September Song

This is one of those September days that I always love, the nip in the air is unmistakable now. I could smell it mixed with coffee and my husband's aftershave - Polo, I believe - when I came downstairs this morning. That autumnal combination sent a charge through me, despite the desperate sadness of the past few days.

This is one of my working from home days when I'd normally get a couple of things done, then head across to Chorlton meadows with Benji and soak up the beauty across there with him. A few times in the early days I'd get caught short without a pencil to write down some of the ideas that seemed to flow as we were walking. After a while and a few lost ideas, I hit upon writing draft texts on my phone to tide me over till I reached a notebook. I will get back there sometime, but that walk just feels too painful at the moment.

Too soon and too sad, I know, but I looked at photos at the Manchester Dogs' Home website. It brought to my mind that poem I met a couple of weeks ago - Don Paterson's version of Antonio Machado.

The Eyes

When his beloved died

he decided to grow old

and shut himself inside

the empty house, alone

with his memories of her

and the big sunny mirror

where she'd fixed her hair.

This great block of gold

he hoarded like a miser,

thinking here, at least,

he'd lock away the past,

keep one thing intact.

But around the first anniversary,

he began to wonder, to his horror,

about her eyes: Were they brown or black,

or grey? Green? Christ! I can't say ...

One Spring morning, something gave in him;

shouldering his twin grief like a cross,

he shut the front door, turned into the street

and had walked just ten yards, when, from a dark close,

he caught a flash of eyes. He lowered his hat brim

and walked on ... yes, they were like that; like that ...

Don Paterson

(from The Eyes - A Version of Antonio Machado, Faber and Faber, 1999)

Poetry Saturday - Goes Round Comes Round

Saturday Poem today is Miniature Poodle by C. K. Williams. (Bringing the count so far this year to women 10, men 23). As I don't know this poet's work, I had a quick spin round the internet and found him on poets.org. I only had time to listen to one poem so I chose My Mother's Lips. His voice is lovely, I felt a connection and wanted to read more of his poems.

When out and about on my own, as I was this morning in Chester, I can't be trusted not to go into a bookshop. So predictably, I went into Waterstones, only for a look, you understand. 

Of course there was no harm in just popping upstairs for a peep at the poetry, to see what's what. And to see if there was anything by C. K. Williams, which there wasn't. 

Then my eye snagged on Don Paterson, who I have mixed feelings about. The first of his poems I ever met was Imperial in Ruth Padel's 52 Ways of Looking At A Poem. I really didn't like this poem, a bit clever-clever and macho, so I left DP alone for a while. Some time later I read Why Do You Stay Up So Late, which I found beautiful and very moving. I warmed to him when I read Rain, the collection that this poem comes from. 

So today I read the title poem from The Eyes - a collection of DP's versions (as opposed to translations) of  poems by Antonio Machado, and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. This made me think of Emily Dickinson's maxim that she knew what was poetry because of the sensation of the top of her head lifting off! 

Spurred on by this experience, I took a look at Landing Light, by now moving towards an inevitable purchase. What finally made me buy Landing Light was that I noticed in it DP's version of Rilke's poem which I featured here yesterday. I just took it as a sign. 

(Skimming through Ruth Padel's book when I started writing this post, I noticed that she analyses Harm by C. K. Williams. I look forward to reading her appreciation of this poet, which I must have overlooked, first time round...)

Archaic Torso of Apollo
after Rilke


You'll never know that terrific head,
or feel those eyeballs ripen on you -
yet something here keeps you in view,
as if his look had sunk inside


and still blazed on. Or the double axe
of the breast couldn't blind you, nor that grin
flash along the crease of the loins
down to the low centre of his sex.


Or else he'd sit, headless and halved,
his shoulders falling to thin air -
not shiver like the pelt of a wolf


or burst from his angles like a star:
for there is nowhere to hide, nothing here
that does not see you. Now change your life.
Don Paterson

Picador Poetry Prize

Only a few days left to assemble a sample collection of ten poems for the scrutiny of the judges of the Picador Prize. Incentives to enter this competition include - 

• NO FEE! 
• winner gets £1000 prize and   
• poetry collection published by Picador 
• under the eagle eye of Don Paterson who will edit the book!

Well, you've got to be in to win! Closing date 1 September.