tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post987385558608658951..comments2023-11-22T09:11:01.567+00:00Comments on George Szirtes: TienanmenGeorge Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-54180255930052224932009-06-09T15:25:59.654+01:002009-06-09T15:25:59.654+01:00Zbigniew Cybulski - strange that. It is, probably,...Zbigniew Cybulski - strange that. It is, probably, the first time in like twenty years I see somebody remember him. I thought I am one of the last people liking him.SnoopyTheGoonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00920565522498918323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-35531548180226552502009-06-05T13:16:01.080+01:002009-06-05T13:16:01.080+01:00"Slept at night in a dog kennel
But nobody ch..."Slept at night in a dog kennel<br />But nobody chained him up."<br /><br />I think 'chain/s' is Dylan's favourite word.<br /><br /><br />We may now imagine bold young Szirtes abroad in dry-Sunday Wales a-drinking and revelling like a backroom criminal "until the Sunday sombre bell at dark". <br /><br />It would probably be an hotel bar you were in - as "resident or bona fide guest" - that was the usual modus operandi or loophole employed<br /><br />Maybe you could spend your holiday voucher on a pub/church crawl in Wales - research into Dylan Thomas and his pals I mean.Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-5054659582767398962009-06-05T12:26:16.415+01:002009-06-05T12:26:16.415+01:00Ah, but I have a distinct memory of being on a fie...Ah, but I have a distinct memory of being on a field course in Wales when I was seventeen or eighteen, and leaving the centre with a few others for a drink. It was Sunday. The nearest pub was shut, of course, but someone suggested we go round the back.<br /><br />And of course it was open, and of course there was a bunch of people happily drinking there. They looked very guilty. For a few moments.<br /><br />Still thinking of going to China. Clarissa was born there and I was actually awarded an unasked for, but distinctly handsome travelling grant by the Society of Authors some ten years ago to go anywhere I pleased. Unspent (but worth less now alas). Other trips kept getting in the way.<br /><br />And it is facinating - to respond to both of you at once - what rules can do, or perhaps what rules encapsulate by way of a kind of wisdom.<br /><br />My general take on it is that they liberate, not enchain.<br /><br />(Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, /Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea"<br /><br />One of yours, I believe, Gwilym.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-82287805589117098342009-06-05T11:15:39.718+01:002009-06-05T11:15:39.718+01:00George, At the time the daughter of my next-door-b...George, At the time the daughter of my next-door-but-one neighbour was a student at Peking University. It was with great relief that we saw her come home unscathed. You can imagine the worry her parents had. <br /><br />Desmond, as you probably know there are extremely complicated and firm rules about Welsh poetry, or more correctly poems written in Welsh (Cymraeg). I've forgotten them all now, but sometimes I have the feeling they surface unseen and unbidden, usually when I'm in full and urgent flow. A brace of CAMRA's 4.5% can trigger the creative mood in the Land of Song. Hence the ban on Sunday opening. Raise your voices in church you heathens!Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-9679608486102078682009-06-05T00:55:10.384+01:002009-06-05T00:55:10.384+01:00Thanks very much George.
A tentative specualtion,...Thanks very much George.<br /><br />A tentative specualtion, but it seems to me that a swift consonantal and assonantal grace manifests itself in the fully birthed poem - or any piece of writing written on the hoof.<br /><br />There is an un-belaboured quality, reflecting the *joy of fitting poetic frenzy* in the Amegin text, when the mind is up and running smooth as a baby's effortless gurgling and murmerings, a cerebral elasticity to what's written.<br /><br />Amiri Baraka in an interview with Kjali Dial at <a href="http://www.black-collegian.com/african/baraka-a1299.shtml" rel="nofollow">BlackCollegian.com</a>, talks about learning to trust an inner rhythm:<br /><br /><em>The whole point of developing the skill is so that the words fly on the rhythm. You feel the rhythm before you know what you’re talking about..</em><br /><br />This is what i sense myself when flying on it and recognise in others, roughly equating to the notion of sound and sense having a relationship at sub-conscious level. In bardic practice the most complex and challenging meter was dán díreach, which literally translated is art-straight or straight art.<br /><br />Every syllable had to have set and strict assonantal or consonantal relationship in a specified order and though i am still to work out fully what they where, i have a creative-hybrid-interpetation, that it relates essentially to what Baraka is on about when he says flying on the rhythm and can see it in what i think's the swift stuff. For example:<br /><br />Do you remember that <i>scene</i> in <i>Ashes</i> and <i>Diamonds</i> where<br />the hero <i>rushes</i> forwards through the <i>clotheslines</i> and <i>bleeds</i><br /><br />ashes - rushes -- clotheslines - diamonds -- scene - bleeds<br /><br />This is the genral ball park of dan direach, where the pattern of sonic relationships is at its fullest, inter-line chiming and ryhming and all sorts of deft touches which seem to out themselves when the poetic fizz and frenzy of imbas (poetic inspiration) is on us and we are purring like a bentley. <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zbigniew_Cybulski" rel="nofollow">Zbigniew Cybulski</a><br /><br />"He was running to catch a train bound for Warsaw. As he jumped for the already speeding train (as he had often done), he slipped on the steps, fell under the train, and was run over."<br /><br />~<br /><br />I noticed this dan direach tendency in another filmic poem of yours from Reel: Noir, interline concordance between pancake and ashtry.<br /><br />~<br /><br />The one note of Hope today, for many was Obama in Cairo. He seems the first American leader in my time, who talks straight and honest.<br /><br />Thanks very much G.<br /><br />conche - word verDesmond Swordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08510948482448985966noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-39501816942785934582009-06-04T22:48:07.477+01:002009-06-04T22:48:07.477+01:00ps
Perhaps just to say that it was the image of t...ps<br /><br />Perhaps just to say that it was the image of the white sheets in the film that started the whole poem. An odd memory, and then, just as the poem does, trying to recall it. The blood a kind of soiling.<br /><br />-GGeorge Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-67293361183695300282009-06-04T22:46:54.490+01:002009-06-04T22:46:54.490+01:00It was written pretty fast, as most of my poems ar...It was written pretty fast, as most of my poems are, Desmond. I can't write slowly. When I get stuck I leave the poem, then start again when I am think I am ready and write fast again.<br /><br />That year it was possibly extra fast. All the poems are in the <i>Collected</i>.<br /><br />Thanks for asking.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-32292624974388478942009-06-04T22:42:47.144+01:002009-06-04T22:42:47.144+01:00I like this piece George, it has all the forward g...I like this piece George, it has all the forward going impetus of something written at speed, the fizz plain to read (though saying that you might come back with an opposite account.)<br /><br />I would be very interested if you could give a few lines on how it was composed - fast/slow, came out fully formed or a mix of draft and swiftness, please?Desmond Swordshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08510948482448985966noreply@blogger.com