Brompton Cemetery Open Day & Johnson Corrected

And We created not the heaven and the Earth and all that is between them in vain.
         If at all We had wished to find a pastime, We would surely have found it in what is within us.
            Nay, We hurl the truth at falsehood and it crushes it and lo, it vanishes. And woe unto you for that which you spin out. 

       The Holy Quran. al-Anbiya [The Prophets]. 17-19.

On 21st July I attended the Brompton Cemetery Open Day, I haven't attended any other Open Day and this was my first although I have visited Brompton twice before.  It wasn't as crowded as Kensal Green (and not as popular, Kensal Green's Open Day is the most popular and well-attended).  I took some photos and chanced upon the grave of Rawlinson (one of my cemetery poets which I photographed).

The cemetery has Beatrix Potter connections who used to live nearby in The Boltons and it is supposed that she visited it as a child and that some of the names on the tombstones such as Nutkins (Squirrel Nutkins) were the inspiration for some of her characters, Mr McGregor's walled garden was based on the colonnades.  Names on headstones at Brompton Cemetery include McGregor, a Tod (with that unusual single 'd' spelling), Jeremiah Fisher, Tommy Brock and even a Peter Rabbett.  

These cemeteries are full of connections - I spotted a Louisa Wallis buried next to a University of London professor!

Also paid a visit to the catacombs for the first time, they are much narrower than the ones in Kensal Green.  On the way home I passed through the Victoria & Embankment Gardens and photographed the grand monument to Robert Burns and the Weeping Muse at the memorial to Sir Arthur Sullivan, on it are carved the lines of W S Gilbert:

Life is a boon?
If so, it must befall
That death, whene'er he call
Must call too soon

God perfects our souls in proportion and has revealed the right and the wrong:

Surely he prospers who augments it.

             And he who corrupts it is ruined.

                   The Holy Quran. as-Shams [The Sun]. 10, 11.

God should inform the soul of Johnson that:

Corruption has flourished over land and sea because of what people's hands have wrought that He may make them taste the fruit of some of their doings so that they may retreat.        

Say 'Travel in the Earth and observe what was the end of those before you! Most of them were idolaters’.    

So set thy face towards the Religion which is upright and helps others to be upright before Allah brings a day for which there will be no averting on which they shall fall into groups distinct from each other.          

Those who reject will bear the consequences of their rejection; and those who do righteous deeds will only have provided for their own good.        

That He out of His bounty may reward those who believe and do righteous deeds.  Surely He does not love the disbelievers. 

         The Holy Quran.  al-Rum [The Byzantines].  42 - 46.

We are tired of London and we are tired of life.  In London a homeless man tries to cut his wrists with a broken bottle with people all around him on their lunch break (in Soho Square), a lady who runs into a nearby McDonald's to ask for help and to call an ambulance, is refused, members of public can't use the staff phone, asks if one of their staff would be so kind as to phone themselves, is refused.  People carry on chewing their sandwiches:

The inmates of the Fire and the inmates of the Garden are not equal. It is the inmates of the Garden that will triumph.

Hadst we sent this Quran down on a mountain thou wouldst certainly have seen it humbled and rent asunder in awe of Allah's Majesty. And these are similitudes that we set forth for mankind that they may ponder.

Allah is He beside whom there is none worthy of worship, the Knower of the unseen and the seen. He is the Gracious the Merciful.

Allah is He beside whom there is none worthy of worship, the Sovereign the Holy the Source of Peace the Bestower of Security the Protector the Mighty the Subduer the Exalted. Holy is Allah far above that which they associate with Him.

He is Allah the Creator the Maker the Fashioner His are the most beautiful attributes. All that is in the heavens and the Earth glorifies Him, and He is the Mighty the Wise. 

                The Holy Quran. al-Hashr [The Gathering]. 21 – 25.

Keats House & Kensal Green Open Day 2007

Banks, for me, are not places touched by poetry.  Mystery perhaps, but not poetry.  I am aware that T. S. Eliot worked in one for a while but I do not know a bank whereon the wild thyme blows and I cannot believe Burns was serious when he asserted that the banks and braes (whatever they may be) of bonny Doon bloomed fresh and fair.  Obviously he never queued for money in bonny Surrey.

                However, a recent experience has made me think again and admit that I may be much prejudiced.  A few months ago, I was paying some cheques into the society's account when the young lady cashier suddenly put down the papers she was studying so carefully, smiled at me and without further ado proceeded to recite the whole of 'In a Bath teashop’.  And then, with our banking business concluded, I was not exhorted to have a nice day but treated to the opening of lines of 'In Westminster Abbey’.  Whenever I am lucky enough to b this lady's customer the transaction is enlivened by one or two Betjeman quotes. 

               I was told that she 'discovered' Sir John at school where her English teacher gave her a copy of the Collected Poems and, to use her own words, she soon became a Betjeman addict.  The teacher loved poetry and he encouraged my friend to learn some favourite pieces by heart.  She did and she still does.  Sensible schoolmaster and lucky pupil.

                         John Heald.  ‘The Chairman's Letter'.  The Betjeman Society Newsletter, (October 2004).

Keats’ House in Hampstead is surprisingly well-maintained and kept well intact, it closes for refurbishment work again this year but only to repaint the walls the original colour as Keats would have known them and to re-plaster them, absolutely brilliant.  The other good thing is that the tickets are valid until October so I'll definitely have to revisit when I'm in the area again, I sat idly in the splendid garden.  Keats lived here from 1818 – 1820 and wrote some of his most famous poems here.  He also met and fell in love with Fanny Brawne here, the eldest daughter of his neighbour, the girl next door! Keats and Fanny were separated only by a thin wall between the houses.  The original house was known as Wentworth Place – Both houses (that of Fanny and John Keats) have now been knocked into one.

The famous portrait that shows Keats poetically posing by the fireplace was situated in the sitting room which still has the original fireplace and window looking out and also the bookshelf with some books Keats kept or is known at least to have read.  

A display cabinet holds his life mask and death mask and his inkstand.  Upstairs there are the bedrooms and a display of Fanny's belongings: her ring which Keats gave her and which she wore till her death, a lock of her hair and many other things. 

 
A small plum tree grows in the place where Keats sat down and composed 'Ode to a Nightingale' one morning as described by his friend Charles Brown:

In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house.  Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours.  When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper the in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song of our nightingale.  The writing was not well legible; and it was difficult to arrange the stanzas on so many scraps.  With his assistance I succeeded, and this was his 'Ode to a Nightingale', a poem which has been the delight of everyone.

        Charles Armitage Brown.  The Life of John Keats.  Edited by Dorothy Hyde Bodurtha.  (Oxford, 1937).

There is a noted silence and an emptiness to the house which one feels particularly on the way back, how lifeless it was now which had once been so full of life, some literary-minded chaps go in and out of its rooms daily like mice:

Pool in which images

Should be grand and classical

              Not this troublous

Wringing of hands, this dark Ceiling without a star.

Sylvia Plath, 'Child'.

I went to my favourite Hungarian (I feel very Edwardian) tea house and from thence to pay respects at Constable's tomb. 

Kensal Green Cemetery Open Day (on seventh) was great fun especially the catacomb tour and my usual carrot cake and tea (which the lady wrongly insisted was not carrot cake).  I had planned to take photos of the graves of the twelve or so poets who are buried there but was able only to take a photo of the grave of Lady Wilde.  The grave in front was open from the sides and full of water – 

The Borders: Tony Harrison at 70, 'Sacred' & 'A Poet in the Family'

The members of my sect shall so excel in knowledge and insight that they will confound everyone with the light of their truth, and by dint of their arguments and signs.[1]

As he ruefully observed more than once, few humans have disclosed their feelings, their ambitions and wicked wishes, with such sublime disregard for their reputation. He reported and closely analysed some of his most revealing dreams; he recorded some embarrassing memories of his early years.

       Peter Gay.  Freud: A Life for Our Time.  (1988). 

Simon Armitage wrote (in his article in celebration of Tony Harrison's sixtieth birthday) that he first saw him on TV reciting poems about his parents, in a pub full of men all holding tumblers of beer and all crying – It took him years to find out who the poet was. Similarly I first saw him on TV reciting some poems from the same sequence ('Them & [uz]'). I became a fan there and then and recognised in him the true poet, rediscovering him years later after I had joined the Poetry Library.

Tony Harrison's did lots of recitals in his seventieth birthday year. I've read everything he has published and have all his books; I can even recite his poetry by heart. He attended every performance of his play Hecuba in 2005, sitting behind other avid theatre-goers. He also gave a series of excellent interviews in the newspapers. Some of which I quote from here:

The heart beats iambically; the form keeps the connection to the heartbeat. For me, this fluidity of rhyme in the head is like water that keeps the clay malleable till it's ready.  
       The Muses know my telephone number.  
              I thought I might slow down, but part of me has no interest in what I've done approaching 70, only what I'm doing now or tomorrow. The older you get, the more sensual experience nourishes the poetry. I used to have depressive cycles, but instead of being afraid, I say: 'Come in and talk to me.' I've realised darkness and light are inter-dependant, just as death is an enhancer of life.

Harrison expresses this most brilliantly in his film/poem Cheating the Void:

Oblivion is darkness, Memory light.
They're locked in eternal struggle. Which
of the two forces finally shows its might
when death's doors are thrown open by a switch?

And goes on to answer that question in the film/poem itself. In the interview I quoted from above he says:

The stillness of poetry is like a vigil with a candle. Poetry is not a popular art, it doesn't change anything.  But it reminds us there are ways of contemplating destructive forces in a secular, meditative way which it's important to keep alive. That's what keeps me going.                  
            There are risks of sentimentality. But my meter starts ticking in the presence ofdumbness and inarticulacy.  There's
                      There's always that voice ’What’s the point, who the hell wants a poem?' I have to outstrip that dark, negative force to write anything. 

          Maya Jaggi.  'Beats of the heart'.  The Guardian, 31 May 2007. 

Tragedy, of course, is one of the great forms of the human spirit, greater than religion, for example. 

                      Michael Glover.  'Not to be read quietly'.  Independent on Sunday, 1 April 2007.

'And if you haven't got any religion, and I don't than art, for me, is the deepest expression of it all'.  As he once said - '(I'd like to be the poet my father reads!)':

I think ease of communication is one thing but the perfection of communication.  Working for weeks on a 10-line poem is something else. 

             Chris Bond.  'Poetry in motion with Tony Harrison'.  Yorkshire Post, 28 March 2007.

On 15 March he gave a recital at the School of English at Leeds University. He was late! First there was a screening of his film/poem Black Daisies for the Bride. One visitor wrote that it 'Taught us a hell of a lot more than merely the crunch'.  That the film/poem was 'Beautiful, but harrowing. His poems about war, his parents and 'Littererchewer' reminded me about how good he really is: aggressive, with wit that doesn't take away from neither gravity or humanity. Though I did leave feeling assaulted and dazed for several hours after, it was quite intense. Nevertheless he rocks bells and looks good for 70 to boot!' Among other poems he recited 'Heredity', 'Them & [uz] II' and 'On Not Being Milton'. He certainly does look good for 70 and I hope he continues to write for many years to come. He is doubtless among the greatest poets writing in English today.

He answered questions from the audience on 5 April 2007 following an exclusive screening of his film/poem The Shadow of Hiroshima at the BFI.

On 27 April Harrison recited his poems in a function entirely devoted to him called 'Pause for Poetry' at the Cambridge Wordfest. He recited 'Long Distance II' among other poems. Unfortunately all the tickets had already sold out when I tried to book. After the recital a lady from the audience approached him to ask if his film/poems were available on DVD, not the case most unfortunately (due to that common bane of poets, the lack of funds) - He replied that all his films are unavailable to the public.

Brighton Festival, 10 May 2007.  © Matthew Andrews.

I decided to go to the British Library and buy the double CD of Auden recordings recently released for the first time, a fitting tribute in the centenary year of his birth.  The bus passed The Lucas Arms on the Gray’s Inn Road – Now all renovated and newly done up: I think this was the pub I used to pass as a child with grandfather or dad.  There used to be an old man selling newspapers outside it who I was dead scared of because he was always so dreadfully drunk.

At the British Library bookshop I came across Cakes & Ale by Judy Spours.  A book I saw there last time but tried like mad to recall the title of and get hold of without any luck There is also another book I've been after for a few years now about the Victorian obsession with the occult and spiritualism, a review came out in The Times and I saw it once but haven't been able to find anywhere since.

I saw the brilliant 'Sacred' exhibition of religious texts and objects from the family of religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam stressing the fact that all 3 are basically from the same root/route-source and believe in different versions of the same stories.  They have on display that Kiswa, one of the cloths placed upon the Kaaba annually – Embroidered with real gold, also one of the original Suhuf e Uthman: the official edition of The Holy Quran compiled and published for the first time under Uthman (the third Caliph succeeding the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ). 

I also saw the exhibition of Blake's notebook and 'A Poet in the Family' from the recently acquired Coleridge Archive – Including the first edition of Sibylline Leaves and other books and papers and one of Coleridge's many notebooks.  Truly a great treasure of knowledge that the British Library has done well to invest in, a rare thing for a British institute to do for a British author! Afterwards I went to Oxford Street for a coffee.  I saw an 'Ex Royal Marines' homeless beggar sitting in a doorway in Argyle Avenue.

[1] Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Tajjaliyat e Ilahiya [Divine Manifestations].  (1906: Ziaul Islam, 1922.  Ruhani Khazain: xx.  409.  English: Islam International Publications Ltd, 2006).  36.

26 January 2007

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.

You have a hole, it's a poultice.

You have an eye, it's an image.

My boy, it's your last resort.

Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.     

        Sylvia Plath, 'The Applicant'.

Oh the dictations I have been receiving of whole poems entirely dreamt up but unremembered upon waking. Unimaginable how frustrating it is for someone like me who's poetically unproductive to the point of near sterility. Yeats explained this too (in fact it's a common poetic experience but rarely complete poems as I have received recently, all in English). Perhaps Hughes had a similar experience coinciding with another experience of mine - Nurses saying "It's a boy" over and over again for hours on end while I lay unconscious in hospital, I think in 1988: 

He managed to hear, faint and far - 'It's a boy!'

Then everything went black

        Ted Hughes, 'A Kill'.

Last month I had a vision whilst seated at the computer which lasted a mere few seconds. I saw a sheet of paper on which was written in Arabic some text which I read. All I recalled afterwards was "Allahumma al-Rai".  The first line ending with Allahumma and the second line beginning with al-Rai: 

Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?

Once one has been seized up

     
          Sylvia Plath, 'Mystic'.

Similarly on 2^nd January I dreamt that someone sprinkled water on my face while I was asleep which actually woke me up because it felt so real. The time was for the Fajr [dawn] prayer:

Sugar can cure everything, so Kindness says.
Sugar is a necessary fluid,

             Sylvia Plath, 'Kindness'.

What Plath called elsewhere 'The refined snow'[1] of Tate & Lyle, together with 'Eggs and fish, the essentials’.[2]

I fainted on 24^th - Most likely because I hadn't eaten anything (or drank) in well over 12 hours - Not purposefully but I hadn't really thought to or felt the need.  For many months now I have been living for nothing but Poetic Possibilities.  My lungs like 2 grey-paper 'Dust bags in and out'[3] pumping themselves out 'Of the bitumen of blood and the smoke of tears’.[4]

---

[1] Sylvia Plath.  ‘Wintering’.  Collected Poems.  Edited by Ted Hughes.  (Faber & Faber, 1981).
[2] Plath.  ‘Gigolo’.  Ibid.
[3] Plath.  'Paralytic' Ibid.
[4] Ted Hughes.  ‘A Green Mother’.  Collected Poems.  Edited by Paul Keegan.  (Faber & Faber, 2003).

Sir John Soanes' Museum

The same old fantasises – the cowboys, the lesbians, the skinhead boys – like the loop of a film going round and round.  The dry orgasm, everything held inside.

       I can't share my life with a fantasy, but most relationships are built on just that.  People often share parts of their lives together in a totally surreal way. 

          We all slip into unreal worlds as a release from the daily drudgery.
                 That's why people wank.  Not just for sexual gratification but to let their minds roam.

                             Tracey Emin.  Strangeland.  (Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2005).

The Victorian piety that 'All good things come to those who wait' has been made redundant by the credit card.  Go Figure -

It is surely essential to happiness to love and be loved and to be needed by other people.  There is nobody so unhappy at Christmas as the person who is neither loved nor needed.
      It makes one feel like an unpaid extra in the drama of life^.[1]

I visited the incredible Sir John Soane's Museum on 23, Sir John Soane was an architect by profession and an antiques collector.  His house is one of the finest of Regency Houses in London.  It houses a modest art collection (a painting of the fort of Golkanda in India which Hazrat Khalifatul Masih II describes in Ser e Roohani) as well as some paintings by Hogarth – The Famous An Election.  An Egyptian sarcophagus of transparent stone from 1230 odd BCE, Hogarth's rather wide armchair!  I went chiefly to see the impressive and befitting John Betjeman architectural exhibition.  The official catalogue that accompanies the exhibition (though about 70 pages) is priced at £14.95.  108 exhibits in all – Glorious Stuff! There is even Archie, his safe old teddy bear, now rather worn out and aged -  

Archie the bear slept in Betjeman's bed throughout childhood and marriage, and was in the poet's arms when he died in bed in Trebetherick, Cornwall.  He was an alter ego, who could represent some of the poet's more extreme enthusiasms, opinions and moods.[2]

Betjeman must have come often; he scribbled a (recently discovered) poem dated 28 March 1939, recalling a happy meeting with Myfanwy Piper here: 

Sir John has blest our Union
Myfanwy my own
Here in this grey communion
Of plaster cast and stone
Green to the skilful skylight
Sir John has made the walls 
How chaste and mild the high light 
On Child and cherub falls

---

[1] Minette Marrin.  'Happiness is being squeezed out of us'.  The Sunday Times.  (24 December 2006).

[2] First & Last Loves – John Betjeman & Architecture.  (Sir John Soanes Museum, 2006).  62.