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Modern Love
Now I ask her to kiss her fingers and then touch
Her privates just as though the kisses came from me.
And she tells me that she’s done it, someone
I’ve never met, whose passionate responses
On the internet only last that one single night;
Vulnerable and inviolable at the same time,
Utterly helpless but at a distance she will never
Bridge. Have I been chatting to a man
Or a woman? – one as alive and as dead
As Schrödinger’s cat. Anyway, age makes it
All remote. However, for a younger set
The screen is the ultimate contraceptive. When
I was young I looked like Keats in Bright Star,
And I weep into my brandy as I hear,
“Write the softest words and kiss them that
I may at least touch my lips where yours have been.”
Posted in Poetry
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The Lugubrious Gondola by Franz Liszt performed by Tango Schumann
Tango Schumann performance from 2010
As for La Lugubre Gondola:
‘It is one of several works Liszt wrote relating to the death of Wagner, who was his son-in-law, but only two years his junior. Liszt wrote that near the end of 1882, while staying with Wagner in Venice, he had a premonition that Wagner would die there and that his body would thus be born on a funeral gondola through the streets. Wagner, in fact, did die in Venice the following February (and have just such a funeral).’
Classical Music Archives
Lindi and I decided that I should never make eye contact with her, as if I had passed on to another realm!
Posted in Dance, Video
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The Problem of Multitude
This is a 2011 published article about the problem of multitude in American poetry today.
I found it interesting.
The Problem of Multitude in American Poetry
It mentioned that in 2010, three deciders had each put ten names forwards as the best in American poetry – none of which included the same poets! That was a decade ago (this post was first published in 2011 – so two decades ago now!). All that is said in the link applied and does apply to UK poetry.
It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about for some time. I want to write an article about it myself. So in the future, I may post my response as a comment here.
Posted in Essays, Poetry
Tagged Creative Writing, Creative Writing Courses, Overcrowding, poets, population, Writers
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Beverley at Iguazu
This is a video poem, the text was written in Argentina about ten years ago. It was inspired by the falls at Iguazu.
Posted in Poetry
Tagged Anthony Howell, Argentina, Iguazu Falls, longer poems, poetry
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Writing articles
I’ve just completed a draft of one article and more or less finished writing another.
I realise that I have put myself into these pieces, as I do into all my essays. I’m unrepentant about this. My view is never impersonal, never impartial. I see things through my own eyes and filter them through my experience.
To my mind this is a more accurate take on a dance, a poem, a performance or an exhibition than a review that purports to be impartial. I don’t believe something can be disinterestedly criticized. There are of course things in any creative production that anyone intelligent might point out – but these are of the order of a double negative, a grammatical error, a technical glitch. But the impulse to acknowledge quality, or the sense of distaste, whichever it may be, and whether so strong it approaches wonder or so revolting one vomits, that impulse comes from an individual, and is mediated by that individual’s memories, even by personal bio-rhythms (or state, possibly, of intoxication).
And so the accuracy I am talking about comes from the piece being a mediation between a personal reaction and the work.
Frank O’Hara talked about personalism in poetry, by which he meant writing a poem as if one were writing a letter to a particular person one knew, maybe with secrets being alluded to that were only shared by the letter writer and the recipient. When writing an essay, I want a touch of that personalism to come through, like, I want to be writing to you, not to a public. And my impression is coming from me, with all my grouches and enthusiasms and foibles.
My essays are personal.
Essay writing is closer to poetry than it is to science.
The Poetry School’s favourites 2011
Nice to see our book is second on the list!
http://www.poetryschool.com/news/our-favourite-poetry-books-of-2011.php
Posted in Poetry
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How I see this journal
I am advised that the best blogs are focused. But I want this site to reflect the diversity of my interests – poetry, dance, performance art, essays and music. Over the years, I have become reconciled to being a Jack of all trades – as I try to express in this poem:
PHYSIS
Jack, the strong octopus,
With more arms than a company,
Embraces with his trades
The ideal of metamorphosis.
x
Nataraja, dancing the Tandara
On the demon of ignorance,
Is the transformer, the storm,
His tentacles muscular,
xx
Their tips accurate,
And delicate – expressive,
With a finger to a pie.
Now I know nought whatsoever,
xx
But to walk through her
As she walks through me
Arouses the drum, the cobra,
The flame and the gesture.
xx
My love is my weight:
Where it goes I go.
x
More comprehensive information can be found on my website – http://www.anthonyhowell.org — which has links to other sites relating to these diverse interests. But I offer no apologies for the range. Ultimately these interests are fused into a fundamental concern with language and its relation to action.
Physis was originally published in Silent Highway (Anvil, 2014) – now distributed by Carcanet.
Posted in art, Dance, Poetry, Uncategorized
Tagged Anthonyhowelljournal, Jack of all trades, poem, Shiva
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anthonyhowelljournal 