Our Nothing But The Poem session at The Forest was, oddly, all male – a striking contrast to the session I’d recently run during a retired ladies’ lunch at St Columba’s Church in Edinburgh. At that session, I was the lucky winner of pink and turquoise bath salts – which just goes to show how fluid and flexible these workshops are.
Anyway, we began with a poem from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa which I thought would be a gentle opener:
There was a moment
Fernando Pessoa
There was a moment
When you let
Settle on my sleeve
(More a movement
Of fatigue, I believe,
Than any thought)
Your hand. And drew it
Away. Did I
Feel it, or not?
Don’t know. But remember
And still feel
A kind of memory,
Firm, corporeal,
At the place where you laid
The hand, which offered
Meaning – a kind of,
Uncomprehended –
But so softly…
All nothing, I know.
There are, though,
On a road of the kind
Life is, things – plenty –
Uncomprehended.
Do I know whether,
As I felt your hand
Settle into place
Upon my sleeve
And a little, a little,
In my heart,
There was not a new
Rhythm in space?
As though you,
Without meaning to,
Had touched me
Inside, to say
A kind of mystery,
Sudden, ethereal,
And not known
That it had been.
So the breeze
In the boughs says
Without knowing
An imprecise
Joyful thing.
———————–
Fernando Pessoa from ‘Fernando Pessoa: Selected Poems’ English translation by Jonathan Griffin
We started off briefly discussing the choppy way it is written – the way the poem seems to resist flow, the way that first sentence feels awkward as marbles in the mouth. But, it was generally felt that Pessoa was in control of this – the form and rhythm mirroring a kind of uncertainty in the narrator who, himself, is uncertain of what that hand on his sleeve means. Certainly Pessoa feels the ephemeral mystery of love boiling in him but, from the beginning, he undercuts this emotion with flat-out doubt. “(More a movement / Of fatigue, I believe, / Than any thought)” he says in the only bracketed lines. Of course, this is not parenthetical information, it is essential. We’ve all been in the moment Pessoa has presented – we’ve choked on that unknowing, that uncomprehending. Which, we felt, was the poem’s point. Yet, the narrator optimistically steers himself towards taking joy from the moment, even if the moment was “imprecise” at best.
Next we looked at an Elizabeth Bishop poem, one I liked for the way builds and for its more-or-less unsentimental yet empathetic look at a mental hospital.
Visits to St. Elizabeths
[1950]
This is the house of Bedlam.
This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the time
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the roadstead all of board
reached by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the old, brave man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
These are the years and the walls of the ward,
the winds and clouds of the sea of board
sailed by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the cranky man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
beyond the sailor
winding his watch
that tells the time
of the cruel man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a world of books gone flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
of the batty sailor
that winds his watch
that tells the time
of the busy man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is there, is flat,
for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
waltzing the length of a weaving board
by the silent sailor
that hears his watch
that ticks the time
of the tedious man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to feel if the world is there and flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances joyfully down the ward
into the parting seas of board
past the staring sailor
that shakes his watch
that tells the time
of the poet, the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
This is the soldier home from the war.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is round or flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances carefully down the ward,
walking the plank of a coffin board
with the crazy sailor
that shows his watch
that tells the time
of the wretched man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.
–
Elizabeth Bishop from The Complete Poems, 1927 – 1979
I was surprised to find that this was the least favourite of the group. We talked about how well-structured it was and how it did feel like visiting Bedlam, how the images and beats were interesting, fresh and even seductive. However, while admired, there were some hang-ups. Such as – who is the man, is it the same man or a different man, is each stanza a separate visit (they each feel like separate visits) and why do the same things happen each visit? Generally, however, we did come around to the idea that as the narrator visited Bedlam she gradually got to know more about the patients who were stuck, perhaps, in their own past. The dancing widowed jew, the staring sailor, the tedious man, and lastly, the soldier were all in the same physical space, having gone mad, but previously having their individual lives and wives and watches and that go along with those things. We felt, Bishop’s poem requires one to wonder what has brought them all there, what connects them and has kept them apart from the world.
Next we looked at a Harry Smart poem which I choose because I can almost feel Summer in my bones.
Summer Evening
It’s time to stand by the window
And be a fine man.
There is, after all, the quiet hour
Before the dances
And the bars begin to be noisy.
The birds’ late calling
Louder than the far road’s noise
Is broken, often,
By a soft hush, loud whispering;
No-one is alone.
The solitary lie bears repeating.
The time is grey doves.
It’s time to stand by the window
Holding an airgun,
Seeking the grey doves in twilight.
–
Harry Smart published in Pierrot by Faber and Faber, 1991
I’ve been well into Smart since Mr. Nick (Holdstock) recommended him to me a few months ago so I was pleased to bring one of his poems to a session. We all liked the control and pace of this one and found some of those short lines like, “No-one is alone” and “Holding an airgun” to be quite startling. There is definitely a tension in here, a sadness, a desire for both silence and not-silence. Now, keeping in mind we’d all met on a Saturday afternoon (and were all guys), the group eventually talked itself into a little narrative about a man who is going to go out and head to “the dances”, have some beers, maybe try to pull a few “birds”. (You see where this is going?). So, watching birds out a window becomes like watching TV on a Saturday night before going out. Instead, you never get around to going out, maybe
you feel a bit bad about it, you get the airgun, shoot some “birds”, or lay on the couch and do something else instead. I can’t help but wonder what the retired ladies of St. St Columba’s Church would have thought of this one.
Next Session
24 March: Scottish Poetry Library – 6.30pm
