Oh Mother...

Painting by Max Ernst

This week I have been in angst about my mothering. Ironically, I have also had to write an essay on this poem:

Everybody's Mother by Liz Lochhead

Of course

everybody's mother always and

so on...

Always never

loved you enough

or too smothering much.

Of course you were the Only One, your

mother

a machine that shat out siblings, listen

everybody's mother

was the original Frigid-

aire Icequeen clunking out

the hardstuff in nuggets, mirror-

silvers and ice-splinters that'd stick

in your heart.

Absolutely everyone's mother

was artistic when she was young.

Everyone's mother

was a perfumed presence with pearls, remote

white shoulders when she

bent over in her ball dress

to kiss you in your crib.

Everybody's mother slept with the butcher

for sausages to stuff you with.

Everyone's mother

mythologized herself. You got mixed up

between dragon's teeth and blackmarket stockings.

Naturally

she failed to give you

Positive Feelings

about your own sorry

sprouting body (it was a bloody shame)

but she did

sit up all night sewing sequins

on your carnival costume

so you would have a good time

and she spat

on the corner of her hanky and scraped

at your mouth with sour lace till your squirmed

so you would look smart

And where

was your father all this time?

Away

at the war, or

in his office, or any-

way conspicuous for his

Absence, so

what if your mother did

float around above you

big as a barrage balloon

blocking out the light?

Nobody's mother can't not never do nothing right.

By Liz Lochhead,

Dreaming Frankenstein & Collected Poems (1984)

There is SO much to this poem, phew! I really like the frankness of this poem, its down-to-earth stream of consciousness, conversational style. Luckily, I was staying in Scotland at some friends house this past weekend and they could help me decipher the last line! Scottish people speak like this, in very negative language - talking about this poem with some Scottish women was VERY interesting. You can read more about Liz Lochhead here, she writes a lot on feminist identity and issues etc.

I hope that the auto double spacing doesn't kick in. How can I change that? How a poem is spaced is really important, especially this one.

Lovely Limerick

Speak Softly

To complain and demand is absurd,

without first considering your words.

Try courtesy first

before things get worse;

you should not have to hurt to be heard

{Tom Fonseca}

These are good words to remember...

I have just handed in 2 essays today - one of them on limericks and sonnets. Limericks are nearly always funny and crude. This one makes me laugh:

There was a young man from Peru,

Who had nothing whatever to do;

So he took out his carrot

And buggered his parrot,

And sent the result to the zoo.

The sonnet I worked on was Shakespears Sonnet 116, which I also read at my bro Paul and Sharon's wedding a couple of weeks ago:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediements, Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the wandering star to every wand'ring barque,

Whose worth's unknown although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

but bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Oh my, I DO love words. Words and colours inspire me - i'm so happy studying what i am.

Colour Crazy

Oh, I must share this with you...It would be selfish not to! Given the previous post on colour...Take a look at this Matisse painting. AND the title!!

"The Joy of Life"

I have it as my background at the moment...LOVE!

Magnolia

To say the magnolias were splendid this year would be a major understatement. I'm not sure if I am noticing the spring flowers so much more because I am just out and about more (not working) or if they really are more spectacular than usual.

Yesterday I read this and think it should be shared. Written by Julia Margaret Cameron about 100 years ago:


"...that consummate flower - the magnolia - a flower which is, I think, so mysterious in its beauty as if it were the only thing left unspoiled and unspoiled from the garden of Eden. A flower a blind man would mistake for a fruit too rich, too good for Human Nature's daily food. We had a standard Magnolia in our garden at Sheen, and on a still summer night the moon would beam down upon those ripe, rich vases, and they used to send forth a scent that made the soul faint with a sense of the luxury of the world of flowers".

my I do love the use of such rich and sumptuous language - delllicious!!

Colour Full

I'm back, have been away being busy busy. Over to Canada, then family were all here for my bro's wedding, and thrown in at the end are end of year exams etc. Right now, I have 4 essays due in 2 weeks! arrgh...Still, I'm enjoying the quietness of now.

I have spent 5-6 hours today reading. Reading for essay due in 4 days. Reading about Vanessa Bell, sister to Virginnia Woolf (author) wife to Clive Bell (Art Historian) Lover to Roger Fry (Art Critic and catalyst in modern movement in art in Britian) also Lover to Duncan Grant (gay artist with whom she worked very closely with). Vanessa Bell was a central female figure in the Bloomsbury group and I'm writing an essay on her painting: Studland Beach (1911), a defining artwork in her career, the beginning of Post-Impressionism in the UK.

Anyway, the reason for this post...I just read this and think it should be shared:


"But the coloured canvasses would not wait until dawn. Blue stepped forward and bowed down and sand a melody with the tones from which he created the damp depths of his ploughed fields, and the stone of his rocks, the height of his skies and the glitter of his water. Then came Green, carrying the sap of his cyprus trees, the silver of his olives, and the silent wealth of his bushes and grass. Then Orange leapt forward, in her garment of fire, raising a shout as she passed through the room. Orange was not alone, Carime and Geranium Red danced with her. The moved like waves of luminous smoke from licking flames and sometimes they seemed like large winged butterflies with great patterns on their backs. The floor was covered with the red of the tiles in Arles, and in between shone sapphire and emerald. When they had all come to pay their tribute a fanfare sounded, and Yellow, his black-eyed mistress entered in her Chinese robe of state. Ten women came with her, the fairest of the Empire, garbed in gentler tones of the same yellow and stood at her side bearing sunflowers."




This is written by Julius Meier-Graefe in his biography of Van Gogh.

I have a renewed respect for the mans sense of colour! love love.