BLINDED BY A VIEW

Wednesday, 26 November 2014

Hannah Arendt

A truly remarkable woman I would have liked to have met. Her philosophy is profound and positive, offering hope in the uniqueness of people and of their capacity to change. We are not commodities or merely homogenised units of consumption but truly remarkable and different from the animals by our capacity to forgive and to make and keep promises.

A woman who experienced great personal loss and turmoil including her need to flee Nazi Germany and to witness her former lover and former lecturer Heidegger condone through inactivity, National Socialism and it's anti-semitic policies. Forced to flee Germany she eventually settled in the USA becoming the first female professor of politics at Princeton University.

Arendt coined the phrase the 'banality of evil' and her seminal book Eichmann in Jerusalem follows this theme.

"Your birth was a truly new beginning, an opportunity for something to come into being that was not there before."

Saturday, 4 October 2014

Keys to the door by Mohsin Hamid

I loved your age of wonder: your third and fourth
and fifth years spent astonished, widening your eyes
at each new trick of the world – and me standing there,
solemnly explaining how it was done. The moon and stars,
rainbows, photographs, gravity, the birds in the air,
the difference between blood and water.
In true life? you would say, looking up
and I would nod, like some broken-hearted sage,
knowing there would be no answers soon
to all the big questions that were left, to cruelty and fear,
to age and grief and death, and no words either.
And you, like me, will sit and shake your head.
In true life? Yes, my sweet, strong daughter, I’m afraid
there is all this as well, and this is it: true life.

(2012)

A BREAK FROM WRITING

I always carry a note-book to catch any thoughts that might decide to visit, usually at the unlikeliest of moments and places, as yesterday proved, whilst on a bus. The bus was full, so I sat on the back seats, the ones that face in the opposite direction from the one the bus is travelling. I started to think how strange it is to see where we have been rather than where we are going, so out came the book to jot down some thoughts and impressions.

Of course many of the people sat on the rear seats facing me thought it strange, especially as I was writing into a book rather than reading one, and more strange that I was not playing with my mobile, or listening to music, or both. Another issue is of course, that people think you may be writing down your impressions of them, a justifiable suspicion, as I generally am. A degree of tact and discretion is therefore called upon, with one hand discreetly placed above the pages, in order to deflect prying eyes. Coffee shops are also good places to think and to people watch, jotting down mannerisms and verbal ticks. I find a short or a long walk is also really good to get the ideas flowing,

The picture below was taken outside a coffee shop, the note-book within reach but out of sight.

Do you have any strategies that you find help you clear the mind or cultivate thoughts? I would welcome your own insights into your own creative processes.

UNFINISHED POEM BY PHILIP LARKIN

Philip Larkin in a library. Photograph by Fay Godwin. © The British Library Board (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A wonderful poem from a poet who had by 1951 pulled off the yoke of Hardy and come out of Auden's shadow. I particularly enjoy how it confounds our expectations, especially in the final stanza which never fails to bring a lump to my throat. What do you think, I'd love to hear your comments.

I squeezed up the last stair to the room in the roof
And lay on the bed there with my jacket off.
Seeds of light were sown on the failure of evening.
The dew came down. I lay in the quiet, smoking.

That was a way to live—newspaper for sheets,
A candle and spirit stove, and a trouble of shouts
From below somewhere, a town smudgy with traffic!
That was a place to go, that emaciate attic!

For (as you will guess) it was death I had in mind,
Who covets our breath, who seeks and will always find;
To keep out of his thought was my whole care,
Yet down among the sunlit courts, yes, he was there,

Taking his rents; yes, I had only to look
To see the shape of his head and the shine of his book,
And the creep of the world under his sparrow-trap sky,
To know how little slips his immortal memory.

So it was stale time then, day in, day out,
Blue fug in the room, nothing to do but wait
The start of his feet on the stair, that sad sound
Climbing to cut me from his restless mind

With a sign that the air should stick in my nose like bread,
The light swell up and turn black—so I shammed dead,
Still as a stuck pig, hoping he’d keep concerned
With boys who were making the fig when his back was turned;

And the sun and the stove and the mice and the gnawed paper
Made up the days and nights when I missed supper,
Paring my nails, looking over the farbelow street
Of tramways and bells. But one night I heard the feet.

Step after step they mounted with confidence.
Time shrank. They paused at the top. There was no defence.
I sprawled to my knees. Now they came straight at my door.
This, then, the famous eclipse? The crack in the floor

Widening for one long plunge? In a sharp trice,
The world, lifted and wrung, dipped with remorse.
The fact of breathing tightened into a shroud.
Light cringed. The door swung inwards. Over the threshold

Nothing like death stepped, nothing like death paused,
Nothing like death has such hair, arms so raised.
Why are your feet bare? Was not death to come?
Why is he not here? What summer have you broken from?

Philip Larkin

Thursday, 2 October 2014

SHAKE HANDS

Shake Hands

Shake hands, we shall never be friends, all's over;

I only vex you the more I try.

All's wrong that ever I've done or said,

And nought to help it in this dull head:

Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye.

But if you come to a road where danger

Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share,

Be good to the lad that loves you true

And the soul that was born to die for you,

And whistle and I'll be there.

A.E. Housman

GREAT LETTER FROM HOUSMAN

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

GHOST - FROM "LIVING IN A SPAR TOWN"

GHOST

I frightened myself the other day

By what I now do and by what I now say

That wasn’t the mouse of one year ago

Who wouldn’t say boo and took every blow,

On the chin with good grace and

Forgave every foe

And would suffer the strife for a quieter life.

That formerly me is now RIP

Deceased and dispatched

When my new self was hatched

I like the new me who possesses my home

Who sneaks up and shocks me when we’re alone.

RANT EXTRACT FROM MEAN LITTLE TOWN FROM "LIFE IN A SPAR TOWN".

The art centre’s run by pricks

The real ale pubs are full of dicks

The town hall staff are uber rude

The cab drivers are f**king crude

The chintzy stores are full of crap

The pastry shop is full of pap

All the roads are full of holes

The garden centre's full of hoes

The Norman Church is always closed

The library's only got two books

The council chamber's full of crooks

The music scene is f**king dead

The f**king kids are all inbred

The farmer’s market’s f**king rank

The cafe bars are f**king w*nk

The pot-holed car parks all are locked

The dogging scene is all half-cocked

The tourist board is run by snobs

The rugby club is full of yobs

The sports complex is full of slobs

The migrant workers came for jobs

Took one look and f**ked right off

To a kinder fascist state regime

‘Cause they too know, when they've seen

A mean 'n' nasty town.

Stephen Evans (c) 2014

PERFORMANCE POEM - TAKEN FROM A NEW COLLECTION "LIFE IN A SPAR TOWN"

An extract from a performance poem "Mean Little Town" from new collection of poems "Life in a SPAR Town".

Mean 'n' Nasty Town

There’s something mean 'n' nasty in this nasty little town,

Outsiders feel inclined not to hang around,

For long...

Mean 'n' nasty people living,

Mean 'n' nasty lives,

Mean and nasty backstabbers with mean 'n' nasty knives.

The murmur and the tell-tale stare,

The shibboleth at play,

All roads lead to home,

We’ll point you on your way,

Thanks for buying from our artisans’ stalls

but don’t overdo your stay,

Because this is a local town,

So don’t hang around,

In our nasty tiny town.

Stranger beware, take care,

The still use the N word there - Nantwich.

Through the driving rain to the

Hamlet for the insane,

Don't worry darling, Ophelia pain.

Like a line drawn in the sand

Now you've crossed the Rio-Grande,

Gary the cooper won’t help you here,

James is a Jesse,

Custer's a coward

Honour was deflowered years ago,

The badlands beckon so take your last band stand,

You've got till sunset,

Before things get out of hand,

Get the next train out of here,

Don’t delay, be on your way,

Or you’ll come a cropper (or maybe a farmer),

Don't call a copper coz he's on our pay

We’ll give the vigilantes a shout,

Forget the village Inn, you're out.

In tiny towns they’re impressed by the Express,

Read the Mail without fail,

Wear blue rosettes,

Gymkhana their daughters

Affair the au pair,

Boutique their pets

Range rove the roads,

Spit roast the Barbie,

So please form a barbecue,

All in all in a tiny town there's f**k all else to do.

There's something mean and nasty in this nasty little town

Nasty little aldermen covet the mayoral crown

Welcome to the chamber

The ermine and the silk

The meanest men and women

There's dozens of their ilk

All butchered bakers, candlestick takers

Used car salesmen, tax disc fakers

Scrapping metal merchants,

Tinkering tailors,

Low rent undertakers

Self publicising publicans

Troubled glazing traders

Defrocked vicars

Surveyors on the take

Propertied developers

Forever on the make

Shady loan shark operatives

Sell fifty shades of debt

They’ll repossess your shadow

If your payment is not met

The village in Bloomberg winner

Everyone’s a sinner baby

In this one horse town resort

They gather round the village green to burn the Which Report

BlackBerry picking from your pocket

Is the local sport

You bunch of jodrell bankers

Seems an apt retort

To the sort

Who rule this mean 'n' nasty town.

There’s something mean 'n' nasty in all

Nasty rural towns.

Jack swore Jill was on the pill

The doctor said he'd sort her

A tale of everyday town folk

Cavorting with their daughter.