Kevan Manwaring's Blog: The Bardic Academic, page 32
October 15, 2017
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Grain of Wheat
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Listen
amongst glistening ears of wheat,
hear my tiny heartbeat,
a mouse’s feet.
Hiding on this threshing floor
from Ceridwen’s impeccable wrath.
I have been hot-blooded and cold,
scale and feather and fur –
many skins have I shed
to escape the crooked one’s fury.
Will the chase never end?
Stillness now is my best friend.
Hide in plain sight,
one of the crowd.
A poet’s fate I would fight,
give me mundanity,
run-of-the-mill respite.
Yet, I am Henwen’s tears –
with my body bread can bake,
beer can brew.
Transformations never end,
only you.
Soul-winnow on life’s threshing floor,
strip away the husks
until only the quintessence remains,
the divine spark, let out the light,
with the Uncreated One,
reunite. Relief in release from this body, this burden of being individual,
separate from the source.
Why struggle any longer?
At this ultimate threshold
I shall yield.
This field of potential will be my fire.
Come, dark crone,
pluck me from the dust –
take the bones of my being,
crush me to ash-flour
in the mill of time.
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017
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From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
October 14, 2017
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Hawk
[image error]I will catch you with my eyes alone,
freeze you in mid-flight.
Fierce-stare,
my shriek splits the sky.
Wind-hover,
I am master of the air.
I am the calm at the centre of the storm,
the eye of the tempest –
nothing escapes my lightning-gaze.
You cannot hide, little bird,
The slightest movement, and I shall strike.
My fatal blow, the last thing you’ll know.
My talons, the reaper’s sickle.
My beak will break your neck.
Why fear? You won’t feel a thing
when you’re dead.
I have a whole autumn
in my feathers.
Sharp-shadow,
I wear the forest’s shroud.
I am the birthmark on the sun’s face.
I come to blot out your light,
the last thing you’ll ever see.
Death’s friend, come to take your hand.
Let me free you
from your tiny parcel of soul.
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2010
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From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
October 13, 2017
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Wren
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All the birds of the forest
gave me their plumage
except flower-face,
cursed of the sun.
I am the smallest
but I fly the highest.
Through my cunning
I become king.
Yet that crown places
a prized price on my head.
Sunbird,
they hunt me at midwinter –
those wren boys,
sticky fingers reach
into my round nest
wren house.
King for a day,
then, cruelly slain.
As I must die
so the true king
within me
can live.
Cave-dweller, eaves-dropper,
doomed to dwell in a gilded cage.
Counting the numbered days
until my destiny’s sharp edge.
I must perish for my people,
the smallest must
become smaller.
With gramarye from cauldron-wrung,
wrench my quintessence
from the vengeful air.
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017
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From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
October 12, 2017
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Otter
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I am water-dog, wave-dancer,
the river, my playground.
Sleek-head, ripple-eye,
the wet flames of my fur,
the dripping snout of my muzzle
hiding a grin of fangs.
I am the comedian of death,
fate’s fool,
I shall hunt you down,
be your shadow,
never ceasing.
when the time is right,
I shall pounce, seize you in my jaws,
and you’ll not stand a chance.
You’ll be mine –
hook, line, and sinker.
And yet,
I am a child of joy,
I know the secret of play.
I’ll dry your feet, saint or no,
and await your blessing.
I’ll cover your harp,
I’ll keep you from harm.
Fill me with red gold, Hreidmar’s eldest,
the blood-price of the magician’s son.
Watch me dance in the brightening current
and you’ll forget your woes.
Yet once my teeth are in you,
There is no escape.
Cold-hearted kelpie,
I will drown you in my element –
my river shall be your grave.
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2010
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From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
October 11, 2017
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Salmon
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Scales glittering like water in the sun –
a fast-running river
sweeping away all stagnant energy.
I am long-memory,
the oldest of animals,
though newly born
by my stolen art.
I slipped free of death’s jaws,
shed fur, my moonwarm blood,
came to the waters for rebirth.
Sliding through a glassy world,
hidden to the human eye.
Escaping by the skin of my teeth,
drawn by instinct
back to the source –
by urgent need
to seed the soil that sired me.
Leap the waterfalls,
run the gauntlet of rapids,
predators,
ever pushing forward –
one slip and I’ll be swept back.
A river of questions searching
for their ocean answer.
To push or surrender to the flow,
yield to her deciduous embrace?
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017
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From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
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October 10, 2017
The Taliesin Soliloquies: Greyhound
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I’ll teach that young upstart,
this new dog’s got old tricks –
the fith-fath he fled with.
Long dog now am I,
deadly Sirius,
death at his heels,
snapping, slavering –
a knife thrust, forever forward,
fangs bared in tight death grin,
eyes on fire,
I shall never blink,
never lose sight of my prey.
As swift as a wisht-hound
running through the sky,
the night, my road,
harrowing souls who stray
into the wild-wood.
There is nowhere you can hide,
little hare,
no hollow or shadow.
No leverage, leveret.
Your scent leaves a ribbon of bright noise
my nose follows with ease.
I am drawing near,
I taste your fur
on my long tongue.
Little Gwion, you’ll make a toothsome morsel,
replace the potion you have stolen,
the awen usurped
from my son.
Hare-thief, there’s no taboo
that will stop me eating you,
the darkness to devour you
in one gigantic
gulp.
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017
[image error]
From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
October 9, 2017
Hare
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Crazy-eyed,
I high-tail it
away from Ceridwen’s lair,
jink-jinking to
avoid my pursuer
snapping at my heels –
relentless as death,
inescapable as my shadow.
Heart beating its tattoo of flight,
legs thrum, a drummer boy’s sticks.
Through cwm, over bryn, cefn, coed,
the gaps between the awkward spaces,
through a hedge backwards, this-way-that –
a mad man’s mind.
Method to my erratic path,
yet always, her hot breath at my back.
Driven by the fire in my
stream-lined head, an arrow of fur,
Long ears swept back,
best paws forward. Rabbit foot, bring me luck.
Ablaze with awen,
The world transformed
into a landscape of scent and sound,
predator and prey. Forage, territory and fate.
Moon-boxer,
I must turn and face my foe –
run through the fire and be transformed.
Let the fith-fath change me.
Copyright © Kevan Manwaring 2017
[image error]
From ‘The Taliesin Soliloquies’, originally published in The Way of Awen: journey of a bard, O Books 2010; to be included in the forthcoming Silver Branch: bardic poems by Kevan Manwaring, Awen, 2017 https://www.awenpublications.co.uk/
September 26, 2017
September 25, 2017
A Splinter of Ice in the Heart
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Who will break first – the writer or the text?
When returning to a text one must learn to be unsentimental. In the early expansive phase you’re trying to woo the muse with metaphorical wine, chocolates and flowers — to stimulate creative flow, to get something down on the page, anything … But now you must become the ice-hearted serial killer, methodically going through the text and murdering your darlings, one by one. All those adorable adjectives and amiable adverbs are so many kittens in the sack. Tie a rock to it and throw it in the lake. We may have written our first draft with what John Cowper Powys called ‘the ink-blood of home’ – driven by an overwhelming hiraeth for all that we are trying to evoke or resurrect – but now it’s time to ‘edit in cold blood’.
Putting the manuscript aside for a few weeks or months can help to give you sufficient critical distance. Coming back to it, reading back through it with a strong cup of coffee, one can hopefully see it afresh: the weaknesses, the errors, the warts and all. All permissible in the dirty first draft: we write that in the dark, groping our way forward. The next, we write with the lights on. Going through it again with a solid set of editorial principles (see suggestions below) is like having a really good Spring (or Autumn) Clean. Beneath the clutter – an inevitable part of the scaffolding of an earlier version – there is a decent story, an effective scene, a salvageable bit of dialogue, a good character in the wrong place or hidden beneath a stereotype. Go deeper. Be ruthless. Time for the bad cop. Interrogate your text.
Print off. Read as a reader. Then read as a reviewer. Be your own worst critic and don’t give some other bastard the satisfaction of ripping you apart (it is easier to criticise than to create, to have an original vision and to manifest it in the world). Deconstruct your lovingly-built cathedral. Build it better.
What is the purpose of this scene? Does it serve the narrative? How?
Is there conflict? Tension? Suspense?
What is the primary line of desire here (e.g. main character)? Secondary? Tertiary? Your protagonist’s short-term ‘goal’ will focalize this chapter, while they slowly work towards the mid- and long-term goals.
What changes in this scene or chapter? Is there a status shift? A shift in our perception of a character?
Is there exposition? Can it be dramatized (with action/dialogue), disguised (through an expositional device) or ditched (to create ‘space’ for the reader)?
Focus: is your language generalistic? Can you make it more precise? Your analogies more accurate? The universal is best expressed through the particular.
Defamiliarisation: take your sentences out of context and look at them one-by-one. Try rewriting them in different ways. Don’t assume anything has to stay. Everything has to earn its place, its right to exist in your narrative – otherwise, out it goes.
Opening line. Start deep, start strong. Hit the ground running. Arrive late, leave early. Upset someone.
Last line. Where do you want to leave the reader? Does the last line ‘tie together’ the whole chapter in some way, or set up a ‘hook’ for the next?
Stay on theme. Give each chapter a working title, even if you don’t use it. This will help you sustain the mood or tone. Imagine each chapter having a single song – its soundtrack. Ensure the atmosphere of the song, its rhythm, prevails throughout.
Copyright ©Kevan Manwaring 25 September 2017
