I'm actually gonna write some poesy this month.

Just back from a holiday in the Alps with my family. I did some climbing, we did some wandering through preposterously crowded little towns. Obviously, it's a beautiful place, all hulking old mountains and pine trees and sweeping clouds; steep gorges and white crags and blue lakes; jangling cows and green meadows and broad-beamed chalets.
Irresistable. But it was all occasionally overshadowed by a staleness, spoiled by an uneasy sense of artificiality. Horribly, I sometimes couldn't push Judy Garland out of mind. I'd seen it all before, in glorious technicolor - and suddenly great panoramas were minatured, and shrank to fit the frame of a cheap glossy postcard, and had no power but to make me want to prance around, tweeting, throwing my arms up at the sky, clicking my heels. I wish terribly I'd never seen the film, although I remember quite enjoying its brittle sunniness at my first viewing.
Which is why I prefer the Alps in the rain. The Alps are quite stunning in the rain, because Judy is never quite prepared for bad weather. She simply doesn't own an umbrella and the moistness clams up her voice and it's unutterably hard to prance well on wet grass.

So my closest memory of the holiday is this: passing through a mountain tunnel to emerge into a dark, ponderous green; a heavily treed valley, bold crags agape, jawing the grey sky; white cloud padding mountain heads, little impossible rags floating near ours; the road stapled to the side of a mountain, winding upwards; rain-mist in the headlamps, the beating of of rain on the roof.

-/-/-

Semi-diatribe on the nature of poetry/prose on my blog: [link]

Thinking about writing poetry is draining - or rather, feels like drawing water from a stone - I'm not sure I've got it in me sometimes. So I was inspired on the bus today to write some little (prose) character studies. The first two of these are from that bus journey, the third is from my graduation ceremony.

A Tall Man

The tall man stood up, staggered slightly, head drooping, and rang the bell to stop. He leant heavily against the rail with one hand, and pressed the button delicately with the thumb of the other. He slouched and his feet made little pathetic plopping noises as he walked the length of the bus. He had the resigned hunch familiar to all shy men of inordinate height, and the cramped, helpless look of a thirty year old still living with his mother’s adage ringing in his ears: “he’s a growing boy, bless ‘im”.

Mouse-Girl

A girl walked in. She grinned impertinently and sat down next to me. Her mum followed, wearing headphones, and sat down a couple of rows forward. The girl had a peculiar mouse-like face: round, prominent cheeks and a pointy chin, and a wide mouth. She was exhausting to watch: I kept expecting her to twitch violently, or tap dance, or twirl or scream. She looked like she wanted desperately to talk to someone but couldn’t think of anything nice to say. And all the time she sat pulling odd wide smiles.

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The Orator

Plodding forward to the pulpit, brows uplifted, eyes sparkling, gown flowing, the Orator beamed. A few little fluffy curls of grey hair showed beneath his hat. He began: “Ladies and Gentleman, Chancellor” - a little portentous nod to the tall figure behind him - “what a glorious day this is,” and we agreed, in our hearts. He was a small, tubby man, amiable but perhaps a little pompous on occasions like these: irresistible but ridiculous. Every so often he would flex his voice theatrically and sound a high, tremulous note unto the silent listeners, turning and nodding to the Chancellor simultaneously, all flouncing gown and wobbling chin, and bubbling all along like a venerable old can of ginger beer.

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Feel free to tell me what you think of them or to write your own. I like reading this type of stuff. I think I might try to do one a day.

I spent four hours reading poetry in Waterstones the other day because I have no money to buy books. I discovered Louis Macneice. These two stood out:

Soap Suds

House on a Cliff

Read a part of Autumn Journal, too - I need to read it all.

Also enjoyed this superior word-glomping, Dylan Thomas-style:

Over Sir John's Hill

I'm not sure whether I prefer this or 'Windhover' (G. M. Hopkins). The more I read, the more I appreciate the impression Hopkins left upon many of the greatest poets of the last century.

I've just finished Crime and Punishment. Bakhtin may have preferred Dostoevsky and I was completely overwhelmed by the claustrophobic, feverish narrative, but I still prefer Tolstoy. I've yet come across a character drawn more sympathetically than Levin. Tolstoy was unerringly and unnervingly accurate in his (self) portrait.
Moby Dick is next on my list. I shall start tonight. The merest hint of the sea at the moment is enough to reduce me to a quivering romantic.

James got me motivated and now I'm 'doing' Napowrimo. It's a good way of getting started writing I reckon.
So, although the forthcoming poems will probably all be rubbish, I'm looking forward to writing them. Any critique is welcome, and I will endeavour to return the favour.

PS. 21 today (April 2nd). I feel a little bit old.