- Ruth likes the Vast: paintings by John Martin, the Vatican, the Norfolk sky. — The Crossing Places, by Elly Griffiths, p. 16
Cross-posting for Skywatch Friday.
Tag: Northern Ireland
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Posting for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day (FOTD) challenge.
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Self is spending time at a writers residency just south of Belfast. It has the most beautiful garden, which sits right next to a brook. Masses of pretty white and yellow daffodils are in bloom.
Posting for Cee’s Flower of the Day:
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Take a look at other skies on Hammad Rais’s blog.
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Because it is Saint Patrick’s Day, the poet is from NI: Csilla Toldy came over from Hungary, when there was still a Wall. We met in 2014, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig. The picture is of the lake.
Csilla was kind enough to allow me to post the whole poem. It’s from her collection Red Roots – Orange Sky (Belfast: Lapwing Publications, 2013)
Love in Paris
Arriving late at the wrong address
a stranger in the street,
Ali, offered her a bed. He lovingly
treated her wounded knee —
that she had fallen on
when searching the sky for the guiding star
at the green borders to Italy.Her nerves frazzled
by the long march through the Alps
on pills of caffeine and amphetamine,
taken by the echoes of her throbbing heart
when face-searched
and feeling so lucky for not looking like any
one of the Red Brigade.So grateful for a clean sheet
after a week in ditches with crows and crickets,
yet fearing horror dreams of her misconceptions
she fell into a black hole
to be woken up by sunlight
glinting on a tray of golden croissants
brought up by Ali.Recently, Csilla has been focusing on films.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
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Self met Csilla at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, which has introduced her to so many wonderful voices.
From the collection Red Roots — Orange Sky (Belfast: Lapwing Publications, 2013)
A FRAGMENT
In Parc de Luxembourg,
hiding under fallen leaves —
A fountain — messenger
from a sea of amber — Verdigris.Its well-stone, formerly
Neptune’s set of teeth, now
water-pouring standstill
tossing threat for dragons.In its far angle a more
Humanoid structure,
a spun-into-form world-element.
It longs, broods and hovers —above all that is left.
Csilla Toldy was born in Hungary. She escaped from the socialist bloc through the green borders at the age of eighteen in 1981. She now lives in northern Ireland.
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As for da, I remember third brother’s urgency and my own in asking for him, in pleading for him to be there, to be a man among men, doing normal men things, as he did manage to do years later when searching with the others for Somebody McSomebody’s brother’s head.
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Mammy! The heads! They took the heads! Where are the heads? Where’s Lassie, mammy? Where’s daddy? Have the brothers found Lassie? Where’s daddy? Where’s Lassie?
This novel, which won the Man Booker, fully deserved to win.
Graywolf Press has now given self two books that absolutely shattered her: this one, and the translation of Liu Xia’s poetry collection, Empty Chairs.
That is all.
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Annaghmakerrig: November, 2018 The narrator, 18, runs. The milkman starts following her on her runs. He is much older, and seems to know her schedule: he knows where she reports to work, he knows that she likes to read. During one of their encounters, a bush to the narrator’s left emits a distinct “click.” The milkman then abruptly walks off.
Hey hey hey, Anna Burns: you are brilliant.
He doesn’t touch her, doesn’t address anything overtly sexual to her, but for a whole week, she doesn’t run. When she starts again, she asks her “third brother-in-law” to accompany her:
Should he take exception to brother-in-law accompanying me, he’d encounter not only the opprobium of the entire local community, but his reputation in it as one of our highranking, prestigious dissidents would plummet to the point where he’d be put outside any and all safe houses, into the path of any and of all passing military patrol vehicles, exactly as if he wasn’t one of our major influential heroes, but instead just some enemy state policeman, some enemy soldier from across the water, or even one of the enemy state-defending paramilitaries from over the way.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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Self really likes that the cottage is full of poetry books. Every time she comes, she discovers someone new.
She found a book called Landscape of Self (Belfast: Lapwing Publications, 2015) by Aine MacAodha.
Here’s the first half of a poem called
To My Children When I’m Gone
Some mountains are higher than others
Winter can cause frost bite.
Without a bit of darkness
We may not appreciate the light afterwards.
Remember the good in the world
The take your breath smiles
The smile from a stranger in a strange place
The beauty in a daisy chain
The elegance in a buttercup
The wonder of a webbing spider
The warmth of a heart
When another’s fiery arrow hits it
Love and goodness costs nothing
Hatred causes illness
Treat the nature around you with respect
Treat your spirit with kindness others too
Manners are easily carried.
Aine MacAodha kindly agreed to an interview, so WATCH THIS SPACE.
Kanlaon 