The Fifteen Sonnets of Petrarch #Classic

Sketch of Laura as Venus C1444

Early in chapter six of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the suitor, Pietro Crespi is wooing Amaranta. He 'would arrive at dusk, with a gardenia in his buttonhole, and he would translate Petrarch's sonnets for Amaranta. They would sit on the porch, suffocated by oregano and the roses, he reading and she sewing lace cuffs.'

It would seem that Petrarch wrote 366 sonnets. I'm not sure how the translator of The Fifteen Sonnets decided which 15 to chose for his collection but he seems to have created a truncated version of Petrarch's love for Laura, from the joyous start to her death. Although whether Laura was a real person or not, is another story entirely.

Given how things turned out for Pietro and Amaranta, the truncated version seemed most apt.

I
O joyous, blossoming, ever-blessed flowers!
’Mid which my pensive queen her footstep sets;
O plain, that hold’st her words for amulets
And keep’st her footsteps in thy leafy bowers!
O trees, with earliest green of springtime hours,
And all spring’s pale and tender violets!
O grove, so dark the proud sun only lets
His blithe rays gild the outskirts of thy towers!
O pleasant country-side! O limpid stream,
That mirrorest her sweet face, her eyes so clear,
And of their living light canst catch the beam!
I envy thee her presence pure and dear.
There is no rock so senseless but I deem
It burns with passion that to mine is near.




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II
When Love doth those sweet eyes to earth incline,
And weaves those wandering notes into a sigh
With his own touch, and leads a minstrelsy
Clear-voiced and pure, angelic and divine,—
He makes sweet havoc in this heart of mine,
And to my thoughts brings transformation high,
So that I say, “My time has come to die,
If fate so blest a death for me design.”
But to my soul, thus steeped in joy, the sound
Brings such a wish to keep that present heaven,
It holds my spirit back to earth as well.
And thus I live: and thus is loosed and wound
The thread of life which unto me was given
By this sole Siren who with us doth dwell.




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III
Sweet air, that circlest round those radiant tresses,
And floatest, mingled with them, fold on fold,
Deliciously, and scatterest that fine gold,
Then twinest it again, my heart’s dear jesses;
Thou lingerest on those eyes, whose beauty presses
Stings in my heart that all its life exhaust,
Till I go wandering round my treasure lost,
Like some scared creature whom the night distresses.
I seem to find her now, and now perceive
How far away she is; now rise, now fall;
Now what I wish, now what is true, believe.
O happy air! since joys enrich thee all,
Rest thee; and thou, O stream too bright to grieve!
Why can I not float with thee at thy call?




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IV
Doth any maiden seek the glorious fame
Of chastity, of strength, of courtesy?
Gaze in the eyes of that sweet enemy
Whom all the world doth as my lady name!
How honor grows, and pure devotion’s flame,
How truth is joined with graceful dignity,
There thou mayst learn, and what the path may be
To that high heaven which doth her spirit claim;
There learn that speech, beyond all poet’s skill,
And sacred silence, and those holy ways
Unutterable, untold by human heart.
But the infinite beauty that all eyes doth fill,
This none can learn! because its lovely rays
Are given by God’s pure grace, and not by art.




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V
O wandering steps! O vague and busy dreams!
O changeless memory! O fierce desire!
O passion strong! heart weak with its own fire;
O eyes of mine! not eyes, but living streams;
O laurel boughs! whose lovely garland seems
The sole reward that glory’s deeds require!
O haunted life! delusion sweet and dire,
That all my days from slothful rest redeems;
O beauteous face! where Love has treasured well
His whip and spur, the sluggish heart to move
At his least will; nor can it find relief.
O souls of love and passion! if ye dwell
Yet on this earth, and ye, great Shades of Love!
Linger, and see my passion and my grief.





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VI
I once beheld on earth celestial graces
And heavenly beauties scarce to mortals known,
Whose memory yields nor joy nor grief alone,
But all things else in cloud and dreams effaces.
I saw how tears had left their weary traces
Within those eyes that once the sun outshone,
I heard those lips, in low and plaintive moan,
Breathe words to stir the mountains from their places.
Love, wisdom, courage, tenderness, and truth
Made in their mourning strains more high and dear
Than ever wove soft sounds for mortal ear;
And heaven seemed listening in such saddest ruth
The very leaves upon the bough to soothe,
Such sweetness filled the blissful atmosphere.




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VII
Those eyes, ’neath which my passionate rapture rose,
The arms, hands, feet, the beauty that erewhile
Could my own soul from its own self beguile,
And in a separate world of dreams enclose,
The hair’s bright tresses, full of golden glows,
And the soft lightning of the angelic smile
That changed this earth to some celestial isle,—
Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows.
And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn,
Left dark without the light I loved in vain,
Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn;
Dead is the source of all my amorous strain,
Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn,
And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain.




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VIII
She ruled in beauty o’er this heart of mine,
A noble lady in a humble home,
And now her time for heavenly bliss has come,
’Tis I am mortal proved, and she divine.
The soul that all its blessings must resign,
And love whose light no more on earth finds room
Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom,
Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine;
They weep within my heart; no ears they find
Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care,
And naught remains to me save mournful breath.
Assuredly but dust and shade we are;
Assuredly desire is mad and blind;
Assuredly its hope but ends in death.




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IX
Dreams bore my fancy to that region where
She dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see.
’Mid those who in the loftiest heaven be
I looked on her, less haughty and more fair.
She took my hand, she said, “Within this sphere,
If hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me:
I filled thy life with war’s wild agony;
Mine own day closed ere evening could appear.
My bliss no human thought can understand;
I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil
Of beauty thou dost love shall yet retain.”
Why was she silent then, why dropped my hand
Ere those delicious tones could quite avail
To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain?




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X
Gentle severity, repulses mild,
Full of chaste love and pity sorrowing;
Graceful rebukes, that had the power to bring
Back to itself a heart by dreams beguiled;
A tender voice, whose accents undefiled
Held sweet restraints, all duty honoring;
The bloom of virtue; purity’s clear spring
To cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild;
Divinest eyes to make a lover’s bliss,
Whether to bridle in the wayward mind
Lest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss,
Or else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind;
This sweet completeness of thy life it is
Which saved my soul; no other peace I find.




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XI
The holy angels and the spirits blest,
Celestial bands, upon that day serene
When first my love went by in heavenly sheen,
Came thronging, wondering at the gracious guest.
“What light is here, in what new beauty drest?”
They said among themselves; “for none has seen
Within this age arrive so fair a mien
From changing earth unto immortal rest.”
And she, contented with her new-found bliss,
Ranks with the perfect in that upper sphere,
Yet ever and anon looks back on this,
To watch for me, as if for me she stayed.
So strive my thoughts, lest that high heaven I miss.
I hear her call, and must not be delayed.




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XII
Oft by my faithful mirror I am told,
And by my mind outworn and altered brow,
My earthly powers impaired and weakened now,—
“Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old!”
Who strives with Nature’s laws is over-bold,
And Time to his commandment bids us bow.
Like fire that waves have quenched, I calmly vow
In life’s long dream no more my sense to fold.
And while I think, our swift existence flies,
And none can live again earth’s brief career,—
Then in my deepest heart the voice replies
Of one who now has left this mortal sphere,
But walked alone through earthly destinies,
And of all women is to fame most dear.




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XIII
Sweet wandering bird that singest on thy way,
Or mournest yet the time for ever past,
Watching night come and spring receding fast,
Day’s bliss behind thee and the seasons gay,—
If thou my griefs against thine own couldst weigh,
Thou couldst not guess how long my sorrows last;
Yet thou mightst hide thee from the wintry blast
Within my breast, and thus my pains allay.
Yet may not all thy woes be named with mine,
Since she whom thou dost mourn may live, yet live,
But death and heaven still hold my spirit’s bride;
And all those long past days of sad decline
With all the joys remembered years can give
Still bid me ask “Sweet bird! with me abide!”




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XIV
Lust and dull slumber and the lazy hours
Have well nigh banished virtue from mankind.
Hence have man’s nature and his treacherous mind
Left their free course, enmeshed in sin’s soft bowers.
The very light of heaven hath lost its powers
Mid fading ways our loftiest dreams to find;
Men jeer at him whose footsteps are inclined
Where Helicon from dewy fountains showers.
Who seeks the laurel? who the myrtle twines?
“Wisdom, thou goest a beggar and unclad,”
So scoffs the crowd, intent on worthless gain.
Few are the hearts that prize the poet’s lines:
Yet, friend, the more I hail thy spirit glad!
Let not the glory of thy purpose wane!




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XV
O ye who trace through scattered verse the sound
Of those long sighs wherewith I fed my heart
Amid youth’s errors, when in greater part
That man unlike this present man was found;
For the mixed strain which here I do compound
Of empty hopes and pains that vainly start,
Whatever soul hath truly felt love’s smart,
With pity and with pardon will abound.
But now I see full well how long I earned
All men’s reproof; and oftentimes my soul
Lies crushed by its own grief; and it doth seem
For such misdeed shame is the fruitage whole,
And wild repentance and the knowledge learned
That worldly joy is still a short, short dream.

Petrarch or Francesco Petrarca born 20th July 1304 - died 18th or 19th July 1374.
The Fifteen Sonnets selected and translated by Thomas Wentworth Higginson 1900
A Poem For A Thursday
One Hundred Years of Solitude Readalong

Do not go gentle into that good night | Dylan Thomas #Dewithon

Photo by Jack B on Unsplash | Snowdon, Wales

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that good night | Dylan Thomas | 1947

You can listen to Dylan Thomas read the poem himself.

#Dewithon2020

#APoemForAThursday

In Midland Where the Trains Go By | Dorothy Hewett #AWW

In Midland still the trains go by.
The black smoke thunders on the sky.
Still in the grass the lovers lie.
And cheek on cheek and sigh on sigh
They dream and weep as you and I,

In Midland where the trains go by. 

Across the bridge, across the town. 

The workers hurry up and down. 

The pub still stands, the publican 

Is still a gross, corrupted man. 

And bottles clinking in the park 

Make symphonies of summer dark. 

Across the bridge the stars go down, 

Our two ghosts meet across the town. 

Who dared so much must surely creep 

Between young lovers lips, asleep. 

Who dared so much much surely live 

In train-smoke off the Midland bridge. 

In Midland, in the railway yards, 

They shuffle time like packs of cards 

And kings and queens and jacks go down. 

But we come up in Midland town. 

O factory girls in cotton slips 

And men with grease across your lips. 

Let kings and queens and jacks go down 

But we'll still kiss in Midland town. 

An oath, a whisper and a laugh. 

Will make our better epitaph. 

We'll share a noggin in the park 

And whistle songs against the dark. 

There is no death that we can die 

In Midland, where the trains go by.

In Midland Where the Trains Go By | 1959 | Dorothy Hewett

Dorothy Hewett was born in Perth, in 1923 and grew up on a farm in the wheatbelt area until being sent to Perth to finish her schooling. She joined the Communist Party in 1946 and was active in their volunteering work. She moved to Sydney, with her second husband and young family, where she worked in a spinning mill and wrote under a pseudonym for the Communist Party paper.

When this marriage also ended she moved back to Perth in 1958 to take up a teaching post at the University of Western Australia.

In 1960, she married Merv Lilley and two daughters, Kate and Rose.

Hewett left the Communist Party after the 1968 uprising in Prague. She was an atheist all her life. She often challenged the social, sexual, religious and political norms of her time.

She died in 2002 in the Blue Mountains of NSW.

John Kinsella said in her obituary in the SMH, 26 August 2002;

Hewett's writing is about freedom and equality, linked with a deep respect for the vagaries of the individual.

I chose this Poem For a Thursday in preparation for Bill's Gen III Australian Women Writer's week from the 12th - 18th January.

I Am the Road | Claire G Coleman #AWW

The Peter Porter Prize is a literary prize for a new poem run by the Australian Book Review. It's an annual prize, running since 2005. It's worth a total of $9,000. This year, the judges – John Hawke, Bronwyn Lea, and Philip Mead – have shortlisted five poems. The winner will be announced on 16th January. For anyone living in Melbourne, the award night is a free night where the shortlisted poets will present their poems to the audience in the led up the announcement.

The Longlist and Shortlist:

• Lachlan Brown (NSW), 'Precision Signs' – Shortlisted
• Claire G. Coleman (Vic.), 'That Wadjela Tongue' – Shortlisted
• Diane Fahey (Vic.), 'The Yellow Room' – Longlisted
• S.J. Finn (Vic.), 'A Morning Shot' – Longlisted
• Ross Gillett (Vic.), 'South Coast Sonnets' – Shortlisted
• A. Frances Johnson (Vic.), 'My Father's Thesaurus' – Shortlisted
• Anthony Lawrence (QLD), 'Zoologistics' – Longlisted
• Kathryn Lyster (NSW), 'Diana' – Longlisted
• Julie Manning (QLD), 'Constellation of Bees' – Shortlisted
• Greg McLaren (NSW), 'Autumn mediations' – Longlisted
• Claire Potter (United Kingdom), 'Of Birds' Feet' – Longlisted
• Gig Ryan (Vic.), 'Fortune's Favours' – Longlisted
• Corey Wakeling (Japan), 'Drafts in Red' – Longlisted

All five shortlisted poems can be found here at the Australian Book Review.
I was particularly struck by Coleman's poem, That Wadjela Tongue, and I hope you take the time to duck over to read all five.
But for today, I will share one of Coleman's earlier poems.


I Am the Road | Claire G Coleman
              Highly commended for the 2018 Oodgeroo Noonuccal Poetry Prize.


My grandfather was the bush, the coast, salmon gums, hakeas, blue-grey banskias

Wind-whipped water, tea-black estuaries, sun on grey stone

My grandfather was born on Country, was buried on Country

His bones are Country

I am the road.


I was born off Country, in that city

I hear, less than two-weeks old I travelled Country

A bassinet on the back seat of the Kingswood

I remember travels more than I remember a home

I am the road.


My father is the beach, the peppermint tree, the city back when, before it was a city

My father is the ancient tall-tree country, between his father Country and that town

My father is World War II, his father was a soldier

My father wandered, worked on rail, drove trucks

I am the road


Campgrounds up and down that coast were the childhood home of my heart

Where my memories fled, where my happiness lived

Campgrounds in somebody else’s stolen country

I am the road


The road unrolls before me

My rusty old troopy wipes oily sweat from its underside on the asphalt

Says ‘I am here, I am here’

The engine breathes in, breathes out, pants faster than I can

Sings a wailing thundering song

Wraps its steel self around me and keeps me safe, a too large overcoat

I am the road


I slept, for a time, on the streets of Melbourne

No country, no home, as faceless as the pavement

I was dirt on the streets, as grey as the stone, as the concrete

I am the road


We showed explorers where the water was

They lay their road over our path, from water to water

Lay a highway over their road, tamed my country with their highway

I am the road


My Boodja has been stolen, raped, they dug it up, took some of it away

They killed our boorn, killed our yonga, our waitch, damar, kwoka

Put in wheat and sheep, no country for sheep my Boodja

My Country, most it is empty, the whitefellas have no use for it

Except to keep it from us

Because we want it back, need it back, because they can

I am the road.


People ask where I am from, I cannot, simply answer

To mob, I am Noongar, South Coast. I am Banksias, wind on waves on stone

To travellers, whitefella nomads, I am from where I live – that caravan over there

To whitefellas from Melbourne who see how I drink my coffee

I must be from Melbourne, I am not Melbourne

I am the road


One day wish to, hope to, dream, buy some of my grandfather’s country back

Pay the thieves for stolen goods

Theft is a crime, receiving stolen goods is a crime

Until one day

I am the road. 

Claire G. Coleman is a Wirlomin Noongar woman whose ancestral country is on the south coast of Western Australia. She has written two novels, Terra Nullius and The Old Lie.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem for Thursday Moby-Dick

Earl Livings is a Melbourne based poet. His first book of poetry, Further Than Night (Bystander Press), was published in 2000.

An acrostic poem uses the first letter of each to line to spell out a message, or in this case, the title of a book and it's various characters.

It's a little bit of fun to get me back into blogging about Moby-Dick.


Moby Dick: Acrostic Sampling
By Earl Livings | 1 June 2013 | Cordite Poetry Review


1. Title

may, there stands the
of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door
bulwarks of ships from China; some
you?’ – he at last said – ‘you no speak-e,

do to take care of myself
interior door
charm wanting? – Water –
knots of human hair; and one was

open, and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough.
rise – yes, he’s the bird

turning flukes – it’s a nice
halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign
either in a physical or metaphysical

with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head – none to
Harpoons’ – but it looked too expensive and
about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is
leviathan himself?
ever heard of. On the contrary


2. Author

He wears a
ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company
remember that – and
meanings
a child, I well remember a somewhat similar
No one having previously heard

marble tablets, and
England traveller
lie buried beneath the green grass;
vain; the indignant gale howls
In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers
lies my
lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and
empty stomach, in the Negro heart of Africa, which was the


3. Ishmael

clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth
as seen in the
‘look you,’ roared the Captain, ‘I’ll kill-e you, you cannibal
lasso, caught it

matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes
eyes; for

I now complained
surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to
he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had
more, and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and
affectionate arm
eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of
long living arc of a leap


4. Queequeg

Humiliation, was
eluded him.
Another. This world pays dividends
deal less than seven hundred and seventy-seven
poising his harpoon, cried out in some
egress to Bildad, who, I make no doubt, was
dost not
down for the three hundredth,’
last, and knew nothing
into an
Gayhead, said that the name would somehow

Peleg, to his partner, who, aghast at
upon this ragged old sailor; and
rig jury-masts – how to get into the
papers. We must have Hedgehog there, I mean
looking over the bedside, there
eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of

rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent
a broad shad-bellied
soul’s a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon
content if the world is ready to
a ship-owner; Bildad, as I hinted before
look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his


5. Pequod

about his

talk of securing the top-sail halyards to them. In his
harpooner, say; and if in emulation
invite to that town some score or two families
not a tame
graze the keel, would make her shudder

ocean to kill whales for my living, and not
fornication

the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and
ruddy, young fellow, very pugnacious
own father’s? Where in the bottomless deeps, could he find
permitting stars. But this august dignity I treat of, is not
honouring us whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our
island of Nantucket? Why did Britain
encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw;
since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman,


6. Ahab

or inexpressive, I shall say so, and suggest another. I
lofty jet rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a
devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled

than the whale-fleet
hands among the unspeakable
upon fixed wages, but upon their common
never
down to a point only.” But now comes the greatest joke of
Ere
request among jewellers and watchmakers.


7. Starbuck

soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by
this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, – as wild
against Tashego
identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for
distracted decks upon which they gaze; however,

sting, that sanity should ground
things are forced to feed – Oh, life! ’tis now that
everything
at every
descry what shoals and
from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In the fireside
as when an African elephant goes passenger
such a field! I think I see his impious end; but
the latent horror in thee! But ’tis not me! that


8. The Whale

A row! a row! a row!

comparatively, had knowingly seen him;
of their aspect. So that
lurking in him then, how soon would their
of the albatross: whence come those clouds
round our
life, – all this to
even at the present day has the original
strongly on the imagination of an untravelled American
storied structures, its neighbours – the

a row a’low, and a row aloft – Gods and men – both
leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound
Lords of the White Elephants

circumference, many
of spiritual wonderment and pale dread, in which that
Latin
of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness
rising in a milk-white fog – Yea, while

only arises from the circumstances, that the irresponsible
few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to

A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row!
These two statements may perhaps
Hue, nor yet his deformed lower jaw, that so much invested
enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale
in his frantic
sublimer
more obvious considerations touching

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem for Thursday Dub Leffler

Photo by Christoph von Gellhorn on Unsplash

Dub Leffler grew up in the small western NSW town of Quirindi. He is descended from the Bigambul and Mandandanji people of south-west Queensland. He is an illustrator of children's books, including one of my favourites from 2011 Once There was a Boy (which he also wrote) and Sorry Day (2018) with Coral Vass.

NSW is currently in the grip of the worst start to the bushfire season in living memory. Over two months of non-stop fires, that have now joined up to create a 'mega-fire' zone north of Sydney, with no end in sight. I understand that Leffler's reasons for crying in this poem run much deeper than the current environmental crisis, still, it seemed appropriate to visit this particular poem today.

I Cry for You, Country
By Dub Leffler | 1 February 2019 | Cordite Poetry Review


I cry about this country.
As I travel about in between the sliced stone mountains.
The train is a salt dipped saw.
Sawing back and forth in the wounds.

I watch the relentless invasion of lantana. We open the cuts and rip off
Bandaids
I cry for you country.

A tree’s single scream lasts years.

When I die, you will have my body.
You take my water, you take my bone.

When we have our dead days,
I will think on you.

The day we finally go, is the day, we finally return.


Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem for a Thursday by Ali Cobby Eckermann

N.B. I selected my AusReadingMonth poems over a month ago.

Given the horrendous bush fires around NSW and Queensland throughout November, I felt it was important to come back to say that this poem, and my choice to post it today in no way reflects the current state of emergency in many of our national parks and forests.

As Eckerman clearly states in her preface to her poem, it was written in response to a (stupid) political appointment a year ago and describes a feeling, not an action.

When I first read (Kuru Waru) Bushfires Eyes I was struck by the powerful imagery and the passion behind the words. Repeat readings have only reinforced its impact.


(Kuru Waru) Bushfires Eyes
By Ali Cobby Eckermann | 1 February 2019 | Cordite Poetry Review


A response to the appointment of Tony Abbott as Special Envoy of Indigenous Affairs by the newly self-elected Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison 29 August, 2018.

There are bushfires burning in my eyes
I am burning down the modern world
I am burning your invasion of me
I am burning the image of you
You are all burning on my pyre

I am burning your prejudice of me
I am burning your paternalism
I am burning your policies
I am burning your excuses
I am burning your greed

I am burning your lack of understanding
I am burning your refusal to acknowledge that
I am burning your insults and beratings
I am burning your reaction to this poem
There are bushfires burning in my eyes

My Mother the land is crying
My Mother is crying with beauty
My Mother is crying with sadness
I am crying for all my mothers
We are crying for our land

Our tears are embers unable to quell
There has been no lull in you
There will be no lull in me
I am burning down the modern world
There are bushfires burning in my eyes


Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem for a Thursday by Melissa Lucashenko

Image source

Sydney has once again woken up shrouded in bush fire smoke. Air quality is very poor and people are being asked to avoid exercising outdoors. It's hot one day, cold and blustery the next. It's hard to breath freely and it's not even summer yet.

Two weeks ago it was the smoke from the fires in northern NSW. This week, fires are blazing to the west of Sydney in the Hawkesbury area.
Sydney will be moving onto level 2 water restrictions in the next week or so (although many areas in western areas have been on level 4 or higher restrictions for months).

The rain forests in Queensland have been burning and catastrophic fire warnings are in place again today for South Australia. Victoria is on high alert as well. It's going to be a long day for the firies.

Perhaps if we thought about the trees as people, with a gender and personality, like the Aboriginal peoples of Australia, we would have found a better way to live with them and take care of them.
I'm trying not to think about the koalas and wombats and possums. The news coming in is just too distressing.

Melissa Lucashenko is an Aboriginal writer of Goorie and European heritage.

She was the winner of the 2019 Miles Franklin Award and the Queensland Premier’s award for a work of state significance for Too Much Lip.

As well as the winner of the 2013 Deloitte Queensland Literary Award for Fiction and the Victorian Premiers Prize for Indigenous Writing for Mullumbimby.

She won the 2013 Walkely Award for Long Form Journalism with her Griffith Review essay, “Sinking Below Sight: Down and Out in Brisbane and Logan”. Lucashenko also writes poems.

This poem caught my eye because my father grew up in the area of Crystal Creek, near the small town of Numinbah. Going for drives to the Natural Bridge and through the valley are part of my childhood memories. It's a beautiful area with a long history.
Small fires went through this area two months ago.

Numinbah Valley in Spring
By Melissa Lucashenko | 1 February 2016 | Cordite Poetry Review


In the Yugambeh there exist three genders: male, female, and a gender used specifically to refer to trees.


Twenty thousand moons shone here upon the People
and twenty thousand more before that
showed themselves crystal in the rushing streams
flanked with green lichened giants, beloved brothers
our other selves who have endured so much

Now the People are few here, and pale
white men came six seconds ago with their bibles and noise
the People left, bleeding
we left, torn from our mother’s arms to be made white

Our tallest selves on this mountain remain, strong and beautiful
Our tallest selves use the wind to speak, asking
Why are we lonely?
Where have our families gone?

Here, I answer, singing them a new song
jarjum yanbelillah mobo
the children of the People will return
goorie jinungilellah numinbah jagan mobo
your other selves will be standing alongside you again tomorrow
we will not cry long; we will not salt the earth of our grandmothers
be happy in your waiting Tall Ones
we are coming
we are coming
we are coming

Natural Bridge or the Nature Arch as we knew it back in the 1970's

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem for a Thursday - Venus and Mars

Whilst trawling the interweb for possible AusReadingMonth poetry choices recently, I was thrilled to discover the Cordite Poetry Review. It has an abundance of local poets, some known to me already (like Ellen Van Neervan, Eileen Chong, Kim Mahood, John Kinsella, Kirli Saunders just to name a few), but many more new-to-me poets.

I still feel very tentative about poetry, but I'm keen to learn. It's exciting to find an online place that allows me to explore and experiment. To discover what I like and what I don't. A place I can revisit at my leisure.

During my recent exploration I also discovered someone I know. Alison, is the sister-in-law of my new boss. And I'm delighted that I can feature one of her poems during AusReadingMonth.

Venus and Mars
By Alison Gorman | 1 May 2017 | Cordite Poetry Review


Sandro Boticelli, c1485

Awake now. Remember our love
in the shade of a wild myrtle forest.
Your red, silk pallium softens our bed
of bracken and leaf. The air is cool here,
broken by swallow song and the hum
of wasps that swarm and crown
your abundant hair. I study your ecstatic
slumber-a sole crease of brow, an easy
parting of lips, your brave span of chest.
I want the burn of your eyes, the brine
of your skin. Far from bloodshed
and the din of battle, you abandon it all:
your lance, cuirass and beloved blue helmet.
Naked and fearless you surrender to me.
A little death that strands you oblivious
to lewd taunts of drunken satyrs. Fat bellied
with goat leg and horn they thieve, thrust
and sound a conch but still you do not stir.
This is no time for sleep. Gather your strength.
For I am your bright star and when you wake

I will ruin you again.


Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem for A Thursday - How to Love Bronwyn

Today is our tenth wedding anniversary.

We've enjoyed ten years of love, laughter and happiness. Mr Books is a man of endless patience, with a big heart and a generous nature. Every day I am full of gratitude for our life together.

When I spotted this poem last week, I knew it would be the perfect choice to post today for A Poem for a Thursday. It's not often I find my name in a poem (or anywhere else for that matter). And when that poem also speaks to you and reflects your own truth, then you've found a winner!

Thank you Bronwyn Lovell for speaking so eloquently for the both of us.


How to Love Bronwyn
By Bronwyn Lovell | 1 February 2012 | Cordite Poetry Review


Don’t try too hard.
If it requires effort,
if it is difficult for you,
this is not for your portfolio.

It must come naturally,
like holding out your hand to test for rain,
and if you should feel something,
put away your umbrella.

Surrender to the pitter-patter
of unexpected kisses,
and if you get the urge to run
when they start to come hard and fast,

please do. This job is not for you.
I need a detective
to find the logic
behind my contradictions,

who will explain them to me patiently,
so I can come to better know myself.
I need a curator who won’t ignore
the chips and cracks,

who will study them,
run his fingers along their length –
an informed buyer
who knows the condition of his prize.

I need a break wall
to protect me from the storms
without and within myself.
Someone who will not ebb and flow,

who won’t come and go.
I need a man sure enough
of his own two feet
to anchor us both.

I am a body of water.
You need to know enough
of drowning
to know how to love me well.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Bronwyn is a Flinders University PhD candidate in creative writing, researching depictions of women in narratives set in space and composing a feminist science fiction verse novel.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

A Poem on Thursday - Sorry's Essence

In preparation for AusReadingMonth, starting tomorrow, I thought we should explore poems that reflect Australian life in all it's facets. This week we have poet, Mark Mahemoff. According to wikipedia, Mahemoff’s poetry is 'chiefly concerned with framing, reimagining and memorialising commonplace moments, primarily in an urban setting.'

Sorry’s Essence
By Mark Mahemoff | 1 May 2012 | Cordite Poetry Review


This poem is constructed using words and phrases directly from Kevin Rudd’s ‘Sorry’ speech
as reprinted in The Sydney Morning Herald (online version) on February 13, 2008.

I move today we honour, we reflect
on mistreatment of the oldest history, indigenous people
who were stolen, blemished in our nation
the time has now come to turn Australia’s history
by righting the future
we apologise for profound grief and suffering and loss
and pain and indignity and degradation and sheer brutality and hurt
of mothers and fathers and brothers
and sisters and families and communities
breaking up inflicted on a proud people and the spirit
healing, heart, embraces
never, never again
solutions, respect, resolve, responsibility
origins are truly equal
remove a great stain
do so early
an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman
has travelled a long way to be with us
she remembers the love and the warmth
and the kinship of those days long ago
she remembers she insisted on dancing
rather than just sitting and watching
she remembers the coming of the welfare men
tears flowing, clinging
complex questions
it was as crude as that
Tennant Creek and Goulburn Island
and Croker Island and Darwin and Torres Strait
She was 16
a broken woman fretting
ripped away from her
it’s a good thing that you are surrounded by love
Sorry
And remarkably, extraordinarily, she had forgiven him
there is something terribly primal about these
a deep assault
stony, stubborn and deafening
leave it languishing
human decency, universal human decency
deliberate, calculated, explicit, and notorious
Generally by the fifth and invariably by the sixth generation
all native characteristics are eradicated
they are profoundly disturbing, well motivated, justified.
an apology well within the adult memory span
a point in remote antiquity
it is well within the adult memory span of many of us
therefore we must also be the bearer of their burdens as well
the darkest chapters
with the facts, the evidence and the often rancorous public
we are also wrestling with our own soul
cold, confronting, uncomfortable
there will always be a shadow hanging over us
I am sorry
I am sorry
I am sorry
without qualification
Yuendumu, Yabara, Pitjantjatjara
there is nothing I can say today
I cannot undo that
grief is a very personal thing
imagine the crippling effect
it is little more than a clanging gong
a thinly veiled contempt
the gap will set concrete
the truth is a business
halve the appalling gap
back the obscenity
beyond our infantile bickering
Dreamtime

Parliament House, Canberra. Photo by Michael on Unsplash

On his website, Mark discusses how,

his writing primarily involves memorializing and eulogizing the overlooked and forgotten. Not only people but places and objects. He is driven by the weight of his forebears’ historical loss. Loss of family, of identity, of homeland. This loss has been handed down like an heirloom. It is the classic experience of holocaust survivors. But secreted amongst the loss is humour. He sees his task as shaping all these elements, to the best of his ability, into poetry.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

Some People a poem by Wislawa Szymborska

Some People a poem by Wislawa Szymborska was referenced in my most recent read, The Far Field by Madhuri Vijay. The epigraph used the final stanza to suggest what the theme of the book would be. I quickly discovered the entire poem on the Poem Hunter site as seen below.

🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻

Some people fleeing some other people.
In some country under the sun
and some clouds.

They leave behind some of their everything,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected.

On their backs are pitchers and bundles,
the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next.

Taking place stealthily is somebody's stopping,
and in the commotion, somebody's bread somebody's snatching
and a dead child somebody's shaking.

In front of them some still not the right way,
nor the bridge that should be
over a river strangely rosy.
Around them, some gunfire, at times closer, at times farther off,
and, above, a plane circling somewhat.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or even better, non-being
for a little or a long while.

Something else is yet to happen, only where and what?
Someone will head toward them, only when and who,
in how many shapes and with what intentions?
Given a choice,
maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and
leave them with some kind of life.

Photo by Randy Tarampi on Unsplash

But then I realised there were more options thrown up by my google search. Which was exciting, as it led me to the original poem in the New Republic Magazine, December 30, 1996 issue.

Joanna Trzeciak translated the version above; the 1996 version was translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. There are subtle differences between the two, but I find the bottom one more graphic, grittier somehow. There is an aggression that feels smoothed over in the version at the top.

I'm fascinated by the very different meaning given to the line about the mirror. One mirror merely reflects, while the other shows off the fire.

In the final stanza we have the choice between someone coming at us (aggression) or someone heading towards us. But is our choice 'given' or only an 'if'?

Personally, I prefer the translation below.

🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻

Some people flee some other people.
In some country under a sun
and some clouds.

They abandon something like all they’ve got,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now preens.

Their shoulders bear pitchers and bundles.
The emptier they get, the heavier they grow.

What happens quietly: someone’s dropping from exhaustion.
What happens loudly: someone’s bread is ripped away,
someone tries to shake a limp child back to life.

Always another wrong road ahead of them,
always another wrong bridge
across another oddly reddish river.
Around them, some gunshots, now nearer, now farther away,
above them a plane sort of circles.

Some invisibility would come in handy,
some grayish stoniness,
or, better yet, some nonexistence
for a shorter or a longer while.

Something else will happen, only where and what.
Someone will come at them, only when and who,
in how many shapes, with what intentions.
If he has a choice,
maybe he won’t be the enemy
and will let them live some sort of life.

🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻🞻

Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was born in Poland on the 2nd July 1923. She died on the 1st February 2012. In 1996 she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality."

In Oct 1998 Helen Vendler in NY Books, Staring Through the Stitches, wrote that Szymborska’s poem “Some People,”  

Is a list; she likes lists. It is rigorous; she believes in facing the truth. It involves social experience; life for her is rarely one of individual isolation…. It is both objective and subjective, both documentary and empathetic…. Her restless skepticism questions a categorical statement even as she makes it.

And finally, a note on the translation, also from NY Books. Edward Hirsch's Subversive Activities, 18th April 1996:

Szymborska comes through well in translation, but Baranczak and Cavanagh are the first to convey the full force of her fierce and unexpected wit. Their versions reproduce the rhythm and rhyme schemes of some of her early poems. They have come up with deft equivalents for her pervasive wordplay, and have recreated the jaunty, precise, deceptively casual free verse of her late work.

I agree with Ed!

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her whenever I can.

Dirge by Herman Melville

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Herman Melville not only wrote novels, but spent the last decades of his life, in particular, writing poetry.

His first book of poems, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866) followed the timeline of the Civil War. According to the Poetry Foundation 'the poems deflate core myths of American exceptionalism.'

His son, Malcolm fought in the Civil War and later committed suicide as Melville was writing his second book of poetry, Clarel (1876). His cousin, brother and mother also died during this period of time. No wonder Melville was fully across Ishmael's lament about 'whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul.'

His last two publications were self-published - John Marr and Other Sailors, with Some Sea-Pieces (1888) and Timoleon and Other Ventures in Minor Verse (1891).

Weeds and Wildings with a Rose or Two, was an unfinished collection that Melville had been working on at the time of his death. It was published posthumously as a private edition.

Everything I've read about Melville so far, would seem to indicate that he was a complicated man full of contradictions, confusion and philosophical doubt. His energy levels and passions ran hot and cold, high and low. He was plagued by depression, financial insecurity and religious conflict.

His poetry reflected his search for meaning, truth and peace.

Dirge


We drop our dead in the sea,
The bottomless, bottomless sea;
Each bubble a hollow sigh,
As it sinks forever and aye.
We drop our dead in the sea, –
The dead reek not of aught;
We drop our dead in the sea, –
The sea ne’er gives it a thought.
Sink, sink, oh corpse, still sink,
Far down in the bottomless sea,
Where the unknown forms do prowl,
Down, down in the bottomless sea.
‘Tis night above, and night all round,
And night will it be with thee;
As thou sinkest, and sinkest for aye,
Deeper down in the bottomless sea.

#MobyDickReadalong

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her at the moment.

Strong in the Rain by Lucy Birmingham & David McNeill

Strong in the Rain: Surviving Japan's Earthquake, Tsunami and Fukushima Nuclear Disaster was not exactly what I was expecting.

Before visiting Japan for the first time last year, I read Richard Lloyd Parry's Ghosts of the Tsunami. Parry, like his American counterparts, was (and still is) an (English) journalist based in Japan. His book focused on the effects of the tsunami on one small town on the coast where an entire school of children was lost to the overwhelming wave. His book evolved over several years of interviews with survivors and was finally published in 2017, six years after the tsunami.

Strong in the Rain (published in October 2012) was a more immediate response to the disaster of 2011 and focused on the reaction of the government, media and locals to the nuclear threat that teetered on the brink of major catastrophe for days and days and days.

As a result, it was more report-like in structure and execution than Parry's book which was more personal, and told in a narrative non-fiction style. Both styles have their place and perhaps if I had read Strong in the Rain when it was first published I would have been more engaged with it.

Not that it wasn't interesting, it just didn't grab me the way Ghosts of the Tsunami did. That sense of immediacy had passed.

I did learn that the title came from a well-known Japanese poem by Kenji Miyazawa which has been translated below by Roger Pulvers.

Strong in the rain
Strong in the wind
Strong against the summer heat and snow
He is healthy and robust
Free from desire
He never loses his temper
Nor the quiet smile on his lips
He eats four go of unpolished rice
Miso and a few vegetables a day
He does not consider himself
In whatever occurs
His understanding
Comes from observation and experience
And he never loses sight of things
He lives in a little thatched-roof hut
In a field in the shadows of a pine tree grove
If there is a sick child in the east
He goes there to nurse the child
If there’s a tired mother in the west
He goes to her and carries her sheaves
If someone is near death in the south
He goes and says, ‘Don’t be afraid’
If there are strife and lawsuits in the north
He demands that the people put an end to their pettiness
He weeps at the time of drought
He plods about at a loss during the cold summer
Everybody calls him Blockhead
No one sings his praises
Or takes him to heart

That is the sort of person
I want to be

It's easy to see how this poem could embody the Japanese national spirit, although not so sure about the blockhead part!

Natori, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan 2011

Birmingham and McNeill interviewed six survivors in six different areas to personalise the disaster. As you would expect, all their stories were compelling and heart-breaking. For someone who has never experienced that extreme type of earthquake and tsunami in person, it was often hard to fathom the extent of the destruction. But I could admire their courage in resilience in carrying on afterwards.

One of the relief workers talked about 'post traumatic growth' where 'people have power to face their own grief and gain control of their lives.' I first came across this idea in Leigh Sales book Any Ordinary Day and find it encouraging to know that it is possible to not only survive a traumatic event but to ultimately use it as a growing experience.

I learnt a lot about the history of quakes and tsunamis in Japan and the various preparations that the Japanese had put in place - seawalls, breakwaters and floodgates, early warning sirens and action plans - so many of which completely failed.

But it was the total failure of adequate preparation surrounding the Fukushima power plant that Birmingham & McNeill focused on. From the government, to TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) officials and media outlets that failed to prepare, report or acknowledge what was really happening. Obviously scaring everyone unnecessarily does no-one any good during a crisis, but denying and ignoring the facts could be equally devastating and even life-threatening.

One of the shocking facts that came out of the court case afterwards, was TEPCO arguing that it was not responsible for the radioactive fallout as it didn't "own" it. "Radioactive materials...that scattered and fell from the Fukushima No. 1 plant belong to the individual landowners there, not TEPCO."

OMG!! Surely this ridiculous claim was challenged at subsequent court hearings.

The Epilogue went on to provide some information on how various towns were coping with the clean up, preparing new and improved warning systems and commemorating the event. From ocean parks, to cherry tree plantings to mark the high water mark, to elevated housing. 

I'd be interested in finding out how things have progressed seven years on. If you know of any more current books on this topic, please leave me a note in the comments.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. This week I snuck my poem into the review!

6/20 Books of Summer Winter
Sydney 16℃
Dublin 16℃

A Love Like Dorothea's by Alison Whittaker

I've recently been dipping in and out of Alison Whittaker's book of 'poetry, memoir, reportage, fiction, satire and critique', Blakwork. It's beautiful, confronting and unflinching.

But I keep returning to one poem, perhaps because of the link to an older poem that is part of my white heritage. The comparison and contrast between the two ideas and images challenges many of my preconceived beliefs. I'm trying to understand; I want to understand, but sometimes the gulf still feels too huge. A Love Like Dorothea's helps to narrow that gulf a little for me.

I found Whittaker's reading below on the Melbourne Visiting Poets Program, at The Wheeler Centre in August 2018. They tell us that,

Alison Whittaker is a Gomeroi poet, life writer and essayist from Gunnedah and Tamworth, north-western New South Wales. She now lives in Sydney on Wangal land, and is recently returned from the US, where she received a 2017 Fulbright Indigenous Postgraduate Scholarship to complete a Master of Laws (LLM) at Harvard. Her poem MANY GIRLS WHITE LINEN received the Judith Wright Poetry Prize in 2017. She is the author of Lemons in the Chicken Wire (Magabala Books), the debut collection that established her as a powerful new voice in poetry.

For more information about Whittaker and her poems I suggest you read Jeanine Leane's Ultima Thume article in The Sydney Review of Books from February 2019 and Laniyuk's March 2019 review in The Lifted Brow.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her as I can.

Tollund Man by Seamus Heaney

In my previous post, about The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, I referred to Heaney's poem about the bog man found in Denmark in the 1950's. To find out how Tollund Man and Achilles go together in my universe, you'll have to read the post.

As always, though, I'm fascinated by the stories we tell ourselves about our past and how they inform our present day concerns. Seeing the Irish Troubles through the sacrificial death of an Iron Age man is just one example.

Photo by Krystian Piątek on Unsplash

THE TOLLUND MAN
I

Some day I will go to Aarhus
To see his peat-brown head,
The mild pods of his eye-lids,
His pointed skin cap.

In the flat country near by
Where they dug him out,
His last gruel of winter seeds
Caked in his stomach,

Naked except for
The cap, noose and girdle,
I will stand a long time.
Bridegroom to the goddess,

She tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen,
Those dark juices working
Him to a saint's kept body,

Trove of the turfcutters'
Honeycombed workings.
Now his stained face
Reposes at Aarhus.


II

I could risk blasphemy,
Consecrate the cauldron bog
Our holy ground and pray
Him to make germinate

The scattered, ambushed
Flesh of labourers,
Stockinged corpses
Laid out in the farmyards,

Tell-tale skin and teeth
Flecking the sleepers
Of four young brothers, trailed
For miles along the lines.


III

Something of his sad freedom
As he rode the tumbril
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names

Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard,

Watching the pointing hands
Of country people,
Not knowing their tongue.

Out here in Jutland
In the old man-killing parishes
I will feel lost,
Unhappy and at home.

Given that it's Anzac Day in Australia, where we honour the fallen and remind ourselves about the sacrifices made by those who have gone before, 'lest we forget', this seemed like an appropriate poem for the day.

We have an entire world history of sacrificing our loved ones to the gods, to war, to causes beyond our ken. Will we ever learn the lessons?

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her as I can.

It might seem sacrilegious to finish a post about war and sacrifice with football, yet surely, our love of sport, is just another example of conflict and sacrifice just played out on a smaller field and with less carnage.

So Go the Mighty Bombers!

Starting a New Book...

So I've just started reading Siri Hustvedt's latest novel, Memories of the Future.

I'm inclined to anticipate enjoyment of Hustvedt's work thanks solely (so far) on my experience with What I Loved. I feel sure that I will be in for an intelligent, literary treat.

The first chapter has not disappointed.

Metafiction is the name of this game as Hustvedt's story explores a 61 yr old woman looking book on the journal written by her 23 yr old self when she first moved to New York to write.

In a curious, personal, twist of fate, there is a Don Quixote connection right from the start.

Within the journal of 23 yr old S.H. is another story about Ian Feathers (I.F.) - a man whose real 'life was lived in books, not out of them.' A man who took his passion for mystery, unsolved crimes and murder too far. A man who 'lived in a world built entirely of clues.' A man who wanted to live his life through the 'splendid' example of Sherlock Holmes (another S.H.). All good heroes need a sidekick - I.F.'s 'all-important confidante, his Sancho, his Watson,' was/is Isadora Simon (I.S.).

I love it when my book worlds collide, or perhaps, more elegantly, when serendipity steps in to allow one bookish experience to inform the next.

Memories of the Future is also ripe with books within books, or more accurately, poets and their poems.

John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest and Frank O'Hara. And The Great Gatsby, Balzac, Proust, Gogol, Baudelaire, Laurence Sterne and Plato just to name those referenced in the first 32 pages. But the one that has made several appearances and will obviously play a bigger role as the story unfolds is the Dada-poet/performance artist, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.

Who? I hear you ask.

According to the Poetry Foundation, she was a 'German-born avant-garde poet. Known for her flamboyance and sexual frankness, the Baroness was a central figure in Greenwich Village’s early-twenties Dadaism'.

Wikipedia describes her as 'breaking every erotic boundary, revelling in anarchic performance'.

Her friend Emily Coleman saw her as, 'not as a saint or a madwoman, but as a woman of genius, alone in the world, frantic'.

I'm very curious to see how Hustvedt will thread the Baroness' life into the rest of her story.
                     

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven by Holland Cotter

Fruit Don’t Fall Far
By Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven
Translated by Jill Alexander Essbaum

From Daddy sprung my inborn ribaldry.
His crudeness destined me to be the same.
A seedlet, flowered from a shitty heap,
I came, the crowning glory of his aim.

From Mother I inherited ennui,
The leg irons of the queendom I once rattled.
But I won’t let such chains imprison me.
And there is just no telling what this brat’ll...!

This marriage thing? We snub our nose at it.
What’s pearl turns piss, what’s classy breeds what’s smutty.
But like it? Lump it? Neither’s exigent.
And I’m the end result of all that fucking.

Do what you will! This world’s your oyster, Pet.
But be forewarned. The sea might drown you yet.

Not my usual poetic fare, but from what I have seen so far, a fair example of the Baroness' writing. And as S.H. says on pg 53, 'I returned to the sputterings of the Baroness because I regarded her as my archival rescue job, almost annihilated back then, and I wanted to protect her from oblivion with my voice.'

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I enjoy sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her as I can.

The Song of Achilles - a poem

I'm currently reading and loving The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and wanted to honour the story somehow. A Poem for Thursday seemed like the perfect way, especially when I discovered The Song of Achilles fanpage on Tumblr. Hannah has encapsulated the tone and feeling of Miller's story just so with this tender little offering.

Jennifer @Holds Upon Happiness posts a lovely Poem for a Thursday each week. I'm enjoying sourcing poems from my recent reads to join in with her at the moment.