Passenger - 'Morning Song' Sylvia Plath

Passenger

I told T how proud I was to be sitting as a passenger in his car. We were driving off to get his second tank of petrol. I gazed at the clouds. Not quick glances, but real long idle stares as it wasn't dark. I didn't check the junctions. I thought I should be paying more attention to the possible surprises which I always get when I am driving. Hedgehogs, cats, new potholes and oddly parked cars all come out when I'm driving.

Love set you going like a fat gold watch - 'Morning Song'

Earlier I had a second session on Sylvia Plath with my Sunday poetry group. A poem I had thought to end with turned out to be unsettling. I still love it, but between us we found so much more in it than I had seen by myself. We share our own thoughts, but get so much further and so much faster by sharing them in a group. I can't imagine it working with more than 3 people though.

Timeline terror

Facebook groups are all very well, but we all have to make extremely sure where we are posting our stuff. Just putting it onto the general timeline is the worst possible outcome. At least there is an edit/delete button for when that happens. Pray you notice immediately, not 3 days later.

Ain't no sunshine when you're gone

This was sung to me in London as well: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo

My heart is not having a good time though. Last night I got pain in my teeth and jaw, then more of this wierd feeling on the front of my neck and upper chest. Then it included my left chest too. Very odd and unsettling. Will the medics give it a name or treat me like an idiot and tell me it is heartburn?

One of my 3 poetry groups is messing with my heart in a different way. One poem someone wrote and posted was so beautiful I could die with longing for what she knows.

I can console myself with the thought that there are many things I have experienced which may never be given to others. That isn't consolation though, more awareness, and can only be helpful if it leads to acceptance and appreciation for what -is- in each of our lives.

Is that the first roar of the combine harvesters? It is only June?

London - 3 - Driving home

After the big family dinner we eventually said all our goodbyes and I got into the back of the car. My mother always sits in the front passenger seat and my father in the driving seat on the right. I always used to sit on the left in the back.

As we drove back to Pimlico I could hear my parents discussing some plans for another dinner. They were almost arguing, one being bossy to the other, familiar uncomfortable frictions.

I just sat in the back uninvolved, able to look at the huge white facades of these London houses which we have driven past so very many times. It is like being in an endless rerun of the past with tiny variations.

The huge houses mean nothing to me though. We don't know who lives there, never will. They get cleaner in the boom times and may revert to the sad, dusty state they used to be in for years when they were just too big for anyone to maintain properly.

London morphs each time I go back, but I can barely see it in this area. The street lights are the same, so are the trees in the squares, the nearly empty pavements, the traffic lights and restaurants at the junctions.

Two hours

Sudden changes just arrive. Now T drives his own car to work each day. So I have two extra free hours each day, but one hour less with him. I still get up to see him off and am here to see him get back.

They did the last radio show from our house this evening. I have just cleared up the kitchen after dropping them off at the station. Steak, chips, strawberries, raspberries, meringues and ice cream. They are celebrating in Reading, so I will be doing a late night pick up in a few hours' time. All those lives sitting in my car, so I drive extra safely.

Now T doesn't need me for the journeys, I could take off with H and just go somewhere for a few weeks... London, Dartmoor, the sea? Too much freedom? St Ives, the Borders, Skye? Camp in the garden and go on strike? Build bonfires each evening? Move into the old stable in the back garden and be a hermit? One with lots of friends!

Count Folke Bernadotte of Sweden

By chance I happened to see the end of part 1 of a 2 part documentary about this man. He arranged for survivors of German Prisons to be taken to Sweden and then tried to help the situation in Palestine in 1948.

There is footage of women leaving Ravensbruck for Sweden in 1945. One of them might be my great aunt. I wonder what the huge X marks on the back of some women's coats mean.

They all look the same to me though. I just remember her aged 70+, all glamorous and well-dressed, or in her swim suit steering their motor boat in the South of France.

aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/

After I had watched it I found myself sitting on the sofa thinking and doing a strange sort of hand-wringing at the same time.

London - 2 - My parents' bed

On reflection the most significant event of this trip to London was falling asleep.

After a day of taxi conversations,
reading poetry collections at the Poetry Library,
enjoying the pinky metal handrails and spaciousness of the Royal Festival Hall,
being splashed by the fine spray from a fountain, 
squeezing into the tiniest bookshop ever in the Brunei Gallery by SOAS, 
having more conversations in there, 
being approached by a strange man in front of some photographs who turned out to be my brother, 
walking past the Oasis pool which was on my way home from school,
taking part in the demo in Parliament Square,
trying to whoosh through the Tate as a short cut to home...

I curled up on the sofa under all the pictures I like in the drawing room,
shut my eyes and dozed,
then moved to my mother's side of my parents' bed when guests came for dinner,
and really fell asleep there for several hours.

It's a privilege beyond anything to just be there and sleep.
It may never happen again.
No one was asking me questions.
I wasn't arguing and trying to explain.
No one was preaching at me.
No possible disagreements.
Wordless something.

London - 1 - One Love - U2

On the fast midnight drive back I realised that the pronounciation of Umm Kulthum I have been used to is in fact the Palestinian version: 't' instead of 'th'. I am joining the dots one at a time, while thinking about something else entirely along the M4. Well, not thinking at all, just listening to my music on my own. Enjoying the sensation of whizzing across my country, curve by curve, red light by red light.

I was sung to on the South Bank. Eventually the song had to end so I gave £2 and asked the man if anyone sang to him, because it was so lovely. He sang another song specially for me, so I stood there for longer in the midsummer day sunshine, being sung to in front of the whole of London. I wondered if this were my destiny? Well, it was for those moments.

One Love - U2

So many firsts

I bought a car today, saw my son sign the paperwork, drove off separately and met him at a nearby supermarket car park, ate and chatted, bought a bit of car kit, sat with him while he drove to put some petrol into it, watched the process, paid, walked back to my car, drove some distance behind him on his first independent trip back to work, had a goodbye in that car park and now I'm off to London.

We will keep in touch by text until I get back tomorrow sometime.

The previous attempts to find a car were all wrong. With this one every step went well, even when they didn't, if you see what I mean. The overall flavour of the process was good right from the start.

I go to Swindon for Poetry

If you want to as well, try booking an event from this page:

http://swindonartswords.blogspot.co.uk/

There is even a Poetry Festival this autumn, from 2nd to 5th October 2014. Based at Lower Shaw Farm.

So my Bermuda Triangle is East Hagbourne, Oxford and Swindon at the moment. If I go awol I will be on a fast road between these places.

If you *had* to learn something new, what would it be? - Films - Elia Suleiman

I was out at a party this evening. We asked each other this question. One person wanted to learn to play the piano and I confessed to wanting a structured group working on taking photos. Then I realised I adore watching film of people talking about their passions. So learning to make short films would be wonderful.

A few weeks ago H and I filmed each other being ourselves in the kitchen late at night. It runs for 10 minutes and is exactly what goes on. I am washing up and half listening to him, then he says something which gets my attention and I immediately pay close attention! Then he sits leaning right back at the table and we chat idly for a while. It's such a lovely glimpse of something which is normally transitory, beyond precious and never captured.

The film I have been watching has a long interview with the director Elia Suleiman. I have watched it twice now. I am fascinated with being able to just gaze at a person sharing their love for what they do and sharing their thinking. By searching for good links I have found out about his latest film 'The Time That Remains' and have ordered it.

Straight into Tomas Transtromer via colour

This article has been my introduction to Transtromer:

worldliteraturetoday - transformative-effect-color-poetry-tomas-transtromer

Make sure to keep on going until you get to the part about the underlying poem being in no language. This man is moving my brain around.

Mid June - new blogs to try out

bloodaxeblogs - because the back posts look interesting, being by Astley. No new posts though.

sonofabook - because I like the tone of his writing.

yrakha - because I was led on to another blog about contemporary Arabic writing.

qisasukhra - ...this one.

ambitmagazine - because Navid Hamzavi read out his piece to us at the Albion Beatnik Bookstore this Sunday.

I want an Arabic/Hebrew ModPo

mptmagazine : from-arabic-to-hebrew-and-hebrew-to-arabic-poetry-translation-as-a-microcosm-of-how-the-world-ought-to-work

Knowing how helpful the English language ModPo has been for my understanding of a culture I have been deeply ambivalent about, why not stand on the shoulders of giants as the saying goes, and start creating something from where ModPo left off?

I would be totally left out as my language skills are not there yet in even one of the languages. But it could inspire others who can work in both.

First public reading

Do you remember that first reading? Remembering carefully who I am meant to follow. Making slashes to the text. Noticing that one has no title. Climbing out from my place so I don't trip over my own rucksack. Standing on the little carpet in the lights. Speaking to the people at the back. Waving my free arm around. Swapping my papers from one hand to the other. Enjoying the sudden laughter and the applause. Getting back to my stool and whispering praise to the others who'd been up before me.

Our reading today - Kenneth Goldsmith

I love this man, so interesting, so annoying. I recognise his voice, love his thinking, ways of seeing and re-presenting the world to others.

4 min video of a "I feel I must read a whole book approved of by someone else otherwise it doesn't count" type person talking with Kenneth Goldsmith, explaining that what we read all day is our culture and is ok. I was going to type 'vs', but it is not a conflict, more an exploration, so I typed 'with'.

So slow

My dictionary is slowing me right down. I look up one word, can't find it, then spend 10 minutes idly reading the words which are in front of me. I'm not exactly learning anything at all, just browsing through the varied concepts tied up in each root word. Often an opposite concept or totally unrelated concept gets some meanings strewn amongst the basic meanings. I like the unexpected combinations. This all says something about the far and distant past when the words got their beginnings. But what exactly, who can say?

I'd identify this blog post as a bit of a prose poem. One paragraph, wandering about. Getting somewhere, but without anyone planning it.

Maram Al-Massri مرام المصري

Today has turned into another of my days off from Arabic, ie a day for reading one collection of poetry from my shelf. I have already spent a few days on this collection, so I just made sure I had read it all.

Even though each half of the book had 100+ poems in it, they were selections from 2 previous books. So there is a lot more to read another time, when I get better at Arabic and can simply buy non-bi-lingual editions.

I need an all female reading group so we can discuss such books with each other openly.

Write up on Banipal.

French write up, plus much longer list of her books.

I would like to read her autobiography, if she has written one.

If you would like to practice French, German or other languages, look at her own blog which has various translations on it. Each poem is numbered and is pretty distinctive anyhow, so knowing a poem in one language will help you read and understand it in another language quickly.