Written by
Barry Tebb |
There was a hope for poetry in the sixties
And for education and society, teachers free
To do as they wanted: I could and did teach
Poetry and art all day and little else -
That was my way.
I threw rainbows against the classroom walls,
Gold and silver dragons in the corridors and
Halls; the children’s eyes were full of stars;
I taught the alphabet in Greek and spoke of
Peace and war in Vietnam, of birth and sex and
Death and immortality - the essences of lyric poetry;
Richards and Ogden on ‘The Meaning of Meaning’,
Schopenhauer on sadness, Nietzsche and Lawrence on
Civilisation and Plato on the Theory of Forms;
I read aloud ‘The Rainbow’ and the children drew
The waterfall with Gudrun bathing, I showed
Them Gauguin and Fra Angelico in gold and a film
On painting from life, and the nude girls
Bothered no-one.
It was the Sixties -
Art was life and life was art and in the
Staff-room we talked of poetry and politics
And passionately I argued with John. a clinical
Psychologist, on Freud and Jung; Anne, at forty
One, wanted to be sterilised and amazingly asked
My advice but that was how it was then: Dianne
Went off to join weekly rep at Brighton, Dave
Clark had given up law to teach a ‘D’ stream in the
Inner city. I was more lucky and had the brightest
Children - Sheila Pritchard my genius child-poet with
Her roguish eye and high bright voice, drawing skulls
In Avernus and burning white chrysanthemums, teasing me
With her long legs and gold salmon-flecked eyes.
It was a surprise when I made it into Penguin Books;
Michael Horovitz busy then as now and madly idealistic
As me; getting ready for the Albert Hall jamboree,
The rainbow bomb of peace and poetry.
|
Written by
Barry Tebb |
It brings to mind Swift leaving a fortune to Dublin
‘For the founding of a lunatic asylum - no place needs it more’.
The breathing beauty of the moors and cheap accommodation
Drew me but the total barbarity of the town stopped me from
Writing a single line: from the hideous facade of its railway
Station - Betjeman must have been drunk or mad to praise it -
To that lump of stone on Castle Hill - her savage spirit broods.
I remember trying to teach there, at Bradley, where the head
Was some kind of ex-P.T. teacher, who thought poetry something
You did to children and his workaholic jackass deputy, obsessed
With practical science and lesson preparation and team teaching
And everything on, above and beneath the earth except ‘The Education
Of the Poetic Spirit’ and without that and as an example of what
Pound meant about how a country treats its poets "is a measure
Of its civilisation". I once had a holiday job in a mill and the
Nightwatchman’s killer alsatian had more civilisation than
Huddersfield’s Deputy Direction of Education.
For a while I was granted temporary asylum at Royds Hall -
At least some of the staff there had socialism if not art -
But soon it was spoilt for everyone when Jenks came to head
English, sweating for his OU degree and making us all suffer,
The kids hating his sarcasm and the staff his vaulting ambition
And I was the only one not afraid of him. His Achilles’ heel was
Culture - he was a yob through and through - and the Head said to me
"I’ve had enough of him throwing his weight around, if it comes
To a showdown I’ll back you against him any day" but he got
The degree and the job and the dollars - my old T.C. took him
But that was typical, after Roy Rich went came a fat appointee
Who had written nothing and knew nothing but knew everyone on
The appointing committee.
Everyday I was in Huddersfield I thought I was in hell and
Sartre was right and so was Jonson - "Hell’s a grammar school
To this" - too (Peter Porter I salute you!) and always I dreamed
Of Leeds and my beautiful gifted ten-year olds and Sheila, my
Genius-child-poet and a head who left me alone to teach poetry
And painting day in, day out and Dave Clark and Diane and I,
In the staffroom discussing phenomenology and daseinanalysis
Applied to Dewey’s theory of education and the essence of the
Forms in Plato and Plotinus and plaiting a rose in Sheila’s
Hair and Johns, the civilised HMI, asking for a copy of my poems
And Horovitz putting me in ‘Children of Albion’ and ‘The
Statesman’ giving me good reviews.
Decades later, in Byram Arcade, I am staring at the facade of
‘The Poetry Business’ and its proprietors sitting on the steps
Outside, trying to look civilised and their letter, "Your poetry
Is good but its not our kind" and I wondered what their kind was
And besides they’re not my kind of editor and I’m back in Leeds
With a letter from Seamus Heaney - thank you, Nobel Laureate, for
Liking ‘My Perfect Rose’ and yes, you’re right about my wanting
To get those New Generation Poets into my classroom at Wyther
Park and show them a thing or two and a phone call from
Horovitz who is my kind of editor still, after thirty years,
His mellifluous voice with its blend of an Oxford accent and
American High Camp, so warm and full of knowledge and above all
PASSIONATE ABOUT POETRY and I remember someone saying,
"If Oxford is the soul of England, Huddersfield is its arsehole".
|
Written by
William Butler Yeats |
I
Under the Great Comedian's tomb the crowd.
A bundle of tempestuous cloud is blown
About the sky; where that is clear of cloud
Brightness remains; a brighter star shoots down;
What shudders run through all that animal blood?
What is this sacrifice? Can someone there
Recall the Cretan barb that pierced a star?
Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through,
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,
Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.
An age is the reversal of an age:
When strangers murdered Emmet, Fitzgerald, Tone,
We lived like men that watch a painted stage.
What matter for the scene, the scene once gone:
It had not touched our lives. But popular rage,
Hysterica passio dragged this quarry down.
None shared our guilt; nor did we play a part
Upon a painted stage when we devoured his heart.
Come, fix upon me that accusing eye.
I thirst for accusation. All that was sung.
All that was said in Ireland is a lie
Bred out of the c-ontagion of the throng,
Saving the rhyme rats hear before they die.
Leave nothing but the nothingS that belong
To this bare soul, let all men judge that can
Whether it be an animal or a man.
II
The rest I pass, one sentence I unsay.
Had de Valera eaten parnell's heart
No loose-lipped demagogue had won the day.
No civil rancour torn the land apart.
Had Cosgrave eaten parnell's heart, the land's
Imagination had been satisfied,
Or lacking that, government in such hands.
O'Higgins its sole statesman had not died.
Had even O'Duffy - but I name no more -
Their school a crowd, his master solitude;
Through Jonathan Swift's clark grove he passed, and there
plucked bitter wisdom that enriched his blood.
|
Written by
Jonas Mekas |
I do not know, whether the sun
accomplished it,
the rain or wind –
but I was missing so
the whiteness and the snow.
I listened to the rustling
of spring rain,
washing the reddish buds
of chestnut-trees, –
and a tiny spring ran down
into the valley from the hill –
and I was missing
the whiteness
and the snow.
And in the yards, and on the slopes
red-cheeked
village maidens
hung up the washings
blown over by the wind
and, leaning,
stared a long while
at the yellow tufts of sallow:
For love is like the wind,
And love is like the water –
it warms up with the spring,
and freezes over – in the autumn.
But to me, I don't know why,
whether the sun
accomplished it,
the rain or wind –
but I was missing so
the whiteness and the snow.
I know – the wind
will blow and blow the washings,
and the rain
will wash and wash the chestnut-trees, –
but love, which melted with
the snow –
will not return.
Deep below the snow sleep
words and feelings:
for today, watching
the dance of rain between the door –
the rain of spring! –
I saw another:
she walked by in the rain,
and beautiful she was,
and smiled:
For love is like the wind,
and love is like the water –
it warms up with the spring
and freezes over – in the autumn,
though to me, I don't know why,
whether the sun
accomplished it,
the rain or wind –
but I was missing so
the whiteness and the snow.
Translated by Clark Mills
|
Written by
Badger Clark |
(_Written for Mother_)
Oh Lord. I've never lived where churches grow.
I love creation better as it stood
That day You finished it so long ago
And looked upon Your work and called it good.
I know that others find You in the light
That's sifted down through tinted window panes,
And yet I seem to feel You near tonight
In this dim, quiet starlight on the plains.
I thank You, Lord, that I am placed so well,
That You have made my freedom so complete;
That I'm no slave of whistle, clock or bell,
Nor weak-eyed prisoner of wall and street.
Just let me live my life as I've begun
And give me work that's open to the sky;
Make me a pardner of the wind and sun,
And I won't ask a life that's soft or high.
Let me be easy on the man that's down;
Let me be square and generous with all.
I'm careless sometimes, Lord, when I'm in town,
But never let 'em say I'm mean or small!
Make me as big and open as the plains,
As honest as the hawse between my knees,
Clean as the wind that blows behind the rains,
Free as the hawk that circles down the breeze!
Forgive me, Lord, if sometimes I forget.
You know about the reasons that are hid.
You understand the things that gall and fret;
You know me better than my mother did.
Just keep an eye on all that's done and said
And right me, sometimes, when I turn aside,
And guide me on the long, dim trail ahead
That stretches upward toward the Great Divide.
|
Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
I was only eight years old;
And before I grew up and knew what it meant
I had no words for it, except
That I was frightened and told my Mother;
And that my Father got a pistol
And would have killed Charlie, who was a big boy,
Fifteen years old, except for his Mother.
Nevertheless the story clung to me.
But the man who married me, a widower of thirty-five,
Was a newcomer and never heard it
Till two years after we were married.
Then he considered himself cheated,
And the village agreed that I was not really a virgin.
Well, he deserted me, and I died
The following winter.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
NOW Robin 1 lies in his last lair,
He’ll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair;
Cauld poverty, wi’ hungry stare,
Nae mair shall fear him;
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care,
E’er mair come near him.
To tell the truth, they seldom fash’d him,
Except the moment that they crush’d him;
For sune as chance or fate had hush’d ’em
Tho’ e’er sae short.
Then wi’ a rhyme or sang he lash’d ’em,
And thought it sport.
Tho’he was bred to kintra-wark,
And counted was baith wight and stark,
Yet that was never Robin’s mark
To mak a man;
But tell him, he was learn’d and clark,
Ye roos’d him then!
Note 1. Ruisseaux is French for rivulets or “burns,” a translation of his name. [back]
|
Written by
Badger Clark |
Spanish is the lovin' tongue,
Soft as music, light as spray.
'Twas a girl I learnt it from,
Livin' down Sonora way.
I don't look much like a lover,
Yet I say her love words over
Often when I'm all alone--
"Mi amor, mi corazon."
Nights when she knew where I'd ride
She would listen for my spurs,
Fling the big door open wide,
Raise them laughin' eyes of hers
And my heart would nigh stop beatin'
When I heard her tender greetin',
Whispered soft for me alone--
"Mi amor! mi corazon!"
Moonlight in the patio,
Old Señora noddin' near,
Me and Juana talkin' low
So the Madre couldn't hear--
How those hours would go a-flyin'!
And too soon I'd hear her sighin'
In her little sorry tone--
"Adios, mi corazon!"
But one time I had to fly
For a foolish gamblin' fight,
And we said a swift goodbye
In that black, unlucky night.
When I'd loosed her arms from clingin'
With her words the hoofs kep' ringin'
As I galloped north alone--
"Adios, mi corazon!"
Never seen her since that night.
I kaint cross the Line, you know.
She was Mex and I was white;
Like as not it's better so.
Yet I've always sort of missed her
Since that last wild night I kissed her,
Left her heart and lost my own--
"Adios, mi corazon!"
|
Written by
Badger Clark |
'Way high up the Mogollons,
Among the mountain tops,
A lion cleaned a yearlin's bones
And licked his thankful chops,
When on the picture who should ride,
A-trippin' down a slope,
But High-Chin Bob, with sinful pride
And mav'rick-hungry rope.
"_Oh, glory be to me," says he,_
"_And fame's unfadin' flowers!_
_All meddlin' hands are far away;_
_I ride my good top-hawse today_
_And I'm top-rope of the Lazy J----_
_Hi! kitty cat, you're ours!_"
That lion licked his paw so brown
And dreamed soft dreams of veal--
And then the circlin' loop sung down
And roped him 'round his meal.
He yowled quick fury to the world
Till all the hills yelled back;
The top-hawse gave a snort and whirled
And Bob caught up the slack.
"_Oh, glory be to me," laughs he._
"_We hit the glory trail._
_No human man as I have read_
_Darst loop a ragin' lion's head,_
_Nor ever hawse could drag one dead_
_Until we told the tale._"
'Way high up the Mogollons
That top-hawse done his best,
Through whippin' brush and rattlin' stones,
From canyon-floor to crest.
But ever when Bob turned and hoped
A limp remains to find,
A red-eyed lion, belly roped
But healthy, loped behind.
"_Oh, glory be to me" grunts he._
"_This glory trail is rough,_
_Yet even till the Judgment Morn_
_I'll keep this dally 'round the horn,_
_For never any hero born_
_Could stoop to holler: Nuff!_'"
Three suns had rode their circle home
Beyond the desert's rim,
And turned their star-herds loose to roam
The ranges high and dim;
Yet up and down and 'round and 'cross
Bob pounded, weak and wan,
For pride still glued him to his hawse
And glory drove him on.
"_Oh, glory be to me," sighs he._
"_He kaint be drug to death,_
_But now I know beyond a doubt_
_Them heroes I have read about_
_Was only fools that stuck it out_
_To end of mortal breath._"
'Way high up the Mogollons
A prospect man did swear
That moon dreams melted down his bones
And hoisted up his hair:
A ribby cow-hawse thundered by,
A lion trailed along,
A rider, ga'nt but chin on high,
Yelled out a crazy song.
"_Oh, glory be to me!" cries he,_
"_And to my noble noose!_
_Oh, stranger, tell my pards below_
_I took a rampin' dream in tow,_
_And if I never lay him low,_
_I'll never turn him loose!_"
|
Written by
Badger Clark |
You're salty and greasy and smoky as sin
But of all grub we love you the best.
You stuck to us closer than nighest of kin
And helped us win out in the West,
You froze with us up on the Laramie trail;
You sweat with us down at Tucson;
When Injun was painted and white man was pale
You nerved us to grip our last chance by the tail
And load up our Colts and hang on.
You've sizzled by mountain and mesa and plain
Over campfires of sagebrush and oak;
The breezes that blow from the Platte to the main
Have carried your savory smoke.
You're friendly to miner or puncher or priest;
You're as good in December as May;
You always came in when the fresh meat had ceased
And the rough course of empire to westward was greased
By the bacon we fried on the way.
We've said that you weren't fit for white men to eat
And your virtues we often forget.
We've called you by names that I darsn't repeat,
But we love you and swear by you yet.
Here's to you, old bacon, fat, lean streak and rin',
All the westerners join in the toast,
From mesquite and yucca to sagebrush and pine,
From Canada down to the Mexican Line,
From Omaha out to the coast!
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