[Joe Crocker]

Hello Mark

I have never read Ulysses, but I have seen the film, and was waiting for the statue (Spike Milligan joke). But now I have the poem! I did see and enjoy a BBC Arena documentary on the book, so I do recognise many of the references in your sonnet. Even without that knowledge it is clear that this a well-made thing and it can be admired just for that. The ending couplet with Molly Bloom’s ecstatic “yes”s was stunning.

I have, a couple of times, written poems that summarise plots of books and films that have affected me. I very much enjoyed writing them and was quite pleased with the results but, sadly, they didn’t much enthuse anyone else. I am enthused enough by yours to revive my moribund promise to, one day, read Ulysses. (I would stick with the current title)

Cheers (Good to see you back)

Joe

[Clive Watkins]

Splendid, Mark! At once lucid and elliptical. I particularly enjoyed the interweaving patterns of syntax, metrical rhythms and line-breaks. And does this new poem point in a different direction from the topics of personal and private memory that have occupied much of your verse so far?

Clive

[Andrew Frisardi]

Hey Mark, welcome back. This is a bracing read, which I enjoyed from start to finish. Quite marvelous. If I hadn't read Ulysses, I still would have enjoyed the language and I think some of the content would have come through anyway, though less so. This poem encapsulates both the method and the content of that book so well. Bravo!

[Rick Mullin]

Add me to the "really great" column. I love the ending.

There is a distinct feel for Ireland in this poem that rises above literary reference. But the hook to the source is set firmly.

[Rick Mullin]

I really like the title. "Ulysses" does the same work for the poem that it does for Joyce's book. And I kind of like labeling the source or subject in a title, more or less as Robert Lowell did in his sonnet collection History.

[Mark McDonnell]

Thanks everyone. Really. The sheer relief of writing this was enough, so for it to be received as well as it has been is a double pleasure. It has been a while.

Thinking about Walter’s initial thoughts and then Nemo’s suggestion, I’ve posted a version with a different title and an epigraph. Other than that there are no changes. There have been some persuasive voices both for changing and for keeping the original title. I have to be perfectly honest and say that I did just slap the title on, in the sense of “well, that’s the book I’m writing about” with no more thought than that, so it’s been fun thinking a little deeper. But I’m still not entirely sure which way to go. “Poldy” is a diminutive form of Leopold, a nickname for Leopold Bloom given to him by his wife Molly. It felt interesting to use, in the way that my poem is a kind of (very) diminutive form of the novel. As far as obscure epigraphs go, you’re kind of spoiled for choice with this book. I went with one of the novel’s many silly jokes. It made me laugh out loud when I read it and I think it’s a nicely absurd bit of levity to hear ringing in the back of the mind as the poem starts.

Thank you, Walter and Nemo. See above!

Thanks for the congratulations and the kind words, Susan. I hope the language and sheer brevity of the poem is enough to give some pleasure, whether one is familiar with the book or not.

Thanks David!

I’m sure I’ll read it again and probably with even more pleasure, or at least a different sort now I know what to expect. It was utterly exhilarating. “Omphalos” is good. The centre of things. Hmm.

Thank you, John.

I’m childishly proud of myself for Proust and Ulysses in one year and even more so that I found them both really pleasurable. Nothing scares me now ha!

Thank you Jan and Carl!

Cheers, Jim!

Those lines about “what is a nation?” come direct from the novel, of course, as Bloom is being hectored by an antisemite in the pub. And yes, it’s a question that tragically isn’t going away and is currently causing immense suffering.

Thanks Cally!

Well, I haven’t changed a word, as such, but there is an alternate title knocking about. The creative thing, the damn muse, is utterly baffling to me. I don’t know where it went or how long it’s back for, cruel mistress! (the muse, not you). I realise these aren’t original observations haha. Feels nice, though.

Thanks Joe.

I’m very pleased you got some pleasure from the poem despite not having read the book. And cheers for the link! I haven’t seen that documentary. I shall be watching at the weekend now the book’s back on the shelf.

Thanks so much, Clive.

To answer your question: maybe? I wish I had a plan. But yes, perhaps part of my writer’s block was a sense that I had begun to exhaust one particular avenue. But the road to memory will always be open for me, I think.

Thanks very much, Andrew. It feels very good to be back and to feel the eyes opening again.

Thank you, Rick.

I’m really pleased you got a “distinct feel for Ireland” from the poem. However strange the book got, I always felt weirdly at home in the streets and pubs of Dublin in 1904.

Cheers folks. I feel strangely emotional. Any thoughts on the title/epigraph question?

Read Ulysses!

[R. Nemo Hill]

I love the epigraph, Mark, but not the new title.
I think with the epigraph pointing to the book (and it should have the Joyce attribution), the title is free to play with the poem itself.

Nemo

[Mark McDonnell]

"Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus.

Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit.

Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa!"

Hey Nemo

At the beginning of the chapter set in a maternity ward, comes this passage. I'm modifying a phrase from it for the title. It suggests birth, of course, and life. And the book, really, is a lifetime in a day, with all its births, deaths, transcendence and fleshy joys and humiliations. And it's a beautiful phrase.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Bingo!

Nemo

[Alexandra Baez]

Hi again, Mark!

I love the new title. Personally, I’d prefer an epigraph that related to the poem's focus, though—I read what you commented about starting with levity, but to me, it seems out of tune with the content of the poem. On a technical note, the author’s name should not be italicized in an epigraph, and the University of Sussex says “It is still not exactly wrong to refer to a . . . book as `Uncle Tom's Cabin', but it is certainly old-fashioned now, and my advice is to use italics rather than quotation marks, except perhaps when you are writing by hand.” https://www.sussex.ac.uk/informatics.../quotes/titles This blurb also says that in cases where quotes are used for titles, they are always double quotes in British usage.

In college, I actually took a full semester’s course exclusively on Ulysses. I came out of this class concluding that while the book was an experiment the likes of which someone needed to do, the result was a essentially a monumentally pretentious indulgence—bloviated, obscure, and mundane, though with sprinklings of alluring glitter here and there that hint at the author’s true brilliance (which was expressed much more clearly elsewhere). Despite the amount of time and study I put into that tome, almost nothing of it stuck with me, even shortly after. So you might say that any poem about this book would start out at a distinct disadvantage with me.

Due mainly to the unmemorable particulars of the book, I’m rather at a loss with much of your poem in terms of its content. The language is well wrought, yes, but I don’t see that as a sufficient substitute in itself for understanding, and some of this language perhaps generates its own, new mysteries. Straight out,

a mirror and a razor crossed

I don’t know whether “crossed” is intended here as a past tense verb or a verbal adjective, and either way, I’m not sure what the phrase means. I can guess that either way, it simply refers to a razor appearing in a mirror. If so, there doesn’t seem to be any compelling reason for this stretch for linguistic quaintness (except perhaps that it mirrors the book's own such stretches).

I do savor the following phrase and feel that it moves beyond the scope of the book’s particulars:

the day spread out for you - it is a prism
to split the light a thousand ways.

I like your “bloom” pun, too.

And this is definitely universal and downright poignant:

preparing for the slog from crib to tomb

But in the following,

from inner organs, outhouse defecation,
from dodging biscuit tins to spilling seed
on twilit siren sands

I can’t make out what “from” is referring to. "Spilling seed on twilit siren sands” is fascinatingly evocative, though.

Molly Bloom’s famous closing soliloquy is definitely the part of the book that stuck with me the most (though I found it distinctly annoying), and on this foundation, your couplet did resonate with me. Yes, this part feels just right—as inevitable as it is surprising.