Poetry Session on Jan 17, 2012

Nine readers participated in a rousing session of poetry that included the poetry of the Sufi poet and mystic, Hafiz, from Iran, and songs by the popular Hindi film script-writer and lyricist, Gulzar.

  Zakia, KumKum, Marianne, Priya, Sunil, Thommo, Mathew, Bobby (back)

We had a guest from Sweden, Marianne Hård, whose interest stemmed from the fact she is a member of an all-women's reading group running for ten years in her home town of Holmön. They read fiction, meeting by rotation in their homes, and having supper after the event. There are ten members, and being all women, they naturally discuss other things besides literature.

 Marianne Hård, travel operator from Sweden, & author of book on Kerala tourism

The recitation ranged from the comic verse of Lewis Carroll to the religious poetry of George Herbert. Talitha even recited a couple of her own poems, which she hopes to publish in a collection. May she succeed!

Three poets were repeated: Larkin, Seth, and Angelou – testament to their popularity. Here are the readers at the end of the session in the Library of the Cochin Yacht Club. We thank the Club for its continuing courtesy in offering a congenial space to hold our sessions!

 Zakia, Marianne, KumKum, Talitha, Thommo, Priya, Bobby, Joe, Mathew, Sunil

Read the full account below.

Hay Festival Kerala 2011 No.13 - Jung Chang, Biographer of Mao Zedong

Jung Chang and Peter Florence

Jung Chang settled in UK after going there to study as one of the first Chinese students who attend a university in the West. She wrote a personal memoir about Mao's legacy in China (Wild Swans), and then a biography of Mao with her husband after 12 years of research, getting the most valuable documents from Russian archives of what went on in that period.

The most shocking news was that the great famine of 1958-1961 was deliberate starvation of the people by sending grain to the Soviet Union and its satellites because Mao wanted arms; it was paid in grain to the extent of 7% of China's GDP at the time.

Bringing along her mother's tiny shoes, Ms Chang demonstrated how half the population of China for more than 1000 years had been subject to the torture of foot-binding, all for a theoretical standard of looking dainty and sexy.

Stalin backed Mao from the early 1920s, after gauging he was utterly ruthless, and therefore capable of bringing Communism to China. No one joined the Party because of Mao's charisma, of which he had little.

Peter Florence takes questions from the audience

Chang said she never met as many Mao enthusiasts anywhere in the world as in India. In the 50s, 60s, 70s, being pro-Mao was a condonable weakness; but being pro-Mao now is inexcusable ignorance.

Hay Festival Kerala 2011 No.12 - Simon Armitage, the Yorkshire poet

Simon Armitage reading

Simon Armitage said poetry is a thin scene in England, but it was a great honour to be reciting at the festival in TVM. He decided to recite poems that would exhibit the variety of his verse.
O Come All Ye FaithfulThis poem is a rhythmic list of all those the poet invites to escape to the hills
   Movers and shakers, butlers and bakers
   Skinheads and swayheads
   Joggers and grafters, groovers and ravers...
He ends by asking all to:
   Breathe and let breathe

The Shout
Armitage was once on a mission by his crazy school-teacher “to measure the size of the human voice.” 
The poem records what happened:

We went out
into the school yard together, me and the boy
whose name and face

I don't remember. We were testing the range
of the human voice:
he had to shout for all he was worth
...
Boy with a name and face I don't remember,
you can stop shouting now, I can still hear you.

 Simon Armitage says poems begin as daydreams

Kid
The poem is a rant by Robin the Boy Wonder, the loyal sidekick to Batman. Robin  is learning to lead his own, independent life. 
Batman, big shot, when you gave the order
to grow up, then let me loose to wander
leeward, freely through the wild blue yonder…
Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker!
Holy roll-me-over-in the-clover,
I'm not playing ball boy any longer...
you baby, now I'm the real boy wonder.
The Causeway
This was one of the poems Armitage held up to show it was shaped on paper like a rectangular slab to represent a causeway. It describes his returning home with his family (wife and child) from a visit to St. Michael's Mount at a place called Marazion in Cornwall. 
Three walked barefoot into the sea,
mother, father and only child
with trousers rolled above the knee.
...
The life guard yawned a megaphone.
The oyster-catcher clenched its fist.
The common dolphin bit its lip.
...
some in khaki and some in kilts,
some in purdah and fancy dress, 

Stanza Stones
Stanza Stones is project to carve poems into the rocks on the moors along the Pennine Watershed in Yorkshire, with a woman stone mason, name of Pip Hall. Armitage recited two of the poems; here's the first called Snow.
SNOW
The sky has delivered its blank missive. The moor in coma. Snow, like water asleep, a 
coded muteness to baffle all noise, to stall movement, still time. … 

Armitage made a number of observations after his recitation:
Poetry is the quiet voice in the corner; it's the voice after the event.

Poetry is one person performing, without accompaniment without backbeat.

For all the talk of the death of books by e-books, etc. - poetry remains an UNKILLABLE thing.

The noise a poem makes is the poem.
To get a larger dose of Armitage's poems and comments, read on below ...
 

Hay Festival Kerala 2011 No.11 - Germaine Greer on Lovers in Shakespeare's Plays

 Germaine Greer, Australian feminist and academic

Germaine Greer's session on Shakespeare's Lovers was an exploration of the romantic and erotic charge of the playwright's masterpieces such as Romeo and Juliet. In her talk on the lovers in Shakespeare's plays she made two radical observations

(1) all the winning instances of love occur between young lovers; mature love among married protagonists is non-existent, and

(2) among young lovers the woman is always older, and more commanding. 

 Germaine Greer after the talk

Greer pointed out that the Lover is the third of the seven ages of man in the famous speech by Jacques in As You Like It,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow.

But the Lover does not grow a beard until the next stage, that of a soldier. 

Germaine Greer said Shakespeare was not in a bad marriage

Greer narrated how in the Lover's Complaint Shakespeare has an older woman lamenting the loss of a youthful lover. It's a boy-seducer: 
His browny locks did hang in crooked curls;
And every light occasion of the wind
Upon his lips their silken parcels hurls.
...
Small show of man was yet upon his chin;
His phoenix down began but to appear
Like unshorn velvet on that termless skin 

Joe taking notes in the front row as Greer speaks

Greer asserts that Shakespeare is unique in revealing little about what's on his mind. He has left no evidence, and gave no interviews regarding his own views on things. Not even in the sonnets does he speak for himself, but for others and through others. He is the embodiment of a plenitude that transcends individuals. 

Asked whether her book, The Female Eunuch, changed the world, Greer replied her book did not change the world but women who read her book had done so.

To read more of what Greer said, click below ...

Hay Festival Kerala 2011 No.10 - Jeremy Leggett, Energy Economist and Entrepreneur

 Leggett: an impending financial crisis threatens as fossil-energy stocks are overvalued

Jeremy Leggett is an activist now, having started out in the oil industry. He started Solar Century, a small renewable energy outfit, backed by venture capital. He campaigns in the Climate Change debate on the side of those who wish to limit the use of fossil fuels.

Leggett sees three threats:
1. A repeat of the global financial crisis of 2008, transposed to overvalued fossil energy assets, rather than securitised mortgages.
2. Over dependency on oil, and the 'peak-oil' problem.
3. The Climate Change threat first to life, and then to the global economy itself.
Consider #1 (Financial crisis)
In order to achieve the goal of not letting the global temperature rise by more than 2 deg Celsius, only 20% at most of the proven reserves can be burned – 80% of fossil reserves cannot be burned if we are to have a 75% chance of limiting to 2 deg Celsius!
Consider #2 (Over-dependence on oil)
Oil supply cannot grow beyond a point to which we are near. This is according to the task force of the UK Industry Task Force. That oil production will peak soon is owing to the flow problem, not to a supply problem. To fill the gap between rising demand and the depletion of existing oil wells. The gap is ENORMOUS. You'll need SIX SAUDI ARABIAs worth of new oil by 2030!!
Consider #3 (Need to reduce carbon)The 2 deg Celsius limit was agreed at the Cancun conference. To attain this target it is universally understood that the world has to reverse out of coal, oil and gas, by 2015.
Leggett says the technology already exists to lead us to a mainly carbon-free future. But these technologies are highly underused. 

Read a complete account below ...