Byron, Keatsy, Shezza and Co.

Here we go. The Romantics! Just for amusement's sake I consulted 'Poetry For Dummies' to see what it might have to say about Byron, Keatsy, Shezza and their ilk. The entry commenced: "People in the Romantic period weren't any more inclined to love than those in other periods." That had me laughing into my breakfast coffee!

Actually, it continued in a more sensible manner to explain the label 'Romantic' in the following terms: "Romantic came to mean a new, often revolutionary outlook, emphasising the importance of personal emotions, innovation in ideas and the use of language, an appreciation of nature and a feeling for new beginnings. Some of these developments came about as a reaction to the industrial revolution."

That's a reasonable summation, though the latter phrase reminds me of "the industrious revelation", Philomena Cunk's tremendously funny malapropism from her spoof 'History of Britain' documentary.

What might the obtuse Ms Cunk have made of John Keats (dead at 25), Percy Bysshe Shelley (dead at 29) and George Gordon Byron (dead at 36)?  I imagine something like this:

All joking aside, your Saturday Blogger has a lot of time for the poetry of Keats in particular and to  a lesser degree Shelley, though not much for Byron. As to the other leading lights of the Romantic movement, the ones who didn't die young, it's perhaps heretical to say I'm not overly fond of Coleridge or old 'Father' Wordsworth either, but it's true.

Of the six who are generally labelled 'The Romantics', I hold William Blake (1757-1827) in the highest regard. He is one of my all-time favourites - artist, philosopher, poet, prophet, social campaigner and visionary. The poet and scholar Kathleen Raine, who has written about Blake extensively, calls him "our one national prophet" and "the supreme poet of his native city" (London, of course). I wouldn't argue with either epithet. Blake can also be seen as an early opponent of materialism (and its associated ills), the predecessor of modern psychology and an embodiment (two hundred years ahead of the curve) of 'New Age' thinking - quite a guy; and most people only know him for 'Jerusalem' and 'The Tyger' which is a great shame.

Mention of London (which I am visiting this week-end) leads neatly to today's newly-forged poem. In 1802, Wordsworth wrote a famous and much-loved work (because it's in 'The Nation's Favourite Poems' - as polled and published by the BBC) entitled Upon Westminster Bridge. Time to revisit the bridge, I think:

Upon Westminster Bridge (Again)
This is where Wordsworth stood one morning
Just as the nineteenth century was dawning
And wrote his rose-tinted sonnet (of sorts)
In praise of the greatest city on earth.

Actually, that's not strictly true.
For the bridge he then stood on (aged thirty two)
Barely outlived him. It was subsiding badly
And proved expensive to maintain. Sadly

A decade after Wordsworth died
It was pulled down brick by brick and replaced
By the seven-arched cast-iron edifice
Which spans the tide of the Thames today.

As for his majestic city, he'd be staggered
To see how wide, how high it's grown.
He might even find it beautiful still
Though its mighty heart never stopped lying!

I know it's not the sense he meant to convey,
But check out the last lines of his iconic verse*
And tell me if there's not an ironic twist or worse
That a post-truth interpretation can overlay
As scandal rocks the Royal Docks
And the Mother of Parliaments goes awry.


* Those lines read as follows:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

By the way, if you haven't discovered Philomena Cunk yet, you owe it to yourself to do so.

Thanks for reading, Steve :-)

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Holiday!

Imagine the dilemma. You live (maybe alone, maybe with your perfect partner) on a tropical island paradise - for instance the one pictured below - where each day is perfect in every way that perfect can be. You enjoy the same unvarying sunny climate all year round, hot but never scorching during the day, always comfortably warm at night. There is the occasional refreshing rain shower but it never comes as a surprise. You listen to the music of the sea and the rustle of palm leaves. There are no pests or predators to spoil the idyll. You have a plentiful supply of food and drink and lots of time to think. There are no noisy neighbours, no deadlines to meet and there is absolutely no stress. You eat, swim, love, sleep and dream.... eat, swim, love, sleep and dream.... each day, every day...

So then - where do you go on holiday? You see the problem, gentle reader.

Without contraries, there is no progression, as William Blake recognised. A permanent state of perfect paradise might just begin to pall with no contrasts -  so you need a break every so often, if only to remind you just how lucky you are... and then, like I said - where do you go on holiday?

Worry not. Antithesis Travel has the solution to your dilemma.

As you have quiet and isolation and restfulness in your everyday life, Antithesis Travel will offer you noise and crowds and confusion - but still with a beach theme. They will dispatch you for two weeks in July to Blackpool. (Did I mention it's 1976?)

It'll be a riot of a holiday. Swap your hammock for a deckchair and your acres of empty white sand for approximately 9 square yards of beach (yep, not properly metric in 1976). Make hundreds of new friends (with kids, with mothers-in-law in tow) and swelter in the sun as you listen to the music of a thousand transistor radios and the laughter of spiralling seagulls. Eat hot dogs, candyfloss and ice-cream and drink warm Watneys Red Barrel. Bat away wasps. Paddle in the polluted waves (blue flag beach still 30 years in the future). Have a kiss-me-quick holiday romance. Get drunk. Sleep it off. Repeat.

It'll be mega, a fortnight of fun, the vivid memories of which will sustain you through those long perfect days back on your tropical island paradise.

Okay. And so to this week's poem. All my (currently limited) reserves of creativity have been exhausted in putting the above together, so I'm posting a favourite by W.B. Yeats.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, an noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
                                                                         W.B. Yeats (December 1890)


Thanks for reading. I wish you a week of stimulating contrasts, S ;-)

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London’s Burning - Plus Ça Change

By Sheilagh Dyson

Important lessons….lessons learned……using the experience of past mistakes to create a better future…..we humans are not very good at that. Whether we’re returning for the umpteenth time to an abusive partner, starting smoking again after giving up for years, lending money once more to someone we know will never pay it back, renewing our season ticket, aware that it will mean another season of frustration and anguish, we never seem to learn, though we often mean to. Really, really mean to!

            That’s on a personal level – we are incurable optimists, desperately willing hope or love to triumph over cold-eyed experience, over and over again. It’s an endearing trait in our psyche in a way – this failure to learn from the past, in the fond, baseless hope that things will be better next time.

But what of governments – those whose responsibility it is to learn from past errors and misjudgements, to see where things are going wrong and put them right, to analyse issues in a historical context and, when awful lessons from history threaten to repeat themselves, to do something for the benefit of all and draw back from the brink. The signs are not good.

Here’s a poem about London, written by William Blake in 1792. It is a vehement invective against the exploitation of ordinary people by a corrupt system of early capitalism that owned the very streets and river of London, where poverty and disease were rife and riots were considered imminent.

 William Blake

London

by William Blake

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born Infant’s tear
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

 

And now, here’s one written in 2012, in the aftermath of – oh yes, the London riots. Against a backdrop of austerity for most (but not others), increasing inequality of opportunity, rampant privatisation, cuts in benefits for the poorest, burgeoning salaries and bonuses for the favoured few, diminishing  hope for young people,  Monty Grant wrote this heartfelt plea:

LONDON RIOTS

Austerity twists in the lock;
The wringing click, click;
The finality, turning the key.
Open your hearts to the
Cries of inequality.
Can’t you smell in the air
The stench of confinement?
Authority slams the door
Of poverty’s cage,
Full to capacity with our
Forgotten children.

Jailer, we’re dying in here
Why am I wearing this crown of thorns?
Don’t use authority’s spear
Just talk to us blood
Dispense the confusion
Do we not have a heart?
Are we not human?
Give us the freedom we need
To make a contribution.
Too late man, you’re too far removed
We’re at breaking point
And you too numb to be moved.
I raise my shield, I’m breaking out
You ain’t listening, you can’t hear our shout,
Well hear this mother fucker
Put this fire out.
Listen to the breaking glass,
It ain’t the answer,
But you too detached to ask.

The punishment should be severe;
We will take a no tolerance approach
To these animals.
If you have caused damage,
Let fires rage,
Attacked the property of others,
We will find you,
You will be evicted from your homes,
You will be incarcerated,
You will be ostracized.

Thanks for nothin, Tory scum,
You can’t comprehend the damage you’ve done;
You lit the fire, not me, not my brothers.
You can’t govern with lies,
You should have saved our mothers,
Years before now, a generation lost,
There’s people’s lives at stake, look at the cost.
Westminster is where you reside;
In your palace you and your type can hide.
Don’t presume you can plan my life,
I want to be free to live full of pride.
Where do we go from here?
We need a dialogue,
Lend me your ear.
We’re calm for now, suppressed,
But we will rise, we will not rest.

It’s got a bit of a rap rhythm going on, but is Grant saying anything very different to Blake, MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES AGO?

            And what has happened since 2011? Has anyone in government even tried to understand why thousands of young people in our country resorted to such ugly measures last year? No, the market still rules; more cuts in benefits; no Plan B; more and more privatisation (private good, public bad, despite all the evidence); libraries run by volunteers, if at all; ethnic cleansing of poor people from affluent areas; the demonisation of working class people – same old, same old.

And there’s still no attempt to understand why so many young people on a few fateful nights last year wrought havoc, went late night shopping without a card, challenged the normal order of life, risked prison and unemployability. They had nothing to lose, that’s why. Because they have no prospects, no stake in a society that offers them a distorted set of values and feeds them a steady diet of trivia, ‘celebrity’, X Factor and ‘designer labels’ by way of aspiration.

            Will we never learn?

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