The origins of International Women’s Day date as far back as 1911, at a time when the women’s rights movement was coming to life yet still had a long way to go. Since 1975, the United Nations have officially recognised International Women’s Day. Each year, it is given a different theme to highlight issues relevant to women on both a local and global scale. Though subject to regional variations, 2010’s theme is ‘Equal rights, equal opportunities: Progress for all’. Despite the phenomenal strides women across the world have made towards gaining equality in all spheres of life, there remains a great deal of inequality between men and women in the modern world. It is especially easy at times for those of us in more privileged societies to take for granted the increasing opportunities we have, yet matters such as ‘the glass ceiling’ still exist.

To consider the ongoing need for progress, but also significantly to note just how far things have come and indeed  improved, I have chosen as this week’s featured poem The Captive Dove by Anne Bronte. Writing in the 19th century, at a time when women writers were generally met with prejudice, the Bronte sisters all used male pseudonyms – Currer (for Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell – to publish their works. Now all three are regarded amongst the finest writers in English literature. Anne in particular seems suited to the furthering the cause of women’s empowerment through her writing – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall portrays independent female characters and has been called one of the first ever feminist novels. Considering the period in which it was written, we can take the captive dove of the poem to represent many women – of course this was a time when the outlook for women was not good, to say the least. Now it can stand for something, or someone else – women, or even men and children, who are in less fortunate circumstances than ourselves. But even then, it seemed to also stand for another thing as Anne herself mourns for the dove’s captivity; her worries are diminished in light of witnessing this defenceless creature. It is a poem of mourning and empathy but also hope and the power of companionship, or at the very least having someone else to ensure your own voice is heard.

The Captive Dove

Poor restless dove, I pity thee;
And when I hear thy plaintive moan,
I mourn for thy captivity,
And in thy woes forget mine own.

To see thee stand prepared to fly,
And flap those useless wings of thine,
And gaze into the distant sky,
Would melt a harder heart than mine.

In vain–in vain! Thou canst not rise:
Thy prison roof confines thee there;
Its slender wires delude thine eyes,
And quench thy longings with despair.

Oh, thou wert made to wander free
In sunny mead and shady grove,
And, far beyond the rolling sea,
In distant climes, at will to rove!

Yet, hadst thou but one gentle mate
Thy little drooping heart to cheer,
And share with thee thy captive state,
Thou couldst be happy even there.

Yes, even there, if, listening by,
One faithful dear companion stood,
While gazing on her full bright eye,
Thou mightst forget thy native wood.

But thou, poor solitary dove,
Must make, unheard, thy joyless moan;
The heart, that Nature formed to love,
Must pine, neglected, and alone.

Anne Bronte (1820-1849)

Thomas began to write poetry late in his short life, and perhaps this factors into why the Edward Thomas Fellowship labels him as ‘the least rhetorical of poets’. This is a description I would be inclined to agree with, as I find Thomas expresses complex ideas and issues that many of us struggle with in an entirely and easily relatable way. Yet in no way does this mean that Thomas’s poetry is plain – as a wordsmith he can be quite outstanding, conjuring up images of delicate yet sumptuous natural landscapes.

It is a focus on the beauty of nature that occupies a great deal of Thomas’s work, and is one of the central concerns of The Glory. For all the ability Thomas undoubtedly has a poet, he does not seem to consider his insight to mean much – having been inspired by the nature around him, its glory leaves him ‘scorning, all I can ever do, all I can be’; any attempt to put the beauty of nature into words can only ever be synthetic in some way, and therefore inadequate. A feeling of inadequacy does seem to pervade this poem, as Thomas constantly questions himself and wonders whether he should change tack. Thomas appears to be striving for the perfection in the way he writes and describes as he perceives there to be in nature itself. As someone who is wretchedly prone to perfectionism and self-questioning, maybe I see much of myself in his words. Above all, The Glory does appear a poem of paradoxes. The obvious one being that in the berating of himself for not matching the glory of nature, Thomas writes beautifully about it and truthfully about the writing process in itself and all the uncertainty and self-doubt it often induces. Another contradiction comes in the fabulous closing line: ‘I cannot bite the day to the core’. Aside from producing a great image, it has been suggested that it contains religious undertones referring specifically to the Garden of Eden. For someone who appears to want to know more, too much knowledge can be dangerous – indeed, ‘biting to the core’ may lead to the discovery that nature is not as glorious as it seems, with illusions being shattered. Perhaps some trepidation is good if it means you can keep your ideals of ‘glory’ in tact.

The Glory

The glory of the beauty of the morning, -
The cuckoo crying over the untouched dew;
The blackbird that has found it, and the dove
That tempts me on to something sweeter than love;
White clouds ranged even and fair as new-mown hay;
The heat, the stir, the sublime vacancy
Of sky and meadow and forest and my own heart: -
The glory invites me, yet it leaves me scorning
All I can ever do, all I can be,
Beside the lovely of motion, shape, and hue,
The happiness I fancy fit to dwell
In beauty’s presence. Shall I now this day
Begin to seek as far as heaven, as hell,
Wisdom or strength to match this beauty, start
And tread the pale dust pitted with small dark drops,
In hope to find whatever it is I seek,
Hearkening to short-lived happy-seeming things
That we know naught of, in the hazel copse?
Or must I be content with discontent
As larks and swallows are perhaps with wings?
And shall I ask at the day’s end once more
What beauty is, and what I can have meant
By happiness? And shall I let all go,
Glad, weary, or both? Or shall I perhaps know
That I was happy oft and oft before,
Awhile forgetting how I am fast pent,
How dreary-swift, with naught to travel to,
Is Time? I cannot bite the day to the core.

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)

The link between the two was revived in the public eye recently, perhaps in a controversial way, when Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy declared the Arctic Monkeys to be modern-day poets. For some, this comparison adds fuel to the fire that poetry is being increasingly ‘dumbed down’, needing to have an arguably more popular relation in order to appear relevant to a younger audience. In my opinion the connection isn’t necessarily bad, even though I personally don’t class the Arctic Monkeys to be the most poetic band of the current scene. Alex Turner certainly isn’t a Tennyson, and while they’re more likely to talk about late night rendezvous in nightclubs and the occasional run-in with the law as opposed to anything more quintessentially Romantic, their lyrics certainly do paint a picture. When this picture encapsulates the life experiences of so many then surely, there is something of the poetic there, even if it isn’t quite conventional.

Of course, like so many things in life – indeed, as it is with poetry – it’s entirely subjective and all down to personal taste. I have quite an obsession with lyrics and find myself often not so much listening to a song as analysing its lyrical content. It just fascinates me how singular words can be placed together to say something quite profound and beautiful, in poetry and music alike. There are certain bands and musicians who for me write lyrics that are so eloquent and striking that they wouldn’t be out of place in a poem. To be so personally affecting and to sum up a feeling in a way you could hardly even begin to imagine – that’s where both songs and poetry succeed above no other. This week’s featured poem, a celebration of music in itself, puts it rather nicely by highlighting the notions of emotion and, perhaps especially importantly, understanding – by reading poetry and listening to songs, we come some way to knowing those behind them more intimately. Very often, we find out more about ourselves through them too.

That Music Always Round Me

That music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning–yet long untaught
I did not hear;
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated;
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of
day-break I hear,
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense
waves,
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the
universe,
The triumphant tutti–the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and
violins–all these I fill myself with;
I hear not the volumes of sound merely–I am moved by the exquisite
meanings,
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving,
contending with fiery vehemence to excel each other in emotion;
I do not think the performers know themselves–but now I think I
begin to know them.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Each year is represented by an animal, and is probably how those of us in the Western world recognise Chinese New Year, through it being ‘The Year of the…’. This year we usher in the year of the Tiger, and as a ‘Tiger’ myself I’m hoping that this Chinese New Year will be a significant one. Apparently, Tigers are gracious, brave, charismatic and born leaders, but on the slightly more negative side have a tendency to overpower, seek attention and get into trouble by living dangerously (hmm…that might just apply to a rather well known Tiger?).

It’s highly appropriate for the occasion to feature what might just be one of the most iconic poems by the literary ‘prophet’ that was William Blake. Indeed one companion to Blake’s work deems The Tiger “the most anthologized poem in English”, which is testament to its popularity and perhaps also to how its meaning has been agonised over, being bound up with issues of creation and God as a creator, evil and darkness and even with its references to hammers, furnaces and anvils, as representing the oncoming power of the industrial revolution. I see a closely observed portrait of a tortured kind of beauty, something strong and to be feared but also something unmistakably majestic and awe-inspiring. I hope you enjoy the poem, and whether Chinese New Year is part of your heritage or you’re just an observer, or regardless of being a Tiger or not, have a prosperous one.

The Tiger

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake (1757-1827)

Though I can’t admit to indulging too much in the luxury of buying books myself – being on rather a tight budget, my cost-me-nothing library card is a best friend – it’s really heartening to find that a considerable amount of people are turning to, and indeed turning the pages of books while recession bites. I hope the book love continues as the slow, steady recovery happens. Those behind the poll commented upon how it indicated “a shift back to life’s simplest pleasures” and I think that’s what makes books really stand out amongst other, perhaps more frivolous purchases. Of course reading is rewarding, enlightening and life affirming but at the bottom of it all, it’s enjoyable. I cannot personally think of many easier ways to derive a lot of pleasure and relaxation that to sink into a sofa and absorb myself in a good book. I could quite succinctly sum up what reading does for me in times of confusion or distress using the words of Charlotte Brontë from this week’s featured poem: “Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals/Into your innermost mind;/A quiet aura your spirit feels/A softened stillness kind.” Very apt words indeed, and I find this poem quite peaceful also. Bronte completely embraces life’s simplest pleasures here – in observing nature, hearing a bird singing, watching the skies overhead – and it goes to show, if you have but little in your pocket or purse, you can still find something to amuse, delight and quite likely fascinate you.

Pleasure

True pleasure breathes not city air,
Nor in Art’s temples dwells,
In palaces and towers where
The voice of Grandeur dwells.

No! Seek it where high Nature holds
Her court ‘mid stately groves,
Where she her majesty unfolds,
And in fresh beauty moves;

Where thousand birds of sweetest song,
The wildly rushing storm
And hundred streams which glide along,
Her mighty concert form!

Go where the woods in beauty sleep
Bathed in pale Luna’s light,
Or where among their branches sweep
The hollow sounds of night.

Go where the warbling nightingale
In gushes rich doth sing,
Till all the lonely, quiet vale
With melody doth ring.

Go, sit upon a mountain steep,
And view the prospect round;
The hills and vales, the valley’s sweep,
The far horizon bound.

Then view the wide sky overhead,
The still, deep vault of blue,
The sun which golden light doth shed,
The clouds of pearly hue.

And as you gaze on this vast scene
Your thoughts will journey far,
Though hundred years should roll between
On Time’s swift-passing car.

To ages when the earth was young,
When patriarchs, grey and old,
The praises of their god oft sung,
And oft his mercies told.

You see them with their beards of snow,
Their robes of ample form,
Their lives whose peaceful, gentle flow,
Felt seldom passion’s storm.

Then a calm, solemn pleasure steals
Into your inmost mind;
A quiet aura your spirit feels,
A softened stillness kind.

Charlotte Brontë

(1816-1855)

I admit to being fascinated with diaries as a form for a number of reasons. The diaries of famous historical and literary figures are rewarding on many levels; they quench voyeuristic thirsts, reveal the first sparks of creative inspiration and open up veritable time portals into the public and private past. While the aspect of immortality – and thus leaving an indelible ink stain on the world – that comes from keeping a diary is appealing to anyone’s sense of vanity, I believe the most worth anyone can get from maintaining their own journal comes via its offering of entirely personal, won’t-cost-you-a-penny therapy. Where else can you be as brutally honest as you dare or come across as self-absorbed without having to worry about being seen as utterly egotistical? Venting using the tools of pad and paper is not only socially preferable to smashing your fist against the nearest inanimate object and/or bursting into uncontrollable tears, it’s pretty damn good for your soul. As a therapeutic tool diaries can be especially useful, being ongoing and allowing us to retrace our steps when needs be. In short, they enable us to look back at segments of our lives and learn more about ourselves through ourselves (even if it is only to realise how utterly misguided and completely cringey you sounded as a teenager).

I’ve chosen this particular poem by Thomas Hardy as I think it relates well to the subject – a diary can be very much like a mirror, reflecting us and perhaps reflecting back more than we realise if we care to revisit. In times afterwards, they do produce ‘moments of vision’, letting us in on secrets about ourselves that at the time we might not have consciously considered. It really does make us transparent. The most interesting question is once it has caught all of our thoughts, onto what else will the ‘mirror’ be reflected?

Moments of Vision

That mirror
Which makes of men a transparency,
Who holds that mirror
And bids us such a breast-bare spectacle see
Of you and me?

That mirror
Whose magic penetrates like a dart,
Who lifts that mirror
And throws our mind back on us, and our heart,
until we start?

That mirror
Works well in these night hours of ache;
Why in that mirror
Are tincts we never see ourselves once take
When the world is awake?

That mirror
Can test each mortal when unaware;
Yea, that strange mirror
May catch his last thoughts, whole life foul or fair,
Glassing it — where?

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

What’s especially great about Burns Suppers is the fact that they make poetry so central to the festivities. Of course the work of Burns is recited as part of the supper but guests are equally free to join in with Burns inspired poetry, by other established poets or relative literary novices. It’s an event in which the spirit of poetry is brought to life, called into being so it becomes a participant, a guest, the celebration itself. There’s nothing dry or staid about it – it truly is the life and soul of the party. Celebrating the many types of lives that run through every poem is a sentiment extremely close to the heart of The Reader Organisation.

To have our own mini Burns’ Night celebration, here is a poem that is often recited in Burns’ Suppers. While it may not deal with the most merry of subjects – the ‘unco guid’ of the title refers to a Scottish term for those who are considered to be especially strict when it comes to morals and religion – it certainly is spirited, highlighting Burns’ satirical side and particular disdain for those valuing self-righteousness over compassion. And it is the fierce and passionate spirit of Burns that we applaud.

Address to the Unco Guid

O ye wha are sae guid yoursel’,
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye’ve nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibours’ fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supplied wi’ store o’ water;
The heaped happer’s ebbing still,
An’ still the clap plays clatter.

Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals
That frequent pass douce Wisdom’s door
For glaikit Folly’s portals:
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences -
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.

Ye see your state wi’ theirs compared,
And shudder at the niffer;
But cast a moment’s fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ;
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in;
And (what’s aft mair than a’ the lave),
Your better art o’ hidin.

Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop!
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop!
Wi’ wind and tide fair i’ your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o’ baith to sail,
It maks a unco lee-way.

See Social Life and Glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
Till, quite transmugrified, they’re grown
Debauchery and Drinking:
O would they stay to calculate
Th’ eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
Damnation of expenses!

Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Tied up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor Frailty names,
Suppose a change o’ cases;
A dear-lov’d lad, convenience snug,
A treach’rous inclination -
But let me whisper i’ your lug,
Ye’re aiblins nae temptation.

Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Tho’ they may gang a kennin wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark, -
The moving Why they do it;
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.

Who made the heart, ’tis He alone
Decidedly can try us;
He knows each chord, its various tone,
Each spring, its various bias:
Then at the balance let’s be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What’s done we partly may compute,
But know not what’s resisted.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

— — —

The Guardian are currently running a week-long series on Romantic Poets, which will feature Burns, Keats and Wordsworth, amongst others.

I apologise in advance for making another reference to the snow, when everyone is probably sick to the back teeth of it by now, but I thought it’d be rather appropriate to pay homage to one of the things that most of us can enjoy about it – the humble snowman (or maybe that should be snowperson, to be politically correct). Over the last fortnight, I’ve seen ones of all shapes and sizes, snow dogs, snow cats and even snow cartoon characters. The only reason I’m sad to see the snow go is down to the fact that I didn’t get an opportunity to make my own snowman. So it’s nice to stumble across a poem that really celebrates those made of snow who put a smile on many a face. I especially like the closing lines: “And through the Winter’s crystal veil, Love’s roses blossom red, For him who lives in a house that has a snowman in the yard” – a snowman bringing true love? Maybe wishful thinking, but it’s a nice idea… I really wish I’d made one now.

A Snowman in the Yard

The Judge’s house has a splendid porch, with pillars and steps of stone,
And the Judge has a lovely flowering hedge that came from across the seas;
In the Hales’ garage you could put my house and everything I own,
And the Hales have a lawn like an emerald and a row of poplar trees.

Now I have only a little house, and only a little lot,
And only a few square yards of lawn, with dandelions starred;
But when Winter comes, I have something there
that the Judge and the Hales have not,
And it’s better worth having than all their wealth –
it’s a snowman in the yard.

The Judge’s money brings architects to make his mansion fair;
The Hales have seven gardeners to make their roses grow;
The Judge can get his trees from Spain and France and everywhere,
And raise his orchids under glass in the midst of all the snow.

But I have something no architect or gardener ever made,
A thing that is shaped by the busy touch of little mittened hands:
And the Judge would give up his lonely estate, where the level snow is laid
For the tiny house with the trampled yard,
the yard where the snowman stands.

They say that after Adam and Eve were driven away in tears
To toil and suffer their life-time through,
because of the sin they sinned,
The Lord made Winter to punish them for half their exiled years,
To chill their blood with the snow, and pierce
their flesh with the icy wind.

But we who inherit the primal curse, and labour for our bread,
Have yet, thank God, the gift of Home, though Eden’s gate is barred:
And through the Winter’s crystal veil, Love’s roses blossom red,
For him who lives in a house that has a snowman in the yard.

Alfred Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

Inspired by my reminiscence is this week’s featured poem by W.B Yeats. Perhaps it’s more bittersweet, concerned with the somewhat problematic but frequently unavoidable issue of past love. The poem is split into two voices of two current lovers, and it is that of the female that is disconcerted by the ghost-like presence of the male’s past lover (though it is the male who first speaks of the ‘scream from terrified, invisible beast or bird, image of poignant recollection’ – lines I find particularly evocative). It shows that while the past may not always be particularly desirable, it is too idealistic and indeed impractical from us to escape from it completely. On a more simplistic level, it’s a poem I find quite intriguing in its narrative style and beautiful – I hope you do too.

An Image From A Past Life

He. Never until this night have I been stirred.
The elaborate starlight throws a reflection
On the dark stream,
Till all the eddies gleam;
And thereupon there comes that scream
From terrified, invisible beast or bird:
Image of poignant recollection.

She. An image of my heart that is smitten through
Out of all likelihood, or reason,
And when at last,
Youth’s bitterness being past,
I had thought that all my days were cast
Amid most lovely places; smitten as though
It had not learned its lesson.

He. Why have you laid your hands upon my eyes?
What can have suddenly alarmed you
Whereon ’twere best
My eyes should never rest?
What is there but the slowly fading west,
The river imaging the flashing skies,
All that to this moment charmed you?

She. A Sweetheart from another life floats there
As though she had been forced to linger
From vague distress
Or arrogant loveliness,
Merely to loosen out a tress
Among the starry eddies of her hair
Upon the paleness of a finger.

He. But why should you grow suddenly afraid
And start – I at your shoulder -
Imagining
That any night could bring
An image up, or anything
Even to eyes that beauty had driven mad,
But images to make me fonder?

She. Now She has thrown her arms above her head;
Whether she threw them up to flout me,
Or but to find,
Now that no fingers bind,
That her hair streams upon the wind,
I do not know, that know I am afraid
Of the hovering thing night brought me.

W.B Yeats (1865-1939)

We’re nearing the end of a cycle of another twelve months; as John Lennon would put it, another year over. The usual reflections, reminiscing and looking with a sense of anticipation – and sometimes, trepidation – to the future that this time of year brings about are somewhat stronger given that we’re also entering not just another year, but another decade. The ‘noughties’ have brought a lot of change, some for the better, some for the worse (have a look at this ‘portrait of the decade’ – interesting to see how the 2000s have been summed up). We can look back fondly at the things that made us smile, and be thankful that the things that didn’t are now consigned to the past.

The ringing in of a new decade makes this poem by Tennyson especially appropriate, as our collective hopes and wishes are amplified. Nothing can be done to alter the time that has passed, little to the time that is passing but what is to come can be shaped. The new year heralds a new start, a clean page. As the wild bells welcome in 2010, we should heed Tennyson’s words and even though it may seem difficult, let go of the old, look to the new and hope only for the best.

Ring Out, Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)