Other Stories

In the waiting room

I have had a poem stuck in my head since yesterday evening. 'In the Waiting Room' (I think that's the title, it may be a slight variation on that) by Norman MacCaig. I first read it at school when we did Scottish poetry for our Higher English, and it's about the poet sitting in the hospital waiting room while his wife is being treated for cancer. I can't reproduce it here because of (a) my inability to remember the whole thing, just the odd line or three and (b) I wouldn't be allowed to anyway because of copyright. All I can say is that you can buy his Collected Poems here.

Anyway, it was in my head as I sat in the waiting room of the emergency clinic in Oxford last night, while Boyfriend was shut away in a room, trying to find out why he suddenly couldn't breathe properly. Obviously the cause for my waiting was nothing so serious as Mr MacCaig's, but the poem stuck in my head nonetheless. Boyfriend's OK now, by the way, he has a chest full of infected ming, but now he also has antibiotics and an inhaler, and he can - y'know - breathe now and everything.

But it made me think about how evocative places are. I hadn't thought about that poem for years, though I love it, but as soon as I was sitting about with months-old copies of Bella magazine it was buzzing around my head. Waiting rooms are just so... scary. Even when you know it's not life-or-death, there's something oddly sinister about the whole thing. Just a thought.

::: P A U S E :::

This morning I am off up to Yorkshire for a couple of days. At some point this afternoon, I will be in the Bronte Museum at Howarth getting all overexcited and spending too much money in the giftshop. Expect photos.

In the meantime, though, I am elsewhere in blogland. The Reader Online asked me to chose a favourite poem for their Monday featured poem slot, and my choice is up today. Go see.

The Sad Shepherd - WB Yeats

Today, beloved readers, we're going high brow. High brow-ish at any rate. With my current strict reading diet of all things Yeatsian, I felt I couldn't not have a post about it. However, I wanted to spare you my cackhanded literary analysis, so I have decided to go minimalist and share with you my favourite Yeats poem (so far... I haven't read everything he's written). It is one that I wasn't familiar with before I started work on this essay, but I've been finding myself reading it every day. Enjoy.

The Sad Shepherd (1885, published 1886)

There was a man whom Sorrow named his friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story!
The sea swept on and cried her old cry still,
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.
He fled the persecution of her glory
And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,
Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.
But naught they heard, for they are always listening,
The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,
And thought, I will my heavy story tell
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send
Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;
And my own tale again for me shall sing,
And my own whispering words be comforting,
And lo! my ancient burden may depart.
Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;
But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.

The Whit...COSTA Shortlists are out!

It's arguably the next biggest book prize after the Booker, so I was waiting with reasonably baited breath to hear who made it onto the Costa shortlists last night. (By the way, am I the only one who still have to remind themselves it's the Costa Prize and not the Whitbread Prize?)

So, without further ado...

Novel

• Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett
• Day by AL Kennedy
• Death of a Murderer by Rupert Thomson
• The Road Home by Rose Tremain

First Novel

• A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
• What Was Lost by Catherine O'Flynn
• Gifted by Nikita Lalwani
• Mosquito by Roma Tearne

Biography

• Rudolf Nureyev by Julie Kavanagh
• Agent ZigZag by Ben McIntyre
• Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
• Fatty Batter by Michael Simkins

Poetry

• The Speed of Dark by Ian Duhig
• The Space of Joy by John Fuller
• Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra
• Tilt by Jean Sprackland

Children's

• The Bower Bird by Ann Kelley
• Blood Red Snow White by Marcus Sedgwick
• Crusade by Elizabeth Laird
• What I Was by Meg Rosoff

What do we think? Well, my little feminist heart is leaping with joy to see the First Novel category entirely populated by women. 'Mon the girls! And it's also nice to see so many independent publishers represented. And isn't Catherine O'Flynn doing well? Booker Longlist, Guardian First Book Award list, and now the Whit...Costas. Now for me to actually read the flippin' thing.

Embarrassingly, it was my choice this month for my book group. I chose it because it conformed to our book group rules: paperbacks only, nothing over 400 pages. I also chose it because I bought it when it was on the Booker longlist, then promptly never got around to it. And I still haven't. My fellow book groupers have been discussing it merrily, and I have been keeping up (our group is conducted via Facebook, because we're all terribly trendy young things, and, like facebook is, like, where it's at, innit, like? *twiddles hairs, pops gum* Oh, and because it's also very convenient when one of your number is living in Alloa). I feel terribly guilty. I know it's awfully bad form to choose a book then forget to read it. However, all reports have been glowing, so at least I haven't inflicted a terrible choice upon everyone else then run off to hide behind the sofa.

Nikita Lalwani's book, Gifted, is the only one from the lists that I have read. My review is to be found here. I liked it, but is it winning material? Hmm, can't say I'm terribly sure. And how wonderful to see AL Kennedy on the Novel list. While I haven't read this one, I have enjoyed the two or three books of hers that I have read, so I'll be watching closely to see how she gets on.

The winner of each category will be announced on January 3, with the overall winner will be announced on January 22. Last year it was Stef Penney's The Tenderness of Wolves (which I was planning to read at some point till I caught the last episode of the dramatisation on Radio 4 by accident, and now I feel like I've already read the last page).

Read this poem, and the glory of Brahms

I've had a good start to my day. I was perusing The Reader Online, and came across a rather wonderful poem. I assume I can't post it here due to copyright shenanigans, so please do pop over to The Reader and read it here. The poem is by Grace Ingoldby, and is called Morning be salve to you. It was a salve for my morning at any rate.

In other news, the work choir concert draws ever closer. Rehearsal last night went very well, though, and we were working especially on the second movement, which is my favourite of the seven. There's this wonderful passage where all four vocal lines are in unison, and it's ff, and it's all minor, and it's just wonderful. It made my spine tingle. I'm even getting the hang of the German pronunciation.

Of course you'll all be coming to the concert, won't you?

* * An Update * *

Just spotted this blog over at the Guardian, which is rather interesting. It is recommending the blogs of writers, published and unpublished. A few here I'm not familiar with, so I shall certainly be checking them out.

Burial at Thebes - Oxford Playhouse

Last night a friend and I went to the Oxford Playhouse to see Burial at Thebes, Seamus Heaney's translation of Antigone by Sophocles.

It really was excellent. The translation was originally performed in 2005, but had been slightly tweaked here and there by Heaney for this production. In its original form, Antigone is all by un-actable (I am reliably informed) so this was a translation that was specially made to be spoken and acted.

It was about and hour and a quarter long, with no interval, but it didn't feel that long at all. As one of the cast said afterwards during the discussion afterwards, it is like a freight train: from the very first explosive scene of Antigone's fury at Creon's law about the non-burial of her brother the audience is swept along with the action, which never loses momentum for a second.

I had been invited to go by a friend of mine, who is doing her Oxford D.Phil in Irish Theatre, and so had heard of Heaney's version through the academic grapevine. I'm so glad I went, especially because afterwards there was a discussion with the cast and the assistant director, which really shed light on a few pointers.

The only irritating thing, however, was that we were sat next to a huge group of high school students, who kept giggling whenever anyone on stage took their shirt off/said 'sex'/started singing/started dancing. Grrr!

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Latest VSI blog over here.

Winter, my first lecture, poetry

This morning was the first really crisp, cold morning this side of summer. I could see my breath, and had to run back into the house for my uber-warm cardigan. This pleases me no end. I like being able to put the fire on in the living room because it makes everything feel all cosy, and the cats like to prostrate themselves in front of it. Lovely.

But, enough of my whimsical muttering...

It seems apt, given that yesterday was National Poetry Day, that I have a sheaf of Tennyson poems to read for next week's lecture.

My First Lecture was fantastic, and actually less a lecture than a group conversation about the Victorians, who they were, and more importantly who they weren't. I left just incredibly excited by all the topics that had come up. I am going to love this course, even more than I had imagined.

Speaking of poetry, as I was a minute ago, I am in the grip of a small obsession with Carol Ann Duffy. Having completely loved her book The World's Wife, in which she writes each poem from the perspective of the "wife" of a famous or mythical figure. For example, there is one called Mrs Darwin, one from the Devil's wife's point of view, etc. It's really fantastic. So, while in London a couple of weeks ago, I ducked into Foyle's on the South Bank. Well, it seemed rude not to. In there I found myself drawn to the poetry section, and picked up a copy of Duffy's book Feminine Gospels, the follow up to The World's Wife. I shall let the blurb do the talking:

"In Feminine Gospels, Duffy draws on women's experience - both personal and historical - in poems which celebrate, elegise and eroticise the female condition. With themes of beauty, identity and the body, the book tells tall stories as though they were the gospel truth, and presents new myths as strange and powerful as the old."

Which really is a perfect way of describing it. I just wish that copyright laws would let me post whole poems here. :(