Monthly Archives: August 2016

Poetry and the Weather

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On my way home from work yesterday evening, I passed a familiar block of flats. The evening was a pleasant one, with a warm summer sun warming me as I strolled past the familiar apartments. A ball was being kicked, it’s sound mingling with that of the birds which twittered overhead.
I could hardly believe that this self-same location had, in November 2015 prompted me to pen the below lines:

“My thoughts lost on the damp air
Going who knows where.
The sodden grass
I pass
Where children play
but not today.
No ball
or bird call.
Only the rain’s incessant fall”.

One might be tempted to construe that the difference in weather is the sole determinant of my mood. Had I written a poem yesterday evening it would, no doubt be marked by an absence of melancholy (in sharp contrast to the above lines). Doubtless the miserable state of the weather on that November day in 2015 influenced my poem. However my mood on that particular day was (for reasons which I can not now remember) one of introspection. The bleak weather combined with my state of mind, to produce “Lost” (the title of the poem quoted above).
It is interesting to speculate on how my poem may have differed had children been playing football despite the foulness of the weather. Would it have been quite so introspective in nature? Would I have written it at all? The honest response to both questions is that I don’t know. Perhaps I wouldn’t have written “Lost” or maybe a poem imbued with rather more light than darkness would have found it’s way onto my blog and (later) into my collection of poetry “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind”.
External factors such as the weather, combine with the poet’s state of mind to produce poetry. Of course rain is by no means always a source of melancholy. It refreshes the earth bringing out the scent of the wonderful plants with which England is blessed. Had I been walking in a park at the time of that November shower, with the scent of autumn leaves and the last of the summer flowers filling my nostrils, I may well have written a different poem, one characterised by a less melancholic tinge. However Autumn has the power to kindle melancholy irrespective of the state of the weather. The dead leaves underfoot signify the dying of the year and one is acutely aware that winter’s iron grip will soon be felt throughout the land. So who knows how my poem would have differed (assuming I had, in fact penned one) in the event the circumstances of that November day in 2015 had been different.

(For “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind” please visit http://moyhill.com/lost/)

Kevin

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Rain – Edward Thomas

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G. M. Griffiths's avatarMove Him Into The Sun

‘Rain’

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying to-night or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be towards what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

NOTES

In this poem Thomas lies awake at night, listening…

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As the Team’s Head Brass – Edward Thomas

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On popping into the Railway Bell (my favourite local pub), I fell into conversation with an acquaintence who reminded me of this poem.

G. M. Griffiths's avatarMove Him Into The Sun

‘As the Team’s Head Brass’

As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed the angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.
The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker’s round hole,
The ploughman said. ‘When will they take it away? ‘
‘When the war’s over.’ So the talk began –
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
‘Have you been out? ‘ ‘No.’ ‘And don’t…

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The Secret Libraries of History…

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Chris The Story Reading Ape's avatarChris The Story Reading Ape's Blog

An extract from a BBC – Culture article:

After news emerged about an underground reading room in Damascus, Fiona Macdonald discovers the places where writing has been hidden for centuries.

Beneath the streets of a suburb of Damascus, rows of shelves hold books that have been rescued from bombed-out buildings. Over the past four years, during the siege of Darayya, volunteers have collected 14,000 books from shell-damaged homes. They are held in a location kept secret amid fears that it would be targeted by government and pro-Assad forces, and visitors have to dodge shells and bullets to reach the underground reading space.

It’s been called Syria’s secret library, and many view it as a vital resource. “In a sense the library gave me back my life,” one regular user, Abdulbaset Alahmar, told the BBC. “I would say that just like the body needs food, the soul needs books.”

Religious or…

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My Latest Collection of poetry “Refractions” is Scheduled for Publication by end August 2016

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I am aiming to publish my latest collection of poetry, “Refractions” in the next 10-14 days. The collection derives it’s title from my poem “Refractions” which runs thus:

“The poet may redact
The light that through his poem does refract.
But the reader will therein construe
That she believes to be true”.

In the same way that light refracts, so to does poetry. What the reader sees in a poem is not (necessarily) what the poet intended him to perceive. Likewise different readers will interpret the same poem in diverse ways. The poet, for his part may obfuscate his meaning, while the whiley reader will dig deep and, perhaps get near the essence of the poem.
If anyone would like a free copy of “Refractions” in return for an honest review, please contact me via newauthoronline (at) gmail dot com (the address is rendered in this manner to defeat spammers).

Many thanks,

Kevin