Library magic.

Towards the end of December, the 18th, in fact, I attended a meeting at Chepstow Library. I am the Chair of Friends Of Abergavenny Library Services, FOALS, and the meeting had been called for all friends' groups in Monmouthshire to discuss the future of library service provision. We were told that a merged service of a library and One Stop Shop would be rolled out and would be called a 'Community Hub'. This did not go down well. There was also complete disapproval from everyone about proposed cuts in front-line staff.

Whilst the meeting didn't feel much like a discussion, more a handing down of instruction, at an area committee meeting in Abergavenny earlier this month, officers of council had evidently taken heed of the reaction in Chepstow before Christmas, even as far as reconsidering the name 'Community hub', which, quite frankly, is naff, and what is a library if it isn't a community hub! the alternatives floated were unfortunately even more naff, for instance. 'Find it at the library'. I suppose that is supposed to fit on a sign! what is wrong with 'library'!

The issue of staff reductions is also being reconsidered. I think it is bizarre to make redundant trained librarians who are a resource and prize of society, and fails any notion of society in terms of society as provider.

I think we have never needed libraries more than we do now. Closure of libraries must prompt people to question the way we are governed, the ethic of state, and the role of the individual. I believe in a democratic as a dynamic, and that a democratic to evolve has to be tested. Library closure is a test that has to strengthen the need for and function of libraries, and this in turn will strengthen the individual, society, the democratic.

I have acquainted myself with other libraries facing closure, particularly in Cardiff. The problems facing each library are very specific and the general issue is going to require pragmatism, thought, and options for councillors and officers of council. The only people who can do this are library users, and I am seeing a lot of action on that front.

So, I have written a little ditty about the situation and I also bumped into a poet I very much admire, Michael Williams, whilst at the Chepstow meeting. We poets are kicking off. The blood is up.

Michael has been very kind to allow me to publish one of my favourite poems by him, so this post is about the magical events that occur in libraries and why they are so vital.


The North

Where the trees begin, there is north,
here as I come from mile-square fields,

now as I arrive as if over turned fathom of a great ocean,
to discover barrier islands spreading before a landing,

the truth north gained upon rectified ways,
highroads laid not to habit, but at the bureau,

and driven to an end and a beginning,
the semi-plane, provincial portion of the infinite,

where the grass ends, where the trees begin.

Michael Williams.


Michael did ask me to mention that this is a draft. A draft! I wish I wrote drafts like this. I have not had the chance yet to tell him, but I think it is without flaw. I also saw him last week at the Imperial Hotel, Merthyr. Poet, and man of Merthyr, Mike Jenkins puts the night on, which had been jacked by Poetry Wales! it was a big night, with Costa winner, and mate, Jonathan Edwards. Michael Williams read three beautiful poems. The poetry scene here in Wales is epic.

This is my little ditty I was asked to write by one of the librarians at Abergavenny library. I performed it last week at the Impy. Hmmm, no, the week before, last week was the Murenger, in Newport.


Binding the learnt politic

In the scope of between
unanimous ends of nerve
wax the threads that binds the seam.
The needle holds its curve.

Thumb requires thimble,
tender palm the driving pad.

You cut through a swindle
when you tighten a lag.

On hearing singing in Tintern Abbey, 07/09/2014

Having written a poem about Llanthony Abbey I took quite a lot longer to write a poem about Tintern. I decided to go for a more abstract approach and kept in mind the work of Joseph Mallord William Turner, a view of the Abbey from upstream composed in 1828. I also thought a second poem about a ruin would just sound like the first and that might have...ruinous consequences...so me, my girlfriend, and her dog took off in Randolf the Red (my van) on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon in early September on a Muse Mission to Tintern. I didn't want to go into the Abbey itself as I have done this countless times, but wander around on the opposite bank of the river and see if the Muse might come out and play! so, the three of us were mooching along when all of a sudden the sound of a choir, singing inside the Abbey, came to us bouncing off the river, faint, haunting. The omens were on.

On hearing singing in Tintern Abbey, 07-09-14

Song, a séance of everything body,

cutting mind and soul from soft ligatures,

we sink our fleets in stone belted harbours

and swim in a hope of drowning slowly;

the occult of our marked anatomy

expanding to the ilk of nebulas,

a moon in a thaw of pregnant fetters,

new oceans aligning to gravity.

The river is a song of human skin;

a constant touch in a flux of itself

into the weightless need of swimming blood.

Cooled viscosity suddenly climbing

under thinner water to nowhere else.

A prayer answered

                               in the one place it could.

The ruin of Llanthony Prima

I am involved in a nationwide project called, Cyfoeth Cymru Gyfan, Sharing Treasures, which is a government backed scheme headed up by Amgueddfa Cymru, National Museum Wales. The enterprise takes the form of two exhibitions running in Abergavenny Museum, and Chepstow Museum until the end of September. The museums are hanging artwork inspired by the Abbeys at Llanthony and Tintern; artists such as, the Buck brothers, Palmer, Turner, Dayes, Hodges, Sandby, Tudor, Grimm, Buckler, Piper, Craxton, Ravilious, Jones, Gill, and many, many more. Also featured are the work of Walter Savage Landor and William Wordsworth.

These exhibitions are possibly the biggest to land at the museums, and are a huge cultural event for Monmouthshire. The seclusion and beauty of these once remote valleys of Monmouthsire really burst from the works and encourage a sense of communion with the elements and light.

I am a volunteer guide at the exhibition in Abergavenny, and I ran a workshop with learners on the Arts Award scheme about ten days ago, and in September I will be spending time with pupils at those schools closest to the Abbeys. To prepare for this I have been crashing in my van, Randolf, up at Llanthony in order to garner inspiration to write in order to offer examples of my own to the budding poets I will be working with. Their work, inspired by the Abbeys and the artwork in the exhibitions, will be displayed in a follow up exhibition in October. This scheme is called Sites of Inspiration.

I have written a rhyming haiku, and a villanelle. The haiku has a bit of a story. St Davids Church, Llanthony, is still in use today and is a sweet little place. Apparently the foundations are laid to the sunrise on March 1st! as you step out of the porch, the ruin of the Abbey rises to meet you.

On leaving St Davids Church, Llanthony


A laying of stones
to a saint and a sunrise.
The valley has bones.


The ruin of Llanthony Prima, 2014


Peace that builds to sleep in the driving ear
breaking from stones laid down in cordoned faith
cleanses the eyes when daylight starts to veer.

Worship begins when only stars can steer
or stones launch the blessing of their own grace,
peace that builds to sleep in the driving ear.

Round angles of valley bring the sky near
flooding light to colour in streams that race
so eyes are cleansed when daylight starts to veer.

Thimbles of light, glutting the moonless stair
trim the ruin into a looming wraith
and the peace builds sleep in the driving ear.

Elements of nature in spate will clear
monuments built above their simple base,
so cleansed eyes see when daylight starts to veer.

Binding interludes of light bladed air
thrill the blood to climb from unfeeling wastes
Peace that builds to sleep in the driving ear
cleanses the eyes when daylight starts to veer.

Wa-Hay Festival

Here is a shot of me posing in front of a replica of Dylan Thomas' writing shed. The thing is decked out exactly as he had it! I have had the whole "Light breaks where no sun shines..." rumbling through my brains all day!

 

 

Light breaks where no sun shines

 

Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

 

Light breaks where no sun shines;

 

Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart

 

Push in their tides;

 

And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,

 

The things of light

 

File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

 

 

 

A candle in the thighs

 

Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;

 

Where no seed stirs,

 

The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,

 

Bright as a fig;

 

Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

 

 

 

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;

 

From poles of skull and toe the windy blood

 

Slides like a sea;

 

Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky

 

Spout to the rod

 

Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

 

 

 

Night in the sockets rounds,

 

Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;

 

Day lights the bone;

 

Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin

 

The winter’s robes;

 

The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

 

 

 

Light breaks on secret lots,

 

On tips of thought where thoughts smell in the rain;

 

When logics dies,

 

The secret of the soil grows through the eye,

 

And blood jumps in the sun;

 

Above the waste allotments the dawn halts.

 

 

Ondine: a poem.

I watched a sweet film called Ondine last weekend. It stars Colin Farrell, Alicja Bachleda, and Alison Barry. Directed by Neil Jordan, the film came out in 2009. The music of Sigur Ros, also new to me! features in the film

The film is steeped in Selkie myth; a creature of the sea that can come on land after shedding their seal coat and taking on human form, often beguiling. The original 'Ondine' was found as a small child abandoned on rocks and brought up by a fisherman. The story escalates into love and tragedy. Selkies often return to the sea, many after digging up their buried coat. In the Neil Jordan film suggestions are also made to seven years and seven tears being a cut-off point.

The film inspired me to write my own take and this is what I came up with:

Ondine

Leaving the deeps with her voice and her coat

her singing haunts all the pretty fishies

to do as she and quit the buoyant seas.

She crams his pots with a charm from her throat;

besotted lobsters craving every note.

Shoal in the net flood the deck to a squeeze;

cool bodies and a steel quick to bellies.

Stone on stone on the scale nudge up a hope.

He lands his catch for lingerie and frock

and town steps out in a pretty rumour

of the secret he knows he cannot keep.

Her buried coat and the movement of clocks.

Gossamer moments spinning together

her seven years and her seven tears to weep.

I found some nice art work by Annie Stegg: 

 This is the Sigur Ros piece that accompanies the film:

Film action.

Here are some moving pictures of my life a couple of summers ago...a little bit of spoken word as well!

I found a sweet project on twitter today set up by Art_Accross_The_City/@Lowcs_Art. A megapoem to celebrate the Dylan Thomas centenary. Anyone can post a ditty. There are currently six pages of writing, and contributions are limited to 140 characters. I didn't create an account before I uploaded my rhyme, so I am not credited, but I like the anonymous angle. This is what I came up with over my boiled eggs this morning:

A teeter in the terrace
and a dream out of kilter,
we lift steel from the furnace.

I think I will have a bash at a few more lines after demolishing the roast beef I have just banged in the oven.