” The woman singeth at her spinning- wheel A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarolle; She thinketh of her song, upon the whole, Far more than of her flax; and yet the reel is full, and artfully her fingers feel With quick adjustment, provident control. The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll, Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal To the dear Christian Church, that we may do Our Father’s business in these temple’s Mirk, Thus swift and steadfast ; thus, intent and strong: While, thus, apart from toil, our souls pursue Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our work The better for the sweetness of our song.”
This is a good evening, it rains (it pours) but political change is in the air and I am glad for that.. cos sometimes it seems that Women’s Work is ignored (and it is often hard work.)
I have printed one other piece by Moore on this blog. I tend to ignore critique except to contextualisethe social and historical life of the poet, those movements that brought the writer tosettle into her voice. There is a resonance in Moore’s poetry that is hooking,despite the best efforts of Ted Hughes to underrate her contribution, orwhatever it was that provoked the nasty little Moore Poem inBirthday Letters
I am adding in this little excerpt along with the title of the book in the hope thatmore readers will come to look at women writers:
There never was a war that was not inward; I must fight till I have conquered in myself what causes war, but I would not believe it. I inwardly did nothing.
When I read Birthday Letters, long before I hadread anything by Moore, I must confess that the imagery that Hughes used to talkof the woman put me right off wanting to read her. The issue emanated from a particularepisode in which he accused her of putting shards of glass into an acerbic note shesent Plath, or the image of her in her hat looking for the grave on which tolay her little wreath. It irritates me beyond belief that Hughes exploited his power in such a wholly provocative manner, and that be celebrated by other poetsincluding Seamus Heaney. For what Hughes did in Birthday Letters was to make himself unanswerable, neither Moore nor Plath can respond to his work. It must have been great that the mostly male critical and academic establishment refused to note this in their reviews. It did not occur to Heaney, for instance to note that Hughes took an opportunity to settle old scores/scars.
For me, a writer of prose and a poet, the issue has always been about engagementwith themes and symbols that evolve over time, but that somehow retain theirshape and essence no matter what. I am still trying to understand how a voiceas strong as Hughes is capable of honing those particular traumas so artfullydecades indeed after the episode. Thats Poetic Engagement andcan give reviewers the equivalent of the bends; and yet effect another writer’shistorical place in our consciousness by sleight of hand (or with deliberate intention).
The image is by Sophie Tauber-Arp and is to be found in the NMWA. The day began with Dada and I suppose it shall end thusly. I hope to include the link to the Women’s Art Museum on the blogroll when I have a little more time to do so.
In the meantime Dada and it’s place in the linear art-historical (or academic approach to Art History) is encapsulated quite beautifully in a book by Hans Richter : Dada, Art and Anti-Art , by Hans Richter, Trans, David Britt. Thames and Hudson 1997.
The Dada relation to Surrealism is abysmally discussed in the small piece : Babylon, Art and Image , which is further down this blog. That particular piece was about the excellent collaboration between René Crevel and Max Ernst in shaping the Book Babylon, Quartet Publications, Trans, Kay Boyle.
I am sorely tempted to include some Hans Arp or Kurt Schwitters Poetry (maybe later..,)
Separated as I am from my library of women’s voices and essays, it has been an interesting visit. The scaffolding that had clamped Westport House is gone . It looked like a huge hangar or insect from across at Roman Island. The weather is awful with not one hope of even climbing the lower section of the Reek, but it’s nice to have black dark nights and to awaken at first light, it beats the clatter of the city.
The Rare and Interesting Bookshop have extended their range and had some good books, including the few small ones I bought, one being an uncorrected proof of Julian by Gore Vidal., It’s a novel about Julian the apostate, which I have not gotten my teeth into yet. He also had a copy of Mosada by Yeats, whose waxen doppleganger inhabits the Westport House Library section during the Tourist season .
I am reading some complex stuff in Metaphysics and wondering if its possible to get out and walk without a complete soaking ?
The ducks have taken to sitting in small lakes within flooded fields. We shall be missing the Education Protests in Dublin tonight, which is unfortunate. I am pretty sure that there will be many more, given the seriousness of the issue of providing education to our kids: who deserve the best. Meanwhile learning to live without telly and surrounded by excellent books and music seems to be good for one of them at least. Back to the Saturday Woman Poet at the weekend. I have discovered up here a small volume of poems written in 1945 (and self-published) which I hope to transcribe and put on the site. Interestingly the publisher’s address is given along with these words :Duration Address
Beyond the seven mountains the seven valleys the seven rapid torrents the seventy-seven nights the seventy-seven days the seven hundred-hundred-and-seventy-seven days and nights the seven thousand and seventy-seven paradise years shut up in the mountain beyond the valleys beyond the rapids beyond the nights and days the days-and-nights the paradise years inferno years purgatory years inside shut in outside shut out I cry: Awake! Come Back! Why did you abandon me? A whole is more than a half. A Half cannot live as a whole. Awake awake awake! Go back the long way the hard way over the seven mountains through the seven long valleys soar float plunge over through the violent currents the dangerous whirlpools! See: I look like a human being and am a semblance a hollow shell without you. You say that you are dead. I say that you are asleep. I call you back. I cry out for you I beg I appeal: come The darkness takes me fear screams shrilly with a bird’s voice. Fear O fear fear you gave me life. Give me back set me free the chains rattle I weep there is blood where I walk. Fences grilles barriers the birds are eating from my eyes those cruel birds with strong beaks and averted gaze O birds birds birds harbringers chosen ones shimmering white deep-black you not those cruel ones, not the eagles but you mortal harbringers you that travel with messages from death take me on your wings fetch me back birds birds birds sorrow-swan black swan lonely swan I call upon you I cry out I beg wild swan you that do not exist gentle swan: Fetch me back give me back my living entrails out there outside insuide shut in! Give me grant me Fetch me! Sorrow-swan black swan harbringer from death’s kingdom together we must plunge soar float the veils of the water are soft the sky without weight. It is easy to soar hard to walk. Breathe breathe breathe like the bird when it floats. I want to travel the long way there return again here.
by Mirjam Tuominen
I find this a most difficult and traumatic poem to read, but Mirjam never lost the tension nor the thread of her voice through it. She sustains it’s monumental impact right through to the elegiac section at the end, and sure that’s what we call composition.
Invocation by Mirjam Tuominen, from Selected Writings of Mirjam Tuominen Translated by David Mac Duff. Bloodaxe Books. Publ. 1994. For bio please google and read Tuominen, she was a fascinating writer on fear and loathing. She was also consummate at composition, although difficult to read.
Degas: Fan with Dancers 1879 .From the Tacoma Art Museum. Priv Collection.
Sylvia Plath‘s return to the United States as a teacher at Smith College was dominated by fear, its evident from her diaries and from her utter helplessness. I had thought to publish this morning ,without comment two of her poems: Mary’s Song from Winter Trees and The Magi from The Collected Plath.
It is Autumn here (despite the sunshine ),there is both a significant temperature drop and a filigree of copper on pavements and grasses , thus I got to thinking about winter palettes and warm clothing.
I read the Diaries in the last years and remember wondering at Plath’s connectedness to her intimate objects, how bemused she was at the amelioration of her condition of cold by the wearing of a pair of red silk stockings and how it alleviated her mood of intense depression. She disliked abstract art and had told a painter friend that she adored the “Thinginess of Things“.
In the last few days I had published a small piece on the Island women and the Trousseau, in relation to both Mary Lavin and plays by Federico Garcia Lorca.
I also thought about the issues of women’s homelessness (homelessness) as a result of War; and those little knickknacks and mementoes that are to many people Valueless .
The amount of young women on the streets of Dublin in this condition of abodelessness has increased significantly. Thus the value of small and intimate things has decreased in the face of oncoming winter and the struggle for survival. I watched people literally walk over a young girl and infant the other day in their own struggle and fear of ending up like her and it worried me. And what would ameliorate her condition and that of the infant? In many statements against war and ecological destruction I have published wordson the value of objects and trinkets. How , on my bookshelf there is a small clay snail painted in gold; and made by the hand of a small child who in learning about colour had underpainted the snail in red and left the imprint of his small fingers upon it. How, when he got older and copped onto the issue of preservation, he had lacquered the little snail with PVA in order to preserve the red-gold and give the shell a glossy sheen. To anyone else the process of creation from a simple pallets and the indented fingerprints would suggest a simple child’s play and not a process of working out and creation that progressed, it seemed, over many weeks.
I am happy that I have a shelf to put the troublesome snail onto.
Mary’s Song
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat. The fat Sacrifices its opacity….
A window, holy gold The fire makes it precious, The same fire
Melting the tallow heretics, Ousting the Jews. Their thick palls float
Over the cicatrix of Poland, burn-out Germany. They do not die.
Grey Birds obsess my heart, Mouth-ash, ash of eye. They settle. On the high
Precipice. That emptied one man into space The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.
It is a heart, This holocaust I walk in, O golden child the world will kill and eat .
Mary Lavin is possibly my favourite author, I possess an autographed book of her whichI have to return to its rightful owner … (My mother).
If I were to choose a story that for me represents Mary Lavin, it would have to be The Chamois Gloves. It took me years to understand how such a pretty name can be pronounced in such a manner and its relation to window shammys. How and ever, this story is a must read for anyone who adores Lavin’s lightness of touch.
I cannot even at this point remember the heroine’s name in the glove story but I do remember the milieu, and strange as it seems for many people who live happily in post-catholic and increasingly secular Ireland, the Reverend Mother is very recognisable to those of us whom were educated in the convent schools. The story opens with the mild hysteria of the Reverend mother as she bemoans the lack of culture of the families of her postulants. She is to give a lunch and there are no grapefruit spoons.
Indeed, the woman likes nothing better than to go through the dowry offerings and silverware in the vain hope that someone (anyone) will have the breeding to have used and subsequently donated the spoons to the convent. One can smell the floor polish and the linens soaking at this point..I know that smell.
The story is so beautifully written that it usually brings the tears, its about friendship, about sisters and their intimacy. The cold rinsing of the chamois gloves and the memories that this action provokes are absolutely pure, unadulterated and magnificent Lavin.
It’s small mourning for womanhood, childhood, and friendship writ on a monumental scale and hence the title of this small piece.
Women took with them to the marriage bed, the convent and the islands: trunks. Within these trunks were linens, ribbons, laces, negligees, inserts, recycled wedding gowns and the mending box. A lifetime of wear could be had from the trunk; and of course engagements would be long to ensure that the trousseau was adequately completed. Cos they married Island men, their Religious Christ or the future husband in much the same manner as is delineated in Lorca Plays. The trunks, the plate and the trinkets have always intrigued me, largely because of my feminism and the idea of Ownership.
A woman would walk into a marriage (often the marriage was arranged) with her tinpotchattels and linens, and from this trunk would emerge the christening robes and winding sheets that would cover her family until her death. She would give up her name too
I am going to excerpt a small section of The Chamois Gloves in the comments section. It’s awful to romanticise the social customs of the past when one realises the things that were hidden by the idea of marriage including high Infant mortality rates and the usual human gamut of domestic battles/triumphs and disasters.
Ágnes Nemes Nagy was born in Budapest in 1922 . She died in 1998. The two poems that I am excerpting here go no way toward illuminating her skill and mastery of word and image.The book Between was gifted to me from the estate of Marianne Agren Mc Elroy (translator and artist). Two of Marianne’s translations are on the site and most of the European women poets come from collections that comprised the gift or from my own reading in Women’s Literature. I would recommend that anyone who is interested in women’s poetry get the book which is translated by Hugh Maxton. The imagery that Nagy used is masterful.
Simile
The one who has been rowing while the storm Approaches near , who strains with every limb Against the trusty footboard’s rigid form And finds a sudden absence from the rim
Of the broken oar, weightless hand, and Falling propulsion , falling With the loosened, dropping shaft and Whose whole body sags-
He knows what I know.
This is the third verse of Winter Angel:
Dreadful wind that March There was a windy red sky clinkers he landed before sunset And he was enormous His bristling, hawkshade wing Couldn’t fit in the cottage Half his cloak stayed out And the ring round his eye Was a predator’s How the place shook He pierced door and window he perched on roof and wall In the mortar between bricks Wrapped in the windbreak Boxing the compass.”
from: Between by Ágnes Nemes Nagy, Trans , Hugh Maxton. Dedalus Press Dublin and Corvina Press Budapest.
I had put a link url on the Threads post on this blog with my review of Between, there is also a link to the review in the blogroll which is on the Poetry Irelandreviews page. There is a related post on Poethead about Julian of Norwich andMargaret Atwood, regarding Midwifery, and the birth of images through the breaking of forms and the creation of precise imagist descriptions by women writers.Julian termed her visions her ‘Shewings’, both can be accessed through the search engine on the right hand side of this page.
Chris Murray 