This is the cover, in full, of my second poetry collection, In Brigantia, due to be published soon.
It shows both the back and front cover. The spine of the book will run through the middle of the horse’s head, with half of the face appearing on each side.
I wanted this image as Cartimandua, queen of the Brigantes, translates as ‘sleek pony’.
Horse, pony, it’s close enough 😃
From my poetry blog.
Midnight, July We writhe with a rage to know the unknowable, blind to great masses that dance in dark orbits. And a soft, summer wind on a night beneath stars is no balm. From somewhere a whistle casts a line, a fragile camaraderie in a world fell silent, where white moth-wing is riotous and a spider's touch carnal. ©AndrewJamesMurray
A few months ago I read The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes, written from the perspective of the composer Shostakovich in Stalinist Russia. I remember thinking at the time how difficult it must have been for creatives living under such regimes. Often it is the writers and the poets who are the first among the disappeared.
Anyway.
I woke in the early hours of this morning with the remnants of a dream clinging to the shirt tails of my emerging sense of self. The dream was of an artist-a painter, who was living in a country that was under some kind of communist or military rule. He had been called to be conscripted into the army, but his passion was for his art. He was stood before a desk being questioned by a seated officer, a strict disciplinarian, who was giving him the party line about what his duty to his country was, and what an honour it is to serve the ‘leader’ and to give your life for the cause.
The young man replied that he had no intention to die for the cause, but rather to live for his art.
This provoked a concerted effort from the officer to bring the young man around to the official way of thinking.
The artist replied “I’m not going to be a soldier anymore than you are going to be my psychologist.”
That was it. I woke up with that last line rattling around my brain, a film with no closure, a story with no end.
It has been some months since I read The Nosie Of Time, and haven’t really thought of it since, so I’m not too sure if that was where the seeds of my dream were sown. And to be honest the storyline was not really the same as that in my dream.
But I feel a little cheated. I was filled with admiration for my conjured character, whoever he was. Maybe he served as an archetype for all of those creative types that I spoke about at the start of this post. I feel like I really need to know what happened to that young artist, and what price he paid for his courageous stance.
I probably will never know. Perhaps I should write it myself.
(Things have got heavy here on City Jackdaw, understandably so. This will be, I think, my final post on the Manchester bombing. At least for a while. And here are some final photographs: some inspiring, some personal, some heartbreaking. Thank you for acting as witness with me.)
There are still many armed police on the streets. I saw one heading for the Gents toilet in the Arndale shopping centre. “Do you want me to mind that while you go in?” I asked him, indicating his gun. He laughed. I’ve seen other officers reassuring children, placing their helmets onto young heads for photographs.
Meanwhile, outside, still the flowers grow.
Real bees-Manchester bees, were flying among the thousands of flowers, unthwarted by the barrage of moving tethered balloons.
There was a subdued air compared to the earlier staunch triumphalism, the knee jerk refusal to be cowed.
My two youngest children and I.
Then, somewhere beyond this transformed square, a lone piper began to play.
A woman took a photograph of her little girl, stood in front of the flowers. “I’ll show you this when you grow up.”
“I don’t want to grow up,” she replied. I can understand why.
Everywhere: an alternative message to hate.
Remembrance of the twenty two.
And messages to ourselves; to each other:
But also, heartbreakingly, survivor’s guilt:
My kids stayed a little longer, quiet and thoughtful among the reflecting figures.
This place of memorial draws the creatives: the musicians; the poets; the painters. I’ve seen them everywhere, and of course I’m one too. Bleeding our art through open wounds.
Victoria train station, through which the Arena (site of the bombing) can be accessed, has now reopened. Samaritan volunteers were present everywhere, handing out cards for anyone who may need help. Above the platform scaffolding shows where the damage is still being repaired, draped by one of the We Love Manchester signs that adorns the city.
And also this, a memorial to the dead, and a tribute to the people:
This has been laid, naming and depicting the dead as angels. The five males in white, the females in pink, the girl with the balloon the youngest victim, eight-year-old Saffie.
I left the centre still, even more so, a proud Mancunian, moved by the resolve of the Manchester people.
Poetry is when
the language of the soul
escapes into
the common tongue.
©Andrew James Murray
These three books constitute the (current) Songs Of The North poetry series, of which my book Heading North is a part.
These words are from my editor Michael Kobernus:
‘I am proud of every book we put out, at Nordland Publishing. However, these are special. While they may not be everyone’s cup of tea, they elevate the written word into art, and that is amazing.’
My book, Heading North, is available here:
All three different takes on the inspirational north can be discovered here on Nordland Publishing’s website:
http://www.nordlandpublishing.com/titles/songs-of-the-north/
Isn’t it time you journeyed North? 🙂
I just read this, in a review of Death Of The Poets, by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts:
‘ . . . as one psychologist is quoted as saying, “being a published poet is more dangerous than being a deep sea diver.” Versifiers are absolute martyrs to anorexia, agoraphobia, epilepsy, dipsomania, manic depression, paranoia, broken hearts and self-slaughter.’
Think it’s time for a career change.
I am off to London in the morning for three nights, arriving back on Monday evening.
For those of you who are familiar with the whole ‘journey’ theme of my book Heading North, the last time I was in our capital city I wrote three poems for possible inclusion in the book. I was going to publish two that didn’t make the final cut here in this post-but at this late hour I can’t find them!
One was still in early draft form, entitled London Lines, and the other was a completed poem that I didn’t think quite up to scratch (tellingly the title now escapes me).
So, until I do locate them, I will include here the only one of the three that made my collection. It was written in the very same hotel, in Canary Wharf, that I’m staying in this weekend. Maybe inspiration still lingers the corridors, eh? Perhaps my muse is still joyriding the elevators.
We shall see. In the meanwhile, have a great weekend people.
See you next week.
Canary Wharf, Morning Sunrise over angled skies. Reflected light on glass and steel. Still water shine and strengthening hum of time-fixated suited drones, speed induced and web infused. See the parade of passive martyrs. One day, maybe, just one day, sit and watch the world go by. ©Andrew James Murray
For those of you who have my book Heading North, you may be familiar with the first sentence of the foreword:
I am a northern guy.
For those of you who don’t have the book, I have a feeling that you can read the foreword over on Amazon for free. I haven’t checked this, though, so don’t hold me to it.
As a northern guy, in particular a Mancunian, I have become quite accustomed to rain. We have many ways of describing the types of rain that we experience (by types read measures):
it’s spitting
it’s drizzling
it’s pouring
it’s chucking it down
it’s pissing down
(And you wonder that I’m a poet?)
I’m sure there are many more, such is the rich, colloquial tongue of my local bards, but these are the most common refrains.
From around lunchtime today our old, precipitous friend rolled in, on this-the final day before the looooong school summer holidays. I hope the kids do get some good weather, especially for my own sanity, but, as a northern guy, I have a confession to make:
I have learned to love the rain.
Really.
My friends think me insane, but this is the weather that I have learnt to associate with home. Returning from sun-kissed lands and arid deserts, the slow transition from blue skies to slate-grey cloud outside the airplane, water gathering on the panes, serves as the welcome herald of north-west England, the hilly ground in which my roots are sunk deep.
Who doesn’t love to watch a deluge, or feel rain on your upturned face on a balmy day? Or sit calmly reading on a stormy night, torrential downpours battering the house?
And there is one more boon: our wet summers help to deter the into-early-hours garden parties and roaring quad bikes that disturb the neighbourhood and keep the kids awake.
I know, I know – I’m getting old.
Bet that rain isn’t good for rheumatism.
City Jackdaw 