bailedI put this down last year, and picking it up today can feel no joy in it (the author's 'day job' was Crown Prosecutor, instrumental in securing the executions of Ruth Ellis, Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans, all cases now widely seen as either controversial and/or miscarriages of justice), so I'm sending it on it's way as I have no appetite for it any more. Another book on Zen will, no doubt, comfortably find it's way into my hand at some point.
pickA short prose-poem, self-published by the author, giving Burleigh's impressions of the view he has from his writing desk, and how it changes through the year. By itself, an atmospheric mood piece 3/5 🌟, but Cat Byrne's deceptively simple illustrations raise it a half-🌟
"The view from my window is a tree-covered hillside.
As I'm writing this, the trees are bare and skeletal,
almost fully enveloped in mist.
This is my favourite time of year.
There could be strange and ghostly things out there."
After lunch - one short nap:
On waking up - two cups of tea.
Raising my head, I see the sun's light
Once again slanting to the south-west.
Those who are happy regret the shortness of the day;
Those who are sad tire of the year's sloth.
But those whose hearts are devoid of joy or sadness
Just go on living, regardless of 'short' or 'long'.
- After Lunch by Po Chü-i
"I'll get drunk & give no shit,
& not be a Messiah."
- "New York to San Fran"
"Self-help fixes are like empty calories: The effects are fleeting and often detrimental in the long term. Worse, they promote victim blaming. The notion that your resilience is your problem alone is ideology, not science."
(Quote not from book)
Badges from News from Nowhere - describes my weekend 🤣
"We're stuck in our
Selves,
And who else to be stuck in?"
- "New York to San Fran"
so-soNot an unenjoyable collection of poems, and several have striking visual and emotional images, but there felt too much for me that was impenetrable and oblique to really get into. I did particularly like 'George and the Dragon', though.
What lost realm of desires
foregone, a body slipping from his grasp,
the way a guddled trout might shiver free
just at the very last: that lovely
emptiness it leaves
between the hands
a puzzle of warmth
and marrow swimming away
to everywhere,
a stream inside the stream
of light and water, single, almost free.
- "Handfasting"
"Too much is being
sacrificed, the dragon with its throat
transpierced, a sign
left over from the damp, pre-Christian world,
led from the cave on its chain (the woman holds it
lightly in her hand) to be destroyed
for no good reason, given that it's tame
and captive now.
Perhaps it's just too green
or too expressive, set against this knight
whose mind is elsewhere, blank as ordinance
and formal, like the host, or like
??
"The boy is balanced on his skates, a kind
of beauty in the act of concentration.
We all have days like this, the quiet mind
dispensing with care to the greater or lesser extent
that circumstance allows."
- "Henderick Avercamp: A Standing Man Watching a Skating Boy"
Where's Moomin? Hiding from the Hitlers! Can you spot Moomin on Tove Jansson's cover art for the satirical magazine, Garm?
#bannedbythenazis #antifascist
“I want to venture a hypothesis that, roughly expressed, goes like this: you cannot learn to love yourself until you find something in the world to love; no matter what it is. A dog, a garden, a tree, a flight of birds, a friend...Because what we love in ourselves is ourselves loving.”
(Not from tagged book. Doesn't it annoy you when Goodreads 'librarians' don't tag the book they're quoting from?)
I thought the one book design reminded me of the other, to find that they're by the same publisher, so that explains that! Understated and distinctive, which is a good style, I think.
I'm rereading Vicki Feaver before trying the John Burnside. I love that toad on The Book of Blood! 🐸
"Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."
- The Song of Wandering Aengus
Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
- "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven"
Along my weary whiskers
The tears flow fast and free,
They twinkle in the Arctic
And plop into the sea.
Alas! my weary whiskers!
Alas! my tearfulness!
I wish I could remember
The cause of my distress.
- "I Wish I Could Remember", poem and painting by Mervyn Peake
#poetrymatters #tear @TheSpineView
Stop all fantasy!
live
in the physical world
moment to moment
- "Dawn"
pickBragg proposes that true, inclusive and democratic freedom is founded on the three principles of liberty, equality and accountability. He builds his argument for the importance of each pillar, showing how neoliberalism has eroded them, but most particularly that of accountability. Deregulation has given free rein to corporate exploitation of people and the environment, and Bragg sketches his ideas for redressing the balance. 👇🏼
"The challenge that faced the English in the seventeenth century was how to curb the absolute power of the monarch. In the twenty-first century, it is the markets that have taken on the mantle of absolutism, placing themselves above the jurisdiction of national governments. Holding the king to account was unprecedented and went against custom and tradition - holding the global markets to account is just as audacious and just as necessary."
"Capitalism is like fire: keep it under control and it will give you heat and light; leave it untended and it will consume everything in its path."
"Freedom of speech does not guarantee you a platform from which to air your opinions. You may hold trenchant views on a number of subjects but the fact that 'The Times' won't print your ruminations doesn't mean you are being oppressed...While freedom of speech gives you the right to dissent and, yes, to offend, it does not give you the right to abuse."
Next up, William Bloke's newly published book about the state of the handcart we're in and how close to the infernal fires we might be. I'm hoping he has some thoughts on how we can change direction, or at least knows the location of a conveniently head-sized patch of sand.
[The image is the back-cover blurb, and I'd assume the use of the t-word in the first line is not unintentional.]
pickAlthough I had a rocky relationship with the first third of this third book in a five book trilogy, the second and third thirds were smoother and less jarring. I still could have done without "bistromathics", but felt Arthur was well-handled, and his character somewhat developed beyond "clueless tea-deficient ape descendant". Trillian was underused, but less so than in the previous books. All in all, I didn't stray too far from interested: 4?
Frost in the ruined tree
Sparkles and sings:
A thousand phantom birds
Preen ghostly wings,
Wings that murmur and flit
The dead leaves among...
The thousand phantom songs
Have all been sung.
- "Frost Music"
#poetrymatters #song @TheSpineView
A selection from "Rules for Drinking" from "The Imperial Cookery Book of the Mongol Dynasty"
- Get intoxicated, but don't get helplessly drunk. Drunkenness causes life-long ill-health
- Don't lie in the sun when drunk - that way lies madness
- When drunk don't get so excited that you scare your soul out of your body
- If you see in your wine the reflection of a person not in your range of vision, don't drink it
Good advice: I'll drink to that!?
"After three days without reading, talk becomes flavourless."
- Proverb
First published in 1938, this translation of "gems from Chinese literature" is a bit of a hodge podge of proverbs, folklore, poetry and 'common knowledge'. Obviously not PC in its editorial voice. Some lovely line illustrations and decorations. A bargain at £4 ?
#bookhaul
I can always be assured of finding new books I never knew I always wanted when I go to Broadhurst's Booksellers 😊📚
Faith and perseverance rewarded - after about 60 pages of feeling "meh", the story starts to coalesce into some sort of oxymoronic vague-coherence and I'm engaged in the following 40 pages. Half way through, so let's hope Adams stays on track for the remainder! ☹?☹
- and you there standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form!
A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze!
- "Sunflower Sutra"
#poetrymatters #sunflower @TheSpineView
For some we loved, the loveliest and the best
That from his Vintage rolling Time hath prest,
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before,
And one by one crept silently to rest.
#poetrymatters #silence @TheSpineView
I read the trilogy back in the '80s, off the back of the radio and TV shows. Rereading them now, I'm reliving how much I loved Hitchhiker and Restaurant, and how LtUaE felt like shtick. Much of the joy of reading Adams is his subversion of the reader's expectation for how a sentence should end, based on how it started. Having got used to that again, I'm feeling a bit meh about this. I'll keep going, though, Adams deserves the benefit of the doubt.
"Why can‘t people just learn to live together in peace and harmony?” said Arthur.
Ford gave a loud, very hollow laugh.
“Forty-two!” he said with a malicious grin. “No, doesn‘t work. Never mind."
“How can I tell that the past isn't a fiction designed to account for the discrepancy between my immediate physical sensations and my state of mind?”
I think this is one of my favourite representations of Wells's Martian tripods. It's from a 1964 Penguin edition and looks so beetle-ish! 🦗
The artist is Virgil Burnett, whose only other work I have are his illustrations in the Folio edition of Khayyám, which are rather lovely. Looking him up, I see he was a writer, too, and his books look interesting. One to keep an eye out for now he's on my radar 📡
“I only know as much about myself as my mind can work out under its current conditions. And its current conditions are not good.”
The President in particular is very much a figurehead — he wields no real power whatsoever. He is apparently chosen by the government, but the qualities he is required to display are not those of leadership but those of finely judged outrage. For this reason the President is always a controversial choice, always an infuriating but fascinating character. His job is not to wield power but to draw attention away from it...
“You can't understand America without understanding jazz, and you can't understand jazz without understanding Dave Brubeck.“
- Barack Obama
I love Brubeck, and can't wait (but I'll have to) for December, when this new biography is published. Definitely an early entry on my Christmas list!
My mother who died young
In an outlandish rhythm
Would have been seventy now
And perhaps dead in funeral time.
So I may start to mourn
As I would celebrate
The first or second birthday
Of a still-born baby.
- Out of Season
I am to be cured, now that summer is finished
Harvested of my sickness, re-arranged for winter.
Seven devils are not easily banished
Nor the knot of blindness loosened by a quick knife.
Outside, ignored, the July evenings saunter,
I have turned back to my room, waiting for my life,
Trying to recollect how the white drug fell
Clogging my veins in an avalanche of sleep
- Life Story
Between the illness and the cure there is a strange realm
Peopled by ignorant subjects who want and do not want
The sword of sanity and the elm
Stake that scotches the vampire.
- Life Story
I hear leaves drinking rain;
I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
Drop after drop;
'Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near.
And when the Sun comes out,
After this rain shall stop,
A wondrous light will fill
Each dark round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright;
'Twill be a lovely sight.
- The Rain
"A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare."
- The pleasure of unexpectedly finding a well-loved poem ?
"Some banks cropped close, and lawns smooth mown and green,
Where, when a daisy's guiltless face was seen,
Its pretty head came sacrifice to pride
Of human taste"
- The Hill-Side Park
I love the sight of daisies on the lawn and always feel a pang when I mow them away, especially when the bees are feeding from them. ?? Mind, they do grow back quickly!
I almost didn't buy this book due to the teacup ring on the cover, then decided it added character, but remained dubious as I didn't recognise the author, then softened when I saw inside on the list of his previous works that he's the author of "Diary of a Super-Tramp", which I intend to read one day ( #tmbtlt ) then read the first poem, and it came home with me ?
A pleasant half hour in a bookshop reminded me that I didn't need to panic! Picked up a couple of poetry books (the yellow one is "The Survivors" by Patricia Beer), and finally found some clean copies of Hitchhiker, to replace the ones I unaccountably disposed of a couple of decades ago.
