Of You -- Norman MacCaig

Guest poem submitted by Laura Simeon:

(Poem #1299) Of You When the little devil, panic, begins to grin and jump about in my heart, in my brain, in my muscles, I am shown the path I had lost in the mountainy mist. I'm writing of you. When the pain that will kill me is about to be unbearable, a cool hand puts a tablet on my tongue and the pain dwindles away and vanishes. I'm writing of you. There are fires to be suffered, the blaze of cruelty, the smoulder of inextinguishable longing, even the gentle candleflame of peace that burns too. I suffer them. I survive. I'm writing of you. -- Norman MacCaig

I encountered Norman MacCaig for the first time on Minstrels two years
ago, something for which I am eternally grateful.  Needing to read more
of his work, I found _Norman MacCaig: Selected Poems_, edited by Douglas
Dunn (Chatto & Windus, 1997), in which I found this gem, one of his
previously unpublished works.

MacCaig described himself as a "Zen Calvinist," which Dunn expands upon
when he writes that "in MacCaig's poems the Yes often implies (and
sometimes states) a No..."  In "Of You" there seems to me to be
something of this greater truth behind an apparent contradiction, with
great love bringing pain and comfort in equal measures.  Saying Yes to
love is saying Yes to more than simple, unadulterated joy.

Laura.

The Two Friends -- Norman MacCaig

Guest poem sent in by Salima Virani

(Poem #1088) The Two Friends The last word this one spoke was my name. The last word that one spoke was my name. My two friends had never met. But when they said that last word they spoke to each other. I am proud to have given them a language of one word. A narrow space in which, without knowing it, they met each other at last. -- Norman MacCaig

I love the simplicity of narration in this poem. I also like it because I
can relate to it on a very personal level.  Some of my closest friendships
were made during my time in Bombay and, although each one was special, often
many of my friends had little or no knowledge about each other.

Now, over a decade later, I have lost contact with many of them.  Yet, many
of these people have had their paths cross and my name was mentioned and a
connection was instantly made.  They now share with each other the
friendship that I once shared with them individually.  The talks over
coffee, the walks in the park.. :)

And I feel proud too...that I was instrumental in some way, to bring them
together.  In their friendships...my own friendship has been kept alive,
nurtured and sustained.

Salima

***

[Bio on MacCaig]

Norman MacCaig (1910-1996) was one of the major Scottish poets of the
twentieth century. He's remembered with great affection not only by the
modern generation of Scottish writers whom he helped to develop, but by
thousands of people who encountered him in school, and for whom he was the
first poet they'd seen who could write in an unpretentious way about
ordinary things and make them astonishing.

Link for more poems by MacCaig:
[broken link] http://www.jacobite.org.uk/maccaig/

Frogs -- Norman MacCaig

Guest poem submitted by Anustup Datta

(Poem #863) Frogs Frogs sit more solid than anything sits. In mid-leap they are parachutists falling in a free fall. They die on roads with arms across their chests and heads high. I love frogs that sit like Buddha, that fall without parachutes, that die like Italian tenors. Above all, I love them because, pursued in water, they never panic so much that they fail to make stylish triangles with their ballet dancer's legs. -- Norman MacCaig

Absolutely delightful. I think the comparison with Italian tenors is
especially perfect - it makes you really sit up and chuckle.

Anustup.

[Links etc.]

MacCaig poems on the Minstrels:
Poem #755, Gone are the days
Poem #699, Incident

There's more about MacCaig online at
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/william_brodie/maccaig/backgr.html
This site also has a fair collection of his poetry.

Random irrelevancies:
Poem #544, Toads -- Philip Larkin
Poem #799, Mr Toad -- Kenneth Grahame

Gone Are The Days -- Norman MacCaig

Guest poem submitted by Amulya Gopalakrishnan:

(Poem #755) Gone Are The Days Impossible to call a lamb a lambkin or say eftsoons or spell you ladye. My shining armour bleeds when it's scratched; I blow the nose that's part of my visor. When I go pricking o'er the plain I say Eightpence please to the sad conductress. The towering landscape you live in has printed on its portcullis Bed and breakfast. I don't regret it. There are wildernesses enough in Rose Street or the Grassmarket where dragons' breaths are methylated and social workers trap the unwary. So don't expect me, lady with no e, to look at a lamb and feel lambkin or give me a down look because I bought my greaves and cuisses at Marks and Spencers. Pishtushery's out. But oh, how my heart swells to see you perched, perjink, on a bar stool. And though epics are shrunk to epigrams, let me buy you a love potion, a gin, a double. -- Norman MacCaig

I love MacCaig for the same things, always... the tenderness, the humour,
and oh, the Romance that's still utterly romantic even when it's dedicated
to a 'lady with no e'. The sensuous brunt of the words, his obvious
revelling in the sound and feel of 'perjink' and 'greaves and cuisses', the
whole picture of him 'pricking o'er the plain' and gently saying 'eightpence
please' to the conductress. I don't care, even if epics are shrunk to
epigrams, he's my hero.

Amulya.

Incident -- Norman MacCaig

Guest poem submitted by Amulya Gopalakrishnan:

(Poem #699) Incident I look across the table and think (fiery with love) Ask me, go on, ask me to do something impossible, something freakishly useless, something unimaginable and inimitable Like making a finger break into blossom or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes or remembering tomorrow. I will you to ask it. But all you say is Will you give me a cigarette? And I smile and, returning to the marvelous world of possibility I give you one with a hand that trembles with a human trembling. -- Norman MacCaig

Find me a guy who thinks like that, the madness and the wry tenderness...
realizing the awful depth of his love, the contrast between that glorious
pitch of passion and our unmagical surroundings. Reminds me of Yeats in
Adam's Curse( yearning to love her in 'the old high way of love'). I love
the touches like 'marvellous world of possibility'... discovering the
romance of the real. What's absolutely wonderful about MacCaig is the way he
always, always brings out the underworld of dreaming, of the fantasy
billowing beneath the even surface of the everyday.

Amulya.