Yesterday was a good day. I was given a huuuuge bar of Cadbury's Fruit & Nut for participating in a fellow LangCom student's research.
I turned up in the morning. My friend Kerry was there, and a PhD student, and we had to sit in a recording studio and discuss poetry for an hour. It was quite fun really. We just had to analyse a poem because Vicky, the woman running the research, was looking at people's mechanisms for understanding poetry.
It was a really good poem. Vicky specifically researches that poet's work. Apparently, she's loved it since she was an under-grad writing her first dissertation on him. She always had dreams of actually meeting him and being able to ask him questions. Then, in her final year, he died. Quite sad, really.
The poem is as follows:
May 24, 1980
I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages,
carved my term and nickname on bunks and rafters,
lived by the sea, flashed aces in an oasis,
dined with the-devil-knows-whom, in tails, on truffles.
From the height of a glacier I beheld half a world, the earthly
width. Twice have drowned, thrice let knives rake my nitty-gritty.
Quit the country that bore and nursed me.
Those who forgot me would make a city.
I have waded the steppes that saw yelling Huns in saddles,
worn the clothes nowadays back in fashion in every quarter,
planted rye, tarred the roofs of pigstyes and stables,
guzzled everything save dry water.
I've admitted the sentries' third eye into my wet and foul
dreams. Munched the bread of exile; it's stale and warty.
Granted my lungs all sounds except the howl;
switched to a whisper. Now I am forty.
What should I say about my life? That it's long and abhors transparence.
Broken eggs make me grieve; the omlette, though, makes me vomit.
Yet until brown clay has been rammed down my larynx,
only gratitude will be gushing from it.
- J. Brodsky
Good stuff.
That night, I went to another friend's house to interview a couple of people for my research. Because it was on that side of town, I swung past PC's afterwards for a drink with Gedge and Phil. After closing, Phil went home because he was knackered (partying a bit too hard recently ;)) and I headed back to Gedge's. We sat up talking poetry for another couple of hours. He lent me a couple of his favourite books by Roger McGough, who I hadn't read before but I'm absolutely loving him. He rocks. Some seriously hilarious stuff peppered with some awfully poignant and sad moments.
For example:
Missed
out of work
divorced
usually pissed.
he aimed
low in life
and
missed.
Vegetarians
Vegetarians are cruel, unthinking people.
Everybody knows that a carrot screams when grated.
That a peach bleeds when torn apart.
Do you believe an orange insensitive
to thumbs gouging out its flesh?
That tomatoes spill their brains painlessly?
Potatoes, skinned alive and boiled,
the soil's little lobsters.
Don't tell me it doesn't hurt
when peas are ripped from the scrotum,
the hide flayed off sprouts,
cabbage shredded, onions beheaded.
Throw in the towel
and lay down the hoe.
Mow no more
Let my people go!
May Ball
The evening lay before us
like her silken dress
arranged carefully over the bed.
It would be a night to remember.
We would speak of it often
in years to come. There would
be good food and wine,
cabaret, and music to dance to.
How we'd dance.
How we'd laugh.
We would kiss indiscreetly,
and what are lawns for
but to run barefoot across?
But the evening didn't do
what it was told.
It's the morning after now
and morningafter cold.
I don't know what went wrong
but I blame her. After all
I bought the tickets.
Of course, I make no mention,
that's not my style,
and I'll continue to write
at least for a while.
I carry her suitcase down to the hall,
our first (and her last) University Ball.
The two books that he lent me are Holiday on Death Row and Waving at Trains. I'm currently reading Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, which I picked up on a second-hand book stall in the market. I watched the film Sylvia the other week and found it intriguing. I'd read some of her poetry before, but wasn't so enamoured. However, I'm loving this book, so perhaps I will try again with fresh eyes. Gedge apparently likes Ted Hughes. I have never read him, so we shall no doubt have another exchange before long.
No comments:
Post a Comment