When I was fair and young, and favour graced me -- Queen Elizabeth I

Guest poem submitted by Mac Robb:

(Poem #1514) When I was fair and young, and favour graced me When I was fair and young, and favour graced me, Of many I was sought their mistress for to be. But I did scorn them all, and answered them therefore, 'Go, go, seek some otherwhere Importune me no more.' How many weeping eyes I made to pine with woe; How many sighing hearts I have no skill to show. Yet I the prouder grew, and answered them therefore, 'Go, go, seek some otherwhere Importune me no more.' Then spake fair Venus' son, that proud victorious boy, And said, "Fine dame, since that you be so coy I will so pluck your plumes that you shall say no more 'Go, go, seek some otherwhere Importune me no more.'" When he had spake these words, such charge grew in my breast That neither night nor day since that, I could take any rest. Then lo, I did repent that I had said before, 'Go, go, seek some otherwhere Importune me no more.' -- Queen Elizabeth I

A poem to supply the lack of Qs among the poets in the archive.

Queen Elizabeth wrote this poem in the mid-1580s when she was in her 50s.
Her life-long love, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester remarried after 18
years' widowhood -- contrary to the 1998 Shekhar Kapur film "Elizabeth,"
Dudley was not banished in disgrace and well into middle age Elizabeth's
obvious, though certainly unconsummated, love for him continued to occasion
adverse comment in her own and foreign courts. This was a time when royal
marriages were dynastic and pragmatic; erotic love was not a proper basis
for them. And one final dalliance with the prospect of marriage, this time
with the much younger Duc d'Alençon, the brother of the king of France, had
come to naught. The poem can be interpreted as a commentary on the Queen's
sad realisation that opportunities for fulfilling her passionate nature in
marriage were now past. Or perhaps more generally the sadness and loss
involved in acquiring painful wisdom.

Mac Robb
Brisbane, Australia

Poetry Reading -- D M Thomas

Guest poem submitted by Victoria Field:

(Poem #1513) Poetry Reading Almost too diffident to choose, His hand skims his slim paperbacks; Matronly arses in tight slacks And grey men trying to look sage, A dozen scattered round the hall, Sit patient as the poet um's From page to page before he comes To something low-keyed, trivial, He might, um, read. His voice, a moth's Slow stuttering flight. My brain grows numb. This is the English idiom: Reserved free verse, laconic, slight. Two hours of this and I can't smoke. I sip the complimentary plonk. My eyes stray to the double-doors; If only Anna's 'drunks and whores' Frequenting Petersburg's 'Stray Dogs', Herself among them, skirt worn tight, Would burst in with their fug of smoke, And show him what poetry's about! I think of Alexander Blok, 'The tragic tenor of his age', His eyes like an electric shock; Of Osip Mandelstam, that verse Which sent the Kremlin mountaineer Into a paroxysm of rage And him to labour camps and death From typhus near Vladivostok. I think of how his widow knew Each line of his entire work By heart; though scarcely dared to sleep For fear she might forget a line. Of course it helped her that he wrote In metre, the device by which A poem can memorise itself. For poems without form we keep Having to reach up to the shelf. His voice still flutters like a moth. I could have stayed at home to wank. I fix my gaze upon the wall Of the bleak assembly hall, Seeing, in well-typed Roman, verse - Or so it looks; it can't be worse Than his; I blink to clear my eyes... No, it's 'In the event of fire.' That's droll... We have his poetry, There's no fire that it can't control. Imagine -dear God!-memorising This poet's work! There's just one line Of his I love, and know by heart; Almost sublime, and as surprising As, through black clouds, a harvest moon: 'And now, um, now... perhaps... to end...' Not yet. Not yet. Stalin, old friend, Send in your thugs. An instant burst. Then bury him in some silent wood. -- D M Thomas

Note: Stray Dogs - a cabaret in pre-Revolutionary Petersburg noted for
poetry and dissipation.

D. M. Thomas is a poet, novelist, translator and biographer who is best
known for his controversial novel 'The White Hotel'. His first stage play
'Hell Fire Corner' (see www.hellfirecorner.com) has just closed its first
ten day run in Truro.

He is Cornish, not Welsh, and no relation to Dylan Thomas - more details on
his website www.dmthomasonline.com .  He has a new poetry collection
forthcoming from Fal (see www.falpublications.co.uk) entitled 'Dear
Shadows', a large section of which deals with the cultural and personal
changes experienced by the Cornish over the last century, through poems
illustrated by old family photographs.  Emigration, loss, sport, religion,
bereavement and humour are among the themes. It will be his first new
collection of poems since 'Dreaming in Bronze' was published in 1981
although 'The Puberty Tree', his Selected Poems published in 1992, contained
some new and unpublished work.

This poem, from the new collection, posted with his permission makes
reference to Stray Dogs - a pre-revolutionary St Petersburg cabaret
frequented by Anna Akhmatova and her husband Nikolai Gumilyov.

In answer to the query about the word 'holocaust' in the translation of
Lot's Wife, that word would not have had the same connotations in the early
1920s and in fact the first two lines of that stanza literally translated
are something like 'who will mourn for this woman, she who is the least of
the losses'.

Best wishes,
Victoria Field.

Seduction -- Harry Graham

Guest poem submitted by Laura Simeon:

(Poem #1512) Seduction Weep not for little Leonie, Abducted by a French Marquis! Though loss of honour was a wrench, Just think how it's improved her French. -- Harry Graham

Today's contribution of Ogden Nash's "The Purist" inspired me to check
whether any of Harry Graham's delightfully wicked gems have appeared on the
Minstrels list before.  Harry Graham (1874-1936) was a prolific English poet
and playwright, best known today for two volumes of verse, "Ruthless Rhymes
for Heartless Homes" and "More Ruthless Rhymes."

A brief biography of him appears in the "St. James Guide to Children's
Writers," and is accessible via the Biography Resource Center database.

Today's poem is one of my favorites.

Laura Simeon

Lot's Wife -- Anna Akhmatova

Guest poem submitted by Aseem Kaul:

(Poem #1511) Lot's Wife And the just man trailed God's messenger His huge, light shape devoured the black hill. But uneasiness shadowed his wife and spoke to her: "It's not too late, you can look back still At the red towers of Sodom, the place that bore you, The square in which you sang, the spinning-shed, At the empty windows of that upper storey Where children blessed your happy marriage-bed.' Her eyes that were still turning when a bolt Of pain shot through them, were instantly blind; Her body turned into transparent salt, And her swift legs were rooted to the ground. Who mourns one woman in a holocaust? Surely her death has no significance? Yet in my heart she will never be lost She who gave up her life to steal one glance. -- Anna Akhmatova

        Trans. D. M. Thomas.

The first time I read this poem I had the strange sensation of trying
running through the first three stanzas (saying "yeah, yeah") and then being
struck by the last stanza as if by a bolt of lightning, that transformed me,
if not into salt, then into something equally crumbly.

I love the way that Akhmatova transforms the story of Lot's wife, making her
a more noble, more courageous character (is it just me, or are there shades
of Orpheus here?). And I can't help but wondering -- what did Lot get out of
being the only survivor? Was it really worth it to live on, having lost
every single person that he knew?

The one other thing that intrigues me about the translation is the use of
the word 'holocaust' in the first line of the last stanza. I can't help
thinking that that's a really clever touch and adds a sense of deep
injustice to the poem that would otherwise be missing. Would be interesting
to know what the word is in the original Russian.

Aseem.

[Incidentally, the translator D. M. Thomas was a reasonably well-known poet
himself, though we haven't had any of his poems on the Minstrels. I believe
he's Welsh, but no relation to Dylan Marlais Thomas, in case you were
wondering.  -- ed.]

The Purist -- Ogden Nash

Guest poem submitted by Sandeep Bhadra :

(Poem #1510) The Purist I give you now Professor Twist, A conscientious scientist, Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!" And sent him off to distant jungles. Camped on a tropic riverside, One day he missed his loving bride. She had, the guide informed him later, Been eaten by an alligator. Professor Twist could not but smile. "You mean," he said, "a crocodile." -- Ogden Nash

I can see that there are quite a few Ogden Nashes in your collection, but
this particular one is a personal favourite. Unlike his longer rambling
poems, this one captures so much, so humourously and so accurately in so
little. It is a wonder no one thought of suggesting this one for your
anthology.

I can picture an old naturalist-academician in khakis through muddy swamps
in Central America, thoroughly devoted to newts and alligators and other
amphibians, with very little time for his loving bride. I think his almost
mathematical preciseness, even at a time of such utter loss, is not so much
an effect of sang-froid as it is of a habitual inclination to set the other
guy right - I have heard of that being called 'academic arrogance'. It's
pure reflex action for him - and the realisation that old habits die hard
bring out his smile. I should imagine that to be a very wry smile indeed!

The other cool thing is that with the first two lines, the poem is
introduced as an introduction. 'I give you now...' clearly indicates an
appearance on a dias/podium of some sort. What is so darkly funny is that
whoever is introducing Prof. Twist with these words had to chose this
anecdote to prove the professor's conscientiousness.

more on Ogden Nash (bio/poems) at:
 http://www.westegg.com/nash/
http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/nash

regards,
Sandeep.