Monthly Archives: November 2022

I’m for the art of last war’s raincoats

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Another quote from Claes Oldenburg’s famous Ode to Possibilities ‘I’m for …’ from 1961. It reads like a long list poem. Oldenburg said it was a statement, not a manifesto.

Risham Syed, The Tent of Darius

My poem Wearable Narratives, from my second collection, Nothing serious, nothing dangerous, published by Indigo Dreams in 2019, is in two parts. The poem was inspired by art in the Manchester Art Gallery. Last week I posted part i (Scarf).


The Tent of Darius, an installation from 2009, is a complex work by the Lahore-based Risham Syed. It consists of five embroidered vintage European Army Coats with a small painting. This is a copy, painted by her, of the Charles Le Brun work of the same name.
Syed describes her inspiration for it:


“I imagined these five coats to have travelled all over the world, with women having contributed to them by adding a piece of embroidery. They are like these tired, old worn-out soldiers who have dreamt of coming back home. On the one hand, they symbolize the imperial power, but on the other hand, there is another aspect to this work; how soldiers from the colonies were made to fight for the Imperial powers. It’s true for any army including the Pakistan army, where most soldiers are from Jehlum, Potowar region, from poor, lower middle-class families and end up with the army because of their physique/tradition, in the hope of making a romantic/glamorous career. This work, compares the romance/glamor to the actual reality of war, the aim of it and the beneficiaries of it. I juxtapose the embroidered coats with an ‘Oriental’ painting called The Tent of Darius, a seventeenth-century painting by Charles Le Brun that provides the title for the installation. In it, the Queen of Persia bows to Alexander the Great who has conquered the land. It serves as a metaphor for the West making incisions in the East.”

I was very moved by the sight of these five coats and the details of the embroideries which inspired the last stanza.

The tent of Darius

The ornate faux-Chinese frame holds
a cropped copy on acrylic:
The Queen of Persia
draped at the feet of Alexander.

Below, an array of five overcoats,
donated by European soldiers,
appliquéd and embroidered
by women’s hands.

Under the lapel, a stilled windmill,
peach-coloured vanes.
A green tree above a button hole.
Death comes like blue geese.

I am for an art that helps old ladies across the street

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Oldenburg in 1970 with Giant Toothpaste (1964)

So said Claes Oldenburg and he said a lot more like it, such as ‘I’m for art that flaps like a flag, or helps blow noses like a handkerchief’. Oldenburg said that his famous 1961 Ode to Possibilities, ‘I am for …’ was a statement, not a manifesto. It’s a fantastic read, a long list poem that works well as a writing prompt. Here is the link.


Swedish-born Oldenburg, one of the founding fathers of Pop Art died July this year at the age of 93. He was famous for his monumental sculptures where mundane objects (matches, clothes peg, apple core) suddenly became larger than life.

My poem Wearable Narratives (from the collection Nothing serious, nothing dangerous) is in two parts. Here is part i. It was inspired by a pure silk scarf, made by Andrea Zapp, that was on display in the shop of Manchester Art Gallery. At that time, I didn’t have a smartphone. So, here is a picture of other scarves, made by Andrea Zapp. See the note below for more information about her amazing work.

Scarf

A turquoise ribbon runs under khaki stepping stones.
Tomatoes are the red carpet. Slanting shadows
pull the empty staircase under water. Its fine metal
tracery anchors a washing line with checked tea towel.

Cold marble columns, bleached shutters closed.
Almost out of sight wooden farming implements,
a clock stopped at ten to eleven, a car hubcap.

Everything here is at an angle now.
What survives are the chalk drawings:
a cheerful elephant, the ibis and another bird,
its round black eye like a spinning top.

Note:

Andrea Zapp, born in Germany, living in Manchester, pioneered in coalescing her digital media art background with the fashion industry. Andrea has created the luxury fashion brand AZ.andreazapp. This sells high quality silk dresses and scarves printed with her own photography of urban views, rural panoramas, miniature scenarios and objects of culture and curiosity, creating a collection of stunning authentic hand-made garments.

Poetry in Aldeburgh

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Scheveningen, S Hermann/F Richter on Pixabay

On Monday, my journey to the other side of the North Sea involved five different modes of transport: taxi from Aldeburgh to Ipswich, National Express coach to Standsted Airport, Easyjet flight to Schiphol, Intercity to Den Haag Centraal, tram to the flat. All clockwork, no delays. It was dark when I got back home.


Taking part in the ‘live’ Poetry in Aldeburgh Festival has been a joyous experience. The highlight was the reading Our Whole Selves with poet friends. Poet Kathy Pimlott and I wrote several blog pieces about the readings, workshops, performances, open mic. These will soon be on the official website. A big thank you to the small organising team which managed to arrange a wonderful programme.


The poems I read were from my new collection Remembering / Disease, published by Broken Sleep Books last month. I opened my set with Nautical Miles (from my collection Nothing serious, nothing dangerous). When I looked at an old photo, I saw that only Hoek van Holland is ‘less than a hundred’ nautical miles. Good reminder that poetic truth matters more than the accurate facts…

Nautical miles

Outside the Sailors’ Reading Room, the sign:

thin wooden planks, painted white:
Den Helder, IJmuiden, Hoek van Holland.

Across the horizon, they are less than a hundred
nautical miles from Southwold in Suffolk

where the narrow beach of pebbles –
grey, brown, black mostly –

is held together
by couplets of groynes, slimy green.

Both our languages have the word strand.

Note: The Sailors’ Reading Room, Southwold is a Grade II listed building from 1864 and still a refuge for sailors and fishermen.

coming light

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I am very glad to introduce this month’s guest poet Sheila Butterworth. We met many years ago, in that Yorks/Lancs Branch of the BHS. I let Sheila introduce herself and her haiku.

“Winning the Leeds Waterstones Haiku Competition in 2000, organised by the Yorks/Lancs Branch of the British Haiku Society, introduced me to the world of haiku poets, workshops, journals and a network of local poets with whom to chew the haiku fat. I have since had poems published in Blithe Spirit, Presence, The Snapshot Press Haiku Calendar, Wales Haiku Journal and The Red Moon Anthology.

Most of my haiku come out of the everyday experiences of life within a mile of my edge of village doorstep where I have lived for 40 years. This is where I notice those things that have most meaning to make haiku. The familiar environment highlights the nuances of change in place, in time and in me and this is when haiku happen.”

coming light
the bubble and trill
of robin and wren

high street dawn
the smell of sweet dough
folds into the fog

morning mizzle
molehills spatter
the spring pasture

planting potatoes
startled sparrows
scatter in the quickthorn

summer rain
the shining bole
of a sapling ash

evening sun
the shadow of the wood
fills the field

standing out
in the half light
borage blue

passing by
the old doctor
walks into the wind

the white tip
of a fox’s tail
above the snow

instead
I blow the dust
from a bowl of sea glass

In Aldeburgh: Poetry

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Haibun


Yesterday’s journey: comfortable Eurostar from Rotterdam Centraal, a sit-down at Soho & Co, Liverpool Street Station for food. The unexpected ‘red signal’ at Colchester turned out to be ‘waiting for British Transport Police’. They escorted a couple off the train. Missed connection at Ipswich gives an unexpected hour to mull and ponder. The friendly taxi driver from A2B and warm welcome at The White Lion where the bar is still open.

we smoke fish
open
we catch raw words