POETRY NEWSLETTER MARCH 23rd 2021

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LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI IN THE WONDERFUL CITY LIGHTS BOOK SHOP IN SAN FRANCISCO


Below is a link to his obituary in the Guardian- it mentions the poem Dog- which is an excellent general introduction to Ferlinghetti. And a further link to a BBC site which celebrates him.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/23/lawrence-ferlinghetti-obituary

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-56179841



Above is a photograph of  Lawrence with Homer. Without stereotyping the hairy and dishevelled, he does looks as if he might pee on a policemen's trousers. 

And as a final curiosity, here is a link to the actor Bill Murray on You Tube reading Dog incongruously accompanied by a cellist (part of the promotion for Wes Anderson's 2018 animated film The Isle of Dogs).

ST PATRICK'S DAY
I am at a loss to understand why it is so difficult to track down Brendan Behan's poems. He was not a prolific poet, and he wrote some of his poems in Irish but he is certainly widely celebrated on the Internet as an Irish poet. 
I have abiding memories as a child of my father, who was very rarely an angry man unless the word English or Tory was heard, railing furiously about the way the media treated Behan in the early sixties when they not only revelled in his drunkenness but vigorously  encouraged it. My father likened it to standing by while a man committed suicide- and not just standing by but egging him on to do it. He also thought it was disgracefully anti Irish in its gleeful stereotyping of the Irish as stupid drunks. 
Here is a link to a web site about Behan which is both interesting and comprehensive.

Sue mentioned liking the graphics of the You Tube link in the Newsletter to the story of the Brown Bull of Cooley and I thought they might be linked to an Irish animation studio which has become very successful. Below is a link to an article about the studio. The first one they made was based on The Book of Kells and has Pangur Ban the Cat in it.

Eric also put me out of my obsessive's misery by supplying a link to a folk lore blog which says

"The squirrel is connected to Queen Mab; the fairy queen. First written reference to to her was by Shakespeare in Romeo and Juliet. Mab is presented as something of a hag bringing blistered lips to young women and sometimes interpreted as herpes. Her chariot is an empty hazelnut Made by the joiner squirrel or old grub,

Queen Mab may have come from the Irish Queen Medb. Medb is often represented with a squirrel or magical birds on her shoulders. A fairly promiscuous goddess featuring within the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. Her main part in the story is setting the cattle raid of Cooley in motion. It has been suggested that her name possibly originates from mead, meaning intoxication .... Medb is also connected to the Morrigan, who opposes Medb warning the bull to flee before the cattle raid of Cooley. "

Another reference to Irish drinking, what with that and her promiscuity...She is particularly associated with ravens and sometimes known as the Raven Queen and is celebrated as an immensely powerful woman.

EXTRA POEM

Paul sent me the Ferlinghetti poem called A Coney Island of the mind 29 which is a kind of homage to T.S. Eliot and indeed the modernists and has agreed I can include it as the extra poem 

And that's the way it always is and that's the way 

it always ends and the fire and the rose are one 

and always the same scene and always the same 

subject right from the beginning like in the Bible 

or The Sun Also Rises which begins Robert Cohn 

was middleweight boxing champion of his class 

but later we lost our balls and there we go again 

there we are again there's the same old theme 

and scene again with all the citizens and all 

the characters all working up to it right from 

the first and it looks like all they ever think of 

is doing It and it doesn't matter much with who 

half the time but the other half it matters more 

than anything O the sweet love fevers yes and 

there's always complications like maybe she has 

no eyes for him or him no eyes for her or her no 

eyes for her or him no eyes for him or something 

or other stands in the way like his mother or 

her father or someone like that but they go right 

on trying to get it all the time like in Shakespeare 

or The Waste Land or Proust remembering his Things 

Past or wherever And there they all are struggling 

toward each other or after each other like those 

marble maidens on that Grecian Urn or on any market 

street or merrygoround around and around they go

all hunting love and half the hungry time not even 

knowing just what is really eating them like Robin 

walking in her Nightwood streets although it isn't 

quite as simple as all that as if all she really 

needed was a good five cent cigar oh no and those 

who have not hunted will not recognize the hunting 

poise and then the hawks that hover where the 

heart is hid and the hungry horses crying and 

the stone angels and heaven and hell and Yerma 

with her blind breasts under her dress and then 

Christopher Columbus sailing off in search and 

Rudolph Valentine and Juliet and Romeo and John 

Barrymore and Anna Livia and Abie's Irish Rose 

and so Goodnight Sweet Prince all over again 

with everyone and everybody laughing and crying 

along wherever night and day winter and summer 

spring and tomorrow like Anna Karenina lost in 

the snow and the cry of hunters in a great wood 

and the soldiers coming and Freud and Ulysses 

always on their hungry travels after the same 

hot grail like King Arthur and his nighttime knights 

and everybody wondering where and how it will all 

end like in the movies or in some nightmaze novel 

yes as in a nightmaze Yes I said Yes I will and he 

called me his Andalusian rose and I said Yes my 

heart was going like mad and that's the way Ulysses 

ends as everything always ends when that hunting 

cock of flesh at last cries out and has his glory 

moment God and then comes tumbling down the sound

of axes in the wood and the trees falling and down 

it goes the sweet cock's sword so wilting in the 

fair flesh fields away alone at last and loved 

and lost and found upon a riverbank along a 

riverrun right where it all began and so begins again

Lawrence Ferlinghetti


FINALLY

Ann has chosen this week's poem. Barbara, Liz and Angie will follow in that order. I hope everyone thrives.

Best Wishes, Elizabeth






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