata Perry signals her mouth is dry and asks if he’ll be an angel and fetch some water Renata Perry watches him stiffly the weighty angel going stiffly to the bathroom and everybody says you can drink the water it’s true it’s incredibly pure but Renata Perry stays true to herself and the wine...

(Renata Perry, extract)

Stone Going Home Again

I have four prose poems in "Stone Going Home Again: New Writing Scotland 28".

The big day fell on a Thursday and Thursday fell on Dawn Dwyer as she leant on the kitchen sideboard all of a clatter it fell the way a drawer of cutlery pulled out too far can fall except there was no cutlery there was no drawer there was just Dawn Dwyer by herself in the kitchen leant against the kitchen sideboard trying to resist Thursday falling on her trying to hold up Thursday as houses outside try to hold up their rooves and trees hold up their leaves and Dawn Dwyer was trying to leave and hold up her head she was trying to hold up her shoulders but Thursday was pushing down on her and disaster teetered like a drawer of cutlery a weight that was supported but to which point of being extended suddenly would fall...

(Dawn Dwyer, extract)

What is Poetry For?

When I think about what I use poetry for, the only honest answer I can come up with is that I use it to preserve things. I use it to preserve the things that matter to me. Like any preserver (taxidermist, pickler) I have to be careful about the methods I use. Preserving things can be a challenge, but the challenge is not the point - it is something incidental. The final product may look a little odd and bear only a passing resemblance to the raw materials that went into it, but that's not the point. What's important is the special alchemy between what is being preserved and the method of preservation.

New Poem

I've posted a new poem on Rewords entitled "Exceptionally".

Trees Probe the Sky

Trees probe the sky
like aerials tuned in to sadness.

The shrubs and grasses at their feet
find them omnipotent.

One certain tree
on a pedestal of crumbling earth

starts to preach wildly,
transformed, craning towards God.

Even in an empty sky
there is so much to see.



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Note:

The image above is not a painting but an example of landscape stone. The person I bought this example from told me it came from Spain. It is similar to 'Paesine', a sedimentary rock formed some 62 million years ago and quarried in Tuscany, Italy. I have posted an image of paesine here. The rock is a kind of marly limestone called "Calcari alberisi" in Italy which has been quarried since the 16th century. When the rock is broken open or sliced, images can be observed on the surface which recall natural landscapes such as cliffs, the sea, towers, steeples, ruined villages, blue skies and clouds. This unusual aspect is due to mineralisation brought about by water which circulates through the rocks underground, penetrating between the calcareous beds and through irregular fine cracks.

Image and text © Jonathan Wonham

Riddle of the Sands

I have posted a number of geological riddles on the Rewords Blog under the titles: 'Last Rites of Meteors' and 'Riddle'. I can't provide a direct link, because otherwise you'll see the answers in the comment box before you reach the end.

Get a Grip

The Rewords group poetry blog goes from strength to strength, gaining new members and ever-loosening its grasp on strict reality.

My latest contribution is called Infinite Sets adapted after a poem called Apex by Amy Hollowell.

Rewords

There is a new blog called Rewords which features the writing of several Paris-based poets. It is an ongoing project which intends to create new poetry using response, imitation, riff, interplay.

I have just posted a new poem called 'Glut', in response to one by Michelle Noteboom called Stainless Sunset with Interesting Water Loop.

Michelle has previously contributed a poem to Connaissances which is here.

Five Things About Me

Like my Father
turning off the lights.

Like my mother
listening.

Like my brother
patiently avoiding being bitten.

Like my wife
sorting sorting sorting.

Like my children
learning how to play.


This is a meme passed on by Lesley.

Paesine

Cliffs extrude from hairline cracks. Slurried sediments
recall clouds. Colours infiltrate and horizons
are pressed into being, forced flat.

Perspectives navigate blindly beneath towering cliffs,
strange enough for not being more strange. What place
is this that was not, yet might be?

Unknown birds wheel round the crags and turn
lost thoughts to pecked out eyes, marmorial silence.
Whoever lived up there emerged from clay

and came to imagine each thing in its Cartesian frame,
cut down and seen in relation to what it might be:
a hand that couldn't help restore a powdered sea.


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Note:

The image above is not a painting but an example of 'Paesine', a sedimentary rock formed some 62 million years ago and quarried in Tuscany, Italy. The rock is a kind of marly limestone called "Calcari alberisi" in Italy which has been quarried since the 16th century. When the rock is broken open or sliced, images can be observed on the surface which recall natural landscapes such as cliffs, the sea, towers, steeples, ruined villages, blue skies and clouds. This unusual aspect is due to mineralisation brought about by water which circulates through the rocks underground, penetrating between the calcareous beds and through irregular fine cracks.

Image and text © Jonathan Wonham

Ubuweb and the Edge Lane Avant-Garde

UbuWeb has some great experimental film, poetry and music. Here's a couple of links you might enjoy:

Marcel Broodthaers: Interview with a Cat

Eric Satie: Four Gnossiennes

On its main page UbuWeb announces itself as the YouTube of the Avant-Garde. Whenever I see or hear the words avant-garde, it reminds me of an occasion when I was a student in Liverpool. I was looking for a new lodging after being practically fire-bombed out of my previous flat on Edge Lane, a rough area of Liverpool.

Thus it was that I stumbled on Mr Goodfriend, a classically sleazy landlord with an incredibly oily demeanour. As I looked around the tiny flat he was offering for let in Allerton, he asked a lot of probing questions and somehow found out that I was interested in writing poetry. Then he asked me where I had lived before. I told him: Edge Lane.

With a very serious look on his face he said: "Ah yes, I've heard it's very avant-garde around there."

Unfortunately, I took the apartment and signed his watertight contract which kept me paying the rent for two months after I left the flat six months later. I had to leave. It was so cold I would go to bed in a tracksuit, sleeping bag and two duvets. Eventually, I gave up on that and just started sleeping on the sofa in front of the gas fire. Now that's Avant-Garde.

Below is a poem called 'Wallpaper' which I wrote while living in that place. It was published in the New Statesman magazine thanks to Hugo Williams who was the poetry editor at that time.


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Never Let a Poet...

never let a poet do math
never let a poet be snug in his belief
never let a poet go to Paris
never let a poet just mess up
never let a poet run round loose
never let a poet be in a position of power (nor a soccer coach)
never let a poet get away with inaccuracies of observation
never let a poet get a cell phone
never let a poet sit around doing nothing
never let a poet in your life

but...

let a poet take your pulse
let a poet explain peace
let a poet bring the unbringable within reach
let a poet roam
let a poet go through the grounds
let a poet do the talking
let a poet do your picking
let a poet endeavor
let a poet depict a utopia
let a poet live
let a poet have the final word


(From a search engine)

Racetrack Playa, Death Valley

Rocks drag themselves across the playa
unaware of their own weight

their constant volume, density, inertia
their absence of arms or legs.

They move
despite themselves
up hill.

Or sometimes double back
as if they had forgotten something.

Does an unseen hand push them
even though they resist?

Can't you feel that hand on your own back
pushing you?

Lapwing

The issue of Upstairs at Duroc magazine which I helped to edit last year will shortly be available. This is a poem called Lapwing which will be appearing in it. I wrote it about a year ago while staying in an old farmhouse in Normandy.

I have made two recordings of the poem, the first a straightforward reading:


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And the second a more experimental recording which overlays two readings of the poem with a shift of one line between them:


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If you'd like to purchase a copy of the lastest issue of Upstairs at Duroc magazine, the details are here.

Remembering Soley

I have no philosophy to explain
why the music stops
or to tell why little children
blow upon their hands
and cannot make them warm.

On a summer’s day
why does a butterfly flapping its wings
on the other side of the earth
create a storm? A throw
of the dice won’t change chance.

Under the natural span of grief we lie
shadowed by a world that’s torn.
Things seem more fragile
than they did before.
Hands feel worn.

But speak Soley’s name
and the room fills up.
No ambassador, passing
could make such a claim
to be true to Iceland’s molten heart.

In the end, we find
it’s a simple thing to say
that we loved her for the good
that she was, and feel sharply
this intolerable loss.

What’s best? To be kind
as Soley was, to laugh like her.
Light heart, clear spirit.
We touch the space where you were
and feel your presence still.


Our friend Soley Mangal died in a tragic accident last weekend. She was only 41. Soley was born in Iceland where her parents still live. She was a very kind lady who loved children. I wrote this poem in rememberance of her and read it yesterday at the family's memorial service held at the Norwegian Seaman's Church in Le Vesinet. Our thoughts are with her husband, her children and all her family at this sad time.

The Iceberg

The iceberg is calved.
Like the rest of us, it doesn’t ask to be born.
It floats away, nine parts hidden.
Some say: the most important parts.

The iceberg doesn’t think about it.
The iceberg feels stable. That’s enough.
Like all the other icebergs it floats south.
It doesn’t know why.

South, where finally it will melt
somewhere short of the equator
adding its own fresh water to the endless salt water,
slowly, minutely, diluting it.

It does not detest the salt water
although the salt water, we know, eats into it,
gnawing away at the great white sides,
the bellying underneath.

Gone are the days when an iceberg could sink a ship.
Gone are the tragedies of icebergs.
Now, there’s something faintly comic about them.
Like fat children who can always be evaded.
Big, lumbering, purposeless things.

Still, there are always the oil rigs
that an iceberg might chance upon, be swept towards.
Tethered, there’s no escape for those.

Not that it wants to do damage of course.
Not that it wants to cause loss of life.

Even then, someone sees it’s coming,
drags a giant lasso around it.
See how they get some pootling tugboat
to drag the iceberg away, set it free
where it can’t do any more harm?

Not that it wanted to do harm.
Even three parts hidden.
Not that it wouldn’t suddenly roll over
if you happened to climb on board.
It doesn’t even consider such stuff.
It didn’t ask to be born.


© Jonathan Wonham