A history of the poetry of history

“History and poetry hardly seem obvious bed-fellows – a historian is tasked with discovering the truth about the past, whereas, as Aristotle said, ‘a poet’s job is to describe not what has happened, but the kind of thing that might’. But for the Romans, the connections between them were deep: historia . . . proxima poetis (‘history is closest to the poets’), as Quintilian remarked in the first century AD. What did he mean by that?

From its beginnings, epic poetry in Latin was frequently based on actual historical events – so Naevius’ Bellum Punicum in the third century BC told the story of the first Punic War between Rome and Carthage, whereas the subject of Ennius’ Annales, from the second century BC, was the history of Rome from mythological times down to the poet’s own day. Evidently the Romans had no difficulty with taking a genre used by the Greeks mainly for the retelling of myth and employing it to celebrate their own national past, and indeed present. Even Cicero found the time to write an epic poem (complete with gods) about his own consulship (De Consulatu Suo) – after unsuccessfully attempting to interest some real poets in the job. Barely more than the first line has survived; and that verse, o fortunatam natam me consule Romam, ‘O happy Rome, born when I was consul’, is as inelegant (with its ugly repetition –natam natam) as it is immodest.”

I think I have just failed my IQ test
The apple cart has landed on my chest
I didn’t mean to cause such selfish pain
Writing you a letter once again

I never knew that numbers carried on
To  fall in love and marry they’ve’ begun
Their children are irrational  not whole
Some are transcendental ,I’m  enthralled

The IQ test was far too hard for me
I cannot even read it,don’t you see?
I think they are immoral and in vain
I’ve written to the Queen,I have complained

The apple cart is emptier  today
I ate them all and now I feel quite gay

Install a pocket charger for your brain
Did you  curse the folk who chose Remain?
Wearing out your mind is not allowed
Talking the hind legs off a great crowd

Make a little port between your eyes
Plug the charger in before  you die
Is  the little light now showing green
Good, that shows  the lack can be redeemed

Maybe USB-C is the best
Did you ever pass algebra by text?
These cords have no up and neither down
Charlie Chaplin’s silence will astound

Charge  your brain some rent and do repairs
We’ll follow you on Facebook with our glares

https://fivebooks.com/best-books/margaret-drabble-ageing-literature/

Caressed by light yet not by human hands
Stroked by colour, touched by sun and moon
The  lonely person cannot understand

We want the feel of flesh, the words so kind
Enveloped in our coat of  dogged gloom
Caressed by light yet not by human hands

Fixed on one who  elsewhere is deployed
We fail to notice as  our hate consumes
The  lonely person  will not understand

As our mind with misery is crammed
We do not check the facts,  careering on
Indifferent to the light,  or humankind

Colourless emotions fake our lines
Sharing words and sentences  is doomed
The  lonely person   could well understand

In the darkness of the human mind
Caressed by  none but God, we  lose the tune
The  lonely  feel  dismembered  and then damned 

If we feel despair  and breakdown looms
Will we weed out love and  bring  down ruin
Caressed by light yet not by human hands
The  lonely person wills  that she withstands

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/7290/pat-barker-the-art-of-fiction-no-243-pat-barker

BARKER

Well, you see, this is what we have in common with the Bronze Age or World War I. We have these bodies that have actually not evolved during that time, as far as we know. The truth of the body is for me the most important route into the historical past, and into the mythic past as well. You have five senses—well, more than five, at least six because you have this sense of gravity, of where your body is in space—but that’s all you’ve got as a writer. There is literally almost nothing else. The whole thing rests on this incredibly simple foundation.

We voted to leave Europe with a kiss
How the heck has Britain come to this?
Fooled by propaganda from the liars
Educated  under nightmare’s  scheming spires
The beast of racism risen, where is Christ?
I doubt if God will want to save us twice
We think we are superior and wise
Images of Empire have not died
And if  I am Croatian, can’t I  work
Underneath the covers many shirk.
And if I fled from Syria am I damned,
Who was it divided up the land?
France and Britain were  a fine old pair
See the murderous Middle East they  chaired
Breaking Palestine  into two parts
Breaking many humans and their hearts.

I feel like a wet fish  tonight
Do you want a towel?
Why, do you like them?
Who do you mean?
That’s statistics.
Only elementary.
Maybe it is simple to you but not to others
Which others?
Well,I don’t know. People of average intelligence
Mine is so low I am an imbecile
Well, what a surprise
It was to me,I didn’t know before I went to Oxford, fortunately
How on earth did you get in?
I went on the train.
But did they not test you?
I said I’d cry if they rejected me
So what happened?
They asked me to teach some undergraduates
Just like that?
Yes,I was shocked myself but the maths was not so bad
Did you get Teach Yourself Analysis?
I didn’t know you could
Could what?
Teach yourself
Who taught you?
It was like talking,I just picked it up
Well, it’s a  puzzle
Not after you pick it up
Unless it’s a jigsaw puzzle
Well, where is the wet fish?
In the river
What river
The Dee.
Chester is on the Dee
Sto p accusing Chester.
What, is  being on the Dee wrong?
Probably with Boris ruling it will be
What does he know?
Nothing,That is the problem
Mathematics has problems
Not like this.
So one could say it’s easier than living
Well, you can’t so it when you are dead
You can’t live when you are dead
As far as we know.
Do we need a Venn Diagram?
They make me feel faint
That’s lack of food
Is it really? I thought food was just entertainment
How can  you be so stupid?
It is normal for imbeciles
Yet you taught linear algebra
We should have done it elliptically
You telling  me?
Cryptically

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/07/one-word-understand/?utm_source=The+Paris+Review+Newsletter&utm_campaign=48ea9ef95d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_Weekly_12072018_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_35491ea532-48ea9ef95d-55515601&mc_cid=48ea9ef95d&mc_eid=552ffa9eef

“This is where people misstep: they express understanding of a specific, private experience you have not yet been able to sufficiently describe—an experience you yourself may not yet understand. I recall watching an art teacher correct an abstract painting of mine, painting over a section of detailed work with his large, white brush.”

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/79663-5-writing-tips-mark-bowden.html?consumer

It’s hard to believe it is 100 years since the end of that war in which my uncle died and his father died in the ensuing flu epidemic.17 million people were killed.Is that why Europe has gone downhill morally and politically… some called it suicide.The people who survived were damaged emotionally/Empires fell; revolutions occurred. Hitler began  his mad ascent to power

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/70139/the-poetry-of-world-war-i

God made the elephant and the bee
God knows why he then made me!

God likes hearing what I do
I  ate my dinner from my shoe

God says maths is  far too clear
Aleph Null will soon be here

God is perfect and sincere
I blame Guinness for the beer

God has told me I   am gay
I must live and I must play

God is a big memory bank
He remembers, does he think?

How spring is erratic;  the flowers no longer follow in sequence

But come like some Messiaen -like music

No, more like Boulez

following a defined but unknown new order…

So the snowdrops and the daffodils come together

in some marriage of spring and summer

struggling to push away the winter we still inhabit.

Long ago the apple tree
Overhung the dark green lawn
Vertical in mystery
Everlasting in the dawn

Youth and winter disagree
Overland and over sea
Underneath, the  clouds  agree

Deep in soil the worms  will work
Each one with its unique quirk
After feasting they will lie
Round  the rim of a dark sky
Eloquence is good to find
Sometimes it will us remind
This is where we must be kind

The geese have moved their flight path to the East
I miss the  gladness of their graceful wings
And wish I were a bird and not a beast

In the river, they have had their feast
While the sparrows watched and gently sang
The geese are gone, their flight path’s to the East

Seeing their grace at sunset gave me peace
The  natural  world such beauty to us brings
The wish I were a bird and not a beast

North East London’s  cut up by the Lea
No  bridge destroys its power, its currents sing
The geese have moved their flight path  further East

The geese do not  make nests  in a  tall tree
But dwell upon the water  like the swans
I wish I were a bird or honey bee.

As the infant  wisely grabs and clings
So the geese will fight  if threat descends
The geese have moved their flight path to the East
Oh, to fly at sunset  with the least

https://blog.sagradafamilia.org/en/divulgation/reinforced-concrete-for-the-temple-of-course/

The Pantheon from Ancient History

Extract

WHEN WAS THIS CEMENT FIRST USED?

Building with cement and concrete may seem like a modern invention but these materials were used in Roman times. Of particular note is Pozzolanic cement, used by Roman engineers to build water channels, piers and watermills after they discovered this material can harden underwater. The name comes from the town of Pozzuoli, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius in Italy, and the most well-known example of building with this type of cement is the Pantheon in Rome, from 123 AD. Its lightness without sacrificing strength is another great quality of this material, which is why it was used to build the great dome: with its diameter of 43.3 metres it is still the largest made of un-reinforced concrete in the world to this day.

It took nearly two millennia to surpass this size and was made possible by innovations in reinforced concrete, first used by Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi in the 1960s.

As Mary ate her Weetabix, she felt a pain in her left leg rather like a toothache  gone awol
Emile, what are you doing?
Emile crawled out looking dusty. And he had just had a bath.
I was trying to bite the hairs off your leg, he miaowed plaintively
There are no hairs on my leg, she whispered. Oh, dear,I must  have walked into a cobweb
I wish Stan had got a cobweb brush, she muttered.
But do we really need a different brush for everything? Soon we will have one for each tooth. That will be expensive
She felt in her pocket for her Tablet. She wanted to draw a diagram of her brush cupboard using an Android App. But her pocket was empty
The back door opened and in ran Annie wearing a yellow nightdress and matching slippers
Hello, she cried. I  wanted to catch you before 9 am
Why, asked Mary?
The postman will be here by then. He has got a parcel for me. But I put your address.
What is the point of secrecy when you live alone. You have no man to question your expenses, have you? Nor a woman either
Well, Emile might ask me to explain.
Just because Emile is male it does not give him the right to tell you what to do
All my life I have obeyed men, Annie cried
Yes, after you have manipulated, seduced and terrified them
That is very cruel. I was only trying to help them.
Well, you may have done, but why not help yourself?
How can I do that?
Tune into your body and see what comes to mind
Beetroot, Annie responded.
So you must need  them, get dressed and we will go to the greengrocers
You have got very bossy, said Annie. Did you have a nightmare?
It was more like a night-tiger, Mary revealed. Something bit my foot and it hurt
Oh, mother , cried Emile, it was me!
You, Emile. What made you do that, she said angrily?
It was in my way as I crawled under the duvet, the cat whispered
Surely you could have gone further down.
I wanted to see what you tasted like!
That is evil, not to say perverted, Mary told him. I shall take you for therapy or would Confession be better? Is it a compulsion you cannot help or is it a sin?
Annie was silent. She  did not like questions nor  any kind of prolonged thought
Don’t ask me, she finally said. Maybe Emile needs a man in the house.
I don’t want any more men, Mary said sadly. They seem to die
Well, Stan was 128 years old. Annie informed her.I saw his birth certificate once. Unless it was 12.8 years
Don’t be so ridiculous. How could he have been 12.8 years old?
It must be a miracle, said Annie. Tell the Pope and he might be  declared a saint soon
St Stan of Knittingham, Patron Saint of Almost Adolescents.
The bell rang. In ran Dave.
He was dressed in navy.
I am  ready to take you to Church, he told the ladies
To church? I’d rather go to Wigan Pier
Oh,  the sea is not there on Sundays!
Is it there on the Sabbath, Annie muttered?
No, it’s not, Dave said quietly
Wow,  two more miracles, she said as she fainted into the Pantry
How annoying, Mary said. I just classified the jam
Well, things could be worse, said Dave. She’s not broken any and cut herself
What, she falls and breaks nothing. She must be very light.
Yes, she nearly  is electric, he quipped
Whatever next?

And so say all of us