August 2009
Here’s something for the long Bank Holiday weekend. This poem by William
Morris, (from his Poems By The Way, New Edition 1910, First Published
1891), was going to be the page one poem for the new edition of The
Rialto, No. 67, out now. But it was a bit too long to fit comfortably
onto the page.
There’s clearly something important going on in this poem but it’s a bit
circumlocutory in its path. Readers are invited to translate it into Twenty-First
Century idiom, and into as few lines as possible. Sonnet length, perhaps?
This is not a competition, but the best (in the editor’s opinion) versions, or at least one of them, will be published in this blog - may even be published in the magazine. Please send your versions by post, and mark the envelope Summer Thunder.
THUNDER IN THE GARDEN
When the boughs of the garden hang heavy with rain
And the blackbird reneweth his song,
And the thunder departing yet rolleth again,
I remember the ending of wrong.
When the day that was dusk while his death was aloof
Is ending wide-gleaming and strange
For the clearness of all things beneath the world’s roof,
I call back the wild chance and change.
For once we twain sat through the hot afternoon
While the rain held aloof for awhile,
Till she, the soft-clad, for the glory of June
Changed all with the change of her smile.
For her smile was of longing, no longer of glee,
And her fingers, entwined with my own,
With caresses unquiet sought kindness of me
For the gift that I never had known.
Then down rushed the rain, and the voice of the thunder
Smote dumb all the sound of the street,
And I to myself was grown nought but a wonder,
As she leaned down my kisses to meet.
That she craved for my lips that had craved her so often,
And the hand that had trembled to touch,
That the tears filled her eyes I had hoped not to soften
In this world was a marvel too much.
It was dusk ’mid the thunder, dusk e’en as the night,
When first brake out our love like the storm,
But no night-hour was it and back came the light
While our hands with each other were warm.
And her smile killed with kisses, came back as at first
As she rose up and led me along,
And out to the garden, where nought was athirst,
And the blackbird renewing his song.
Earth’s fragrance went with her, as in the wet grass,
Her feet little hidden were set;
She bent down her head,’neath the roses to pass,
And her arm with the lily was wet.
In the garden we wandered while the day waned apace
And the thunder was dying aloof;
Till the moon o’er the minster-wall lifted his face,
And grey gleamed out the lead of the roof.
Then we turned from the blossoms, and cold were they grown:
In the trees the wind westering moved;
Till over the threshold back fluttered her gown,
And in the dark house I was loved.
June and July were taken up with getting the Summer issue ready to be
printed. Subscribers’ copies should be with you in a day or four, if they
haven’t already arrived. If you buy your copy at our bookshop stockists
you may have to wait a little longer for the distributors to make their
deliveries.
It’s a particularly rich and varied issue which includes three new poems
by Simon Armitage (he calls one of them, in the text, a ‘story-poem’ and
this is what all three are), and four new poems by Alan Brownjohn, from
his sequence about Ludbrooke, a ‘rather dubious alter ego’. Other well
known names included are Gerard Benson, Martyn Crucefix, David Holbrook,
David Morley, and Ruth Silcock: at the other end of reputation we have
Ray Marshall’s first poem to appear in print.
Plenty for the notorious ‘it’s not poetry it’s chopped up prose’ chaps
to get their teeth into and, surprise, two rhymed pieces, refreshing, sardonic,
from Helena Nelson and Alan Dixon. 53 poets, 30 are women, the rest men.
As for prose, Lorraine Mariner talks about herself and Jessica Elton, the central character in her first collection, and Jessica Elton responds. Rennie Parker looks hard at the market place that anyone becoming a poet has to bustle through. And Emily Wills remembers U A Fanthorpe.
June and July were also taken up with finding a replacement for Dean Parkin.
Well, not quite because Dean is irreplaceable. Rather finding someone to
take on some of the work Dean has been doing for The
Rialto in recent years.
A Rialto team of Michael Mackmin, Helen Mitchell and Nick Stone sifted
through a highly qualified and very interesting long list of candidates.
A week later they interviewed their short list. Very impressive people,
all of whom would greatly enhance The Rialto’s effectiveness.
We chose Nathan Hamilton and he has accepted. The next Rialto ebulletin
will come from Nathan (contact Nick to sign up if you haven’t already done
so) and we’ll leave him to introduce himself and what he sees as his tasks.
Michael was particularly surprised by Nathan’s statement that poetry is
in his blood. Not many people say that.
Two good things to note: firstly Michael, Helen and Nick discovered that
they were working very effectively as a team, and enjoying doing so. Secondly
Michael realised that using the Internet - our ebulletin (which you can
sign up for on here) and Facebook group
- as a way of getting out into the world the message that we were looking
for someone worked incredibly well. When Michael took on Dean there were
very few responses to a conventional ad. So he, Michael, is thinking of
joining the 21st century and investing in Broadband etc.......... This
could mean that he’ll become a less remote head in the clouds figure and
actually be available to poets and readers. But please note that you still
need to send poems to be considered for publication via the mail, ie the
snail mail (is it still called that?).
P.S. The editor is currently reading poems that arrived in April.