A MOVING POEM

My blogging report card this month is shameful. I'm standing in the corner, dunce cap on my head, red-faced and staring at the floor.

Digressed again, off-piste again, 7ism resolutions postponed again. I don't have a valid excuse except that I really have been thinking a lot and trying to see where I'm at, as they say.

But I couldn't let November end without a modest ode to falling leaves and darker days and the melancholy of approaching winter. Another rough experimental animation, started yesterday afternoon and finished at about six o'clock this morning, without a break. 

I didn't choose the music beforehand but as soon as I watched the silent video I remembered Bachianas Brasileiras, by Heitor Villa-Lobos, sung by the extraordinary soprano Bidù Sayao. I've only used a short extract from Number 5 - if you've never heard the whole thing, it's definitely worth looking up. There are many recordings of it but Sayao's interpretation is my absolute favourite. 

This is the VIMEO permalink in case you don't see the video here. 

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OUR DAVE IN LONDON

 The Via Negativa is a road well-travelled, at least in Dave Bonta's cyber-corner of it, even if in the real world it is hidden in Plummers Hollow, a Pennsylvania mountain woodland richly populated by a great variety of animal, vegetable and mineral wildlife, every specimen of which our Dave knows personally, addresses by proper name, and often photographs, films or writes poems about. I say our Dave because he's a friend among good friends, first encountered in the blogosphere, then in New York in 2007, then last week right here at home. Here he is looking at the cyclops-eye of my camcorder while we talk - a rambling conversation which he recorded and which will eventually appear on Via Negativa as a podcast.

It takes a very good reason to lure this hermit-ish poet/ philosopher/ naturalist away from his porch in the woods and the excellent reasons which brought Dave to the UK for two weeks were a book, a reading and an exhibition. The exhibition: Clive Hicks-Jenkins' 60th birthday retrospective at the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth, beautifully documented on Clive's Artlog. The book: The Book of Ystwyth for which Dave contributed poems; and the reading of his poems, along with the other poets, as part of the festivities around this prestigious event. You can see more about all this on Via Negativa including links to other bloggers who have written about it. 

I enjoyed Dave's visit so much, savouring the peaceful attentiveness he gives to everything, a rare quality that I can learn from. The attention I give to the world is often agitated by ego-driven judgements and coloured by emotions - not the best way to use one's perceptive faculties.

 
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WORDS AND PICTURES

Dylan, creator/editor of the brilliant tinywords, has chosen one of my poempictures as the cover of the latest issue of this international daily magazine of haiku and micropoetry. I am lost for words to say how delighted I am, so a simple thank you will have to do. 

Another reason to celebrate is that I've finally reached what seems to me to be a happy ending for a portrait I've been working on lately of Jehane Markham, a neighbour and fine poet/playwright. As The Jehane Markham Trio  she reads her work with a backing of two musicians - a subtle, original and hugely enjoyable blend of jazz and poetry. Rough Winds Productions was created with her partner, the actor Roger Lloyd Pack, "to support the search for pleasure and understanding in the poetic realm". You may remember I did a sketch of Roger reading The Wasteland  four years ago (scroll to April 13, 2006 ). He's performing it again on June 3rd at the Free Word Centre and Jehane will be presentingThe London Series with her trio. I'll be there for sure. 

Jehane sat for me for two hours and I made a good start then proceeded to wreck the painting slowly and surely in the next few weeks. There's no explanation for BUAPGSS (Buggering-Up-A-Perfectly-Good-Start Syndrome) but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I gradually dragged the portrait out of the limbo it was threatening to remain in and did something I haven't done before: I painted words as a background to the face: her words, a poem that I like so much: Fear of Falling. Somehow it all came together then. What do you think? 

The poem is in her collection THIRTY POEMS  published by Rough Winds. The last five lines, hard to read in this photo, are:

if I'm not careful,
I'll fall right through,
knocked out by emerald knuckledusters,
the weight of water,
electric blue. 

Portrait of Jehane Markham with her poem 'Fear of Falling'. Acrylic on canvas. 50 cm x 40.5 cm. NdA  May 2010

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A POEM TO GO WITH THE SEASIDE SAGA

Listen to it over at BLAUGUSTINE

QUIET AND HUMBLE SEASONAL SALES PITCH

Assuming you follow the seasonal gift-giving tradition, maybe you are still wondering what to offer your loved ones? If so, wonder no more because I have the perfect solution.

Everybody on your gift list will be grateful to you forever for giving them something which will make them laugh and think at the same time. How many gifts can do that, I ask you? Laugh heartily and think profoundly, simultaneously? Well, this one can do it.

Even if you already own a copy, you must have friends and relatives who have not yet experienced the special thought-provoking joy contained in this book's brilliantly coloured pages. Therefore I am making this astonishing, unrepeatable offer.

From today until February 1st, I will personally sign and send The God Interviews anywhere in the world for an absurd £7.00 per copy, including postage (airmail only if one copy. For multiple copies outside the UK, I'll send by surface mail). Payment should be made to me via PayPal, specifying sterling (otherwise the bank charges me £7 per transaction for conversion!)

Email me: endapress AT blueyonder DOT co DOT uk with the address where to send the book/s. Yes, I know it's late for holiday posting to foreign parts but at least I can guarantee that I'll rush to the post office the minute I get your order.

You can, if you prefer, still order this book from Lulu.com or from Amazon UK but that would be at the usual price plus shipping costs, and not signed by yours truly.

Wait, I'm not finished!

Another ideal gift for yourself and those you love just as much, if not more, is Brilliant Coroners, a Laupe House Press publication, sixty-eight poems by seventeen poets, edited by Rachel Barenblat (Velveteen Rabbi) and Rachel Rawlins (Frizzy Logic). Available to order from Lulu.com in USA or Europe, here.

I must confess that one of the poems, Canary Yellow Scarf, is mine and I'm truly honoured that it was included in this collection by real poets, ones who know how to carve words out of silence and polish them with a flair and artistry that I can only stand back from and admire. All of us met in cyberspace, via our blogs, and most of us subsequently met in the real world. Beth Adams (Cassandra) describes it best on Phoenicia Publishing , which produced this book:

Writers and artists have always formed groups for mutual support, commentary, and encouragement, sometimes collaborating on public projects from group shows to hand-printed literary magazines. But while one tends to think of local writers hanging out in Paris cafés in the 1930s, or on the lower East side of New York in the 1950s, how does that desire for communication and creative inspiration translate into today’s online world? The poets and visual artists of this anthology met online through their blogs, and have corresponded for a number of years, across continents and oceans. All are serious writers and artists, many with published poems or books. Brilliant Coroners arose from their desire to create a collective work and share it with a wider public, and also their wish to draw attention to the high quality of literary writing on the web, and to the exciting possibilities for creative collaboration it affords. The title of this collection refers not to the poets, but to the poems themselves, which sharply dissect meaning from a post-modern world.

Go on, order both books now and make my humble heart beat a happy tune.

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