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In her new collection Who Will Make The Fire, published in association with New River Press, Bellamacina employs metaphors of wind, dawn, trees and fire to explore an interior world.
A personal book about love, loss, nature, depression and recovery, the wind in Who Will Make The Fire becomes the biographer of the self; a way to trace this everevolving garden, that must die, again and again, like a wild bird shedding its unimaginable feathers.
Who Will Make The Fire questions what it is to really live, to live with stillness and fire; to combat the digital world and to get back to the earth and let the hidden circle of nature find its way back into the self.
‘Dreamlike, with bite. Bellamacina’s work is brutal, floral, blood-soaked and knowing, in the way that nature is both cruel and beautiful.’ ― Florence Welch
Greta Bellamacina published her first collection ‘Kaleidoscope’ in 2011. In 2014 she was short-listed as the Young Poet Laureate of London. In 2015 she edited ‘A Collection of Contemporary British Love Poetry’ a survey of British love poetry from Ted Hughes til now, it features the work of Wendy Cope, Emily Berry, Annie Freud and Sam Riviere. She has been a writer-in-residence at the Chateau Marmont Hotel in LA. and Andy Warhol’s Interview Magazine says Greta, ” is garnering critical acclaim for her way with words and her ability to translate the classic poetic form into the contemporary creative landscape.” Greta’s new collection “Perishing Tame” is a dazzling and frank meditation on motherhood, female identity, ennui and love. Greta and her work have featured in The Guardian, The Times, The Evening Standard, Dazed & Confused, I-D Magazine, Interview Magazine, British Vogue, Elle , Wonderland, and Hunger Magazine. She has performed her poetry on CNN, BBC World News, BBC Radio 4 , BBC London, BBC Radio 2 with Jonathan Ross and BBC Radio 3 on The Verb poetry show.
Greta Bellamacina:
Who Will Make the Fire
Publisher: Cheerio Publishing
Publication Date: 20 Jun. 2024
Language: English
Hardcover
ISBN-10: 1739440595
ISBN-13 978-1739440596
£12.99
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More in: #Editors Choice Archiv, #Modern Poetry Archive, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bellamacina, Greta, Florence Welch
The Storm
I thought of you when I was wakened
By a wind that made me glad and afraid
Of the rushing, pouring sound of the sea
That the great trees made.
One thought in my mind went over and over
While the darkness shook and the leaves were thinned—
I thought it was you who had come to find me,
You were the wind.
Sara Teasdale
(1884-1933)
The Storm
from: Flame and Shadow
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Air and Angels
Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee,
Before I knew thy face or name;
So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame
Angels affect us oft, and worshipp’d be;
Still when, to where thou wert, I came,
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.
But since my soul, whose child love is,
Takes limbs of flesh, and else could nothing do,
More subtle than the parent is
Love must not be, but take a body too;
And therefore what thou wert, and who,
I bid Love ask, and now
That it assume thy body, I allow,
And fix itself in thy lip, eye, and brow.
Whilst thus to ballast love I thought,
And so more steadily to have gone,
With wares which would sink admiration,
I saw I had love’s pinnace overfraught;
Ev’ry thy hair for love to work upon
Is much too much, some fitter must be sought;
For, nor in nothing, nor in things
Extreme, and scatt’ring bright, can love inhere;
Then, as an angel, face, and wings
Of air, not pure as it, yet pure, doth wear,
So thy love may be my love’s sphere;
Just such disparity
As is ‘twixt air and angels’ purity,
‘Twixt women’s love, and men’s, will ever be.
John Donne
(1572–1631)
Air and Angels
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Farewell
Fare thee well, we’ve no wish to detain thee,
For the loved ones are bidding thee come,
And, we know, a bright welcome awaits thee
In the smiles and the sunshine of home,
Thou art safe on the crest of the billow,
And safe in the depths of the sea;
For the God we have worshipped together
Is Almighty, and careth for thee.
And when, in the home of thy fathers,
Thy fervent petition shall rise
For the loved who are circling around thee,
The joy and delight of thine eyes,
Oh, then, for the weak and the faltering,
Should a prayer, as sweet incense, ascend
To the God we have worshipped together,
Remember thy far-distant friend.
We miss the calm light of thy spirit,
We miss thy encouraging smile;
But we bless the unslumbering Shepherd
Who sent thee to cheer us awhile.
The light, which burned brightly among us,
We rejoiced for a season to see,
For the God we have worshipped together
Gave a halo of glory to thee.
But didst thou not point to another,
A brighter, an unsetting sun?
For thou preached not thyself to us, brother,
But Jesus, the Crucified One.
May He be thy rock and thy refuge,
In Him thy “strong confidence” be;
For the God we have worshipped together
Still loveth and careth for thee.
Oh! mayst thou abide ‘neath the shadow
Of Immanuel’s sheltering wing,
And continue proclaiming the goodness
Of Zion’s all-glorious King,
Till the sun shall be turned into darkness,
The moon in obscurity be;
And the God we have worshipped together,
Be a “light everlasting” to thee.
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
(1801 – 1888)
Farewell
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Because I could not stop for Death
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.
We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility –
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring –
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain –
We passed the Setting Sun –
Or rather – He passed Us –
The Dews drew quivering and Chill –
For only Gossamer, my Gown –
My Tippet – only Tulle –
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground –
The Roof was scarcely visible –
The Cornice – in the Ground –
Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads
Were toward Eternity –
Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886)
Because I could not stop for Death
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XVIII
In Heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
“What did you do?”
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind
Ashamed.
Presently God said:
“And what did you do?”
The little blade answered: “Oh, my lord,
“Memory is bitter to me
“For if I did good deeds
“I know not of them.”
Then God in all His splendor
Arose from His throne.
“Oh, best little blade of grass,” He said.
Stephen Crane
(1871 – 1900)
In Heaven XVIII
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Autumn
I dwell alone – I dwell alone, alone,
Whilst full my river flows down to the sea,
Gilded with flashing boats
That bring no friend to me:
O love-songs, gurgling from a hundred throats,
O love-pangs, let me be.
Fair fall the freighted boats which gold and stone
And spices bear to sea:
Slim, gleaming maidens swell their mellow notes,
Love-promising, entreating –
Ah! sweet, but fleeting –
Beneath the shivering, snow-white sails.
Hush! the wind flags and fails –
Hush! they will lie becalmed in sight of strand –
Sight of my strand, where I do dwell alone;
Their songs wake singing echoes in my land –
They cannot hear me moan.
One latest, solitary swallow flies
Across the sea, rough autumn-tempest tossed,
Poor bird, shall it be lost?
Dropped down into this uncongenial sea,
With no kind eyes
To watch it while it dies,
Unguessed, uncared for, free:
Set free at last,
The short pang past,
In sleep, in death, in dreamless sleep locked fast.
Mine avenue is all a growth of oaks,
Some rent by thunder strokes,
Some rustling leaves and acorns in the breeze;
Fair fall my fertile trees,
That rear their goodly heads, and live at ease.
A spider’s web blocks all mine avenue;
He catches down and foolish painted flies
That spider wary and wise.
Each morn it hangs a rainbow strung with dew
Betwixt boughs green with sap,
So fair, few creatures guess it is a trap:
I will not mar the web,
Though sad I am to see the small lives ebb.
It shakes – my trees shake – for a wind is roused
In cavern where it housed:
Each white and quivering sail,
Of boats among the water leaves
Hollows and strains in the full-throated gale:
Each maiden sings again –
Each languid maiden, whom the calm
Had lulled to sleep with rest and spice and balm
Miles down my river to the sea
They float and wane,
Long miles away from me.
Perhaps they say: ‘She grieves,
Uplifted, like a beacon, on her tower.’
Perhaps they say: ‘One hour
More, and we dance among the golden sheaves.’
Perhaps they say: ‘One hour
More, and we stand,
Face to face, hand in hand;
Make haste, O slack gale, to the looked-for land!’
My trees are not in flower,
I have no bower,
And gusty creaks my tower,
And lonesome, very lonesome, is my strand.
Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830 – 1894)
Autumn
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The Deceased
He was a reprobate I grant,
and always liquired till his money went.
His hair depended on a noose from
his pale brow, his eyes were dumb.
Like prisoners in their cavernous slots were
settled in attitudes of despair.
You who God bless you never sunk so low
censure and pray for him that he was so.
And with his failings you regret the verses
the fellow made, proberly between curses,
proberly in the extreames of moral decay
but he wrote them in a sincere way.
And seems to have felt a sort of pain
to which your imagination can not attain!
Keith Douglas
(1920 – 1944)
The Deceased
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At Midnight
Now at last I have come to see what life is,
Nothing is ever ended, everything only begun,
And the brave victories that seem so splendid
Are never really won.
Even love that I built my spirit’s house for,
Comes like a brooding and a baffled guest,
And music and men’s praise and even laughter
Are not so good as rest.
Sara Teasdale
(1884-1933)
At Midnight
from: Flame and Shadow
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The Higher Pantheism
The sun, the moon, the stars, the seas, the hills and the plains,-
Are not these, O Soul, the Vision of Him who reigns?
Is not the Vision He, tho’ He be not that which He seems?
Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?
Earth, these solid stars, this weight of body and limb,
Are they not sign and symbol of thy division from Him?
Dark is the world to thee; thyself art the reason why,
For is He not all but thou, that hast power to feel “I am I”?
Glory about thee, without thee; and thou fulfillest thy doom,
Making Him broken gleams and a stifled splendour and gloom.
Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit can meet-
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.
God is law, say the wise; O soul, and let us rejoice,
For if He thunder by law the thunder is yet His voice.
Law is God, say some; no God at all, says the fool,
For all we have power to see is a straight staff bent in a pool;
And the ear of man cannot hear, and the eye of man cannot see;
But if we could see and hear, this Vision-were it not He?
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1809-1892)
The Higher Pantheism
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Jenny kiss’d Me
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.
James Henry Leigh Hunt
(1784 – 1859)
Jenny kiss’d Me
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Celebrated NPR music critic Ann Powers explores the life and career of Joni Mitchell in a lyrical style as fascinating and ethereal as the songs of the artist herself.
“What you are about to read is not a standard account of the life and work of Joni Mitchell. Instead, it’s a tale of long journeying through a life that changed popular music: of a homesick wanderer forging ahead on routes of her own invention, and of me on her trail, heading toward the ringing of her voice.” (From the introduction)
For decades, Joni Mitchell’s life and music have enraptured listeners. One of the most celebrated artists of her generation, Mitchell has inspired countless musicians—from peers like James Taylor, to inheritors like Prince and Brandi Carlile—and authors, who have dissected her music and her life in their writing.
At the same time, Mitchell has always been a force beckoning us still closer, as—with the other arm—she pushes us away.
Given this, music critic Ann Powers wondered if there was another way to draw insights from the life of this singular musician who never stops moving, never stops experimenting.
In Traveling, Powers seeks to understand Mitchell through her myriad journeys. Through extensive interviews with Mitchell’s peers and deep archival research, she takes readers to rural Canada, mapping the singer’s childhood battle with polio.
She charts the course of Mitchell’s musical evolution, ranging from early folk to jazz fusion to experimentation with pop synthetics. She follows the winding road of Mitchell’s collaborations with other greats, and the loves that emerged along the way, all the way through to the remarkable return of Mitchell to music-making after the 2015 aneurysm that nearly took her life.
Along this journey, Powers’ wide-ranging musings on the artist’s life and career reconsider the biographer’s role and the way it twines against the reality of a fan. In doing so,
Traveling illustrates the shifting nature of biography, and the ultimate contradiction of celebrity: that an icon cannot truly, completely be known to a fan.
Kaleidoscopic in scope, and intimate in its detail, Traveling is a fresh and fascinating addition to the Joni Mitchell canon, written by a biographer in full command of her gifts who asks as much of herself as of her subject.
Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell
by Ann Powers (Author)
Publisher: Dey Street Books
Language: English
June 11, 2024.
Hardcover: 448 pages
ISBN-10:0062463721
ISBN-13:978-0062463722
Hardcover
$35.00
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More in: # Music Archive, #Biography Archives, #Editors Choice Archiv, - Book News, - Bookstores, Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Archive O-P, Joni Mitchell
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