Of the ten poets read at this session only one was new, Ryan Teitman. All the others from Ben Jonson to W.H. Auden, and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish had been selected for previous readings. Had Priya been present we would have had one more new poet to add, George Sze.
The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes - illustration
It began with the highly atmospheric and haunting ballad The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes. The poem tells about the gallant outlaws of olden times and begins with the line
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
…
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
Ben Jonson invites a friend to supper
Ben Jonson the great rival dramatist to Shakespeare, came up with a feast for his patron that is described in lush terms, more poetic and detailed than any modern Michelin starred restaurant could muster:
An olive, capers, or some better salad
Ushering the mutton; with a short-legged hen,
If we can get her, full of eggs, and then
Lemons, and wine for sauce; to these a cony
Is not to be despaired of, for our money;
And, though fowl now be scarce, yet there are clerks,
The sky not falling, think we may have larks.
The spirit of conviviality and shared enjoyment at the supper makes for delightful reading.
.%20The%20organ%20is%20the%20symbol%20of%20St%20Cecilia.jpg)
St. Cecilia with an Angel by Orazio Gentileschi (father of the renowned woman artist Artemesia Gentileschi). The organ is the symbol of St Cecilia
Auden was a fortuitous choice occasioned by Joe’s desire to remember his sister, Cecilia. Auden wrote the lyrics of a chorale that was composed by his friend Benjamin Britten whose birthday fell on the feast day of St. Cecilia on Nov 22. The refrain has the lines:
Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
It ends with an instructive line:
O wear your tribulation like a rose.
Ada Limón, the current poet laureate of America, was read in a simple poem, The Conditional. The poem imagines all the malign things that can happen but reminds us it is enough that tomorrow comes, and we are still alive to enjoy the day:
Say we spend our last moments staring
at each other, hands knotted together,
clutching the dog, watching the sky burn.
Say, It doesn’t matter. Say, That would be
enough. Say you’d still want this: us alive,
right here, feeling lucky.
Robert Frost – man peering into a well
Robert Frost, a perennial favourite among our readers, is here represented by a strange poem in which a man peers constantly at the still water in a well, seeing himself reflected – but one day Something happens. That something is what disturbs this proto-Narcissus from succumbing to his enduring fancy for himself. Readers were reminded of another modern, sitting atop the world with only himself to admire!
Darwish, the poet of Palestine, who made it his calling to defend his land against all comers ready to snatch it from his compatriots, writes:
We have on this earth what makes life worth living:
on this earth, the Lady of Earth,
mother of all beginnings and ends.
She was called Palestine.
Her name later became
Palestine.
My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life.
Imtiaz Dharker reminds us that to be in a minority is no disaster, indeed it builds one up to resist all encroachment on one’s freedom and meet others on an equal footing. She writes:
I don’t fit,
like a clumsily-translated poem;
She has become a prescribed author for school children in UK.
.png)
Bob Dylan delivers his Nobel lecture finally – photo by Lester Cohen
Bob Dylan has been a favourite songster-poet of Thomo’s and this time one of his signal recordings, Mr. Tambourine Man, was sung by Thomo, paying homage to one of the greats of the modern world who is still going strong at age 84.
Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me
…
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship
My senses have been stripped, my hands can’t feel to grip
My toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin’
It is a song about seeking inspiration and escape from the mundane through a mystical, musical figure, often interpreted as a muse. The real Tambourine Man was musician Bruce Langhorne, who played a large Turkish frame drum that looked like a giant tambourine on several covers of Dylan's recordings; Dylan confirmed Bruce was indeed the inspiration.
Bruce Langhorne – Tambourine Man
