Autumn Day -- Anne Ridler

Guest poem sent in by Jeremy Marshall

(Poem #1372) Autumn Day The raging colour of this cold Friday Eats up our patience like a fire, Consumes our willingness to endure, Here the crumpled maple, a gold fabric, The beech by beams empurpled, the holy sycamore, Berries red-hot, the rose's core-- The sun emboldens to burn in porphyry and amber. Pick up the remnants of our resignation Where we left them, and bring our loving passion, Before the mist from the dark sea at our feet Where mushrooms cling like limpets in the grass, Quenching our fierceness, leaves us in a worse case. -- Anne Ridler

This is one of my favourite short poems from an English writer who seems not
yet to have made it into the Minstrels' gallery.  It is from her collection
"The Nine Bright Shiners" (1943).  It exemplifies two things that I most
appreciate in poetry: musical resonance of words and rich visual imagery.  I
am a lover of autumn, which has now reached my part of the world, and this
poem catches for me some of the essence of autumn: stunningly beautiful, but
with a chill of mortality that saps the strength from the heart if you
linger out of doors to admire it too long.  (I love the image of the "dark
sea" of evening mist rolling low across the fields.)

Anne Ridler worked for T.S. Eliot from 1935 to 1940 at the London publishers
Faber and Faber, and he encouraged her in writing poetry.  She later edited
works by Thomas Traherne, Lawrence Durrell, Walter de la Mare, Charles
Williams, and others.  Her collected poetry was published by Carcanet in
1995.  She also wrote criticism and verse plays, and translated several
major opera libretti.  When I had begun to try my hand at poetry, she kindly
took the trouble to make some constructive comments on my early efforts.
She died in October 2001 at the age of 89.

Jeremy Marshall

There is a photo and brief obituary at
[broken link] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/1602716.stm

and a bibliography at
http://www.4-wall.com/authors/authors_r/ridler_anne.htm

Girl in a Wheelchair Dancing to U2 in Lansdowne Stadium 1997 -- Mark Granier

Guest poem sent in by Sarah Hughes

(Poem #1371) Girl in a Wheelchair Dancing to U2 in Lansdowne Stadium 1997 In a clearing near midfield she is tossing her hair, waving her arms, catching hold of, taking for a wild spin a new constellation, The Chariot. The Centre holds. Big wheels rattle and hum. Sparks fly from her. -- Mark Granier

Note: "The Chariot" in line 4 is italicised.
This appeared in Granier's book AIRBORNE, published by
Salmon Poetry (Cliffs of Moher, Co Mayo) in 2001.

[The allusion in the fifth line is to Yeats's "The Second Coming":
  "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold" - martin]

I think this poem is simply about freedom, cutting
loose, busting out to join in the dance. I was at that
concert too, it was deadly!

The following links have reviews and some more of his
poetry.

[broken link] http://www.writerscentre.ie/anthology/granier.html
http://www.salmonpoetry.com/airborne.html

ciao
Sarah

[Martin adds]

The poem reminds me in a way of Benet's "Winged Man" [Poem #609], for
its use of "cosmic" imagery to suggest an exuberant magnificence of
spirit. The phrase "The Centre holds" gave me a sudden vision of a
luminous, laughing figure, alone in a dark field while the universe
revolves around her. Beautiful.

Ask to Embla, XIII -- A S Byatt

Guest poem sent in by Nakul Krishna

More on the Poetry by prose-writers theme: From A. S. Byatt's Booker prize
winning 1990 novel, Possession.

(Poem #1370) Ask to Embla, XIII They say that women change: 'tis so: but you Are ever-constant in your changefulness, Like that still thread of falling river, one From source to last embrace in the still pool Ever-renewed and ever-moving on From first to last a myriad water-drops And you -- I love you for it -- are the force That moves and holds the form. -- A S Byatt

        (fictionally attributed to "Randolph Henry Ash")

Publisher's notes:
  "Possession, for which Byatt won England's prestigious Booker Prize,
  was praised by critics on both sides of the Atlantic when it was first
  published in 1990. "On academic rivalry and obsession, Byatt is
  delicious.  On the nature of possession--the lover by the beloved, the
  biographer by his subject--she is profound," said The Sunday Times
  (London). The New Yorker dubbed it "more fun to read than The Name of
  the Rose . . . Its prankish verve [and] monstrous richness of detail
  [make for] a one-woman variety show of literary styles and types." The
  novel traces a pair of young academics--Roland Michell and Maud
  Bailey--as they uncover a clandestine love affair between two
  long-dead Victorian poets. Interwoven in a mesmerizing pastiche are
  love letters and fairytales, extracts from biographies and scholarly
  accounts, creating a sensuous and utterly delightful novel of ideas
  and passions."

"Mesmerizing pastiche" is right. While it's safe to skip most of the (many,
many, many) pages of poetry that appear in Possession, I can happily say I
read every word of it, not always with comprehension, but savouring at every
moment Byatt's meticulous creation of a vast body of work for her invented
characters -- the poets Randolph Henry Ash and Christabel LaMotte, whose
works bring Robert Browning and Christina Rosetti to mind.

A. S. Byatt has acquired much infamy over the past few months for her
criticism of the Harry Potter novels, but I can forgive her anything after
the experience of reading 'Possession'. Fascinating is too mild a word,
really.

If I may quote from a fascinating article in the
Guardian:
  "Do people read the verse by Randolph Ash and
  Christabel LaMotte that AS Byatt has supplied with her
  novel? Many proudly admit not ... Certainly the
  novelist has taken an odd sort of gamble with her
  pastiches ... as the poetry has no obvious narrative
  function, except to serve as a kind of authentication
  device, hints at a larger imagined world ... Byatt's
  pastiches are emphatically not wonderful poetry, yet
  display considerable technical skill (how many
  academic critics could produce such things?) and
  function as a kind of homage to the poetry she
  admires."
        -- John Mullan, Senior Lecturer in English at University College
        London

Read the full article at:
[broken link] http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviewbookclub/story/0,12286,824142,00.html

And the poem itself? The fact that it was written as pastiche doesn't seem
to affect our appreciation of the earnest sincerity of the lines -- lines
many times more meaningful when read in the context of the passionate
private turmoil of the characters who wrote it, and those it was written
for.

Nakul

There's a brief biography and some essays at:
  [broken link] http://www.asbyatt.com/

On the writing of Possession:
  [broken link] http://www.asbyatt.com/Posses.htm

Christmas Eve -- Bill Watterson

Guest poem sent in by Ajit Narayanan as part of the
'Authors as Poets' theme

(Poem #1369) Christmas Eve On the window panes the icy frost Leaves feathered patterns, crissed and crossed But in our house the Christmas tree Is decorated festively With tiny dots of colored light That cozy up this winter night. Christmas songs familiar, slow Play softly on the radio. Pops and hisses from the fire Whistle with the bells and choir. Trying now to fall asleep On my back and dreaming deep Tomorrow's what I'm waiting for, But I can wait a little more. -- Bill Watterson

I wish I could scan the full-page comic from which I lifted this poem, and
put it up somewhere for all Minstrels people to admire -- it is truly a work
of art, with the one big picture of Calvin cuddled up with Hobbes vibing
perfectly with this poem, printed in Ye Olde Christmas font. The whole page
is a work of inspiration. It is in his book 'Scientific Progress goes
Boink', and if you have this book, or can get hold of it, do look up this
poem.

Bill Watterson's comic accomplishments with Calvin and Hobbes rather
overshadow some of the fine writing that goes with the strip. His many poems
include the oh-so-classic verses that Hobbes makes Calvin say when he's
trying to clamber up to the tree-house; that gem of a poem 'Yukon Ho!' which
appears on the frontspiece of the book with the same name; and the poems
that Calvin often recites about Hobbes while he's taking a nap (including --
ye Gads -- an alliterative haiku! :) ). [and who can forget that all-time
classic, the "very sorry song"? - martin]

Information about Watterson's poems can be found here
http://home.pacbell.net/bbavetta/watterson.html
  (some poems, with some background)
[broken link] http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/7879/poem.htm
  (two of the longer poems)
http://www.alloftheabove.net/cahr/poems.htm
  (a much more comprehensive collection)

The last site is also a great source of C&H trivia, and has a biography of
Watterson as well

Ajit

Eurydice -- Sue Hubbard

Guest poem sent in by Pei Chi :

(Poem #1367) Eurydice I am not afraid as I descend, step by step, leaving behind the salt wind blowing up the corrugated river, the damp city streets, their sodium glare of rush-hour headlights pitted with pearls of rain; for my eyes still reflect the half remembered moon. Already your face recedes beneath the station clock, a damp smudge among the shadows mirrored in the train's wet glass, will you forget me? Steel tracks lead you out past cranes and crematoria, boat yards and bike sheds, ruby shards of roman glass and wolf-bone mummified in mud, the rows of curtained windows like eyelids heavy with sleep, to the city's green edge. Now I stop my ears with wax, hold fast the memory of the song you once whispered in my ear. Its echoes tangle like briars in my thick hair. You turned to look. Second fly past like birds. My hands grow cold. I am ice and cloud. This path unravels. Deep in hidden rooms filled with dust and sour night-breath the lost city is sleeping. Above the hurt sky is weeping, soaked nightingales have ceased to sing. Dusk has come early. I am drowning in blue. I dream of a green garden where the sun feathers my face like your once eager kiss. Soon, soon I will climb from this blackened earth into the diffident light. -- Sue Hubbard

Sue Hubbard was commissioned to write this poem by the Arts Council and
British Film Institute for the Waterloo underpass leading to the IMAX Cinema
in London. The poet's take on the Greek myth of Orpheus (a wandering
minstrel, surely) and his lost wife Eurydice, from Eurydice's point of view,
so perfectly suits the location in which it was installed. I walked by it
recently late at night, and was quite captivated not only by the beauty of
the words, but by the dramatic effect of their physical arrangement on the
walls of the underpass. The lines of each verse are indented in a step
pattern and the verses placed one after another on either side of the
underpass walls so that the poem seems to unfurl itself towards you as you
'descend, step by step' - or as you 'climb...into the diffident light'.
That last verse will stay in my mind a long time as I travel London by its
ancient (and sometimes unreliable) underground rail system.

Bibliography can be found here:
http://www.netkonect.net/~athelstan/shubbard.html

More of Sue Hubbard's Public Art poems can be seen here:
http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/places/hubbard.htm

Pei Chi

For another poem very reminiscent of the same myth, see Margaret Atwood's
 "Variatons on the word Sleep", Poem #1093