i.m. Seamus Heaney (1939 - 2013)

In memory of a great poet -- whose music first touched me when i was 17, and continues to touch me still.
.
-------------------------
.
Personal Helicon
.
(for Michael Longley)
.
.
As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.
.
One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.
.
A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.
.
Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.
.
Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.
.
.
(Seamus Heaney)
.
.

ars longa, vita brevis

...... But i do believe i've found my window. Let's just wait a few days to see if this is indeed true.
.
.

battering against the brilliance

Keep battering.
.
No. Don't be silly. Don't keep battering. Find another way. Find that open window.
.
--------------------------
.
The Writer


In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.
.
I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.
.
Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.
.
But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which
.
The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.
.
I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash
.
And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark
.
And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,
.
And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,
.
It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.
.
It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.
..
.
(Richard Wilbur)
.
.

practice makes permanent

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing, or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated, precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which come shape of achievement, the sense of one’s being, the satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God. Practice means to perform over and over again, in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired."
.
(from 'An Athlete of God', Martha Graham)
.
.
And then there is that great truth that all musicians know:
.
Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
.
.

all life is change

Just heard about a former classmate from waaaaaaay back who's just come back to Singapore after some time with Israel. Things didn't quite work out for her as she'd hoped there, and now she's home. We're meeting up again to see some Israeli films next week -- looking forward to catching up. i'd always felt that, if we had been in the same class (i know... former classmate... what dya mean, if you had been in the same class??? It's complicated.......), we'd have ended up good friends. Well. i suppose 20 years later is better late than never. The wonders of Facebook, and 2 degrees of separation.
.
So many of my friends have been coming back here lately. People who've been away for years -- some of whom, frankly, i never expected would ever come back. And the coming back is inevitably fraught with all sorts of self-questioning and uncertainty. i can't imagine it being easy. Singapore has changed a lot in the last few years -- in good ways and bad. i still haven't been able to figure out how i feel about all these changes -- they all seem to be part of the same package. The good and bad seem so inter-connected that i can't untangle the one from the other -- and anyway, while analysis might bring clarity, the fact remains that this is the new reality here, whether we like it or not.
.
Even coming back after the very short 2-month stint in the US, i've started to see this place differently. On one hand, my familiar circles now look to me to be small and narrow, greatly in need of fresh air and views that challenge our very settled and sometimes unquestioned norms; and yet, i'm also seeing that Singapore itself is becoming a more diverse society -- not as diverse as the US or Europe, perhaps, but certainly more colourful and interesting than it was, say, 5 years ago.
.
And in the midst of all this, here i am, trying to find my footing again, trying to find out what it is that i truly desire, what it is i care about that i want to put in my writing, trying to find a voice that is true. Trying to find a place that might nurture what is latent within me. Trying to figure out how best i should give back to the world. Trying to decide which of several possible paths to take, or rather, to start heading towards -- at which point, i should probably thank God that i even have so many options. A few friends have pointed out that it's a good problem that i'm having right now. They're right -- and i need to remember that, even as i'm trying to discern which choice to make. Patience. i need patience, and wisdom -- to know when to let go and let things unfold, and when to take decisive action and do something, make a decision.
.
It's funny how sometimes you can start out thinking that you must have things this way or that, that you wouldn't be able to live with things if they were that way or this -- and yet human beings are so infinitely adaptable. People can get used to anything, i swear. But sometimes the dream never quite dies... All of which is both wonderful and horrifying at the same time.
.
Life is complicated; people are complicated. You'd think that a writer would be less ambivalent about this truth than i am. i mean, sure, complication and complexity make for good art, and life without variety, uncertainty and change would be so boring. But there will always be a part of me, perhaps of all of us, that yearns for simplicity. A Zen garden, with a quiet spring; rather than a sweltering florid tropical rainforest.
.
.

permanent head damage, or, the (re)turn to JM Coetzee

i really should learn to trust my intuition more. Even when it comes to the intellectual, head-y stuff. So what do i find online today while doing a casual Google search on current Coetzee scholarship...
.
This book: Landscapes of Holocaust Postmemory (Brett Kaplan, 2010), which has an entire section on Holocaust references in Coetzee's work.
.
And this research paper, unfortunately not yet available to the public:
Bystander Narratives: The Fiction of J.M. Coetzee and the Holocaust (Craig Mitchell Smith, 2011)
Maybe i should write to this guy and ask for permission to take a look...
.
Compare with this blogpost from waaaaaay back in 2008, when i was going through the throes of my Coetzee obsession (which i don't think has ever really died.....): this wonderfully brilliant and prescient thing i wrote, almost as an aside, right at the end of that blogpost:
.
"I think the other thing that so attracts me to his writing is that it's really survivor's writing. Maybe that's the link with the holocaust writing that I'm so drawn to as well. As Frost put it in 'The Oven Bird',
.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing."

.

Dammit. Maybe i should just go ahead and do a PhD after all. And worry about the rest of my life later.
.
.

vision over visibility

Can i just say:
.
It's a wonderful feeling -- suddenly having a vision for an extended piece of work and just knowing how you want it to turn out.
.
i haven't had that feeling for more than 2 years. And now this sudden visitation...

.
.

#firstworldproblems, or, the problem with poetry

[Warning:  Highly opinionated and subjective musing on the art of poetry. You don't have to agree.]
.
Just got back from a poetry-writing workshop with a famous Scottish poet who shall remain unnamed here, because what i'm about to say here about poetry, in particular, first-world poetry, is really not his fault at all -- and i don't want to make it seem like it is.
.
It's just something i've been feeling for a very long time -- and i think the last few weeks / months / years have just made it clearer and clearer to me that my intuition was right from the start:  for poetry to matter, it has to arise from something deeply felt and important. Such as, political trauma, war, some sort of oppression or other, some kind of suffering. Either that, or deep ecstasy -- of the sort that Hopkins writes about in, for example, 'The Windhover', or 'Pied Beauty'; or in the great love poems of e.e. cummings, Yeats, Auden...
.
In other words, it can't just be about the poet walking along one day and seeing a sparrow and having a moment. Or the poet having a crisis of purpose and wondering what to do with his/her life. Much as these moments of epiphany are valuable for us as individuals -- on the whole, they just don't make for valuable poetry. At least, not the sort that will stand the test of time.
.
i'm just thinking right now of that Burmese poetry reading i went for last week -- which still remains, in my view, the best poetry reading i've ever attended. Not just because the poets actually knew how to read their work -- which really makes a huge difference (think: all the poetry readings where the poets are basically mumbling into the microphone, or speedingthroughtheirworksofast you can't hear what they're saying). But mostly because they read with such conviction: their poetry was the kind of writing you can take a stand for, that actually stands for something -- and they knew it. The things they wrote about -- poverty, social injustice, political oppression -- actually mattered, deeply; there was a point to saying what they said; there was, in fact, risk and danger in writing the way they wrote. And that gave the poetry a weight, an urgency, that most first-world poetry today simply does not possess.
.
This is bad news for first-world poets. i'm starting to think that the only recourse they have which would enable them to write poetry that matters, is either to travel a lot, or to have lots of personal trauma in their lives. Personally, i'd go with the travel -- no trauma, please, thank you. i'm not one of those people who gets high on trauma.
.
.

from the heart

I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.
.
(from 'The Circus Animals' Desertion', WB Yeats)
.
.
-------------------

[Very consciously writing against a certain ideology of art that i've come across in some Christian circles and that i've felt from the start, and even more so now, to be somewhat narrow, limiting, and false in its vision.]
.
So the heart is a foul and messy place, full of all sorts of odds and ends that can't be made to fit. And what does one do with it, if one is a writer? Wait till it all gets sorted out by some great Divine Power, and then write about how all is happily ever after in God's Grand Scheme Of Things? (And all that is human in you cries out, NO!) What if, in this life, there is no happily ever after? Some things are broken, remain broken, cannot be fixed in this lifetime even if we learn to see them differently eventually. And that 'eventually' may be a long time coming. Surely, if a writer's task is partly to chronicle human experience, it is unreasonable to demand that he/she has to always wait till the good unfolds from that experience before being allowed to write about it? Or, even after the good has unfolded, why should a writer not focus on the time before that unfolding? Why does everything have to have a positive spin to it?
.
Sure, we want to see beauty in art; we love art that is transcendent, that brings us light. But surely there is a place, too, for art to be merely human; and in our humanity, there are times when the glass does indeed look half-empty, when despite all our best efforts we see the cloud and not the silver lining. These moments, too, are part of the human experience; these moments, too, deserve a voice. To deny them their place is to impoverish our understanding of what life is about -- and, even worse, to deprive people who feel that way the comfort of knowing they are not alone.
.
i guess that is why i have issues with the view that Christians who write need to do so in such a way that God's grace can shine through in all their writing. It feels like a cage to me; but more than that, it feels fundamentally dishonest. If a writer genuinely cannot feel God's grace at work, despite knowing deep down that somewhere, God is at work -- why should he/she not write about that experience and how it feels, without having to force the writing into a redemptive tone and hue that is false to his/her experience?
.
Of course, i certainly hope that the writing will eventually find its way back to the light. No one wants to read, much less write, depressing stuff forever. It's just a downer -- and goodness knows there are enough downers in life without us artists adding more to the mix. And there's something to be said for the practice of looking to the light, looking for the light -- because it is always there, somewhere. But always, there is, there must be, also a place for honesty.
.
On a slight tangent: i remember what Tim and Catherine said last year at the Arvon course about poetry having to have love in it. It's true. i think that's so important -- to write in a way that the love shows through. Love for the subject of the poetry; and also, love for language, a respect for what language can do. Love, not in a simplistic sense, but love in the sense of caring, honouring, believing that something matters. Which includes respect. Love as opposed to indifference. Poetry with no love in it -- i think that's far, far worse than poetry with no silver lining in it.
.
.

something to think about

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.
.
There is no reason not to follow your heart."
.
- Steve Jobs


---------------------------------------

No. i don't entirely agree with Steve Jobs. Because in that gap between making those choices, and one's death -- who knows how much time may pass, and what consequences those choices may have on an individual and the people around him / her. Responsibility matters, because life matters. And sometimes, following your heart may be the less responsible choice.
.
.

new british poetry

A comparison between Brit and American poetry, written by former American Poet Laureate Charles Simic, and heavily in favour of Brit poetry. :)
.
(Needless to say... i agree i agree i agree!)
.
------------------------
.
From the 'Preface' to New British Poetry, ed. Don Peterson & Charles Simic (2004)
.
.
"Inevitably, the question of what made British poetry different from North American poetry kept coming up. Is it the tone, the language, the subject matter, or the seemingly unshakable devotion to rhyme and meter? It is all of these and more. Without question, British poets are far more at home in their long poetic tradition than North American poets are and can ever be. For that very reason, their use of language is more self-conscious, more varied, and more hedonistic. The great British and Irish poets are voluptuaries of words, and North Americans rarely are.
.
Emerson's limitless faith in the power of the individual to make a new beginning, reinventing everything from his identity to the art of poetry, has few takers in Britain. Consequently, their poems are less egocentric than ours, who love the first-person pronoun more than anything else in the world. American poems may probe psychological, philosophical, religious, and aesthetic issues, but they rarely show much awareness of history, economics, and politics. As a nation with a utopian bent, Americans prefer to dwell on the future rather than on the past. We are wary of tradition, closed intellectual systems, and ideas that do not come from experience. Intellectually, we tend to be autodidacts. All our great poets -- and that goes for Whitman too -- have been loners in search of an audience. In contrast, the poets in this anthology assume that they are part of a tradition, addressing a community that may neglect them now and then, but is there nevertheless."
.
.

saying what matters

Two parcels of poetry arrived in the mailbox today --it's part of my Brit-poetry reading programme. Figured that i really need to read more contemporary Brit stuff. Books by Fiona Sampson, Jo Shapcott, Andrew Motion, Paul Farley. So i'm looking at these carefully-crafted, elegantly poised poems -- and i remember yesterday's poetry reading by three poets from Burma: Zeyar Lynn, Moe Way, Eain Dra. Brit Poet and publisher James Byrne was also there, reading some of the English translations of the original Burmese. 

.

It was the Singapore launch of Bones Will Crow, an anthology of contemporary Burmese poetry published in both Burmese and English. The house was full -- 90 over people at a poetry reading in Singapore. Really?? That almost defies belief. But there we all were, at the best poetry reading i've ever attended. The poets made poetry so urgent, compelling and real -- it made me believe for the first time that poetry can matter, can make a difference. 

.

Of course it's got to do with their politics and history. All that censorship, the repression -- yet all it succeeded in doing was to force the country's poets to be even more creative in their poetic response. Imagine a regime that does not allow the use of the word 'mother' in poetry, simply because 'Mother' is the nickname of that regime's greatest enemy. Or, how about banning the word 'sunset' because the name of the regime's top leader means 'sunrise', and therefore to write about 'sunset' is to wish for that leader's demise? It's crazy -- and yet, the poetry that resulted is so powerful, so full of conviction. You could tell from their voices -- what they wrote really mattered. 

.

Last night's reading left me more determined than ever before to never publish any writing that doesn't matter. Oh, i'm allowed to write whatever i want to write, but i will not add to the world's already too-large store of published writing that doesn't make a difference one way or the other. And if that means my first collection will only come together when i'm 63, then so be it.

.

.

hunger

Thank you God for hunger. For desire that gnaws the bone and won't let go; for this wanting, more and more and then more of it; for this reminder that i am alive.
.
.

faith-based education

Had two very interesting and, perhaps, somewhat related conversations today with two former colleagues, one from each of my former workplaces: both of them are now doing further studies in religious education -- one in Boston, the other in London. One with a special interest in Catholic school leadership, and the other, about to embark on a PhD on madrassah education in Singapore.
.
Faith-based education is an interesting animal. AP was saying that a real Catholic school, if it is to be true to the spirit of Catholicism, would have to be really counter-cultural in the Singapore context, and i agree with him. i think our former school used to be like that; i'm sad to say it isn't like that anymore. NRA, as well, said something very similar when she pointed out that the stated aims of madrassah education are not the same as the MOE's mission and vision. i wonder if it's possible for faith-based schools to maintain their original vision in the midst of an educational landscape that really gives very little room for difference. Add to that the apparent urgency of the all-pervasive Economic Imperative...
.
It was fascinating, listening to NRA talking so passionately about madrassah education -- something i must admit i knew nothing about before today. It's an entire community, a subculture, really, that most Singaporeans are not familiar with; and i'm glad that NRA feels strongly enough about it that she wants to do something to contribute. It won't be easy. People like her must be very rare. All the more reason why they are needed.
.
.

for the joy of it

Note to self:
.
Whenever you ask yourself, because this will happen, over and over, Why am i doing This Writing Thing, just remember this:
.
Joy.
.
Because nothing else, when done well, gives you the same joy.
.
And then stop whining, and get to work.
.
.

on militancy

Thinking out loud. What is it that makes people turn militant? And i'm not just talking terrorists... i mean, anyone who's militant about their beliefs. (Which makes it... a lot of people...) Is it just opposition from others? What if the militancy arose in the absence of opposition? Is it then just a personality tic that some people possess, that causes them to behave militantly regardless of the situation, and which then starts the cycle of militancy (initial militancy --> militancy in return from others who think differently --> more militancy etcetc)?
.
The next (natural) question: Is it possible to hold strongly and yet gently and un-imposingly to a belief? What does / would that look like, in practice, especially in the face of opposition?
.
.

life lessons #789261

"The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story."
.
— Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
.
.

surfacing

Now that i've (re)surfaced from the essay project (No. Longer. Looking. Hungover. Omg!), i'm slowly getting my life back again... It never rains; it pours -- interesting how there has been nothing happening on the calendar for the last few weeks ("All the better for you to write with, my dear..." said the Wolf to Little Red Riding Hood... Yesyesyes Universe, i geddit orreddy, You want me to write, i geddit i geddit i geddit...!), and then, next week, a sudden deluge of events one after another. Looking forward to seeing everyone again and picking up from where we left off.
.
It's nice to realise that i do have community here, more than one, in fact... And i love these people -- my family, old friends, colleagues and students, people in church, writer friends... i need to cherish all these things more consciously, be more grateful for them. It's no mean thing, to have places where i know i am loved, wanted and needed. Funny how so much of this has been so quietly built up over the last few years -- i haven't even been aware of it.
.
Maybe that is another of the gifts of the Berkeley stint -- learning to cherish the people i have here more. It's funny -- i didn't feel lonely in Berkeley, didn't miss home at all; my classmates were absolutely fabulous, and so were some of my housemates. But being away from my communities back here in Singapore did make me unmoored and unsettled, and i didn't even realise it until i came back. Perhaps the novelty of being in the Bay Area just made for so much noise on the surface that i couldn't hear what was going on underneath.
.
Well, nothing like a prolonged stint of writing to make you think about what's going on underneath. It's been interesting. And now, time to come to the surface and breathe again.
.
Take a deep breath...
.
And (let) go.
.
.

what is given

Me: Remind me again, why am i doing This Writing Thing?
.
Friend: Short answer: because not doing This Writing Thing would be to squander all the gifts, opportunities and impetus you have been given thus far.
.
.
Sigh. Yes. Why are my friends always so sensible??? From those to whom much is given, much is expected -- and i have been given so much. And i'm not ungrateful. Other beginning writers would kill for the opportunities and openings i've had. It is always gift, i don't even have to work (that much) for it... Or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say, what i do for it doesn't feel like work -- it is almost always joy, even if mixed with pain.
.
i guess, then, what i still need to learn, is to stop wanting to be given something else.
.
.
PS:
Getting into the bad habit of talking to myself.....
Of course your friends are always so sensible -- after all, you chose them, and they chose you.
.
.