[John Isbell]

Thanks again, Allen! You are correcting my references. I don't think I confused him with the astronomer Herschel, but maybe I did when I wrote this. I'd have been a little manic (it's a few years old). Or maybe my source did, I can't say. Anyway, thanks. I'll leave the post as is to avoid confusion.

Cheers,
John

Let me add - for my criticism, everything gets looked up. It has to. For my poems, evidently not. I take my sources at face value, which is of course dangerous. I find a line I like and put it in a poem. At least, that's been my method. I like the Heschel quote a good deal.

[Allen Tice]

Always happy to help a Cambridge person.

[John Isbell]

:-)

I guess I'm a lazy poet at the end of the day. Or I have been.

Cheers,
John

[F.F. Teague]

Allen, thanks for helping John there

John, thanks for the link to Hoss. Yes, that's a very big man. He died young, I read: "a post-operative pulmonary embolism following gall bladder surgery."

Thanks also for posting the poem that ends your Concerto for the Left Hand. Does the MS have anything to do with Ravel's piano concerto? I particularly like 'the song that makes the birds sing' and the humming of the particles.

Well, I found the trance track, and then I found another, which proved a better fit. But then I wrote a poem so F&F I can't post it here. What I have is a poem from upstream, this time with a great recording of the relevant Debussy prelude, here


Bruyères

Returning to Bruyères in 1910,
00some years before the Second World War rout,
he brought his drafting book and fine-nib pen
00in hopes to overcome his writing drought –
and this he did, upon vivacious streets
00all flanked by merry red-roofed shops and homes,
and by the castle, where astounding feats
00had been performed, as told in tunes and tomes;
his Muse sang sweetest, though, in town surrounds,
00in mountain woods with sunlight through the pines,
the calls of birds and deer his favourite sounds,
00enticing as the region's finest wines –
and Sylvie there, a girl he used to know,
he'd loved her 'til her death, so long ago.

- - -
I'll email you the new F&F poem, if you like

[John Isbell]

Hi Fliss,

Gravestones with dates close together always give me pause.

Yes, I have a Ravel poem in the MS., which I may dig out and put here. IIRC, he wrote the piece for Wittgenstein's brother, a pianist who had lost an arm in WW I. I think it's splendid. Glad you like the song that makes the birds sing - i was a bit manic at the time.

I like your Debussy poem a good deal. I've heard tell that Ravel was a nice guy and Debussy, not, but I like both their works and I've not read their bios.

Here's the Ravel to join the Debussy:


Concerto for the Left Hand


Out of the silence rise the strings – a deep
Wagnerian call, which the winds echo, building
to where the piano says its piece. You might
expect as much – but when the piano comes,
it has a jagged edge: each note and chord
speaks through the left hand only. What we lack
marks every step we take with it. The right
hand will not speak, though speech is of the essence.

The orchestra repeats its call. Again
the left hand speaks, and there is sadness in
each single note plucked from the void. The Lord,
says Valéry, made this world out of nothing –
but nothingness shows through. What has become
of the beautiful right hand here? It will not
caress the waiting keys. Not one brief note,
for all the left hand’s calling, though that hand
moves with consummate skill through each warm digit.
They said The Guard dies, but does not surrender,
and that’s exactly what the left hand does.



Almost forgot - here's a young orchestra performing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJTUUKAdZDU
 

[F.F. Teague]

Hi John,

Yes, do post your Ravel poem! I listened to the Concerto earlier today and enjoyed it very much indeed. Wikipedia has a page about it, here.

Thanks for liking that Debussy poem. I researched the lives of various French composers during my French A Level, for the oral exam, and I think Debussy featured there. That's interesting about his personality, and that of Ravel. I enjoyed reading your poem, particularly for 'jagged edge'. Have you written anything else to Ravel?

I mentioned a while ago that I wrote a few poems for Mother's Day earlier this year (27th March in the UK). Among them is an appreciation of my mother's visit while I was in hospital in February 2011. There are certainly musical elements here, as she was dressed in her Morris dancing clothes, complete with the bell-pads. Anyway, here you go...


Mother's way

Bay D of Hazleton Ward was at its worst
that Saturday. I'd slept about three hours
through all the usual screams and shouts for Nurse,
my stasis ulcer pangs, arthritis fires.

The maggots had been delayed aboard their truck;
I'd have to wait a few days for therapy.
But Mum would be here at 1pm, with lunch;
she came by bus each day with a box for me.

Come 1, a thud-and-jangle started, soft
yet loudening. And then, delightful sight!
A bluegreen tattercoat, a stick aloft,
a feathered hat, bell-pads. And all was right.

"What does she look like?" Nurses came to stare;
Mum laughed and threw her chair-leg in the air.

- - -
As you might imagine, Mother's visit brought a great deal of entertainment to Hazleton Ward

[John Isbell]

Hi Fliss,

Very nice! I especially like the chair leg, but the maggots also catch the eye. Leeches can also do good work.

It was Mother's Day in the US yesterday, by synchronicity, and my sister tells me that she prefers Mothering Sunday, in March, when women in service could go home and would bake a simmel cake for their mum.

I've not written anything else for Ravel but believe I once wrote a piece for La Mer which never made a MS.

Cheers,
John

[F.F. Teague]

Thanks, John! Hooray, I've just finished working for the day, at about 1am. I'm glad you have a couple of highlights here. Yes, leeches have their uses in healthcare too. The first poem I wrote once out of hospital described the maggot therapy. For a while I looked like I'd been in a shark attack, with a chunk of flesh missing from my left lower leg, but everything healed over time. I was lucky that the infection didn't reach the bone, otherwise they'd have amputated, oops, boops.

Yes, Mother's Day in the US. My mother does well in March, as it's her birthday as well as her special day, cue lots of celebrations. That's a lovely tradition for Mothering Sunday.

I'd like to see the La Mer-inspired poem; I assume you mean Debussy's piece? Ravel composed Ma mère l'oye, I expect you know, which is very touching. It's the final thing on my CD of his piano music.

Writing to Ravel remains on my List; for now, here's one I wrote almost a year ago, which you might recognise. It started in Non-Met, but I couldn't resist rhythm-ming it up at the end. I think that's because writing the poem cheered me up a bit, or something. One for the Lyrics file


After her fall

The magnolia stood on the sprawling front lawn
blooming purple and pink in the Spring,
an exuberant fanfare as fresh as the dawn;
she would gaze at the petals and sing.

But this Spring all the brassiness pounds in her head
and she wishes for something to soothe:
not the daffodil yells nor the tulips, too red,
nor the grass, so impossibly smooth.

In the shadow of hedge, in a modest array,
she finds players in delicate hue
and they nod as they chime, with the softest of sway,
a serene little movement in blue.

(^v^) <-- bluebird

[John Isbell]

Ouf! I am very glad your left leg no longer has a chunk out of it. The body is a tremendous homeostatic mechanism. I'd have to hunt hard to find that Debussy piece, and I don't think it would repay the effort. i shall likely write another, I do enjoy that piece and had a magical evening once listening to it on a lawn in I think Hampstead. Likely Hampstead Heath. As the sun set.

I like your new poem and can't help but hear it to the tune of "The Criminal Cried": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9Iwf0YvFA0

Cheers,
John

OK, here's La Mer:


Summer Evening Concerts


That summer evening concert in the warm
cathedral cloisters, where the stone piled high.
The sun moved through the heavens, till behind
the stone, it put us in the shade, as all
the wind and strings played on into the night.

And then, the stars came out. The concert ended.
We rose up from the summer grass and shook
the spell from our resistant brains. The mute
appeal was at an end, the intricate
succession of the melody, the art

of those we knew and loved. That other time
lain on the heath to hear La Mer, the cars
lined up beside the grass, the blankets out
and people picnicking. The ebb and flow
Debussy offered, played in counterpoint

against the sun that drifted from its throne
in blue sky to the skyline, as the night
broke over Hampstead and the Moon and stars
all went about their business overhead.
Those British evenings. I can see them yet.

[F.F. Teague]

Ouf indeed, John. Thanks for your kind words. Yes, do write another Debussy piece, at your convenience. That does sound like a magical evening

Thanks for liking that poem. I'm not familiar with much of Gilbert & Sullivan, but your 'Summer Evening Concerts' reminds me of various outdoor performances I've enjoyed over the years, one in particular, which will pop up in the relationship MS. An interesting evening

As we're on Debussy, here's another you might recall, after 'La cathédrale engloutie'. I was going to write something new today, but work was hectic as usual and someone in the office has received another coommission for poetry puzzles. We're grateful for the extra earnings!


Ys Bay Cathedral

Ys Bay is hard to access from the north
as hefty headlands guard its pebbly beach,
but turn a boat to east and voyage forth
and Breton's coast is easier to reach;
the waters mirror colours of the sky
and movements too, as cloudscapes drift and dance
while Sun and Moon both travel on their ways
and gulls and terns and petrels wheel and fly
above the sea as though in turning trance,
a submerged city gleaming in their gaze.

Come mornings when the waters shimmer clear
an old cathedral rises through the waves,
astonishing to witness, far and near,
for birds on high to lizards in their caves;
as spires, towers, roof, and walls ascend
a dozen bells begin a joyful chime,
a thousand voices rise in cheerful throng
to organ thunderings, and then-– an end.
The building sinks to seabed... sand... slime...
and all that's left is sky, with seabird song.

- - -
Forthcoming