WILLIAM & LUCY - INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR MICHAEL BROWN

Have you ever wondered whether the idealized, unreachable beloved of the great classic poets really existed? What they were like in their everyday life? If they were really extraordinary or were made such by the magic created through words by the men they were loved and admired by? Michael Brown transformed one of those ideal figures, William Wordsworth's Lucy, into a real blood and flesh character in his historical novel. In William & Lucy he has created a passionate love story between the great Romantic  poet, William Wordsworth,  and Lucy, the beautiful girl to whom he dedicated a few of his most famous poems. Read my interview with Michael Brown.

William & Lucy is a tale of mystery and love inspired to William Wordsworth’s  so called Lucy poems.  Who was the woman the poet dedicated his poems to?  Did she really exist?

All historical references to the Lucy of Wordsworth’s five LUCY poems are ambigious; there is no recorded history of such a young woman. Some scholars belive Lucy was the embodiement of William’s sister, Dorothy. There are other speculations but that is all they remain. I took the literary license to creat a fictionalized version of Lucy; hoping it might ring true to the story.

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

 Beside the springs of Dove

A Maid whom there were none to praise

And very few to love …

A BIRTHDAY GIFT

Yes, today it's my birthday and all I want is to forget about it. It makes me quite melancholic (or I'd better say sad?)  It is not any birthday,  it is a turning point in life and that's quite scary, you know. I don't feel like celebrating,  I feel more like escaping. Something I can't do, though.  I must stay here and face the ugly truth.

Anyway,  I have just found something which can console me a bit:  a  poem.  I'll  consider it the perfect gift arrived at just the right time.

A quote  from it has just been posted by a blogger I follow on tumblr.  I googled the name of the poet and found the whole poem. I like it, it touches my heart just in the place which hurts.   Thanks a lot for this beautiful gift, darling unaware blogger. 

FRIDAY NIGHT MISCELLANEOUS POSTING - ON LOVE LETTERS, ANGELS, POETRY AND MORE

It's been a while since my last miscellaneous post. But, today has been such a full day, so intense and tiring that ...I can't simply stop now, nor close my eyes and sleep yet,  though it's nearly midnight. So, maybe to share some of my thoughts and emotions of the last 24 hours can help me to relax. 

Let's start from ... last night, more or less this time last night.

I'd been quite unwell yesterday, a virus's conspiracy against my poor digestive system has knocked me down for a while and being in bed all day but not fit enough to read or write, I re-watched some old stuff (ehm... not saying what, try to guess) and watched the latest episode of a new ITV1 series. I turned off my husband's iPad just at midnight, after the episode finished in fact. 

I started watching this new series because it was set  in York and I was curious to see the beautiful city I visited in July filmed on TV. Then,  I went on watching it trying to understand whether I liked it or not. 

Eternal Law is the title of the series, have you seen it? Sam West, Orla Brady, Tobias Menzies, Hattie Morahan are the other reasons why I got to see last night's episode too. However, I'm still undecisive on my response after 4 episodes. York is stunning, the cast is of first quality but ... the storyline hasn't convinced me, hasn't won me. Written by the same writers as Ashes to Ashes, though it features extraordinary winged beings like angels ... it doesn't fly. I'll watch the next two episodes and then ... the verdict, your Honour.  

THE SONG OF LUNCH - POETRY ON TV WITH ALAN RICKMAN AND EMMA THOMPSON

As time passes by, I'm more and more astonished at how daring British TV is.  TV shows about literature at prime time (Faulks on Fiction) and contemporary poetry dramatized by great, talented,  world-famous actors on one of the main state channels. I'm amazed. 

A dramatised narrative poem might sound a bit dull but this one with Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson is wonderful.

The production is 50 minutes long, and is a co-production between the BBC and Masterpiece.

Screened on 9 October 2010 during National Poetry Month, now released in DVD, the production is unusual in featuring little spoken dialogue, the action instead being an enactment of incidents described by poetic monologue of the male character.

The Song of Lunch is a television adaptation of Christopher Reid's poem of the same name. It was directed by Niall MacCormick and stars Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson. Executive producer, her handsome husband, Greg Wise who peeps out from a bookcover two or three times in the 50 minutes. 

18th and 19th Century Women Writers Challenge - Charlotte Turner Smith and her Elegiac Sonnets

Many of us have heard or studied great Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge or know about early romantic poets as William Blake, Thomas Gray and William Cowper. But very few have read or studied the numerous Romantic women writers and poets we have in English literature. So I thought I could dedicate my first post in the 18th and 19th Women Writers Challenge - hosted at Becky's Book Reviews -  to one of them, one of the most representative.

Charlotte Turner Smith ( 1749 – 1806) was a successful writer : she published ten novels, three books of poetry, four children's books, and other assorted works, over the course of her career. She always saw herself as a poet first and foremost .

Smith's poetry and prose was praised by contemporaries such as Romantic poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge as well as novelist Walter Scott. Largely forgotten by the middle of the nineteenth century, her works have now been republished and she is recognized as an important Romantic writer.

But more than by her works, I have always been attracted by her unfortunate hard working life which inspired her novels and poetry.

Charlotte was born into a wealthy family and received a typical education for a woman during the late eighteenth century. However, her father's reckless spending forced her to marry early. In a marriage that she later described as prostitution, she was given by her father to the violent and profligate Benjamin Smith. Their marriage was deeply unhappy, although they had twelve children together. Charlotte joined Benjamin in debtor's prison, where she wrote her first book of poetry, Elegiac Sonnets. Its success allowed her to help pay for Benjamin's release. Benjamin's father tried to leave money to Charlotte and her children upon his death, but legal technicalities prevented her from ever acquiring it.

Charlotte Smith eventually left Benjamin and began writing to support their children. Smith's struggle to provide for her children and her frustrated attempts to gain legal protection as a woman provided themes for her poetry and novels; she included portraits of herself and her family in her novels as well as details about her life in her prefaces.

Among her novels, Emmeline, The Orphan of the Castle (1788) and Celestina (1791)

For this challenge I read , little by little, and from time to time, many of her ELEGIAC SONNETS ( on line HERE).

Smith wrote in response to a public that could pay: she urgently needed revenues from her subscriptions, which opens a difficult ground for considering the relations between form and public expectation. Important also in this regard is Smith's decision to write poetry at all, when clearly the real money to be made was in prose fiction. She did eventually make her mark as a prolific novelist, but she defined herself primarily in terms of the dignity afforded the lyricist. In insisting upon her status as lyric poet, she asserts her membership in a cultural elite, one to which she would claim rightful inclusion in spite of her financial dependencies. She defiantly locates herself within the very public that knows what is worth paying for.

Smith appropriates the form that during  the  Renaissance, was linked to a particular kind of "mythologizing the woman", one that absolutely cancels her physicality. Great sonneteers had depicted idealized unreacheable beautiful women whose chastity and spirituality were basic features of their personality.

Now in her Elegiac Sonnets- written while she was in a debtors ' prison with her husband - Charlotte, a woman trying to make her way in a largely inhospitable world, tormented by the dross of domestic despair and financial crisis, laments emphatically real losses through the same 14-line-layout  that conventionally had been used to suspend the concrete actuality of the feminine in favour of mythic presence. This is Smith’s absolute novelty in her revival of the sonnet.
Romantic poetry is pervaded by a deep sense of loss and mourning that renders much of it elegiac in tone, reflecting as it does a sense of the world in which it was written as alienated, broken and torn. The affective individual, newly shaped by contemporary debates on sensibility and feeling, was expected to respond compassionately, if dejectedly, to the ruination engendered by Britain’s war with France, the failed revolution, rural poverty and an enclosed and ravaged natural landscape. The elegiac mode thus offered Romantic poets a form in which to address the perceived devastation of society through subjective explorations of grief, death, bereavement and consolation. The latter is what is difficult to find in Smith's poetry. Her sonnets are defined elegiac but the melancholic tone of loss and sorrow are not followed by the conventional consolation which is , instead , typical of elegy. Here is an example of this attitude.

SONNET XL. FROM THE SAME.
FAR on the sands, the low retiring tide,
In distant murmurs hardly seems to flow,
And o'er the world of waters, blue and wide,
The sighing summer wind, forgets to blow.
As sinks the day-star in the rosy West,
The silent wave, with rich reflection glows:
Alas! can tranquil nature give me rest,
Or scenes of beauty, soothe me to repose?
Can the soft lustre of the sleeping main,
Yon radiant heaven, or all creation's charms,
"Erase the written troubles of the brain,"
Which Memory tortures, and which guilt alarms?
Or bid a bosom transient quiet prove,
That bleeds with vain remorse, and unextinguish'd love!

Here’s a sample of how her sonnets are strictly linked to her condition of woman totally deprived of rights and freedom. She,  thus,  defies the male canon:

To Dependence

Dependence! heavy, heavy are they chains,
And happier they who from the dangerous sea

Or the dark mine, procure with ceaseless pains

An hard-eard'd pittance--than who trust to thee!
More blest the hind, who from his bed of flock
Starts--when the birds of morn their summons give
And waken'd by the lark--"the sheperd's clock."
Lives but to labour--labouring but to live.
More noble than the sycophant, whose art
Must heap with taudry flowers thy hated shrine;
I envy not the meed thou canst impart
To crown his service--While, tho' Pride combine
With Fraud to crush me--my unfetter'd heart
Still to the Mountain Nymph may offer mine.

William Wordsworth wrote: “ A lady to whom English verse is under greater obligations than are likely to be either acknowledged or remembered”

William Cowper, instead, a close friend of hers, witnessed her exhausting hard work to financially support her family: “Chain’d to her desk like a slave to his oar, with no other means of subsistencefor herself and her numerous children, with her broken constitution, unequal to sever labour enjoined by her necessity, she is indeed to be pitied (…) she will and ust ‘ere long die a martyr to her exigencies”

She couldn't recognize, in her condition of mother-martyr, the consolatory power of Art.

Slow in the Wintry Morn, the struggling light
Throws a faint gleam upon the troubled waves;
Their foaming tops, as they approach the shore
And the broad surf that never ceasing breaks
On the innumerous pebbles, catch the beams
Of the pale Sun, that with reluctance gives
To this cold northern Isle, its shorten'd day.
Alas! how few the morning wakes to joy!
How many murmur at oblivious night
For leaving them so soon; for bearing thus
Their fancied bliss (the only bliss they taste!),
On her black wings away!—
(from THE EMIGRANTS Book I lines 1-12)

In these lines,  she identifies herself with the exile from France, those tormented people escaping from a country at war. She, a woman at war against an entire society and their injust laws, conventions and istitutions which had made  her  sublime and solitary like a byronic hero. A real forerunner of the romantic mood, she conveys the same desperate restllessness we will recognize Byron's reckless atypical figures, his outcast and rebels .

JANUARY 27th - NEVER FORGET THAT THIS HAS HAPPENED

On Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27th, I'd like to share an Italian poem and a movie by an Italian director with you .Both are linked to the theme of the day.
 A harsh disquieting poem, inspired by the Hebrew prayer shema,  which introduces the book SE QUESTO E' UN UOMO, (If this is a man) by Primo Levi.

Primo Levi was a Jewish-Italian chemist who became a committed writer . He had an urgent need to tell about his surviving  the atrocities he had had  to bear  as a prisoner in one of the most infamous concentration camps :  If This Is a Man - published in the U.S. as Survival in Auschwitz - is his account of the year he spent there , in Nazi-occupied Poland. He could never recover from his sense of guilt and decided to put an end to his haunted years committing suicide in 1987. SE QUESTO E' UN UOMO  has been described as one of the most important works of the twentieth century.

In the poem opening the novel,   Levi invites the reader to make a judgement. He alludes to the treatment of people as untermensch (German for sub-human) and subsequently examines the degree to which it was possible for a prisoner in Auschwitz to retain his or her humanity. The poem explains the title and sets a main theme of the book:  humanity in the midst of inhumanity. The last part of the poem, beginning "meditate" explains Levi's purpose in having written it: to record what happened so that successive generations may be able to ponder (a more literal translation of meditare) the significance of the events which he lived through.
Here are the lines. In Italian the words are harsher, much more bitter. It is not my translation, I found it online. It is a powerful shriek of sorrow and anger.

Voi che vivete sicuri You who live safe

Nelle vostre tiepide case In your warm houses,

voi che trovate tornando a sera You who find warm food

Il cibo caldo e visi amici And friendly faces when you return home.

Considerate se questo è un uomo Consider if this is a man

Che lavora nel fango Who works in mud,

Che non conosce pace Who knows no peace,

Che lotta per mezzo pane Who fights for a crust of bread,

Che muore per un sì o per un no. Who dies by a yes or a no.

Considerate se questa è una donna Consider if this is a woman

Senza capelli e senza nome Without hair, without name,

Senza più forza di ricordare Without the strength to remember,

Vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo Empty are her eyes, cold her womb,

Come una rana d'inverno. Like a frog in winter.

Meditate che questo è stato Never forget that this has happened.

Vi comando queste parole. Remember these words.

Scolpitele nel vostro cuore Engrave them in your hearts,

Stando in casa andando per via When at home or in the street,

Coricandovi alzandovi When lying down, when getting up.

Ripetetele ai vostri figli. Repeat them to your children.

O vi si sfaccia la casa Or may your houses be destroyed,

La malattia vi impedisca May illness strike you down,

I vostri nati torcano il viso da voi May your offspring turn their faces from you.

(Primo Levi, Se questo è un uomo, 1947 )

 

And now the movie. A touching, romantic story taking place in two different and distant crucial historical moments in Prague: WWII and the Spring of 1968. This 2000 Italian film with an excellent international cast is directed by Ricky Tognazzi and is loosely based on Paolo Maurensing's novel Canone Inverso(1996).

Canone inverso- Making Love stars Hans Matheson (Doctor Zhivago, The Tudors, Sherlock Holmes 2009) as Jeno Varga, Gabriel Byrne as a mysterious violinist, Peter Vaughan as Old Baron Blau, Melanie Thierry as Sophie Levi, Nia Roberts as Costanza. I saw it several years ago, on its release, but it has remained one of my favourite WWII movies somehow linked to the Holocaust.

Costanza is drinking a beer in a Prague pub, a summer night in 1968, when a violinist enters and starts playing a "canone inverso" for her. It is not by chance... he is looking for her and she remembers that music. That violin, the music and the man have a story that might concern her. It is the love story between Jeno Varga - a poor jewish boy living in Prague before and during WWII - and the music, between Jeno Varga and Sophie Levi. It is also the story of the deep friendship between David and Jeno . Music and Love the most powerful bonds that could resist the passing of time. It is a beautiful film with brilliant actors, a great script and Ennio Moricone’s music. I've found  this clip on Ututbe. It is in English but it contains major spoilers, so if you want to look for this movie and watch it entirely, it is better to skip it. If,  instead, you want to see it, get ready, it is the moment when Costanza understands who the violinist is … who she is … where she comes from.

NEVER FORGET THAT THIS HAS HAPPENED

MY BLOGGER BUDDIES: WOMEN, READERS, WRITERS...FRIENDS! HELENA HARPER, "IT'S A TEACHER'S LIFE...!"

In one of my latest post  I told you I'd love to host guest posts to introduce the many interesting people I've known since I started blogging  with FLY HIGH ! less than a year ago. The blogosphere has been an inexhaustible source of knew experiences and knowledge to me and I've really met lots of people who share my interests, passions and fondnesses. I didn't know many in my real life and this has made me appreciate the Net so much! I've actually met wonderful people, mostly women,  who are passionate bloggers but also  much more...So I wanted to introduce them to all of you since each of them brings a very special story. The first is one of my latest buddies. I met her on Booksreads and we discovered we share much: we've got a degree in foreign languages, we've taught for twenty years in secondary schools, we love reading, we like blogging. She's now a tutor privately and a ... poet! Her first published collection is delightful and surprising , her poems are lovely vivid pictures of real life at school in a simple entertaining language. I'd never thought someone could write good poetry about school but ... Helena did it , and the result is extremely enjoyable!

Well , it's now time to introduce you ... HELENA HARPER.

1. Tell us a bit about yourself, Helena.

Well, Maria, I live in England, but I grew up in a household that did things somewhat differently to other English households, because of my German mother (my mother met my father in Hamburg at the end of WWII, when he was a British soldier stationed there). At school, I enjoyed studying English and foreign languages and I went on to study German, Russian and International Relations at university. After university I went into banking, but I soon realised that was a big mistake because there was no outlet for creativity there! So I decided to train as a modern languages teacher and then started my teaching career. I've taught for 20 years as a secondary school teacher and now tutor privately.

2. We are colleagues, then! When did you know you wanted to be a writer?

 I've always loved writing. Even before I went to school and could write, I sat at a desk and wrote line after squiggly line on blank sheets of paper. The first story I remember writing was a story about pots and pans and other kitchen appliances who were having a competition to see who could be the cleanest. I really enjoyed writing that story and I still love to write those kind of stories, which is why I enjoy writing picture books and early readers. Part of me has never grown up!

3. You have a degree in modern languages and are a qualified teacher. Has this helped your writing?
Yes, definitely. My language studies have helped me appreciate the sound, rhythm and meaning of words and my teaching has taught me a great deal about what makes people tick.

4. Have you always been interested in writing poetry?

Actually, no! I've always loved to write, but my first love has always been writing fantasy stories for young children. I wrote poetry at school, of course, and every so often when I was on holiday, but it wasn't a regular thing.

5. So, what prompted you to write your first book “It's a Teacher's Life...!”

Well, about four years ago, when I was on a retreat at a beautiful place in the country, I was inspired to write some poetry, and when I came home, I then had the idea to write some more poems about my life as a teacher. Each poem would concentrate on a different aspect of school life, such as the lessons, what went on in the staffroom, school trips, exams, report writing, and so on. I also wanted to pay tribute to some of the support staff who do so much to keep a school running, but are often forgotten about e.g. the cook, the caretaker/janitor, the nurse, the school secretary – the unsung heroes of life is what I call them.

 

6. Do you have a favourite poem?

 No, I can't say I've got a favourite. Each one is written from the heart and it's impossible for me to single one out in particular.

7. What did you find the hardest about writing your book?
Finding the time to finish it and then the editing, the endless checking and re-reading – it drove me crazy!

8. What was the easiest part?
Just writing the poems – I was totally absorbed by the process and really enjoyed it.

9. How do you describe your style of poetry?

Easy-to-read, easily accessible free verse. I want people to be able to read and understand what I'm writing about from the word go. I don't like things to be hidden in obscurity. I write simply as I'm inspired to write. The poems I've had published in my two collections are really stories and character sketches that just happen to be in verse. One of the reviews on Amazon talks about me developing a new form of poetry, called the 'anecdotal poem', and I think that describes my style of poetry very well.

 

10. You mentioned a second collection of poetry. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Yes, it's called 'Family and More – Enemies or Friends?' and it's like a poetic memoir, focusing on the people who've had a big influence on my life and the lessons I've learnt from them. My German/English background was a major inspiration for writing this book. At the moment, it's available as an ebook, but it's due to come out as a paperback this year with an extra poem and photos as well. So I'm excited about that!

11. What's the attraction of writing poetry as opposed to writing children's stories?

When I write poetry, I can concentrate on the rhythm and sound of the words and use vocabulary I wouldn't be able to use in my children's stories. It's a marvellous linguistic challenge - the sound of words has always been something that's fascinated me. It's one of the reasons I studied modern languages. When I write my children's stories, it's more about escaping into a wonderful world of fantasy, leaving the mundane 'real' world behind – I find it wonderfully exciting and liberating.

 

Thank you so much, Helena!

 And  now , to give you all an example of Helena's talent I've chosen one of her poems I like best . I've picked it up from her blog.

 

THANK YOUThank you for the breath that moves my body
 and for the limbs that carry my spirit.
Thank you for the heart that beats in my chest
 and for the mind that creates it.
Thank you for the fingers curling my hand
 and for the toes dancing on my feet.
Thank you for the conscious energy surging through every cell,
 connecting me to the ever-present ocean of eternity.
Thank you for the touch of my skin
 and the comforting caress of warm water.
Thank you for the stillness of early morning
 and the invigorating slap of cold air.
 Thank you for the new spring life filling my eyes
 and the symphony of bird song filling my ears.
Thank you for this land we belong to,
 for the plants that talk to us
 and for our sisters, the trees.
 Thank you for warm smiles of family
 and helping hands of strangers, friends in disguise.
 Thank you for the laughter vibrating through my body
 and for the words expressing from my mouth.
Thank you for the excitement of inquiry
 and the fascination of discovery.
Thank you for bright patterns of T-shirt and trousers
 and soft cuddles of dressing gown sleeves.
Thank you for the sweet melon melting my tongue
 and the rich wine warming my throat.
Thank you for the dying sun
 and for the colours that pulse
 in unison with my soul.
Thank you for imagination's unfettered flights
 soaring through infinite wonder and joy
 and for inspiration, the whispered language of a loving soul.
 Thank you for this magical, wonderful,
 joyfully abundant, never-ending now.
 
Purchasing information for “It's a Teacher's Life...!”
Author: Helena Harper
ISBN: 978-1-84748-182-5
Publisher: Athena Press
Pages: 80
Available in paperback from all major online retailers, please see links below. Can also be ordered through any bookstore. Stocked by Haslemere Bookshop and Weybridge Books in the UK.
Amazon US: http://bit.ly/5Q2T3r
Amazon UK: http://bit.ly/6H8MH4
Amazon CAN: http://bit.ly/5VhCPr
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/8FHUbp
Google products: http://bit.ly/6MU5Ra
Title: It's a Teacher's Life...! A Collection of Poems Set in a Girls' Private School

THE LIFE THAT I HAVE - RA FRIDAY PHOTO ALBUM

Since I love poetry and ...  "my one weakness" , Richard Armitage, yesterday someone who has known me for a little time but already knows me very well sent me a very pleasant gift : a short poem read by RA I had never heard before.

The life that I have

Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.


A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

A love poem, you'd say, wouldn't you? Not at all, instead. It is a code-poem from WWII, written by Leo Marks.

Marks was a cryptographer in World War II and he wrote this as a code-poem for Violette Szabo, an agent sent to work in France who was later captured and killed.

Who better then Lucas North / Richard Armitage in person could have recited this poem? Since he is the best secret agent/actor, he actually seems to recite a LOVE poem! But he did it disguised as Mr John Thornton.  A good spook has got at least 5 different identities! Listen and watch. ( I made this photo album from North and South 2004 adding a song I truly love, "I'm yours" - The Script)

Richard Armitage read this poem and others in A War Less Ordinary  for BBCRadio2 on 10th November 2007.

A War Less Ordinary was broadcast  as part of the BBC's range of programmes marking the weekend of Remembrance Day. Using poetry, song and archive recordings, it commemorated the work of those who did not fight in war-time, but who nonetheless contributed to the war effort in Britain during the two world wars.

By the way, SPOOKS is back next Wednesday 4th November on BBC 1 at 9.00 pm (it'll be 10 in Italy) and I 'm behaving very well, as a very good girl usually does,  and even better, hoping my little fairy will make another dream of mine come true: to see the new series 8 as soon as possible ... CAN'T WAIT!!! Please.
N.B. My little good fairy has already made one my dreams come true: to see BBC EMMA 2009 as soon as possible. Isn't she lovely?



There are plenty of new articles and interviews on line. Not so many new photos. Richard is still shooting STRIKE BACK in South Africa and , unfortunately, he won't be round for Spooks promotion and premiere. My favourite recent interviews with RA about SPOOKS and himself are on :

• TIME OUT
• LIFE OF WYLIE
• DAILY RECORD

HOW TO GROW OLD

I remember I read this essay - HOW TO GROW OLD by Bertrand Russel - when I was 15 ,at school with my English teacher. It was an ironical text about how to grow old the right way keeping up strength, will and mental energy.
Why am I thinking about that now? Because it was my birthday some days ago - I know , I didn't tell you anything but I was not in the mood to celebrate, completely alone at home, husband and sons still at the seaside... I realized that every year more I wish to forget my birthday. There's something wrong in that: we must face reality, not escape it, that's something I'm sure of. And once we face it, we must try to handle it and finally accept it. Now, I know many women my age or even over, would think I'm mad because we are still "young", but it is really saddening to reflect on the passing of time. Then, don't tell me that turning forty-something is like turning 30-something! That's lying and you know.
This is why I decided to re-read some pages from that old book I had completely forgotten.

Do you want to read some lines with me?

"In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remoter ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women's higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to tell of how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She asked him why he was so melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. 'Good gracious,' she exclaimed, 'I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a miserable existence!' 'Madre snaturale!,' he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable shortness of your future.
As regards health, I have nothing useful to say as I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.
Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true". (...)


After Bertrand Russel's words, I'd like to share with you a very short poem by Nazim Hikmet, which one of my friends/colleagues used in her wishing card as a consolation for my sad thoughts about age and the passing of time. She is great! Once again -it's not the first time - she chose the most perfect words to cure my negativity:

The best sea has yet to be crossed.
The best child has yet to grow up.
Our best days have yet to be lived;
and the best word I wanted to say to you
is the word I have not yet said.

(Nazim Hikmet 1902-1963)

Translation from the Turkish Richard McKane

I am there, like Frederick's romantic wanderer, standing high on a sea of fog, astonished at the sublime vastness of nature and life but also melancholic at the thought of how fast everything comes to its end... anyway confident that our best days have yet to be lived!

LIFE WAS TOO SMALL TO CONTAIN HER

She was American, he was English. Both very sensitive, both very good poets. But he was lucky, he was a man in the 50s. She, instead, was stuck, entrapped, in the cliché of the female role of the 50s- well it was STILL the long-lasting stereotype inherited from very ancient times. He was a heartthrob, she felt like "a horse in a world without race-tracks". Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes. Two of the greatest poets of the 20th century. The two met at a party in Cambridge in 1956 and got married in the same year. They had two children, Freida and Nicholas. However she was unsatisfied with her life, she desperately wanted to find time for her poetry but her house and her children sucked all her time and her energies. Her life turned into hell one night when she lifted the receiver and overheard a conversation between her husband and his lover, a common acquaintance, Assia. Her turbulent marriage wrecked though their bond of love remained unbreakable.
Sylvia had suffered from depression as a teenager and had even tried to kill herself at 19. She was rescued and treated with electro-shock therapy. A terrible period of her life she wrote about in THE BELL JAR, her splendid, deeply touching autobiographical novel. Her fascination to death ( "blackness and silence") became her favourite subject in her poetry, nearly an obsession, and grew on and on till she decided to try again: she gassed herself, she succeded in committing suicide, on the 11 of February 1963. She was 30. In that last troubled year, she wrote her most beautiful lines, Ted Hughes would later on published.

Sylvia Plath is one of my favourite poets but also a woman whose life has always fascinated me since I first read THE BELL JAR, her only novel. Her poetry, known as confessional poetry, is terribly dark, tragic but so...deeply touching. Here are some lines from "The Moon and the Yew Tree" (Ariel):

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.

The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

Fumy, spirituous mists inhabit this place

Separated from my house by a row of headstones.

I simply cannot see where there is to get to. (...)

This is instead the letter Ted Hughes wrote to Sylvia's mother after some time from her suicide. Can you imagine his sense of guilt? How difficult could it be to write such a letter? It's extremely moving... LISTEN TO IT. HERE.

(Has any of you recognised the voice reading the letters? Who guesses will win ... MY CONGRATULATIONS!)

In 2003 Christine Jeffs directed an amazingly powerful beautiful film starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Daniel Craig, SYLVIA (in my DVD collection). I know very few people must have seen it but it is a terribly good portray of the two lovers and poets. Critically acclaimed and very moving, it is a must-see movie.

RELATED POSTS AND SITES Ted Hughes: A Talented Murderer March 2009: Sylvia and Ted's son committed suicide My video on Utube: Richard Armitage reads Ted Hughes's letter to Sylvia's mother

...CATCH THE WINDS OF DESTINY WHEREVER THEY DRIVE THE BOAT

Poetry is one of my favourite shelters to reflect, meditate, listen carefully to the deep sound of life...

Last night I was working on some of my students' papers: they are preparing their interdisciplinary essays for their final exams, we call them "tesine" or "percorsi". The school leaving examinations will start next week, on 25th June. They are all very anxious ( me too!) because they will be also examined by 4 external teachers and will have to do very difficult tests coming from the Ministery of Education. For their oral examination, they can usually choose a topic and then try to link as many subjects as they can to it. They are writing very interesting essays and choosing very beautiful literary works. So, last night, I bumped into GEORGE GRAY - a very grey person indeed in his life - in one of their essays. I like these lines very much and often read them to my students. They are taken from SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY (I started this blog with a poem from this collection. Do you want to have look? HERE) by Edgar Lee Masters. The poem can be connected to Horace's idea of "seize the day".

In Spoon River all the characters speak after death - but they are so vividly alive! -leaving to all of us their special will: precious teachings to fully appreciate life.

George Gray


I have studied many times

The marble which was chiseled for me—

A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.

In truth it pictures not my destination

But my life.



For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;

Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;

Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.

Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.

And now I know that we must lift the sail

And catch the winds of destiny

Wherever they drive the boat.

To put meaning in one’s life may end in madness,

But life without meaning is the torture

Of restlessness and vague desire—

It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

SO LET'S TRY TO BE LIKE THIS ...

AND NOT LIKE THIS ....

HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!!! MG

JOHN KEATS : ONE WHOSE NAME WAS WRIT IN WATER

Among the films taking part in this year Cannes Festival there was also Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR. Do you remember her? She's the director from New Zealand who won the Palme D’Or in 1993 with her wonderful THE PIANO. As I heard about it, I promised myself this film will be part of my DVD collection as soon as it will be released (with YOUNG VICTORIA, another costume film released this year, which I’m eagerly waiting to see).
The movie tells the story of the tragic romance between JOHN KEATS, one othe English Romantic poets of the second generation, and Fanny Brawne. Keats has now become one of the most popular poets in the English language, but in his life, though he managed to publish his works, he wasn't either famous or rich.
Keats, played by Ben Whishaw, met Fanny, Abbie Cornish in the movie, at his friend Charles Brown’s house in 1818 and soon fell in love with her. She was 18 and he was 23. He had already lost his mother for tuberculosis and his brother Tom would soon follow her, just when John himself started showing the first symptoms of the terrible desease.
The screenplay is based on the letters that the poet wrote to his beloved, letters which were published only after Fanny’s death.
Keats had abandoned his studies in Medicine to dedicate his life to poetry but could hardly live on it.So Fanny’s mother, at the beginning, didn’t approve him as her daughter’s wooer. Despite his health troubles, Keats was a cheerful person, full of life, and with the passing of time Fanny started to return his love. The two lovers got engaged, but their happiness was definitely short. In February 1820, on a cold evening, Keats got back home feverish and started coughing blood, an undeniable sign of his next end.
After a while, sure of his approaching death, he wrote to Fanny suggesting to break their engagement but she firmly refused and he couldn’t hide his relief. After seeing his terrible health conditions, Fanny’s mother hosted him in their house where he lived for three months. But his doctor and his friends stirred him to go to Italy where the mild climate might have helped improve his health.
He had seen his mother and his brother die for that illness and, maybe, he didn’t want to give Fanny the same terrible sorrow he had suffered, so he accepted the proposal of leaving England for Italy. She gave him the paper to write to her and a marble oval, used at that time to cool high temperature. He left with his friend, painter John Severn, but he was quarantined for several days at Naples port so when he finally arrived in Rome his health was seriously compromised. He lived at “La Casina Rossa”, next to the Spanish Steps at Piazza di Spagna for about 3 months, dying there on the 23rd of February 1821, at 25. He never wrote to Fanny nor read her letters but wanted them to be buried with him with a curl of her hair. On his grave, at Testaccio Protestant Cemetery in Rome, no name nor date were written, just these words: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water”. From the letters Fanny later wrote to her sister, we know she remained deeply in love with the poet. She accepted to get married only after 9 years from his death and had three children. She kept Keats’s letters till her death - secretly from her husband.

The title of the movie is taken from one of Keats’s poems, a sonnet, dedicated to Fanny:

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—

No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

RELATED POSTS AND SITES BRIGHT STAR 2009 - OFFICIAL SITE THE GUARDIAN CO.UK REVIEWKEATS AND SHELLEY MEMORIAL HOUSE IN ROME
A SHORT CLIP FROM CANNES FESTIVAL EXCERPTS

POETRY, LIFE AND ...NIGHT DREAMS.

Before flying to ... my night dreams I 'd like to share some beautiful lines with you. Among my favourite poems, one by PABLO NERUDA. It's titled "Muere lentamente" (Dies slowly)

Dies Slowly
he who becomes a slave of habit,

repeating same path every day,

he who never changes brands.

Who doesn't risk wearing a new colour

And doesn't speak to whom he doesn't know.

Dies Slowly
he who makes the television his guru.

he who avoids a passion,

he who prefers black on white

and dotted "i"s to a whirlwind of emotions,

precisely those that rescue the brilliance of one's eyes,

smiles from yawns,

hearts from disappointments and sorrows.

Dies Slowly

he who doesn't turn the table when he's unhappy at his job,he who doesn't risk the certain for the uncertain to follow a dream,he who doesn't permit himself at least once in his life,to flee from sensible advice.
Dies Slowlyhe who doesn't travel, he who doesn't read,he who doesn't listen to music,he who doesn't find humor in himself.
Dies Slowlyhe who destroys his own love,he who doesn't allow himself to help.Dies Slowlyhe who passes the days complaining of his bad luckor of the incessant rain.
Dies Slowlyhe who abandons a project before starting it,not asking about an unfamiliar subjectornot answering when they inquire about something he knows.We avoid death in soft quotes, remembering that to be alive requiresan effort much greater than the simple fact of breathing.Only with ardent patience will we conquer a splendid happiness.

But I must admit I like it better in its original version, that is to say in Spanish.

So, for those of you who can read Spanish, enjoy this:

Muere lentamente

quien se transforma en esclavo del hábito,

repitiendo todos los días los mismos trayectos,

quien no cambia de marca, no arriesga vestir un color nuevo

y no le habla a quien no conoce.

Muere lentamente

quien evita una pasión, quien prefiere el negro sobre blanco y los

puntos sobre las "íes" a un remolino de emociones, justamente las que

rescatan el brillo de los ojos, sonrisas de los bostezos

corazones a los tropiezos y sentimientos.

Muere lentamente

quien no voltea la mesa, cuando está infeliz en el trabajo,

quien no arriesga lo cierto por lo incierto para ir detrás de un sueño,

quien no se permite por lo menos una vez en la vida,

huir de los consejos sensatos.

Muere lentamente quien no viaja,

quien no lee, quien no oye música,

quien no encuentra gracia en sí mismo.

Muere lentamente

quien destruye su amor propio, quien no se deja ayudar.

Muere lentamente,

quien pasa los días quejándose de su mala suerte o de la lluvia incesante.

Muere lentamente,

quien abandona un proyecto antes de iniciarlo, no preguntando de un

asunto que desconoce o no respondiendo cuando le indagan sobre algo que sabe.

Evitemos la muerte en suaves cuotas, recordando siempre que estar vivo

exige un esfuerzo mucho mayor que el simple hecho de respirar.

Solamente la ardiente paciencia hará que conquistemos una espléndida felicidad.

P.S. Sweet dreams. Till very soon for what I promised, "Being a woman at Jane Austen's time".

MY DAY OFF : POETRY TO FLY HIGH BUT SCHOOL - HAUNTED ALL THE TIME!

My day off. Relax and free time are the most directly connected ideas in an ordinary mind. But, well, no, not if it is MY day off. The awful truth is that I've been writing tests, correcting and assessing tests, writing mails, ordering photocopies and preparing the Trinity College Spoken Examinations timetable for our centre. Unbelievable, my work never actually ends. Even when I read something is more often for my classes than for pleasure. And do you know what? Many people I know think that to be a teacher is one of the best jobs since you only work 18 hours a week... 18 hours a week???

Boring stuff, you're right.

I need a break. I need ... not to think about scholastic duties in order to avoid getting too depressed so ... I turn the TV on, just to listen to some English ( but it is the subject I teach!) I've been lucky! There's JANE EYRE on BBC PRIME, the first episode. My beloved BBC Jane Eyre with Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson. Mr Rochester and Jane Eyre have just met each other. The dark atmosphere at Thornfield is enlighted by their blossoming romance. I love this story.

But to ... FLY HIGH I need something more. Usually poetry helps me much (FOR EXAMPLE...) I mean optimistic lirical poetry. Leopardi must be avoided when you are already in a bad mood. So I've taken WALT WHITMAN's LEAVES OF GRASS from my bookshelf. I've opened the book searching for my favourite underlined passages and ... here is one for you (meanwhile Rochester and Jane are sitting by a stream and talking about the past)

"(...)You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look
through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
you shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
you shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
(...)
I believe in you my soul"
(From SONG OF MYSELF)

Yes, we have to count on ourselves.We have to listen and read respectfully but, in the end, we must form our opinions counting on our judgement and sensitivity. Self - assertion and self -confidence. Walt Whitman believed in mankind and in their right to freely follow the path of ... life. His lesson is great optimism and trust in human beings.

This remind me of one of the most beautiful movies in my DVD collection, a film in which Whitman's poetry is part of the script and his teachings are part of the morale of the story:

DEAD POETS SOCIETY

It is definitely one of my favourite movies and I can't see the final scene without being moved to tears each time. Here it is. To understand the pathos of this scene,anyway, you must know about or see the rest of the story.





Have you noticed? They are in a classroom...I'm really never totally off duty!School is even part of this splendid final scene, one of the best ever! So I've flown high for a while but landed back to my ...working place.I'll give up! I'll prepare my lessons for tomorrow.

FLYING (OR SAILING?) TO... ITHACA

Ithaca
By Konstantinos P. Kavafis

When you leave for Ithaca,

may your journey be long

and full of adventures and knowledge.
Do not be afraid of Laestrigones, Cyclopes

or furious Poseidon;

you won’t come across them on your way

if you don’t carry them in your soul,

if your soul does not put them in front of your steps.
I hope your road is long.

May there be many a summer morning,

and may ports for the first time seen

bring you great joy.
May you stop at Phoenician marts,

to purchase there the best of wares,

mother-of-pearl and coral, amber, ebony,

hedonic perfumes of all sorts;

may you go to various Egyptian towns

and learn from a people with so much to teach.

Don’t lose sight of Ithaca,

for that’s your destination.

But take your time;

better that the journey lasts many a year

and that your boat only drops anchor on the island

when you have grown rich

with what you learned on the way.
Don’t expect Ithaca to give you many riches.

Ithaca has already given you a fine voyage;

without Ithaca you would never have parted.

Ithaca gave you everything and can give you no more.
If in the end you think that Ithaca is poor,

don’t think that she has cheated you.

Because you have grown wise and lived an intense life,

and that’s the meaning of Ithaca.

I wish you get safe to YOUR Ithaca...
MG

LET'S TAKE OFF!

To fly high we need a good take off! An expert pilot knows how to start the engine properly ... Since our flight is and will be made up of words, what about a short beautiful poem by Edgar Lee Masters?

In youth my wings were strong and tireless,

But I did not know the mountains.

In age I knew the mountains

But my weary wings could not follow my vision.

Genius is wisdom and youth.

("Alexander Throckmorton" from SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY)

Enjoy the flight.
MG