By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat
We watched it flying like an unstrung kite
Then snow fell in cold Cromer,see the map!
A cat dosed by the fire in the warm pub
Yet near Salthouse winds blew off your hat
I’d have blown off too, were I less fat
These gales would give the sailing boats a fright
By Salthouse Church the wind blew off your hat
We watched it flying up in cold sunlight
,
,,
From the book
Phantasy in everyday life by Julia Segal
“The idea that painful emotions are better kept conscious and simply suffered until they go away of their own accord is one which may not have entered their heads.”
Never end a sentence with and.
And never begin one with and either.
Like trying to reduce mathematics to a mere branch of logic as Russell and Whitehead did [didn’t succeed,in fact],trying to write the rules of English grammar is difficult
2018
Could it be despair that held me tight
in that February evening and the night
I could not see a way to carry on
Everything seemed dark and I was done
I saw great blackness all around myself
I could not be restored, I had no health
I had reached the end of seeking aid
God alone knew all the coins were paid
Oh gracious mysterious glowing light
That made a warm shawl round me on that night
Impressing me with kindness and goodwill
Holding me until I’d had my fill
Most sensuous, most tangled with love’s grace
Surrounding me, protecting my lost face
As if the arms of love were something real
That anyone who knew this must reveal
Only if we reach that darkest point
May the force of Love with light annoint
When God came down , the rivers overflowed
Great trees were floating ,angled and exposed
The houses broke up like a loaf to crumbs
The hearts of humans trembled till they hummed
The winds deceived, the gusts unmeasured stung
The churchbells shuddered then untimely rang
The power was cut and all our screens were dark
Where were the rulers, where the saving Ark?
The women giving birth were paralysed
The babies in the womb took ill and died
Their cradles rocked the world, they swung so fast
And in a moment all of life had passed
In the void, God started his new world
Rich and strange, the grit and then the pearls
Mary was sitting in the kitchen drinking some tea whilst admiring the wild plum tree in blossom.
Suddenly her neighbour Annie ran into the room wearing a pink corduroy dress with long sleeves buttoned at the wrist and her legs were covered by striped tights that she had a bought in Woolworths in 1998.
She looked at Mary quizzically
You don’t look yourself this morning
No I’m not myself today I think it’s that schizoid remoteness that I have heard about recently. Could you become schizoid when you’re over 70? Annie teased her gently.
I don’t suppose it’s paranoid anhedonia.
Just plain and simple grief.
When was grief ever pkain and simple Mary wondered out loud
I’ve never heard of ak Anhedonia before. It sounds like a very good name for a cat
Come here Anhedonia.
Emil Mary’s beautiful cat woke up and cried out, I told you I should have learned Greek at school, mother.
But you didn’t go to school Mary told him kindly
You could have got me a private tutor in that case but first of all I would have to learn to read and write which is something I never got round to.
So what made you think that that word was Greek?
It just reminds me of things I heard you saying to Stan before he died.
Oh yes it was probably when I was discussing my anisometropia with him.
Is that a house plant Annie asked nervously.
No it’s something to do with the fact that you can’t get both of your eyes sorted with super suitable lenses simultaneously
That sounds dreadful cried Annie mournfully.
And you know what the optician said to me Mary told her
He said you’ve got 90% of your eyesight back compared to a blind person but only 60% back compared to someone with perfect vision.
So I said to him don’t talk to me like that I am a mathematician I used to teach statistics to trade union students. You can’t do that with percentages they’re not metaphors you know or similes.
But on reflection I realised that I could understand perfectly well what he meant.
It reminded me of Stan when he used to say
The distance between 0 and 1 is bigger than the distance from one to two
That would not be allowed in a mathematics book but actually he was 100% right compared to a human being but only t 10% compared to God. And even that’s an exaggeration.
We have just sorted out the Greek alphabet and mathematics and percentages and metaphors why don’t we put the kettle on and make nice cup of tea. A coal fire in this room would make it perfect why we could even boil the kettle on it and reduce the electricity bill
Oh mother you are so funny cried Emile graciously I just love the way you talk I could listen to you all day long
Thank you very much Emile that’s wonderful to know that you don’t mind listening to me like this all day because I have no one else to talk to
Excuse me said Annie you can talk to me.
Thank you dear I know I can but sometimes I remember that you only went to Grey’s road polytechnic whereas I went to Cambridge university on a scholarship although I would rather have gone on the train
You went to Cambridge university but did you actually go inside and learn anything?
That’s what we’re all wondering but sk at least she has a little humility.
I wish that we could say the same for the most powerful man in the world.
Yet even a modest poet is more powerful in reality than someone who rules by lies power and force and probably even death.
The poet alters our vision.
Though sometimes it’s easier to get new spectacles instead
And so say all of us
We spent 10 years a -wandering Southport Beach
You may wonder how but I don’t teach
I went to Sinai just to have a look
Now it is in Egypt . bless my boots/
The Bedouin people have not found a home
In the deserts of my heart, they roam
I washed my dishes in some water cold
They are greasy but I’m going blind
Would you vote for leaving Asia next?
Brexit has put patience to the test
Are we in New Zealand’s trading zone?
We could cut the cord and be reborn
I read the Times and leave a comment too
To be quite clear I asked them , is I you?
The Bread that is so sacred feeds the poor
Jesus never wished to be adored.
I saw a beggar lying on the ground
I gave him my down coat, is that unsound?
I thought I’d go out on the River Thames
But then I went to Kew to make amends
Did God wish to convert the Jews by force?
I hope he will be filled with bald remorse
The Inquisition, torture and then death
Jesus would be shattered by this mess
Don’t we pay the Hebrews for their Scrolls?
They told the stories , made the Bible whole.
All of Europe forced to go to Mass
Those unwilling, burn them up like grass
I hated sermons for men gave no clue
How to do in practice what they knew
I made some salad green and ate it all
The slugs and snails are looking up appalled
English grammar is no use to me
I want to go to Norway and catch flu
I made a rule :it is a sin to pee
Like sex and drugs and eating from my shoe
Why not work out what we’re made to do?
Making babies may be the real clue
Getting mystic, lying on the lawn
Is that a cat that bit me on the arm?
I fear my cat has grown her claws yards long
If she liked my boyfriend, she’d grow fangs
When in Israel do not speak in code
They invented it to please the Lord
I wonder was the first word ever God?
Cr*p or Sh*t or F*ck or Praise [the Lord]
Do you long fo marmalade in bed?
The duvet’s bitter orange matching bread
The cats are in the basket on the wall
They ate up violets ,I call that absurd
My husband phones me when I am asleep
I can’t pick it up so it is cheap
Wandering in the Estuary of the Ribble
Stand on Sinking Sand and play the fiddle
If Britain travels like the great Titanic
Boris Johnson will sell us our own Panic
If you see a Polar bear at night
Take a photo followed by swift flight
I’d like to phone my husband but he ‘s gone
Get BT to lay a line for one.
I don’t believe in mourning over-long
I’ll soon be dead myself and feeling prongs
Grief is free for all of us on Earth
It hurts like Hell and makes the World seem cursed
Good night my little cat and my tame snails
I’m off soon to New Zealand with my tales
When Jesus was in the garden of gethsemena
He wanted some companion during the night but nobody was able to be with him.
I’m sure that some of us have had a similar experience.
So would a helper have said to Jesus
Why don’t you listen to some music I know the radio has not been invented yet but you are God…. So make yourself a radio and listen to music
Why don’t you turn your mind away from fear of death I’m thinking about signing up for an art class,myself.
I know that Jews can’t worship images but there’s no harm in making some images was paint or pastels.
It might lift your mood..
Now Jesus, have you drunk enough water today? Have you had a proper meal?
(Well they had the last supper I believe.)
Don’t you think we should all go home and go to bed and have a good rest and forget about this event that’s going to happen?
Now Jesus what you need is a good holiday.
You know it’s not so far to Cyprus and it would be a break from living in this occupied territory.
The Romans have a lot to answer for.
And would Jesus have lost his temper and called out to the disciples
Satan get thee hence.
Then somebody will just say, if you feel bad at three o’clock in the morning it’s often a sign of depression and I believe there are some new antidepressants on the market now.
Why don’t you see the doctor tomorrow and ask him can you have a free sample because there is no NHS in the holy land.
And that’s why Jesus stayed in the Garden of Gethsemane by himself because he did not like what his followers were saying to him. And it was all because they didn’t want to actually know how he was feeling: that he was sweating blood that he was afraid that he was terrified but he was going to continue on the path that he believed God had set him on.
And after all he was the son of God. So he believed and there is some evidence to favor that view.
And thus it did transpire
I’m knitting you into my fabric…
How flexible.
How charming.
How alarming
How creative
How festive.
what an idea!
what a notion
what emotion!
But you are too big for me to knit
so, I’ll just touch your hand
with my fingers.
and you may touch my hand
with your fingers.
What good hands we have
with such fingers.
Fingers are for touch.
fingers are keen to touch.
I like touch.
what would we do
without fingers?
I like your skin.
Skin is good.
We love skin.
We love.
We are.
I want skin to be ours,
and yours is mine,
and mine
is yours.
Where is the edge of the world?
Skin has no end.
it’s infinity,
au naturel.
What order!
What design!
What wonder.
What awe.
What a tune
What a rhyme!
What good time!
Where is the world’s skin?
Tenderly we touch the world
as the world embraces us.
It’s called love.
Love.
This is love.
O
https://www.godwardweb.org/eyealteringalter.html
O
Tucked away in William Blake’s poem, “The Mental Traveller,” is a line that elucidates one of the great mysteries of ancient and modern thought. He wrote, “The eye altering alters all.” Obviously, our own thoughts and feelings color our experience of the world. But Blake was getting at something much more fundamental. In effect, he was saying that how we see the world changes the world. We are not mere passive observers of reality but collaborators with it.
I have read that creative artists need humility in order to be creative
But what is humility?
As far as I can gather it means accepting emptiness. I have seen it expressed in the following sentence which I believe was first mentioned by Thomas Aquinas and it was also mention by the Psycho analyst Wilfred Bion.
This is it
You say, I have nothing I am nothing, I know nothing. In the emptiness of total humility there is a space into which creativity can enter.
Of course these artists and writers do not feel humble all the time I am laughing as I’m thinking of Picasso.
Apparently not knowing is part of getting to know something. If you think you’re already know everything then you’re not going to discover anything new, are you?
But we are taught to be frightened of emptiness and nothingness yet it is out of nothingness that something emerges.
In my dream I gsve birth to a child
The doctor said that he would die quite soon My feelings overwhelming made me wild
The Nazi doctor threw him on a pile
I lay nearby unmoving as I keened
In my dream,I gave birth to a chil
A week passed by,I knew that death beguiled
Frozen lips made no sound, song or tune
My feelings overwhelming made me wild
I had to rise and say my black goodbye.
My baby with the others;horror loomed
In my dream I gave birth to a child
I picked him up , when suddenly he smiled
I held him to my breast, my songs I crooned
My feelings overwhelming drove me wild
I had to carry him, the landscape gloom
A desert grey and rocky like some moon In my dream I gave birth to a child
In terror I had walked yet love consoled
She gave me a plain look. It was very easy to interpret her contempt. But not so lovely to feel it washing over me. That’s when I began running.
Is it sacrilege to smile at the priest while he is holding up the bread and wine,? Don’t answer because as long as I don’t know it’s not a sin ,although willful ignorance could be a sin but it’s a different sin from the first one
Yet even that might annoy God. But can we really believe that god is looking at us all day long when he went through the ordeal of losing his only son on Calvary? The two things don’t seem compatible somehow.
I wonder what the people who used to make wooden confessionals the Catholic churches do to make their living now because I don’t think many people ever go to the confessional on a Saturday night and say they will never sin again. If it was changed to Sunday night they will do better in terms of numbers at least
the artist can regain what Yeats calls ‘the old nonchalance of the hand.’ For Milner, as for her contemporary T.S. Eliot, ‘The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality.’
Come down,oh Blog divine.
Clean this light mind of mine,
And Kindle it with thine own Amazon password.
O Holy Spirit,draw real near;
Make all my strains disappear.
And subscribe me to all the intriguing and wonderful Websites I’ve never heard of.
Come down like summer rain
Wash off our
Lsuffering and our pain
Kindle us with spirits whole
Tell us what the prophets foretold
Gather us into your heart red
Sleep well on your divine bed
I went to church on Sunday with a mole
From MI5, I tried to save his soul.
If God can’t make a saint of every man
Why the Dickens do I think I can?
What other mysteries can my body know?
Thank God,I only signed for Pay and Go
Underneath the silence there is peace
I pray the silent music brings relief
Poem
Silence in the centre of our soul
Silence in the love that makes us whole
O Godly worm that of my flesh might eat
Let my very self become your meatOne day we will die and that is sure
Let death be named the illness with no cure.
As Shakespeare said we we have no teeth, no sight
But the old can still be happy in the night
Although arthritis makes the body ache
I still have got my appetite for steak.
My joints are bust, my toes are cold and bent
Where is my mother now, for I am spent
Bring me frankincense and myrrh, bring me some tea.
I want a wise man now,well are you he?
The grammar is the best thing in thr book
It makes no sense to me, come take a look.
I think I’ll go to Ireland when I’m old.
Take me to the fire for I am cold
Alfred and Dora Smith, who had just taken possession of a solid gold powder compact, bought from dear old Stan on the beach ,went down to Cromer so Dora could go to Boots, She wanted a new and more suitable shade of pressed powder to put into the compact.
Satan was getting cheesed off as Dora had the compact shut away in her handbag of purple and red leather with a yellow strap.Since she otherwise dressed entirely in black the vivid colours did not seem quite so dreadful.Some might call them post modern
You may disagree, but I believe a coloured leather handbag is a definite must for any woman nowadays.Where else can one hid one’s log tables,kindle reader,tampons, set squares,kleenex,rulers,pens and other female items not to mention lipstick and other vital items?
Satan ,not being divine.did not know where Alf and Dora were off to but he was hoping that he might get a peep somewhere.Maybe in the ladies loo in some pub or other,hopefully one full of women of an intriguing type with French underwear worn as outerwear in the late style of Madonna.Little did he know of the ladies of North Norfolk
Inside Boots,Dora found the Boots Number 7 beauty counter and selected some compressed powder in a color called vanilla rose beige.Since everything was 3 for 2 she bought some lavender mascara and some pink coral moisturised lipstick.After paying the bill,she and Alf ran outside as they felt poorly
My,it’s as hot as hell in there,Dora cried.Satan was pleased to hear that but he had no idea where they were but felt he was near home.
Alf suggested a walk down the pier to get some fresh air.
Facing directly North, Cromer pier is wide open to the pure winds from Siberia… but today a SW wind was blowing and despite a black cloud looming the day was bright and warm for winter in England
As the game, old but vital couple reached the end of the pier and turned to look at the North Norfolk coast line they regretted not wearing their Harris tweed coats.. a strange chill came over England that afternoon…. a hint of evil darkened the air with menace.David Cameron must have been up there in Burnham Market where the rich and sinful have holiday homes.
Shall we sit down for a minute, said Alf to his stunningly made up wife.
You sit down,I am going to look at the sea.Dora said sweetly
Dora stood at the edge of the pier looking,at the waves crashing below… and above too!
She wondered how her new short hair style was standing up to the weather and on an impulse she opened her bag and took out the gold compact so she could use the mirror to check.
Holding it n her left hand she flicked it open expertly at an angle of precisely 60 degrees.
Who was more surprised…Satan,who rarely saw faithfully married,virtuous British women, or Dora who had never before seen a demons,let alone Satan,I leave to your imagination.
Dora gave a loud shriek and threw the compact overarm high above and over the metal railings.Being solid gold it sank gently to the sea bed amongst the pearls and coral and a few suicidal people’s remains.
Alf,Alf,she called..raucuously
What is it, my pet?
There was some fiend in that mirror.What a sight! I am afraid I have accidentally bowled it overarm it into the sea.Like you showed me to when we were playing cricket
You stupid twit.I paid £500 for that.I broke the bank
Did you really?You are so sweet.I wonder if we should call 999? Dora called
I doubt if they could dive into the cold sea…for a powder compact.Alf replied
How about for the poor devil inside it? she continued.
Suddenly a heavy storm,one might say a hurricane blew up and the stout couple were almost washed away by rain and giant waves which ran into the air on either side of the pier.Clinging to each other they stumbled towards the promenade some distance back.
Let’s go and have some tea and muffins,suggested Alf thoughtfully.
Suddenly the sea swept onto the promenade and for a moment it seemed as if the two old folk would be washed away but luckily they were both very obese and their weight anchored them to the ground as well as their heavy rubber boots
Well,it’s not quite what we expected,but somehow I am relieved.Dora said
I was nervous about owning such a luxury item.I feel I am addicted to Max Factor Pancake makeup in plastic compacts she prattled merrily as Oxbridge educated folk like to do especially if they did PPE like our Prime Minister
Alf was dozing and in his mind he saw a host of pancakes with little faces each wearing full makeup
How can I eat these,he muttered.They seem like human beings… they look quite charming.His head fell back and he began to snore loudly
Dora was happy enough watching canoes go by carrying people along the promenade and into the old town.What a dear place Cromer is,she thought,as the lifeboat passed the cafe window full of terrified people..What a dear old place to live in.Why would anyone want to live inlan
After Stan left the police behind, he drove Satan to Sheringham,There they rented a fidhrman’s cottage and enjoyed walking to Weybourne along the cliffs where they saw some butterflies .Satan seemed surprised by the cheery residents.He usually dwelt in cities and dens of iniquity.Stan’s pocket bulged with the golden powder compact standing up.He liked Sheringham but usually had Mary with him for company rather than Satan.
One afternoon on the beach a man of riper years stopped and spoke to him
I see you always carry face powder in a compact with you.Are you a transvestite by ny chance?
I am sorry to say,I am not.Is that bad news?Stan asked him
Well,not really.I never expected to meet one down here.But my wife has lost her powder compact and it’s hard to get gold ones now.I’ll give you at least £500 for that.It’s lovely.
Stan pondered.He had got fond of Satan but was unsure what to do with him next and he could not remain on holiday for ever as Emile his cat didn”t like it
He thought perhaps leaving Satan here in Sheringham might benefit humanity in the long run.
OK then.he cried and in a flash he had handed over the gold compact to the gentleman who seemed thrilled.He produced £500 pounds in notes and the deal was done.
Stan went back and informed Emile the holiday was over.We can go home now,Emile.I have got rid of Satan,at least for now.
Thank God,miaowed Emile.I miss Annie and her perfume..
That makes two of us,thought Stan as he drove towards King’s Lynn and the Ouse crossing…
But how will poor Satan feel? Will he be converted to life in a seaside home or will he soon be heading back to Knittingham?Time will tell. Sheringham may be too small for him and probably has very few dens of iniquity.And even Cromer is probably not wicked enough for this old devil….
Stan was very worried that the police had caught him.He didn’t realize that ,with the low sun, the mirror in his pocket was flashing out coded messages to aircraft.He got out of the car and walked over to the police on the grassy verge of the road
I’m so sorry,it’s just my wife’s solid gold powder compact.See?
Have you got your marriage certificate with you?
Well,no.I didn’t know we in the UK needed to show them to the police. demurred Stan
It may belong to your wife but you are a man.Men don’t carry them.We never saw one before.Young women never use then,
Certain men might of course..actors or politicians.I know Tony Blair wore make up.
That’s irrelevant.Give me that compact.
Stan pulled the golden compact out of his pocket,still open.
The police man stared into the mirror.His face turned pale.He handed the compact to Stan and ran back to his car asking the driver to take him to the nearest boiling Tea Shop.
Stan looked at Satan and grinned…
What did you do?
I just held up a photo I have of him in bed with a sheep….need I say more?
Did you enjoy seeing that? Stan asked thoughtlessly.
Not much.~I prefer your flame haired mistress with her perfume of Araby.She’s something else again.
So you can smell then? Stan enquired.
Oh,yes,said the devil.Sure I can.I just can’t touch or be touched.
So Stan started the car and off they went;all the lights were green and not a single police car was on duty.
Soon they reached Upper Sheringham.The people here are very long lived.I know it’s the best place to live in the UK;then they turned down the old High Street and parked by a gambolling shop full of lambs.
Now what?
Will the sea cheer up a sad old devil or make him suicidal?The cliffs are not very high.We must await the next piece of the story with interest and patience.
Email me with ideas at
merrymaryminds@h
After nearly being arrested for accidentally sending out messages with the car mirror. Stan got back into the car and drove around King’s Lynn and up past Sandringham.
I’ve been there,said Satan eagerly
Don’t tell me, Stan begged.Let me keep a few illusions.Or delusions
Satan fell quiet as they stopped in Hunstanton to see the striped cliffs before tottering along the coast towards Sheringham.
I’d like to go to Brancaster Beach again,Stan thought, that really is a beach.In fact he and Mary had once been trapped by the tide.North Norfolk is a dangerous place even without Satan travelling through
Holkham Hall and beach were a beloved place.Maybe Satan would like to go in a boat on the lake and visit the shop where paintings are on sale
Wells next the Sea was the old man’s love.The narrow street where Mary bought a wicker bike basket.The bread shop and the butcher and the big green on the top with lovely houses round it in a square [ squaring the circle!]
Many happy memories and the rich smell of gorse in the hot sun
When I get home,I shall see if gorse will grow in Knittingham he told Emile.Maybe the soil is wrong though
He took out his Vodafone Smart 7 or 8 and rang an old friend in Sheringham
Is the cottage free,Fred, he asked?
Yeah, how many people?
Er, it’s just me and the cat . this time,Stan muttered idiotically.Well Satan was in the powder compact so he didn’t need a bed!
OK.I’ll leave the key at the chip shop then.See you soon.Stan.I’m just finishing my book on the Gnostic Imagination.I’ve learned a great deal but I’ll happy to finish it.Maybe we could meet for a drink one night
And do you know… they did!
Stan was standing on the patio behind his bijou home when a sudden heavy downpour of water drenched him all over.
This is like a monsoon,he murmured to Emile who was also wet and drowned looking
A head and neck appeared over the dark wooden fence.
I’m awfully sorry,old boy.A pipe has burst in Annie’s loft.I tried to fix it myself.
I don’t believe it.You are Stan Brown.It must be 50 years since I saw you.
Stan was hiding his surprise at seeing Rudolf Hairnet,his former logic tutor at an ancient foundation, in the garden of Annie,Stan’s beloved colourful mistress.
Why not pop in Rudolf,he said.I’ll leave the door open and go upstairs to change my clothes.Be with you in a moment.
Stan went upstairs and removed his clothes.His body was now as thin as when he reached his full height of 6 ft 6 inches but alas it had less muscle and more fat. nowadays.He gazed into his wife’s full length mirror.
To his surprise, he saw Satan looking out.Although he knew this was possible for Catholics he had never met Satan before.Not that he was keen to,exciting as it might be.
How do you get behind the mirror,he asked Satan gently.
God only knows,said Satan morosely.
Why not ask him?
I’m too proud,the poor devil replied in a bleak voice.
Well,we all have our pride,Stan told him,though no doubt yours is the biggest in the universe.
Yes,indeed,Satan answered.It’s bigger than Everest
Are you here for any purpose,Stan enquired.
Yes,your home seems more intriguing than most and I like to watch you in bed with that flame haired woman… is she your paramour?
I see,said Stan,You are a voyeur par excellence
That’s one way of describing me,Satan said,No woman will come to bed with me so I am trapped here behind every mirror in the world.I can see it all but never take part.
You must be very lonely,said Stan
Yes,the dark spirit muttered painfully
Are there no she-devils about who might oblige you?Stan asked him thoughtfully.
I don’t seem to fancy them so much.They are all as bad a me,I want kindness and tenderness not just lust.After all,one might satisfy that with a vibrator… we have them in hell you know!We have many things but love and humility are not there.
Why,you are beginning to sound almost human,Stan told him.We want love too.If only you would apologise to God I am sure he would forgive you and let you come into the real world of others instead of being trapped in there
Stan heard a noise.He turned round displaying his bony frame and his drooping organs to Rudolf.
Are you ok? I was worried that the drenching had knocked you off balance.I have out your kettle on the fire to make you a hot drink and phoned 999 for aid.
But we don’t have a fire,Stan responded. loudly
Well,you do now said Rudolph
Oh,hell, cried Stan
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/edward-lear
“Vivien Noakes fittingly subtitled her biography of Edward Lear The Life of a Wanderer. On a literal level the phrase refers to Lear’s constant traveling as a self-proclaimed “dirty landscape painter” from 1837 until he finally settled at his Villa Tennyson on the San Remo coast of Italy in 1880. But wandering, in that it suggests rootlessness, aimlessness, loneliness, and uncertainty, is also a metaphor for Lear’s emotional life and for the sense of melancholy that so often peeps through the playfully absurd surface of his nonsense verse.
The uncertainty began with his birth. Born 12 May 1812 in the London suburb of Holloway, Lear was the twentieth of twenty-one children (and youngest to survive) of Ann Skerrett Lear and Jeremiah Lear, a stockbroker. Many of the Lear offspring did not live beyond infancy, so Edward’s very survival had something of the fortuitous about it. Even though he lived to be seventy-five, his health was always delicate; he had poor eyesight and suffered from chronic respiratory problems. At the age of five he experienced his first epileptic seizure. For Lear this “Demon,” as he dubbed his affliction, was a mark of shame. Much of his self-imposed isolation from those he loved derived from his need to hide his condition from them.
The year before the onset of the disease had brought trauma of another sort. Jeremiah Lear underwent severe financial reverses—in later years Lear repeatedly told friends his father had gone to debtors’ prison, but no evidence substantiates this claim—and the family had to rent out their home, Bowman’s Lodge, for a time. Mrs. Lear entrusted Edward to the care of his eldest sister, twenty-five-year-old Ann, and when financial stability returned, she did not resume her maternal duties. Ann never married and devotedly acted the mother’s part to Lear as long as she lived; yet he never recovered from the hurt of his real mother’s rejection, as the ambivalence about mother figures in many of his poems indicates.
Lear received little, if any, formal education. Ann tutored him at home and encouraged a talent for drawing and painting that he had early exhibited. When Jeremiah Lear retired and moved south of London in 1828, Edward and Ann remained in the city, taking up lodgings off the Gray’s Inn Road. The sixteen-year-old Lear supported them by selling miscellaneous sketches; he soon moved on to anatomical drawings and then to illustrations for natural history books. His skill in this latter capacity led to the publication in 1832 of a volume of twelve folio lithographic prints of parrots, Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae. This volume brought him to the attention of Edward Stanley, later thirteenth earl of Derby, who wanted an artist to draw the animals in his menagerie at Knowsley, the Derby estate in Lancashire. Lear accepted Stanley’s offer of residency at Knowsley Hall while the work was in progress; he stayed there off and on from 1832 to 1837.
The Knowsley days shaped the course of Lear’s entire subsequent career. In addition to gaining the unflagging patronage of the earl of Derby, he met and charmed many aristocrats who would later buy his paintings and provide entrée to a level of society usually unbreachable by a man of Lear’s impecunious middle-class origins. In 1837, when failing eyesight and lungs forced Lear to abandon the detailed work of natural history draftsmanship and the English winters, the earl provided funds and introductions to establish him in Rome to pursue a vocation as a painter of topographical landscapes. He remained in Rome for ten years, during which time he first established himself as a nonsense poet and formed several of the deepest of his many intimate friendships.
Lear had initially produced poems, drawings, alphabets, and menus for the entertainment of the children at Knowsley; these “nonsenses”—and Lear’s charming conversation and piano improvisations—had soon ingratiated him with the adults as well. In 1846 he gathered together some of his limericks, a verse form he had first encountered in the joke book Anecdotes and Adventures of Fifteen Gentlemen (circa 1822), and had them published with his own illustrations in A Book of Nonsenseunder the pseudonym Derry down Derry.
The Learian limerick focuses on the singular individual, an old or young “Person,” “Man,” or “Lady,” who is distinguished by unusual appearance, behavior, talents, diet, or dress. In its most typical form it announces the existence of the eccentric, notes his dwelling place, and describes his distinctive features; then it explains the consequences of his peculiarity and concludes with an apostrophe:
There was a Young Lady of Norway,
Who casually sat in a doorway;
When the door squeezed her flat, she exclaimed “What of that?”
This courageous Young Lady of Norway.
The limerick generally has a closed structure, repeating the final word of the first line at the end of the last rather than utilizing the unexpected, punch-line rhyme that characterizes the successful modern limerick.”
A great number of Lear’s limericks set the eccentric in conflict with “they,” the faceless, conformist, officious members of society at large. Many times “they” unfairly persecute the individual; at other times he provokes and deserves their hostility. But the primary theme of the limericks remains the problems anyone with the slightest idiosyncrasy has in feeling comfortable among the mass of men. Since these eccentrics often have the oversized noses and long legs Lear gave himself in deprecatory self-caricatures, as well as his affinity for all animals except dogs, the poet probably saw himself as a sharer of their misfit status.”
On a less subjective level, the limerick protagonists provided for the didactically surfeited Victorian child examples of bizarre, misbehaving adults, with no blatant moralizing attached. What intrinsic morality the verses contain is conveyed largely in terms of eating habits. Food is often a symbol in Lear’s poetry: the sharing of food indicates affection and selflessness, while gluttony denotes egotism and lack of concern for others. Gluttony also receives harsh punishment:
There was an Old Man of the South,
Who had an immoderate mouth;
But in swallowing a dish, that was quite full of fish,
He was choked, that Old Man of the South.
The year before the publication of the Book of Nonsense, Lear formed with Chichester Fortescue, later to become Lord Carlingford, one of the firmest of his many lifelong friendships. Their delightful correspondence, compiled in two volumes by Lady Strachey, is the largest collection of Lear letters published to date. Also in Italy, in 1848, Lear was befriended by another future peer, Thomas Baring, later Lord Northbrook. (Later, in 1873 and 1874, Lear journeyed to India and Ceylon as Northbrook’s guest.) Returning to England in 1849, Lear met Alfred and Emily Tennyson. Lear admired Tennyson’s poetry, setting several pieces to music and leaving a projected volume of illustrations of the laureate’s works unfinished at his death; Tennyson addressed an admiring poem “To E. L., on His Travels in Greece.” Their personal relations were nevertheless rarely more than cordial. Lear, however, adored Emily, and she gradually superseded Ann (who died in 1861) as his confidante and surrogate mother. He also formed a close friendship in 1852 with Holman Hunt, the Pre-Raphaelite painter.”
Lear’s most fervent and most painful friendship involved Franklin Lushington. He met the young barrister in Malta in 1849 and then toured southern Greece with him. Lear developed an undoubtedly homosexual passion for him that Lushington did not reciprocate. Although they remained friends for almost forty years, until Lear’s death, the disparity of their feelings for one another constantly tormented Lear.”
In 1850 Lear decided to remain in England to take the ten-year painting course at the Royal Academy Schools in order to improve his untrained technique in oils and figure drawing. He also had the first two of three illustrated journals of his travels published. But his low resistance to the English climate curtailed his stay. After three and a half years he abandoned England for the sunny Mediterranean, and in 1855 he resolved that he would never return to Britain permanently. In October of that year he established a home on Corfu, where Lushington’s government position had stationed him.”
The next years were the most hectic and unsettled of Lear’s life. He traveled incessantly throughout the Mediterranean and Near East, moved from Corfu to Rome to Corfu again and then to Cannes, and visited England eight times. He came close to marrying the one eligible woman with whom he ever maintained a long-term friendship, the Honorable Augusta “Gussie” Bethell of London, whom he had met in the early 1840s, when she was a child. But in 1866 he unwisely consulted her sister Emma about the advisability of a proposal. Emma firmly discouraged him, and he never approached Gussie, who by all accounts would have accepted. Despite his many long-distance friendships, Lear was doomed to a solitary life. His only constant companions were his manservant Giorgio Kokali from 1856 to 1883, and his cat Foss from 1871 to 1887.”
Lear did not have any new nonsense published for fifteen years following the appearance of A Book of Nonsense. In 1861, however, a new, expanded edition was brought out under his own name. Its enthusiastic reception gratified but also perplexed Lear, who always hoped to gain fame as a painter and regarded nonsense only as a source of fun and money. His success as a poet did encourage him to compose more complex nonsenses, which appeared in three volumes during the 1870s after he had settled in San Remo, Italy.”
The first, Nonsense Songs (1870), contained longer poems in which characterization is more realistic and emotions are less distanced than in the limericks. The characters are nonhuman, and the central actions frequently involve a pair or group taking off on a journey. The Owl and the Pussy-cat go to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat; the Jumblies depart in a sieve; the Duck and Kangaroo hop around the world; and even a nutcracker and some tongs, a table and a chair, go out to take the air. These first lyrics seem clearly to constitute Lear’s reflections on his own life as a wanderer. At their happiest they also describe a joyful togetherness that he never attained. The elements of this Learian epiphany–song, dance, food, the shore in the moonlight–are established in “The Owl and the Pussy-cat” and recur frequently in later poems:
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon.
More Nonsense (1872) contained additional limericks of the earlier kind but no new songs. Several songs did appear in his last volume of verse, Laughable Lyrics (1877). The volume is misnamed, for the tone is melancholy; a majority of the poems deal with some sort of loss. The Pobble loses his toes; the pelicans lose their daughter. Most poignant are those lyrics dealing with the loss of love: “The Dong with a Luminous Nose” and “The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò.” Laughable Lyrics also contains the bulk of Lear’s invented nonsense creatures such as the Dong, the Bò, the Pobble, the octopod Discobboloses, and the Quangle Wangle. Lear frequently sets these poems in his nonsense landscapes on the Hills of the Chankly Bore or the Great Gromboolian Plain. It was only by creating such unreal beings and settings that Lear could write with unrepressed emotion about his own unhappiness and sense of isolation.”
In 1886 Lear contracted a severe case of bronchitis, from which he never fully recovered. In that same year he wrote his last nonsense poem, “Incidents in the Life of My Uncle Arly.” Transparently autobiographical, it sums up in a few brief lines the essence of his life:
Close beside a leafy thicket:–
On his nose there was a Cricket,–
In his hat a Railway-Ticket,–
(But his shoes were far too tight.)
Lear was a wandering nonsense minstrel, never completely free of physical and emotional pain. His health steadily deteriorated until he died, alone except for a servant, on 29 January 1888. His last words expressed gratitude for the kindnesses of all his absent friends.”
Lear’s poetry shares many elements with the nonsense verse of Lewis Carroll, Thomas Hood, W. S. Gilbert, and other Victorians, particularly in the use of verbal play and other distancing devices to derive humor from cruelty, pain, and death. Like nonsense verse as a whole, it influenced such twentieth-century aesthetic movements as surrealism and the theater of the absurd. It also, however, contains themes unique to Lear’s personal experience. It is above all an expression of the inmost longings, frustrations, and wish-fulfillment dreams of a lovable and intensely loving man who, despite the fond affection of numerous relatives, friends, and readers–children and adults–was never beloved in the intimate, exclusive, constant manner he so fervently desired.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/145052/the-choice-of-constraint
EXTRACT
In constrained writing, one writes under a condition. That condition might mean not being allowed to do something—such as not using the letter e—or following a certain pattern. If this definition seems broad, it is. All formal writing operates under some kind of constraint; a traditional sonnet, for example, asks you to manage meter and a rhyme scheme in 14 lines. In this essay, we’ll look at less-familiar uses of constraint, ones that will challenge you in different ways. It may seem counterintuitive to put limitations on your writing, but you may find that a small constraint can make a big difference in soothing your fears of the blank page. It does so by taking some choices away and by demanding that you make new choices.
To illustrate this, I’d like to look at one of my favorite constraints—the abecedarian. Abecedarians are poems in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows the alphabet: A, then B, and so on. The abecedarian is an ancient form; it may be as old as the alphabet itself. You can find abecedarians in the Bible, though you’d have to see Psalm 119 in the original Hebrew to notice that each section is headed by a letter from the Hebrew alphabet (Aleph, Beth, Gimel …). Contemporary poets have used the alphabet constraint on a grand scale, creating long poems, such as Carolyn Forche’s “On Earth,” and even throughout entire books, such as Inger Christensen’s alphabetand Harryette Mullen’s Sleeping with the Dictionary.
How my heart speaks 