Shut Up And Follow

I got on the tube yesterday morning, on the Victoria Line, and sat there with my fellow morning commuters. I'm not in the middle of a book at the moment so I did the 'looking at the adverts' thing and then I noticed one that was just words and perked up - a new Poems on the Underground poster! This one featured 'Small Brown Job' by Gwyneth Lewis and reads:

May you be lead on all your walks
By an unidentified bird
Flitting ahead, at least one branch,
The tease, between you
And it. Is that an eye-
Stripe? Epaulette? Your desire
For a name grows stronger.
Chaffinch? Warbler? This is spinning
Gold from straw. You're in good hands.
Shut up and follow.

This latest series of poems is in celebration of the centenary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, that mad Welsh bard who liked a tipple. I visited his house at Laugharne many years ago.

OK small brown, I'll shut up and follow.

Poems On The Underground

As readers of this blog will know, I like the Poems on the Underground series - short poems or extracts from longer poems on various themes throughout the year. Rather than staring at adverts on the way to work you can read a poem. I received this lovely book for Christmas that collects many of the poems as part of the London Underground 150th anniversary celebrations.

The poems are collected by themes such as love, London, the natural world, families and dreams. I've decided to read one poem each day and the first section is about love. Poem number 5 caught my eye as one I'd like to share:

What He Said

                    What could my mother be

                    to yours? What kin is my father

                    to yours anyway? And how

                    did you and I ever meet?

                                       But in love

                    our hearts have mingled

                    like red earth and pouring rain.

Cempulappeyanirar
Translated by A.K. Ramanujan

Apparently Cempulappeyanirar wrote 2000 years ago in Tamil and 'red earth and pouring rain' was his trademark phrase.

There's a lovely extract from 'As You Like It' by Shakespeare at the front of the book that states:  'There is a man haunts the forest, that hangs odes upon hawthorns, and elegies on brambles...'. I like the sound of that so I'll keep my eyes open for more poems to share.

Poems On The Underground - 'Buses On The Strand'

A new series of poems has started to appear on the London Underground to celebrate its 150th anniversary. I saw a nice one yesterday on the Victoria Line - 'Buses On The Strand' by RP Lister:

The Strand is beautiful with buses,
Fat and majestical in form,
Red like tomatoes in their trusses
In August, when the sun is warm.

They cluster in the builded chasm,
Corpulent fruit, a hundred strong,
And now and then a secret spasm
Spurs them a yard or two along.

Scarlet and portly and seraphic,
Contented in the summer's prime,
They beam among the jumbled traffic,
Patiently ripening with time,

Till, with a final jerk and rumble,
The Strand tomatoes, fat and fair,
Roll past the traffic lights and tumble
Gleefully down Trafalgar Square.

I like the imagery and the fantasy of buses as tomatoes clustering and ripening, tumbling gleefully and, in a certain light, that's so true as the spill out into Trafalgar Square. I shall have to watch carefully.

'Carving' by Imtiaz Dharker

A new season of Poems on the Underground has been launched, this time with a World theme to coincide with the Olympics in the summer. I like getting on a tube train and noticing poetry on the walls. The first of the new poems I noticed was 'Carving' by Imtiaz Dharker with some lovely imagery and lines:

Others can carve out 

their space

in tombs and pyramids.

Our time cannot be trapped

in cages.

Nor hope, nor laughter.

We let the moment rise

like birds and planes and angels

to the sky.

Eternity is this.

Your breath on the window pane,

living walls with shining eyes.

The surprise of spires,

uncompromising verticals. Knowing

we have been spared

to lift our faces up

for one more day,

into one more sunrise.

Imtiaz Dharker (see her website) is representing Pakistan since she was born there but her parents moved to Glasgow when she was one year old and she describes herself as a Scottish Muslim Calvanist. She's also reported to be taking part in the cultural events over the summer related to the Olympics, specifically the Poetry Parnassus at the Southbank.

The Southbank site states: 

In summer 2012, Southbank Centre launches Poetry Parnassus. This visionary festival sees poets from all participating Olympic nations come together for a week of readings, talks and performances. Poetry Parnassus marks the first time that so many poets from so many parts of the planet have converged in one place; it is a monumental poetic happening worthy of the spirit and history of the Olympics.

This sounds quite an interesting venture and calling it 'Parnassus' is a nice link to the Olympics as well as well-worn artistic themes. I've been on Mount Parnassus, y'know. I'll watch out for tickets for this event and will need to get hold of some of the works of Ms Dharker.