Kathleen Jones's Blog, page 44

Tuesday Poem - The Fable of the World, translated by Neil Curry

HOMAGE TO LIFEIt is so good to have chosen
To take up residence
Among the living;
In a beating heart,
To have given houseroom to Time;
And to have seen my hands
Take hold of the world
As one would an apple
In a little garden;
To have loved the earth,
The moon and the sun
Like the very dearest
And oldest of one's friends;
And to have committed
The world to memory
Like a bright horseman
Astride his sable steed;
To have given a face
To the words: woman, children,
To have served as a shore
To wandering continents
And to have come across the soul
With the gentlest of pulls
Upon one's oars so as not
To frighten it away
With an approach too brusque.
It is so good to have known
The shade under a tree,
To have felt age creeping
Across one's naked body,
Accompanying the pain
Of the black blood in our veins,
And gilding its silence
With the star called Patience,
And to have all these words
Buzzing around inside one's head
And to choose the least beautiful
So as to give them a little treat;
To have felt life
Ill-considered and ill-loved,
And to have sealed it up
Inside this thing called poetry.

© Jules Supervielle
Trans from the French by Neil Curry
from The Fable of the World
Published by Shoestring Press, 2013
Reproduced with permission.

Jules Supervielle was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1884 of French parents.  His mother and father died from cholera when he was only a baby and he was brought up by an uncle and aunt.  He was later sent to France to be educated, but throughout his life divided his time between France and Uruguay and married a Spanish girl. Supervielle was also a friend of Rainer Maria Rilke and very highly regarded as a European poet.  He died in 1960.

This collection of Supervielle's poems is translated by English poet Neil Curry (a poet admired by Ted Hughes) and it's beautifully done.  It also includes one of Supervielle's most famous 'fantastical' stories - L'enfant de la haute mer' - The Child of the High Seas - a strange and moving tale.   The Fable of the World is a collection of poems and prose pieces that is a creation myth, in Neil Curry's words 'a compelling poetical statement about the poetic process'.  Highly recommended.  


If you've enjoyed this, why not hop over to the Tuesday Poets' Hub and see what the others are posting today?

The Art of Despair

There are currently two exhibitions in Pietrasanta - the little town where Neil works in the marble studios.   By a strange coincidence, both exhibitions reflect - quite brutally - what we're doing to the world around us.  I'm currently in Oslo, Norway, but visited both these exhibitions on Friday before I left.


Gustavo Aceves is a Mexican sculptor currently living and working here and he has a huge and powerful exhibition in the church of Sant Agostino (now an art gallery) and apparently still to come in the piazza.  The sculptures are the broken bodies of more than life-size bronze horses in skeletal boats.  It's called 'Mare Morto' - Dead Sea.   Inside the church is an polystyrene model of a gigantic dead horse, tattooed with concentration camp numbers.  Nearby, a horse's head hangs on a hook from a guillotine.



In one of the smaller galleries in the piazza, there's an exhibition of mutant cows grazing in a field of salt.  Some look quite normal, but they become increasingly grotesque as you examine them closer. It's by a young Roman sculptor called  Enrico Franchi and is called "Transumanza".


Franchi believes that 'Man loves to … mess with his environment, and sometimes the result is a horrible catastrophe… and sometimes monstrous.'  The exhibition 'chronicles the artist's distaste for the social and anthropological mutations that come out of man’s irresponsibility'.
There is an increasing artistic response here to the man-made horror of the world we live in - Romano Cagnoni's war photographs, the installation of dead whales in fibreglass , the Berlin wall fragments.   None of the artwork is optimistic or upbeat - it's all very grim and despairing.  I came away from both exhibitions feeling depressed.

An increased awareness of environmental issues is changing things here in Pietrasanta too at the moment.  The town has always thrived on marble - for sculpture, but also for floor tiles, bathrooms and kitchens and the interior decor of public buildings and rich folk's houses.  The demand has increased for marble in the last few years, while the sculpture side of the trade has declined as the art market has contracted.   It now goes into toothpaste (pulverised) and is also apparently used to 'cut' cocaine.  The wonderful mountains around us have become noticeably smaller, and more degraded, as more and more marble is being removed.


Now, the environmental lobby is fighting to get quarrying stopped .  Personally I would be sorry to see the sculpture side of it abandoned - there's more than two thousand years of tradition here - the artigiani in the studios can trace their family lines back to gt-gt-gt etc grandfathers who worked with Michaelangelo.  But I'm not happy that such a beautiful material and such spectacular mountains should end up on my toothbrush. Something has to be done about the wholesale destruction of the Alpi Apuane.  There's a good article on it here.

Off to Norway and the city of Oslo

This time I didn't manage to get the suitcase unpacked from our trip to Istria before having to pack it again for Oslo.  A few more jumpers went in!  The temperature in Istria was about 20 degrees and I'm not expecting that in the Viking north.

This trip isn't a writing trip, but a visit for an art exhibition by one of the sculptors working in the studios here.  Her name is Julia Vance and she's become a very good friend. Neil rates her sculptures very highly and I'm fascinated by her work because she sculpts three dimensional words and letters.



This is a big exhibition for her in Oslo and we're getting up at 3am to get a Ryanair flight which, we hope, is going to get us there in time for the launch! Fingers crossed.  Another friend is lending us an apartment in Oslo for the weekend because it's apparently the most expensive city in Europe.  There's no Wi-fi, so I won't be blogging (though I've scheduled a couple of posts) - a complete holiday for me! I'm looking forward to the exhibition, the party afterwards and to exploring my Viking roots.

To Istria - in search of a story

We left Trieste to head into the wilderness (sat-nav speaking) of Slovenia and Croatia.  Unless you pay an extra fee, the sat-nav goes blank as soon as you approach the border.  Road signs are rather more miss than hit and don't always agree with the map.  So it wasn't surprising that we got just a bit lost as the city faded in the rear view mirror.  There's a lot of new infrastructure, now that Slovenia and Croatia have joined Europe, and there are lots of new roads with hardly any vehicles on them (and they're not on the maps either!).


This area of southern Croatia (and a tiny sliver of Slovenia) that sticks out into the Adriatic towards Venice, is called Istria.  It used to be part of the Veneto, was part of Italy between the wars, and then became part of Tito's Yugoslavia. More recent history has been traumatic, and it's now Croatia, though the second language is still Italian.   Istria has its own character and is a country within a country.



I chose to set my new novel, The Centauress, in Istria partly because of its turbulent past, but also because the country fascinates me.  Istria is still wild and lightly populated with a beautiful sea coast and fortified hill villages that remind me of Italy.  I've read about it, watched films, and looked it up on the internet, but a personal fact-checking visit was essential.  Part of the story is set in a small fishing village called Rovinj - a location with a lot of history and great beauty, but only an hour's drive from Trieste (with a good map!).


The cobbled streets of the 'centro storico' are so narrow the houses almost touch each other.


There are tiny piazzas,


washing strung across balconies


and people make gardens wherever they can.


At the top of this dome of rock, is the baroque basilica of St Euphemia , a Roman martyr, thrown to the lions in the 3rd century, who was apparently washed ashore in a stone coffin in 800 ad after appearing to a young boy in a vision.



St Euphemia's coffin being dragged from the sea
But, although Rovinj was very seductive, there were other locations I needed to explore. The central character in the novel, Zenobia de Braganza, lives in one of the fortified hill villages, Kastela Visoko, just inland, but within sight of the Adriatic. The village is entirely fictional, but based on the historic villages of  Grosjnan and Motovun, which also have a tradition of housing painters, musicians and poets.  Just the kind of place an unconventional artist would choose to settle.

Motovun, Istria.Like Motovun and Grosjnan, Visoko too, has a gated citadel and a tower and winding cobbled streets.



It's been great fun matching up the story and the landscape.  Istria has wonderful sea food and glorious wine and - since they wisely decided not to join the euro - it's incredibly cheap.  We were very sad to leave Rovinj, where we stayed in a small hotel near the sea.  This was my last goodbye shot, but maybe if people like the novel - I'll be able to go back! No harm in dreaming. . .

Tuesday Poem - Sometimes a Wild God . . . Tom Hirons

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.
When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.

He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.

You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.

The dog barks.
The wild god smiles,
Holds out his hand.
The dog licks his wounds
And leads him inside.

The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.

‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.

When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.

The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voice-box. You cough.

Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.

You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.

The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.

The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.

The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.

In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.

In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.

The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.

‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’

Listen to them:

The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…

There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.

Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.

© Tom Hirons (Coyopa)
Small Lightnings 2012
Shared, with permission, from Tom Hirons' blog which you can find at
http://coyopa.wordpress.com/2012/07/19/sometimes-a-wild-god-2/

This poem is a lament for what we have lost and a celebration of the natural world we are part of.  I love it!  Tom Hirons' poetry is often associated with the Dark Mountain project, which he defines as 'a broad set of creative responses to the ongoing collapse of civilisation-as-we-know-it.'  His blog, Small Lightnings, is well worth a look. He lives on Dartmoor, England, with the artist Rima Staines.

And why not hop over to the Tuesday Poem hub to see what the other Tuesday Poets are posting? It's the 4th birthday of the Tuesday Poem group and we're celebrating by posting a collaboration, which is all about food . . . 

A big wind in Trieste (and James Joyce!)

I always thought that Wellington, New Zealand, was the windiest city in the world, but Trieste tops it by several knots.  The wind comes in off the Adriatic and swirls through the streets as if through canyons and blows hard across the wide piazzas.  People's hats go flying - table cloths lift and flap from cafe tables - and drifts of paper scraps and plastic cups eddy and dance in invisible air currents. Neil lost 10 euros while trying to pay the waitress in the water-side bar and a glass of wine blew over in a sudden gust.  There are hand-rails on the bridges for people to cling on to as they cross.


Trieste is a fabulous city.  On the waterfront the massive buildings tell the story of a wealthy trading nation - insurance, banking, ship registration, a Borsa and a chamber of commerce.  Most of them date from the days of the Austro-Hungarian empire.  Further back are the more modest houses of the ship owners and Captains in narrow streets with quiet piazzas where you can find buskers like this.

There's also a wonderful Roman theatre in the centre of the town.


On the top of the hill, more Roman ruins and a 1st century church.  We climbed to the top of the tower where the medieval bells still hang


and there are spectacular views out over the city to the borders of Slovenia.

I couldn't resist doing the thing everybody does with James Joyce, whose statue is on one of the bridges.  According to the inscription, he wrote to his wife that he had left his soul in Trieste. They are looking after it well - there are James Joyce bars, restaurants and  a Joycean city trail.


At the centre of several different cultures, Trieste also serves different faiths - there's a synagogue, an English church, a multitude of Catholic churches and an Orthodox church - San Spiridione.  This was very impressive on the outside, with its domes and gilded mosaics, but also utterly beautiful inside too.



It all made up for the big adventure of driving into Trieste earlier in the day and discovering that the Sat Nav data base wasn't up to date with the current one way system.  'Jane' tried to get me to drive up every street the wrong way and had a hissy fit when I couldn't obey instructions that would have had me either arrested or hospitalised!  'Turn left in 18 yards' was followed by  'turn right', finally, 'turn around when possible' and then she went blank.   Probably drove down every street in the city at least once before giving up and parking at the kerb to walk to the hotel.

Teatro VerdiWhile Neil took some photographs I went to the Piazza Verdi to look at the Verdi theatre and discovered that they were doing La Traviata that very night.  Not only that - there were some of the cheapest seats still vacant in the upper levels.  Neil and I had a mad moment and bought two, had a very quick snack instead of the dinner we'd promised ourselves and climbed to the top floor.  We could just see (and hear), but it was worth it for the experience.



The soprano and the tenor singing Violetta and Alfredo were very young, with light, sweet voices and it was a very well designed production.


It was an unexpected treat.  Fell into bed late and exhausted after driving 350 miles (on Italian roads), a blood-pressure raising tour of the city by sat-nav, walking further miles round the streets and then surviving 3 hours of opera on hard seats.  Tomorrow - Istria! 

Off to Trieste and Istria

My clothes never seem to be able to settle in the wardrobe long enough these days.  Just trying to cram them into a suitcase again because we're off to Trieste tomorrow morning early, in the car.  It's a fascinating city on the very north-eastern edge of Italy - literally at the border of four cultures - Italy, northern Europe, the East and the old Slavic empire.  The Austro Hungarians possessed it, and the Ottomans, and it's currently Italian.  Really looking forward to exploring it.
Waterfront - Trieste
And then it's off to Istria - now part of Croatia, but once ruled by the Venetians.  We're staying at a place called Rovinj, but aiming to explore a big chunk of the countryside (if the car gets that far!). This is all fact checking for a new book, but also a mini holiday.  Neil's just finished a sculpture and we have a few days free.  I don't know how much Wi-fi we'll get in rural Croatia but I'll try to post some pictures on the way.
Rovinj - centro storico

A Tale of Two Gardens

I'm now back in Italy, getting my breath back after a hectic 3 weeks in England.  One of the disadvantages of living in two places is trying to keep pace with two gardens. The English one is quickly running away with me - so much rain and warm weather just encourage the weeds that flock in from the river bank without so much as an invitation!  I spent my last week digging one of the flower beds, completely strangled by ground elder, buttercup and nettle, in the hope that if I could get them early, they might not be so difficult to eradicate. This is the before



and this is the after





by means of fork and bucket (and a large bottle of Radox bath soak) .....   I can't tell you how many buckets of weed I had to cart off to the compost heap.  But there are still two flower beds waiting for me when I next go back and by then the pests will probably have reappeared in the first. I fear it is a losing battle but I'm not giving in without a fight!


Back in Italy, which has also had a warm, wet winter, the garden is weeks ahead of schedule.  The peony is already shaking out those huge top-heavy blooms


and the cherry tree is beginning to blossom


There are catkins on the edge of the woods - giant ones several inches long.


And, of course, flower beds to weed and plant.


This one now has lily bulbs and spider orchids buried under the soil, and a sprinkling of poppies, mallow, salvia and snap-dragon.  It will be interesting to see what survives the birds and the ants. Gardeners are always optimists!

No Tuesday Poem from me this week - it's just been too busy, but please hop over to the Tuesday Poem hub to see what the others are posting.  The  main poem this week is Tuatura from New Zealand poet Nola Borrell.  If you don't know what a Tuatura is or what they eat, then you need to find out! 

Tuesday Poem: Excavating the Bones

We are excavating the bones
studying emotional geology,
reconstructing from nodes and fractures
an unfamiliar landscape we know
only from photographs, scraps of text,
torn pages from a life lived
beyond our knowledge.  We
finger the calcified digits,
a fragment of cloth, a brooch;
grave goods. But they are only
themselves, animated by our need
to articulate the skeleton,
colour in the blanks, bridge absences,
construct a narrative out of shards.

Copyright Kathleen Jones
Katherine Mansfield and the (Post) Colonial
2014

My copy of Katherine Mansfield and the (Post) Colonial has just arrived on the doormat and it has some fascinating essays on Katherine Mansfield and particularly the new material which I was allowed, by her family, to use in order to write her biography. The family subsequently re-homed the manuscripts in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand so they are now available to the public.  Their collection contained many revelations about Katherine's writing life and some very poignant personal material which I was lucky enough to have first access to. It underlined just how much biographers have to rely on physical evidence - like archaeologists - and a missing fragment can crucially alter the picture you construct.

I wrote this sonnet at the Katherine Mansfield Conference at Ruzomberok in Slovakia - it's about biography, which is a sort of archaeology, and its limitations.  We can never really know.   There's also a lot of intuition involved - the phrase 'emotional geology' is the title of a wonderful novel by Linda Gillard and it really does describe the process of going down through the layers of personality from public to private in order to understand what motivated the subject fundamentally.

Why not pop over to the Tuesday Poem hub and see what the other Tuesday Poets are posting?  The hub poem this week is an off the wall post from Australian poet Zireaux.  It's called Bonsai by Cecily Barnes, who may or not be American, and which was previously published in Harper's Magazine. Enjoy!

Katherine Mansfield:  The Story-teller is available in hardback, paperback and as an e-book from all good bookshops and on
Amazon.co.uk  and
Amazon.com

Katherine Mansfield in Japanese

I've been very curious to see what Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller would look like in Japanese and now I know.  I'm glad they've kept close to the original cover and the colour.  The book opens right to left and the text runs in columns up and down.


I can't read it, but it looks good.

Katherine Mansfield was fascinated by all things Japanese and had a Japanese doll that went everywhere with her.  And it seems the fascination was mutual - Katherine is very popular in Japan.