Random Distractions

When my friend D and I met up yesterday, we exchanged belated Christmas gifts. We share a love  of garden birds and D gave me this book and CD of birdsong:
I have been playing it in the kitchen this morning while baking, making soup and generally pottering. It created the most relaxing yet uplifting environment and I achieved far more than I had planned. The birds in my garden are  busy eating to ward off the cold at present and their singing won't begin until the spring weather arrives. Thanks, D, this has brought spring and summer into the house!

One of my favourite poems is Siegfried Sassoon's Everyone sang. He wrote some of the most powerful poetry of WW1 but this poem is full of hope or, as he himself described it, release.  Like the birdsong, I find it very uplifting:

Everyone suddenly burst out singing; And I was filled with such delight As prisoned birds must find in freedom, Winging wildly across the white Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight. Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted; And beauty came like the setting sun: My heart was shaken with tears; and horror Drifted away ... O, but Everyone Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

The perfect antidote to the current obsession with MPs' tax evasion and fiddling of expenses, is the BBC Poetry Season. Last night, actress Sheila Hancock presented her choice of poetry in the moving and inspiring launch of the series My life in verse. Poetry has played an important part in her coping with grief and finding a way to move on after the death of her husband, John Thaw and in this programme (available on iPlayer for a few weeks), she maps her progression from despair to light through the poems that comforted or inspired her along the way.

Some of her choices were familiar pieces and I simply enjoyed the beautiful delivery of the verse and the wonderful settings including the Fens, Provence. Tennyson is not a favourite of mine, but Sheila's setting of Break, Break, Break into her own childhood experience of friendship, followed by the exploration of its origin in Tennyson's grief over the death of his friend, gave a new insight into the poet and I am encouraged to look at his work again.

The focus of this programme was human relationships and I heard this poem by Primo Levi for the first time. It brings all of our human associations into the compass of friendship and wishes for all the kindest hope of a long and mild autumn.

TO MY FRIENDS

Dear friends, I say friends here

In the larger sense of the word:

Wife, sister, associates, relatives,

Schoolmates, men and women,

Persons seen only once

Or frequented all my life:

Provided that between us, for at least a moment,

Was drawn a segment,

A well-defined chord.

I speak for you, companions on a journey

Dense, not devoid of effort,

And have also for you who have lost

The soul, the spirit, the wish to live.

Or nobody or somebody, or perhaps only one, or you

Who are reading me: remember the time

Before the wax hardened,

When each of us was like a seal.

Each of us carries the imprint

Of the friend met along the way;

In the trace of each.

For good or evil

In wisdom or in folly

Each stamped by each.

Now that time presses urgently,

And the tasks are finished,

To all of you the modest wish

That the autumn may be long and mild.

Clarence, D's much-loved cat, died last night and she wrote a lovely post about him entitled Dancing to the rhythm of life. I would like to offer D another excerpt from The Book of Hours that I quoted from yesterday, this time from New seeds of contemplation.


Happy dancing, D.

One of the good things about having a birthday at the end of November is that it always falls close to the beginning of Advent. This inspires my dear friend Crinny to send an appropriate book as my birthday gift; last year it was Advent and Christmas: Wisdom from G K Chesterton and yesterday I received a copy of Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

I think that everyone benefits from spending some time in silent contemplation, whether they think of it as praying or simply as time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. These lines from the introduction of the Book of Hours, taken from Merton's No Man is an Island set the scene for 'listening in silence', surely the best antidote to the frantic activity of Christmas shopping and cooking.

The nation is to be invited to vote for the next poet laureate. The government really needs to show that it is in touch with public opinion and tastes, or perhaps it is a clever ploy to divert our attention from the economic situation. The idea has certainly had me smiling this morning.

I challenge you, before reading any further, to name the current holder of the position and then to name any other 5 poets laureate since 1591. If you recalled Andrew Motion's name then award yourself 2 points. You can have 10 bonus points if you can quote anything from one of his poems. And here, for 5 points each, are the other 22 names:

1591 - 1599 Edmund Spenser
1599 - 1619 Samuel Daniel

1619 - 1637 Ben Jonson

1638 - 1668 William Davenant

1670 - 1689 John Dryden

1689 - 1692 Thomas Shadwell

1692 - 1715 Nahum Tate

1715 - 1718 Nicholas Rowe

1718 - 1730 Laurence Eusden

1730 - 1757 Colley Cibber

1757 - 1785 William Whitehead

1785 - 1790 Thomas Warton

1790 - 1813 Henry James Pye

1813 - 1843 Robert Southey

1843 - 1850 William Wordsworth

1850 - 1892 Alfred Lord Tennyson

1896 - 1913 Alfred Austin

1913 - 1930 Robert Bridges

1930 - 1967 John Masefield

1967 - 1972 Cecil Day-Lewis

1972 - 1984 Sir John Betjeman

1984 - 1998 Ted Hughes

The voice of the great British public has been heard to great effect recently: people who never listen to Radio 2 expressed their outrage about Russell Brand's show; hundreds of people who have never watched Strictly come dancing kept on voting for John Sergeant. Why should people who haven't encountered a poem since their nursery rhyme days not select the next poet laureate?

We haven't yet had a woman poet laureate and a list of female poets has already been submitted to the government. I, however, would like to nominate my son. I am sure that he would love to write about William's Wedding or Harry's Haircut.

I love this time of the solemn celebration of Easter. It is the most important period of the Christian year and, for me, a time for contemplation. I often use pieces of poetry, sometimes just a few lines or even a single image, when meditating. Among my favourite poets are T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins and John Donne.

Today, I have been thinking of these words from the end of Eliot's Little Gidding:

As a child, some of my favourite poems were those with an air of mystery such as The Listeners by Walter de la Mare, Yeats's The Song of Wandering Aengus and William Allingham's The Fairies. I am still hoping that someone will produce a poem or story of this kind to attach to the picture of the boots, in the meantime, here is one of my old favourites which springs to mind when I consider that strange find by the stream at the edge of the woods:

I think I discovered the beauty of language while listening to the radio as a child. In particular I remember the shipping forecast, although I didn't understand what it was about. That solemn, dignified voice:

"The general synopsis at 0100. Low Denmark Strait 974 expected 180 miles west of Iceland 980 by 0100 tomorrow. Ridge of high pressure lying southern Sweden to Shannon slow moving with little change."



Then the magical list of names:

Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties,

Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight

Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight

Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Fitzroy, Trafalgar

Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea

Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides

Bailey, Fair Isle, Faroes, South East Iceland



I used to recite them like my times tables and skipping rhymes. Now, I can conjure up a map to see their reality and that is not nearly so magical as listening to the names.

We have lots of lovely village names around here. Yesterday we had lunch at The Globe Inn in Sampford Peverell and I'm about to book our traditional post-Christmas rendezvous with friends at the Five Bells Inn in Clyst Hydon.

Some of the fascinating names I encountered when visiting village schools include Newton St Petrock, Buckland Filleigh, Peters Marland, Sheepwash, Sampford Courtenay, Nymet Rowland, Morchard Bishop, Wembworthy, East Worlington (I never found North, South or West!), Washford Pyne, Cheriton Fitzpaine, Newton St Cyres and Holcombe Burnell. Studying a road map of North Devon can be as inspiring as reading a book of poetry.

Tell me your collection of interesting place names and perhaps I can get our family poet to weave them into something special.

.... between the posts on poetry and banning of books with sad endings.

Reading Kipling's 'If' reminded me of a custom we had as children: we used to have autograph books, not for collecting celebrity signatures but for friends and family members to write in. As I recall, the entries were pretty standard because my book looked very similar to those of my sisters and cousins. 'Best friends' would write of their undying devotion, teachers would write something encouraging and uplifting, older siblings would attempt to shock or mystify and aunts and grandparents would write something 'worthy.'

My book was lost long ago but I can remember a few of the entries. Long before textese was invented, we had our clever ways of baffling the adults (or so we thought!):
YYUR, YYUB, ICUR YY4me appeared in all our books along with "Si senor, der dego, forte lores inaro. Desno lores, deis trux, fu lov cowsan ensan dux"

Someone would always write the final stanza of "If" in the boys' books while we girls had to make do with this:
Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
Do noble things, not dream them, all day long:
And so make life, death and that vast forever
- one grand, sweet song

I have only just discovered that Charles Kingsley was responsible for this annoying piece of drivel. It enraged me when I was nine years old and it still does. There doesn't seem to be anything written for girls to equate with the stirring "You'll be a man, my son!" However, the effect of the soppy Kingsley lines in my autograph book was to stir me into rebellion against the image of the sweet maid forever doing noble things.

Now for the segue into this morning's post ... How far should we censor and control what our children read? Should we shelter them from everything sad, violent or frightening? Should Humpty Dumpty bounce back with a grin? How about a nice little kitten sitting on the tuffet with Miss Muffet instead of that nasty spider? Perhaps the fox should be kind and carry the gingerbread man (oops, person) gently across the river and send him on his way with a cheerful wave. The little match girl should be rescued from poverty by a handsome prince.

What a dull world it would be with all those happy endings. My mother, who was generally considered to be a kind and loving person, used to sing the most terrifying song to us as she tucked us in at night. I can't remember all of the words and googling hasn't come up with anything but it went something like this:
"Hush, there's a Grey Man coming up the stairs. Hush lest the Grey Man catch you unawares. For he's crawling and he's creeping, and his bogey eyes are peeping, just to see if everybody's fast asleep.
Hush, little one, don't let him catch you. Hush little one, don't let him see. Hide head beneath the clothes, count ten upon your toes. For where the Grey Man goes, it's black as night."

I'm sure there were more words and I would love to hear from anyone who can source it for me. Did it terrify us? Did it do permanent harm? Ridiculous! The fact that we all still sleep with the light on is totally unrelated.

Here are the poems that were named in the comments on yesterday's post. I'll gladly add more if you want to recommend any.
From Crinny:
This is Just to Say (by William Carlos Willams, 1962)

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

From 60goingon16:
The Song of Wandering Aengus (by W.B Yeats

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Hey Skipper suggests all of Brit's poems. If you want to read more than one, you can see his latest work here. I've enjoyed Brit's writing since he was able to hold a pencil, but then I am his mum! Here is one I particularly like:

Outside Wells Cathedral (by Andrew Graham Nixon, May '07))

Is it a coward’s comfort in the deep
boredom of the bells, summoning the sleep-
walkers of Wells to steep themselves
in England’s other lasting dream?
See them gather on the green,
Dressed up, oak-aged, and carefully staged
in what they imagine to be
a lost Edwardian scene.

Or does it signal a more militant intent?
To toll defiance against the well-meant,
Hell-bent dream of science: the concrete,
white heat, dayglo, and a misplaced faith
in lesser gods to cheat the true God
of the debt we owe by right.
(No shyness of that debt in here: the stones all shout it.
The church is built on bones: make none about it.)
And yet that dream of eternal light
creeps even here, in slow official lines,
in tombs lit by No Smoking signs,
in TV screens, and aisles as clean
as those in Marks and Sparks,
and carpeting in beige. So they ring in rage,
And rage against the dying of the dark.

The dwindling army, uniform in Sunday best,
Forms ranks for reveille on the day of rest –
One lesson the deserters took to heart
at least: Sunday’s a lie in (every day’s a feast).
The Sabbath is a fry-up hangover cure,
Football, shopping mall, hardware store –
Now in the collection box the loyal count the costof a loss of conviction, of going soft,and conceding half is fiction.
In the numbers game, this God’s just lost.

So Edwardian actors toll out for His wake,
Then man the shop and dole out tea and cake
and key fobs to the tourists who still keep
the corpus raised and the substance buried deep.
And the lesser gods, of lunacy and leisure,
Pile on clods and sods, and slag the lot
in a heap of dross and treasure.

Elaine's favourite is:

The Listeners (by Walter de la Mare)

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

Here is erp's favourite:

If (By Rudyard Kipling)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to,broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Tomorrow, as I'm sure everyone is aware, is National Poetry Day. Over on Musings from a Muddy Island Juliet has posted some poems about geese and that leads me via a tortuous route to Siegfried Sassoon. Following some of her links to goose-related sites, I stumbled upon an Irish-American society called Wild Geese and I found an article on their website about Sassoon. That reminded me of a visit to King's Theatre in Portsmouth in 1987 to see a wonderful one-man show by Peter Barkworth, called simply Siegfried Sassoon.

I offer no apology, if you didn't know before why my blog is called Random Distractions, you certainly do now!

The show was simple but very powerful. Peter Barkworth portrayed Sassoon's experiences of war, hospital and return to civilian life through extracts from his poetry and prose. The evening ended with one of those rare dramatic experiences where the audience is moved to a tangible silence. This is the poem that affected everyone so deeply:

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on--on--and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away . . . O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

April 1919
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

That is my contribution to National Poetry Day. If you would like to name a favourite, I'll include as many as possible in my next post.

The Christmas season came to an end in our house today as we undressed the tree and took down the tinsel and lights. When the children were small we kept the decorations up until January 7th. For us, the season ended with a splendid 'Piphany Party', a term coined by my son before he could pronounce 'Epiphany.' We would solemnly put the three kings into the crib and then hunt for the gifts that had been hidden around the house.

I always found our Epiphany celebration far more enjoyable than Christmas itself. Perhaps I could join in more, without the pressures of preparing the house for guests and the seemingly endless cooking and clearing up. By the time of Epiphany, the guests had gone home and we could have a last delightful time before the children went back to school. Now our children are the guests who come for Christmas and they are long gone by Epiphany.

The shops were stripped of their decorations on January 2nd, no waiting for 'Twelfth Night' for them; after all, their decorations went up in November and were looking pretty shabby by the middle of December. So, I succumbed to the 'Christmas is over' feeling and spent the morning packing away the baubles - each with its own association of Christmases past. I was filled with nostalgia and a certain sadness at the thought that this might have been our last Christmas in this house. The sad mood was intensified as I discovered all the chocolates were still on the tree! The children used to strip those by Boxing Day, even as twenty-somethings. I never thought they would grow too old for chocolate.

One of our family Christmas customs is to play Bing Crosby Christmas songs endlessly in the background, our favourites being 'Christmas is coming and the egg is in the nog' (for obvious silly reasons) and 'Is Christmas only a tree?' because we have fun making up our own answers to the question. Thinking about that today, I would answer, 'No, Christmas is about smells.'

If my son is reading this, he'll be falling about hysterically now because 'smell' is one of the words that trigger his mirth, along with 'egg', 'cheese' and 'pie'. (Don't ask!) But I think that the sense of smell is closely linked with nostalgia, particularly at Christmas time.

I came across this poem many years ago: