Hearts & Minds

Dali & Captain Moore

There's a story about Salvador Dali, told to me a few years ago by his long-time manager, Captain Peter Moore.

Peter called on Dali at his house and studio in Port Lligat to see how he was progressing with a commission and was alarmed to see that the painting was far from finished.
'No problem, el capitano,' said Dali, 'I have until end of October.'
'But it's already November,' said Peter.
'November!' exclaimed Dali. 'Someone has stolen my October!'

I feel a little like that about March! Although rather than stolen it was filled to the brim with exciting events for the launches of another country, haiku poetry from Wales (Gomer Press).

But I'm back home in France now, catching up with writing and AppleHouse, and I came across this poem, in my Poems on the Underground anthology, which I can't remember ever reading before:

from The Mind is an Ancient and Famous Capital

The mind is a city like London,
Smoky and populous: it is a capital
Like Rome, ruined and eternal,
Marked by the monuments which no one
Now remembers. For the mind, like Rome, contains
Catacombs, aqueducts, amphitheatres, palaces,
Churches and equestrian statues, fallen, broken or soiled.
The mind possesses and is possessed by all the ruins
Of every haunted, hunted generation's celebration...

Delmore Schwartz (1913 - 1966)

Lots of the metaphors make immediate sense to me, particularly the mind being full of monuments 'which no one/ Now remembers' and 'Catacombs', although I'm a little unsure about 'equestrian' statues. I suppose the horse and rider could symbolise war? But I still like the poem a lot.

A few years ago I wrote a poem entitled 'Your Heart' which was published on a poster for a Hospital project:

Write a poem about the mind or the heart. Use metaphor rather than direct explanation to suggest what the mind or heart is, or does.

Write well.
L
x

November Poetry Prompt - Fire

Fire. It's the time of year that we light them. In our houses and in our gardens. November 5th, in the UK, is Bonfire Night, and fire becomes an entertainment.

Fire keeps us warm. It comforts. It can even, for some people, ward away danger. But fire destroys too - homes, land, lives. But it also purifies.

We can control fire to a certain degree, perhaps like the way we can only control our own passions and emotions to a certain degree, unless we're particularly self-contained. But does everyone have a breaking point? A point when the 'fire' will escape and engulf someone or something? A point when the 'fire' will clear the way forward, or destroy what is in its path.

Free write around 'Fire'. What are the emotions, images, memories, songs, phrases ... anything at all... that spring spontaneously to mind? Follow the thread of one that feels the strongest.

I look forward to reading your poems, and here's one of mine from my collection, Learning How to Fall:

Spontaneous

It happened at the Turkey Farm.
Witnesses heard a woomph like someone
stepping smartly on a bag of air and when
they got there, found the charred remains
of cloth, some bones. And a man
in Minnesota had done it on his deck at home,
mid-morning, the temperature only 54
but the Budweiser in his glass was warm.

If she could do at will what all these people
did in error, she reckoned on a money-spinner,
all sorts of side-lines – self-help books like
How to Find the Warmth Within. She’d start
small, spend days imagining the glow
of an orange ball inside her chest. The weeks
focusing on the hairs along her arm until
she could feel and smell the heat, hear

a crack like a mosquito on an outside light.
She knew she was on a roll. Soon she’d be
hiring halls to accommodate the crowds.
She’d open with a nest of leaves transformed
to a smouldering pyre on her palm,
and build to her grand finale – the full
combust, walls racketing with applause,
the diminishing calls of Encore!

Lynne Rees

February Poetry Prompt 1 - Imperative

Prose poems are not easy to write, though there are one or two poets who have the gift of making them seem effortless. Patricia Debney is one of those poets.

How Not to Be a Woodlouse

Avoid damp, dark places. Try not to hide. Your shell is for protection only.

Seek sunshine, dry weather, fresh flowers. Develop a taste for clean, clear water, and the smooth, pungent skin of just-picked fruit.

Celebrate the lightness of your touch, the way your feathery caress holds people still.

Remember, that, like you, the world is not black and white, but made up of delicate shades of grey.


Patricia Debney
from How to be a Dragonfly
Smith Doorstop 2005

Buy now from The Book Depository

However, what I'd like to explore during this prompt is not how to write a prose poem. although the option is there, but how we might use the imperative.

The imperative is the verbal form that expresses command, entreaty, advice, exhortation, and generally exists in the 2nd person (Pick up the book - literally 'you' pick up the book) or the 1st person plural (Let's catch a train.)

We use imperatives from day to day for different reasons, e.g.
telling people what to do: Close the window.
giving instructions: Put the coin in the slot and press the red button; Add 3 oz of sugar.
giving advice: See the doctor - it's the best thing.
making recommendations: Have the fish, it’s always good here.
making offers: Have a bit more wine.

There’s an idea of authority behind the use of the imperative, but its use doesn’t imply that the addressee will succumb to the suggested authority of the speaker.

Patricia Debney's poem is a list of instructions that takes the form of an extended metaphor: we realise that these actions and insights translate to the human condition. This is persuasive, gentle advice (to the poet herself, to a specific person, or to a more general audience) that transcends any one individual's experience and addresses a collective consciousness. The use of the imperative is an essential part of the poem's effect on the reader.

However, the imperative can also be aggressive, accusatory, judgemental. It can express anger, fear. It can exhort, and even suggest hopelessness. Think of Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light' - a poem that asks for the impossible, that is without authority to change anything.

Flick through an anthology and look for poems that use the imperative. Try and identify:

1.the effect of the imperative (tone, mood, theme)
2. who’s speaking to whom
3. the degree of authority

and then try writing your own poem that uses the imperative either as a principal shaping tool, or at some point in the poem for a particular effect.

I look forward to reading your poems, and in the meantime here's one of mine from my collection, Learning How to Fall:

The Path

What woke you last night –
screech of owls,
the moon smothered by clouds?
This morning a fracture
of tail-feathers on the path,
wind scouring the glen,
your own breath sucked in
through clenched teeth,
and this bush choked by holly –
green berries hard as stone.
Don’t touch them. Don’t stray
into the tangled woods
with your gift of fruit,
your feet twisting in hollows.
Don’t look up
through the cracked
kaleidoscope of leaves
to see what that cawing is,
the world tipping, your heart
unsure where it belongs.
Go back.
...........At the place
you started from, an open door,
heat, a man and woman
laughing – voices
you will begin to recognise.

Lynne Rees