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Her Portrait Immortal
Must I believe this beauty wholly gone
That in her picture here so deathless seems,
And must I henceforth speak of her as one
Tells of some face of legend or of dreams,
Still here and there remembered–scarce believed,
Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.
So beautiful she–was; ah! “was,” say I,
Yet doubt her dead–I did not see her die.
Only by others borne across the sea
Came the incredible wild blasphemy
They called her death–as though it could be true
Of such an immortality as you!
True of these eyes that from her picture gaze,
Serene, star-steadfast, as the heaven’s own eyes;
Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn sprays,
Where my world-weary head forever lies;
True of these quiet hands, so marble-cool,
Still on her lap as lilies on a pool.
Must I believe her dead–that this sweet clay,
That even from her picture breathes perfume,
Was carried on a fiery wind away,
Or foully locked in the worm-whispering tomb;
This casket rifled, ribald fingers thrust
‘Mid all her dainty treasure–is _this_ dust!
Once such a dewy marvel of a girl,
Warm as the sun, and ivory as the moon;
All gone of her, all lost–except this curl
Saved from her head one summer afternoon,
Tied with a little ribbon from her breast–
This only mine, and Death’s now all the rest.
Must I believe it true! Bid me not go
Where on her grave the English violets blow;
Nay, leave me–if a dream, indeed, it be–
Still in my dream that she is somewhere she,
Silent, as was her wont. It is a lie–
She is not dead–I did not see her die.
Richard Le Gallienne
(1866 – 1947)
Her Portrait Immortal
From: The lonely Dancer and other Poems, 1913
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More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Gallienne, Richard Le
Kitchener
No stone is set to mark his nation’s loss,
No stately tomb enshrines his noble breast;
Not e’en the tribute of a wooden cross
Can mark this hero’s rest.
He needs them not, his name untarnished stands,
Remindful of the mighty deeds he worked,
Footprints of one, upon time’s changeful sands,
Who ne’er his duty shirked.
Who follows in his steps no danger shuns,
Nor stoops to conquer by a shameful deed,
An honest and unselfish race he runs,
From fear and malice freed.
George Orwell
(1903 – 1950)
Published in the Henley
and South Oxfordshire Standard 21st July 1916
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More in: Archive O-P, Archive O-P, George Orwell, Orwell, George
In this follow-up to her acclaimed debut The Met Office Advises Caution, Rebecca Watts observes and tests the limits of humanity’s engagement with the non-human.
By turns lyrical and narrative, the poems examine familiar subjects – environmental crisis, hawks, hospitals, the sea, barbecues, flowers, Emily Dickinson – only to find their subjects staring, sometimes fighting, back.
Nature and nurture, equally red in tooth and claw, power a book-long sparring match between the overthinking poet and the ever-thoughtless universe, between the craft’s isolation and the world’s irrepressible variety.
Gloves on and gloves off, the poet’s hands destroy and build, gather and scatter, caress and strike.
Red Gloves
The women are carrying the coffin. Under the fear
of slippage they make slow steps.
We cannot say that they advance.
More than one woman is weathering – from the cool
top of her head to her strained fingers to her toes
pushed together in interview shoes – the urge,
like a rip tide, to run backwards and away.
Today is not a normal day.
( . . . )
Rebecca Watts was born in Suffolk in 1983 and currently lives in Cambridge. Her debut poetry collection, The Met Office Advises Caution, was published by Carcanet in 2016. She is also the editor of Elizabeth Jennings: New Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2019).
Publisher: Carcanet Press Ltd.
Language: English
Paperback
72 pages
ISBN-10 : 178410955X
ISBN-13 : 978-1784109554
2020
£9.89
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More in: #Editors Choice Archiv, - Book News, Archive W-X, Archive W-X
Permanent Volta is a debut collection of love poems that resist subjection and asks how we might live together outside of capitalism, providing for each other through intimate acts of care and struggle.
In Permanent Volta are love poems about how queer intimacies invent political and poetic forms, how gender deviance imagines post-sovereign presents and futures.
Full of bad grammar, strange sonnets, and truncated sestinas, these poems are for anyone motivated by the homoerotic and intimate etymology of comrade: one who shares the same room.
If history sees writers as tops and muses as bottoms, these poems refuse, invert, and evade representation. Here, muses demand wages, then demand the world.
Rosie Stockton is a poet based in Los Angeles. Their first book, Permanent Volta, is the recipient of the 2019 Sawtooth Prize, and is forthcoming from Nightboat Books in 2021. Their poems have been published by Publication Studio, VOLT, Jubilat, Apogee, Mask Magazine, and WONDER. They are currently a Ph.D. Student in Gender Studies at UCLA.
Review: “Stockton, who is from New Mexico, is releasing their debut book, Permanent Volta, about gender, sexuality, and love this week. It is a lush collection of poetry about the possibilities of love outside capitalism, and love as a way to resist its abuses. The poems are exceedingly relevant to our uneasy time: about hating work and being broke, but also about being in love, and needing sex, luxury, and care.”
ROSIE STOCKTON: The contradiction posed in the title is one of the main questions I was writing through in this book. As you say, if the turn is “permanent,” it exists in motion, in a constant state of becoming. I was interested in constant becoming in relation to form. Usually sonnets only have one volta, followed by some semblance of resolution in the couplet. How could a “permanent volta” refuse this resolution? I might even distill this poetic question into a familiar political question around reform or revolution: what does change look like within a given structure vs. what does it look like to change that structure? Like so many poets since the 13th century, I took the sonnet as the structure I wanted to sabotage, slow down, hustle, edge, and flood as a way to ask this question.
Poetry
Permanent Volta
Rosie Stockton
ISBN: 9781643620756
Paperback
120 pages
Published: May 18, 2021
Publisher Nightboat Books
$16.95
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More in: - Book News, Archive S-T, Archive S-T, LGBT+ (lhbt+)
A Funeral Thought
I
When the stern Genius, to whose hollow tramp
Echo the startled chambers of the soul.
Waves his inverted torch o’er that pale camp
Where the archangel’s final trumpets roll,
I would not meet him in the chamber dim,
Hushed, and pervaded with a name-less fear,
When the breath flutters and the senses swim,
And the dread hour is near.
II
Though Love’s dear arms might clasp me fondly then
As if to keep the Summoner at bay,
And woman’s woe and the calm grief of men
Hallow at last the chill, unbreathing clay —
These are Earth’s fetters, and the soul would shrink,
Thus bound, from Darkness and the dread Unknown,
Stretching its arms from Death’s eternal brink,
Which it must dare alone.
III
But in the awful silence of the sky,
Upon some mountain summit, yet untrod,
Through the blue ether would I climb, to die
Afar from mortals and alone with God!
To the pure keeping of the stainless air
Would I resign my faint and fluttering breath,
And with the rapture of an answered prayer
Receive the kiss of Death.
IV
Then to the elements my frame would turn;
No worms should riot on my coffined clay,
But the cold limbs, from that sepulchral urn,
In the slow storms of ages waste away.
Loud winds and thunder’s diapason high
Should be my requiem through the coming time,
And the white summit, fading in the sky,
My monument sublime.
Bayard Taylor
(1825 – 1878)
A Funeral Thought
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More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Het graf van de lezer, Tales of Mystery & Imagination, Western Fiction
Fugitive
Nous sommes étrangers et passons sur la terre
Comme un esquif léger qui fuit en se jouant
Sous les furtifs baisers d’une brise légère,
Et dans l’horizon bleu disparaît lentement ;
Heureux si le sillon qu’il marque dans sa fuite
Demeure quelque temps après qu’il a passé ;
Si quelque tourbillon n’efface tout de suite
Le chemin qu’en son cours rapide il a tracé ;
Heureux si, dans les lieux d’où le sort nous entraîne,
Il nous demeure un cœur où nous vivions encor,
Un seul cœur qui nous suive en la plage lointaine
Que l’on nomme ici-bas le sépulcre d’un mort.
Octobre 1879
Alice De Chambrier
(1861-1882)
Fugitive
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More in: Alice De Chambrier, Archive C-D, Archive C-D
O KIND’REN
VAN MIJN DROOMEN
O kind’ren van mijn droomen,
O bloemkens van mijn tuin,
Wat buigt ge droef en loome
Uw teng’re kopkens schuin…
Ge waart zo frisch te voren
Als klokskens van de Mei,
O lievekens, geboren
Uit droom en mijmerij…
En ‘k heb u, stil-bewogen,
Gevoed, bij nacht en dag,
Met regen van mijn oogen,
Met zonne van mijn lach.
Ik wil u niet zien welken;
Ge moet herleven nog.
O liefde…, warm die kelken,
O zonne…, zoen ze toch,
En koester, lieve, goede
Mijn zielekind’ren weêr;
Ik kan ze niet meer voeden:
‘k Heb geen illuzies meer.
Alice Nahon
(1896-1933)
O Kind’ren van mijn Droomen
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More in: Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Nahon, Alice
Elke zomer slaat het Kunstenfestival Watou haar tenten op in het gelijknamige kunstdorpje net voorbij Poperinge, tegen de Franse grens aan.
Dichters en beeldend kunstenaars, aanstormend talent en gevestigde waarden, uit binnen- en uit buitenland zorgen telkens weer voor een wonderlijke ervaring in karaktervolle tentoonstellingsplekken: een verlaten herenhuis, de kelder van een brouwerij, … Een unieke kunstbeleving ontstaat uit het samengaan van beeldende kunst en poëzie in verrassende, karaktervolle ruimtes
De 40ste editie van het Kunstenfestival Watou staat voor beweging, meerstemmigheid, menselijkheid en intensiteit. ‘Watou 2021’ nodigt het publiek uit om te kijken, te lezen, te voelen, te reflecteren en te verbinden. Met de kunst, de poëzie, de natuur en met elkaar. Bezoekers bewegen zich tussen de drie hoeken van het parcours: Watou, het kunstdorp zelf, de Gasthuiskapel in het centrum van Poperinge en de nieuwe locatie, het Kasteel De Lovie, daartussen.
Kunst en poëzie dringen volgens de curatoren altijd meervoudige perspectieven op: “Heel wat vormen en inhoudelijke visies bestaan gelijktijdig en zonder hiërarchie. Er is geen groot gelijk, er is geen waarheid, er is alleen meerstemmigheid en die meerstemmigheid is een rijkdom.”
‘Watou 2021’ presenteert werk van 40 kunstenaars uit binnen- en buitenland, van verschillende generaties en met diverse achtergronden. De focus ligt op creaties, verrassende samenwerkingen en werk dat nooit eerder in Vlaanderen te zien was. De selectie poëzie weerspiegelt eenzelfde meerstemmigheid. Er is werk te lezen én te horen van 40 dichters: van overleden dichters tot gevestigde namen en jonge dichters en debutanten. Een aantal gedichten wordt ingelezen door ondermeer Wannes Cappelle, Zwangere Guy, Charlotte Adigéry en Lander Gyselinck.
Het programma bevat onder andere optredens en performances van Esther Kläs & Gustavo Gomes, Stefan Hertmans, Catharina van Eetvelde en Claron McFadden, IKRAAAN, CHVE / Colin H van Eeckhout, Fulco, Les Âmes Perdues, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld én Wannes Cappelle en Nicolas Callot en Koen Vanmechelen, curator van het experimentele traject Patchwork.
Als de wereld onder onze ogen aan het veranderen is en we nog niet kunnen benoemen wat we zien. Als alles wat we al decennia denken en voor waar aannemen onder druk staat. Als we ons, beroofd van onze zekerheden, onveilig voelen. Als de wereld complex is geworden, dan is er één plek waar al die onzekerheden, al dat geweld, al die onrust, al die complexiteit, en ook al die schoonheid en al dat verlangen samenkomen: de kunst. Daar is het dat we intens leven, tijdens het maken van kunst, het ervaren van kunst, en het herinneren van kunst. ‘Watou 2021’ is een uitnodiging om poëzie en beeldende kunst te ervaren met hersenen, zintuigen en gevoelens. Om vervuld te worden van die complexiteit, van die meerlagigheid.
‘Watou 2021’ vertrekt vanuit de mens zelf. Wat is onze rol en positie in deze wereld? Wat is de impact van de recente transformaties op ons menszijn? Door de aanwas van technologie en artificiële intelligentie, maar ook door de crisis die we meemaken, leunen we niet alleen op onze rationele, maar ook op onze emotionele, spirituele, intuïtieve en biologische intelligentie.
Het vertrouwde werd vervangen door het confronterende en het oncomfortabele. Het daagt ons uit om onze blik open en dynamisch te houden. Met beweging als constante. Naar de ander en het andere.
Kunst en poëzie dringen altijd meervoudige perspectieven op: heel wat vormen en inhoudelijke visies bestaan gelijktijdig en zonder hiërarchie. Er is geen groot gelijk, er is geen waarheid, er is alleen meerstemmigheid en die meerstemmigheid is een rijkdom.
W A T O U 2 0 2 1
Kunstenaars
Arocha & Schraenen – Sarah & Charles – Leyla Aydoslu – Blauwhaus – Melanie Bonajo – Peter Buggenhout – N. Dash – Michael Dean – Lieven De Boeck – Ella de Burca – Anouk De Clercq – Edith Dekyndt – Bram Demunter – Tracey Emin – Bendt Eyckermans – Mekhitar Garabedian – Gijs Van Vaerenbergh – Nadia Guerroui – Esther Kläs – Margaret Lee – Bart Lodewijks & Jan Kempenaers – Ariane Loze – Ives Maes – Mark Manders – Neo Matloga – Vincent Meessen – Lucy Skaer – Socle – Joris Van de Moortel – Catharina Van Eetvelde – Luca Vanello – Johan Van Geluwe – Eva Vermandel – Leon Vranken – Ugo Rondinone – Zhang Yunyao
Dichters
Anellie David – Anna Enquist – Anne Vegter – Armando – Bernke Klein Zandvoort – Cees Nooteboom – Charlotte Van den Broeck – Chris Lomans – Dean Bowen – Dominique De Groen – Erwin Mortier – Estelle Boelsma – Geert Buelens – Gerrit Kouwenaar – Gertrude Starink – Hester Knibbe – J.V. Neylen – Jan Arends – Jan de Roek – Jos De Haes – Lamia Makaddam – Lara Taveirne – Laurine Verweijen – Levina van Winden – M. Vasalis – Marieke Lucas Rijneveld – Mattijs Deraedt – Miriam Van Hee – Nele Buyst – Paul Van Ostaijen Piet Gerbrandy – Poli Roumeliotis – René Van Gijsegem – Roelof ten Napel – Sanne Kabalt – Sasja Janssen – Stefan Hertmans – Thomas Möhlmann – Tonnus Oosterhoff – Yousra Benfquih
M E E R I N F O R M AT I E
en tickets
www.kunstenfestivalwatou.be
KUNSTENFESTIVAL WATOU
een organisatie van de stad POPERINGE
Grote Markt 1, 8970 Poperinge (BE)
kunstenfestival@poperinge.be
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The Charge
of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.
Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1809-1892)
The Charge of the Light Brigade
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More in: *War Poetry Archive, Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Tennyson, Alfred Lord
The Fairies
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We darent go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owls feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
William Allingham
(1824 – 1889)
The Fairies
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More in: Allingham, William, Archive A-B, Archive A-B
Kumulipo
(Hawaiian creation chant)
At the time that turned the heat of the earth,
At the time when the heavens turned and changed,
At the time when the light of the sun was subdued
To cause light to break forth,
At the time of the night of Makalii (winter)
Then began the slime which established the earth,
The source of deepest darkness.
Of the depth of darkness, of the depth of darkness,
Of the darkness of the sun, in the depth of night,
It is night,
So was night born
Kumulipo
O ke au i kahuli wela ka honua
O ke au i kahuli lole ka lani
O ke au i kukaiaka ka la.
E hoomalamalama i ka malama
O ke au o Makali’i ka po
O ka walewale hookumu honua ia
O ke kumu o ka lipo, i lipo ai
O ke kumu o ka Po, i po ai
O ka lipolipo, o ka lipolipo
O ka lipo o ka la, o ka lipo o ka po
Po wale hoi
Hanau ka po
Queen Liliʻuokalani
(1838-1917)
Kumulipo
Hawaiian creation chant
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Queen Liliʻuokalani was born on September 2, 1838 in Honolulu, Hawaii, as Lydia Kamakaeha. She was proclaimed queen in 1891. The last monarch of Hawaii, her reign was short-lived due to a U. S. military-backed coup in 1893.
More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive K-L, Archive K-L
On A Shadow In A Glass
By something form’d, I nothing am,
Yet everything that you can name;
In no place have I ever been,
Yet everywhere I may be seen;
In all things false, yet always true,
I’m still the same – but ever new.
Lifeless, life’s perfect form I wear,
Can show a nose, eye, tongue, or ear,
Yet neither smell, see, taste, or hear.
All shapes and features I can boast,
No flesh, no bones, no blood – no ghost:
All colours, without paint, put on,
And change like the cameleon.
Swiftly I come, and enter there,
Where not a chink lets in the air;
Like thought, I’m in a moment gone,
Nor can I ever be alone:
All things on earth I imitate
Faster than nature can create;
Sometimes imperial robes I wear,
Anon in beggar’s rags appear;
A giant now, and straight an elf,
I’m every one, but ne’er myself;
Ne’er sad I mourn, ne’er glad rejoice,
I move my lips, but want a voice;
I ne’er was born, nor e’er can die,
Then, pr’ythee, tell me what am I?
Most things by me do rise and fall,
And, as I please, they’re great and small;
Invading foes without resistance,
With ease I make to keep their distance:
Again, as I’m disposed, the foe
Will come, though not a foot they go.
Both mountains, woods, and hills, and rocks
And gamesome goats, and fleecy flocks,
And lowing herds, and piping swains,
Come dancing to me o’er the plains.
The greatest whale that swims the sea
Does instantly my power obey.
In vain from me the sailor flies,
The quickest ship I can surprise,
And turn it as I have a mind,
And move it against tide and wind.
Nay, bring me here the tallest man,
I’ll squeeze him to a little span;
Or bring a tender child, and pliant,
You’ll see me stretch him to a giant:
Nor shall they in the least complain,
Because my magic gives no pain.
Jonathan Swift
(1667 – 1745)
On A Shadow In A Glass
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More in: Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Swift, Jonathan
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