Sublime poems

I'm picky about the poems that I really like and one of my criteria is that a poem should have a sublime quality. The dictionary definition states that sublime means 'very high quality' which doesn't begin to describe what I mean by the word. After all one person's 'high quality' is another person's gobblydegook. My definition would include transcendence, taking me somewhere beyond words, provoking images or memories which are unexpected. Some of Elizabeth Bishop's and Michael Longley's poems have that sublime quality which take my breath away. Jorie Graham's poem Sundown also knocks my socks off. Here's an excerpt,
Sometimes the day

                                             light winces
                                         
                                            behind you and it is

 a great treasure in this case today a man on

                                             a horse in calm full

                                             gallop on Omaha over my

                                             left shoulder coming on

                                             fast but

 calm not audible to me at all until I turned back my

                                              head for no

                                              reason as if what lies behind

                                             one had whispered

 what can I do for you today and I had just

                                              turned to

                                              answer and the answer to my

 answer flooded from the front with the late sun he/they

                                              were driving into --- gleaming --

                                              wet chest and upraised knees and

 light-struck hooves looking at me

 From 'Sundown'  by Jorie Graham in her collection P L A C E   (Carcanet 2012) 
I'm not sure if Jorie Graham intended this poem to be so sublime. It really needs to be read in full to appreciate the effect of the language and form on the page but this is one I keep returning to for poetic nourishment.

 I recently bought Kenneth Steven's sequence 'A Song among the Stones' (Polygon 2013)
which is based on an imagined journey made by Columba and a few other Christian monks
to an island off the coast of Iceland. Kenneth Steven intended the sequence to be read in one piece which I highly recommend but here is a short extract which I feel is another example of sublime poetry not because of religious or spiritual context but the sheer beauty of the writing,
look, someone said
there's a light on the sea
and they turned, clumsy and slow
mouths scabbed, dry-caked gashes
in their faces, their hands
like thumped lumps of fishes
bloodied and sore with cold
their eyes faraway, slow
deep in the bones of their faces

 (from 'A Song among the Stones' by Kenneth Steven) 




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

For Ukraine

I've noticed that my blog is read in many parts of the world and recently there have been some readers from Ukraine. This year will be momentous for Scotland given the forthcoming independence referendum in September but whatever happens no-one is likely to die on the streets in Edinburgh or Glasgow fighting for a change of regime and the opportunity to govern ourselves rather than be ruled by an increasingly irrelevant and distant parliament. This is for everyone in Ukraine hoping that peace will return to your streets and your lives very soon together with democracy and freedom. In the words of Michael O'Siadhail in Fallen Angel, My gods of innocence fallen, I clench a fragile self-reliance
Read more

DUSK Solstice Shorts Festival 2017

Image
DUSK: Solstice Shorts 2017 Originating in Greenwich, on the Prime Meridian, and now in its 4th year, Solstice Shorts is  going  nationwide. The theme this year is Dusk, that time between day and night when everything changes. On  21st December Dusk  starts in the UK in the  far  NE (Shetland) at  16:53  and finishes in the far SW (Cornwall) at  18:21 , taking between 40 and 50 minutes depending where you are. We have  twelve sites across the UK  all reading/singing  different  material (chosen by us, read by actors/ sung by musicians) starting In  Ellon, Aberdeenshire  and ending In  Redruth, Cornwall , taking in key spots in between. All events BSL Interpreted Tickets : Generally by donation, suggested £3, but there are exceptions where this is part of a bigger event. The performances will match the timing of (Astronomical) Dusk exactly, with a  live stream  on Facebook.  Redruth won’t start reading until Aberdeen had almost finished and all the other performance
Read more

New Writing Scotland 35 'She Said He Said I Said'

Image
I was delighted to be one of the writers invited to read at the launch of ' New Writing Scotland' 35 , She Said He Said I Said held at Blackwell's Bookshop in Edinburgh last night. Unfortunately Viccy Adams wasn't able to attend but it was great to meet Bryan Johnstone, Rose McDonagh, Heather Parry and Harry Smart as well as one of the editors Susie Maguire and Duncan Jones from the Association of Scottish Literary Studies. I read my poem Washerwomen on Calton Hill inspired by Thomas Begbie's wonderful photograph taken in 1887. The poem is written from the perspective of one of the washerwomen and how her feelings about the photographer might have been changed by one or two imagined incidents. Washerwomen on Calton Hill Scunnered. Such a good day for drying clothes up on the hill, away from all the smoky lums and up he comes, wants us to pose on the slopes. The cheek of him, we were all in position, standing, kneeling and his box on legs all set up, when
Read more