Saturday 28 May 2011
Friday 27 May 2011
Samuel Palmer
Believing the bird
As I write I'm sitting in the tump hide on the edge of the lake.
I stayed overnight in the yurt, and was early to bed and early to rise, with just the wind for company.
I worked with a small group of children from Ashmead school yesterday, taking photographs and writing.
We had a good day - it was a real pleasure to see them becoming more and more absorbed in nature; in the place.
It has been a real pleasure to be here in evening and morning light, and to
watch and hear the birds - lots of lapwings and housemartins, the odd hobby and kite - and also to watch lolloping hares, and catch one of my favourite common-or-garden flowers, the campion, in its white and pink manifestations...
...as well as the much rarer white helleborine, which some field guides are surprised is doing so well here, I was told by Chris, the education managed, who was doing a survey of some of the flora here yesterday.
James Audubon once wrote: "If the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird."
If the flower and the field guide disagree, we probably need to believe the flower.
I stayed overnight in the yurt, and was early to bed and early to rise, with just the wind for company.
I worked with a small group of children from Ashmead school yesterday, taking photographs and writing.
We had a good day - it was a real pleasure to see them becoming more and more absorbed in nature; in the place.
It has been a real pleasure to be here in evening and morning light, and to
watch and hear the birds - lots of lapwings and housemartins, the odd hobby and kite - and also to watch lolloping hares, and catch one of my favourite common-or-garden flowers, the campion, in its white and pink manifestations...
...as well as the much rarer white helleborine, which some field guides are surprised is doing so well here, I was told by Chris, the education managed, who was doing a survey of some of the flora here yesterday.
James Audubon once wrote: "If the bird and the book disagree, always believe the bird."
If the flower and the field guide disagree, we probably need to believe the flower.
Wednesday 25 May 2011
The best field
Here's a bit of Rumi, the Persian poet.
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."
Tuesday 24 May 2011
More Poems By Wallace Stevens - this time with birds in them!
Of Mere Being
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself
At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.
The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.
It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.
That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,
Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,
A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.
You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.
The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
Not Ideas About The Thing But The Thing Itself
At the earliest ending of winter,
In March, a scrawny cry from outside
Seemed like a sound in his mind.
He knew that he heard it,
A bird's cry, at daylight or before,
In the early March wind.
The sun was rising at six,
No longer a battered panache above snow...
It would have been outside.
It was not from the vast ventriloquism
Of sleep's faded papier-mache...
The sun was coming from the outside.
That scrawny cry--It was
A chorister whose c preceded the choir.
It was part of the colossal sun,
Surrounded by its choral rings,
Still far away. It was like
A new knowledge of reality.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
"Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is"
(Euston Station, rush hour)
Wallace Stevens is one of my favourite poets.
Here is one of his poems:
The Snow Man
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
from Harmonium , 1923
I love its theme of immersion and its mysterious evocation of the power of nature.
Pat Righelato says:
This is not a grandiose claim for the infinite extent of consciousness,
but it is nevertheless a heroic effort of perception, a Modernist
reassessment of Transcendentalist vision, a revision of Emerson’s
ecstatic merging in the more sustained awareness of the separation
of consciousness and nature. Stevens is trying to make ‘a new
intelligence prevail’, an intelligence which understands the strategies
of consciousness as fictions rather than religious truths.
This is not a grandiose claim for the infinite extent of consciousness,
but it is nevertheless a heroic effort of perception, a Modernist
reassessment of Transcendentalist vision, a revision of Emerson’s
ecstatic merging in the more sustained awareness of the separation
of consciousness and nature. Stevens is trying to make ‘a new
intelligence prevail’, an intelligence which understands the strategies
of consciousness as fictions rather than religious truths.
(From Righelato, Pat, "Wallace Stevens." In American Poetry: The
Modernist Ideal. Ed. Clive Bloom and Brian Docherty. New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1995. Ó 1995 The Editorial Board Lumiere
(Cooperative Press) Ltd.)
So now you know.
Wednesday 18 May 2011
vexing existential questions I have hitherto been unable to answer
What's the difference between a raisin and a sultana?
call me a tree hugger....
...but I have been thinking about trees.
This is for many reasons, but one of them is that the May blossom (Hawthorn) was out and lovely and gorgeous when I was last at College Lake, and I am aware of its significance in indigenous religions.
I also say that "it is my favourite tree" when I am with people and meet it, but I have realised that I also say that about Silver Birch, Yew, Cedar of Lebanon, Magnolia, Olive
I think that this simply means that I like these trees especially.
I did a bit of research and thinking about the Ogham Tree Alphabet when I was on a tree one the other day, and thought you might like to look too:
http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Celtic/tree.html
Al lhe associations and resonances are very exciting!
This is for many reasons, but one of them is that the May blossom (Hawthorn) was out and lovely and gorgeous when I was last at College Lake, and I am aware of its significance in indigenous religions.
I also say that "it is my favourite tree" when I am with people and meet it, but I have realised that I also say that about Silver Birch, Yew, Cedar of Lebanon, Magnolia, Olive
I think that this simply means that I like these trees especially.
I did a bit of research and thinking about the Ogham Tree Alphabet when I was on a tree one the other day, and thought you might like to look too:
http://www.joellessacredgrove.com/Celtic/tree.html
Al lhe associations and resonances are very exciting!
looking at how words and images can work together
I recently bought this pair of books and have been really enjoying them.
They are a collaboration between South African photographer David Goldblatt and writer Ivan Vladislavic. The photographs depict Johannesburg over 60 years and the novel is a collaborative response to the images.
This is a fascinating collaboration, and has given me a lot to think about in terms of how I might work with the book which is one of the outcomes to this residency.
Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2046480/david-goldblatt-wins-kraszna-krausz-photography-book-award#ixzz1Mi4ckfp3
The Residency Just Got Longer!
I'm very pleased to say that we recently discovered that the residency has received further funding from Arts Council England, which will mean that it is able to run until next year, allowing me to enjoy all of the year's seasons at the lake on the residency.
I'm really pleased about this news, as I had already begun to feel sorry that it would be finishing at midsummer.
I'm really pleased about this news, as I had already begun to feel sorry that it would be finishing at midsummer.
Writing Day at College Lake - Saturday June 18th, 2011 10-4.30
You'll see the poster above for the writing day that I'm running at the lake.
More details below:
"The day will involve us writing together to capture our connections, associations, relationships, feelings, and observations relating to the Lake.
The format of the day will follow the tried-and-tested structure of 'renga'.
'Renga' is a Japanese style of writing which is always carried out with others, often in nature. No experience is necessary!
For more information about renga visit www.renga-platform.co.uk/
Weather permitting, we will be mainly working outside, so bring appropriate clothing, as well as a pen/pencil and ideally something to sit on."
Tuesday 10 May 2011
Day Three
Day Three began with another bike ride across central London, over Blackfriars bridge and then up to Euston, but this time I took my bike on the Tring train, then cycled along the Grand Union Canal, disturbing the heron as I did.
I worked with some children from Ashmead Combined School in Aylesbury for the day, helped by Marcus Pickover, their great co-head, and also Kate, who is an education assistant at College Lake. Alistair Will also popped in in the morning.
We had a great day - it was the final day of four that I have worked with the group.
Their experience really showed in terms of their mastery of especially photography, but also words, and their confidence and initiative.
We wrote some haiku, and also took some photos after spending time looking at portrait and landscape photos by the great and not-so-great.
After the school left, I spent a few hours writing and photographing.
Below are some of my own photos - words to follow.
I will ask the students if I can put their words and photos up when I next see them.
I worked with some children from Ashmead Combined School in Aylesbury for the day, helped by Marcus Pickover, their great co-head, and also Kate, who is an education assistant at College Lake. Alistair Will also popped in in the morning.
We had a great day - it was the final day of four that I have worked with the group.
Their experience really showed in terms of their mastery of especially photography, but also words, and their confidence and initiative.
We wrote some haiku, and also took some photos after spending time looking at portrait and landscape photos by the great and not-so-great.
After the school left, I spent a few hours writing and photographing.
Below are some of my own photos - words to follow.
I will ask the students if I can put their words and photos up when I next see them.
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