“De Chirico’s quiet square evokes the classical arcades and statuary of antiquity (the sculpture is a torso of Aphrodite). In contrast, the passing train and perishable bananas suggest a sense of the contemporary and immediate. The distorted perspective and shadows undermine the conventions of pictorial space and time. De Chirico’s early works were enthusiastically embraced by the Surrealists, who saw in them a dream-like parallel existence. The poet Paul Eluard wrote: ‘these squares are outwardly similar to existing squares and yet we have never seen them … We are in an immense, previously inconceivable, world.’”
I hadn’t twigged before on the punning between Old Age and Surrealism – or indeed on the significance of bananas as images of spindly legs, sources of pratfall slips and the ephemeral. Marvelous stuff that sets the mind ticking as it droops over its tree branch – but go easy on the frozen veg ice-packs. Best K
A Romantic poem yearning for hope out of chaos, the sublime sensed in ‘the rustling drums, the subtle summoning of gongs’. A celebratory mood in a rich cultural city, swiftly records massacres, a history beset with human tragedy. The poem concludes with a heartfelt plea for hope out of chaos, where the banner of hope is passed to youth.
” Let chaos be our only hope/ and the triumph of youth!’
The poem sets the mood with quotation from Yeats: treachery prevails despite the idealism of his generation. The quotation anticipates the futility of human endeavour and the struggle for truth in the face of corruption and ‘ honesty persecuted’.
While the poem draws a rich sweep of history; Rome, China, Germany, Britain, celebrations and struggles, the language is rich and sensuous, ( Dancers whirled long white ribbons….), bitterly Shelleyan and satirical ( ‘Its jostling caravanserai of guile’ and ‘The partial rhetoric/ of violent, bitter men’), and the dreamily Romantic imperative ‘ But listen!’ and its final firm trust in youth. In the first section, words suggest impalpable, transitory quality,’ whirl’, against ‘ whorl’ and ‘wild whips sky’, contrast in impact with ‘self-harming fools’ and ‘ tax-dodging knaves’ . Language in ‘ 2019’ is an accessible, adequate resource for the range of human thoughts and feelings. It expresses a sensibility of the committed, an echo of Chartist rant and Suffragette chants: in revolutionary expressions such as ‘ …reform our lottery democracy’ and ‘ injustice is never forgotten’ and the buttonholing imperatives, ‘ But listen!’, and the jussive, ‘ Let chaos be our only hope..’.
The first section is a meditation on a city, its rich Roman past and its present-day Chinese celebrations that serve as a catalyst of the poet to reflect on human endeavour. Taken with the Chinese designations of the year, the poet finds the the Pig and Rat far from emblems of optimism, represent despair and cunning. One is mindful of the Chinese Communist Party’s oppressive regime: the Pig, omnivorous, devours its own offspring. The section ends on an ominous note: the joy of cultural endeavour, far from bringing meaning, merely serves ‘ self-hating fools and tax-dodging knaves’.
The second section depicts the struggle of the oppressed and takes an easy swipe at oppressive regimes by enlisting Peterloo, Amritsar and the Brexit protest in the EU. Yet with enthusiasm, the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and violence may save the world, when bitter men break down locked courts and gates. Amidst revolt, the human spirit emerges, ‘good sense may prevail…its folly may save us’, for all the rhetoric of ‘violent, bitter men’.
The mood finds expression innineteenth century rhetoric:
‘injustice is never forgotten – and good sense
may prevail.’
The section ends with a contemporary reference, a call for United Ireland, free Scotland and autonomous Wales.
The third part of the poem begins with a gloomy outlook: corruption is inescapable, ‘ its/alchemy of assertions made truths….honesty persecuted’. The language draws on transformation of hatred into virtue, assertion into truth. How these changes occur is by transmogrification, magic, a process suggesting black arts, a realm inaccessible to human reason, for magic controls the gods.
However, the ‘But listen!’ imperative at the very end, in the spirit of Revolutionary France , demands the reader listens to the ‘ musterings/of rustling drums’, the subtle summonings /of gongs..’
the poem ends with a Romantic motif, ‘ Let chaos be our only hope,/And the triumph of youth!’
Keith Johnson
October 26, 2018The Uncertainty of the Poet
“De Chirico’s quiet square evokes the classical arcades and statuary of antiquity (the sculpture is a torso of Aphrodite). In contrast, the passing train and perishable bananas suggest a sense of the contemporary and immediate. The distorted perspective and shadows undermine the conventions of pictorial space and time. De Chirico’s early works were enthusiastically embraced by the Surrealists, who saw in them a dream-like parallel existence. The poet Paul Eluard wrote: ‘these squares are outwardly similar to existing squares and yet we have never seen them … We are in an immense, previously inconceivable, world.’”
I hadn’t twigged before on the punning between Old Age and Surrealism – or indeed on the significance of bananas as images of spindly legs, sources of pratfall slips and the ephemeral. Marvelous stuff that sets the mind ticking as it droops over its tree branch – but go easy on the frozen veg ice-packs. Best K
John Williams
January 1, 2020A Romantic poem yearning for hope out of chaos, the sublime sensed in ‘the rustling drums, the subtle summoning of gongs’. A celebratory mood in a rich cultural city, swiftly records massacres, a history beset with human tragedy. The poem concludes with a heartfelt plea for hope out of chaos, where the banner of hope is passed to youth.
” Let chaos be our only hope/ and the triumph of youth!’
The poem sets the mood with quotation from Yeats: treachery prevails despite the idealism of his generation. The quotation anticipates the futility of human endeavour and the struggle for truth in the face of corruption and ‘ honesty persecuted’.
While the poem draws a rich sweep of history; Rome, China, Germany, Britain, celebrations and struggles, the language is rich and sensuous, ( Dancers whirled long white ribbons….), bitterly Shelleyan and satirical ( ‘Its jostling caravanserai of guile’ and ‘The partial rhetoric/ of violent, bitter men’), and the dreamily Romantic imperative ‘ But listen!’ and its final firm trust in youth. In the first section, words suggest impalpable, transitory quality,’ whirl’, against ‘ whorl’ and ‘wild whips sky’, contrast in impact with ‘self-harming fools’ and ‘ tax-dodging knaves’ . Language in ‘ 2019’ is an accessible, adequate resource for the range of human thoughts and feelings. It expresses a sensibility of the committed, an echo of Chartist rant and Suffragette chants: in revolutionary expressions such as ‘ …reform our lottery democracy’ and ‘ injustice is never forgotten’ and the buttonholing imperatives, ‘ But listen!’, and the jussive, ‘ Let chaos be our only hope..’.
The first section is a meditation on a city, its rich Roman past and its present-day Chinese celebrations that serve as a catalyst of the poet to reflect on human endeavour. Taken with the Chinese designations of the year, the poet finds the the Pig and Rat far from emblems of optimism, represent despair and cunning. One is mindful of the Chinese Communist Party’s oppressive regime: the Pig, omnivorous, devours its own offspring. The section ends on an ominous note: the joy of cultural endeavour, far from bringing meaning, merely serves ‘ self-hating fools and tax-dodging knaves’.
The second section depicts the struggle of the oppressed and takes an easy swipe at oppressive regimes by enlisting Peterloo, Amritsar and the Brexit protest in the EU. Yet with enthusiasm, the ‘wisdom of the crowd’ and violence may save the world, when bitter men break down locked courts and gates. Amidst revolt, the human spirit emerges, ‘good sense may prevail…its folly may save us’, for all the rhetoric of ‘violent, bitter men’.
The mood finds expression innineteenth century rhetoric:
‘injustice is never forgotten – and good sense
may prevail.’
The section ends with a contemporary reference, a call for United Ireland, free Scotland and autonomous Wales.
The third part of the poem begins with a gloomy outlook: corruption is inescapable, ‘ its/alchemy of assertions made truths….honesty persecuted’. The language draws on transformation of hatred into virtue, assertion into truth. How these changes occur is by transmogrification, magic, a process suggesting black arts, a realm inaccessible to human reason, for magic controls the gods.
However, the ‘But listen!’ imperative at the very end, in the spirit of Revolutionary France , demands the reader listens to the ‘ musterings/of rustling drums’, the subtle summonings /of gongs..’
the poem ends with a Romantic motif, ‘ Let chaos be our only hope,/And the triumph of youth!’