Speaking of the ward… I thought of this the other day when you mentioned it but then forgot. Did you read the last bit of Murphy by Samuel Beckett when he’s working in the wards?
He positively loves it, most of all the suppression of the outside world:
"the patients were described as “cut off” from reality, from the rudimentary blessings of the layman’s reality... All this was duly revolting to Murphy, whose experience as a physical and rational being obliged him to call sanctuary what the psychiatrists called exile and to think of the patients not as banished from a system of benefits but as escaped from a colossal fiasco. If his mind had been on the correct cash-register lines, an indefatigable apparatus for doing sums with the petty cash of current facts, then no doubt the suppression of these would have seemed a deprivation."
Such a fascinating idea. Also I feel like it’s very unique. I did not positively love it, but I was working on a stroke ward. This kind of ward has different issues to a place where people have dementia, and I think the thing that I found most frustrating for these people was that they were intellectually the same and yet they couldn’t express themselves. So I guess to view it through that lens, they weren’t fully cut off or suppressed from the outside world and it created this painful dissonance. It’s really weird reading my placement reviews because I was obviously acting quite normal there but in my head I felt like: WTF is this.
A terrible but at the same time sublime and valuable experience - life at the absolute edge of expressibility.
To me it seems that Beckett takes this notion and really develops it to the full in his post-war Trilogy, above all in Malone Dies where the steady separation of the narrator from bodily function tends towards an absolute zero - with The Unnamable trying to go beyond that zero.
These books were extremely influential in the anti-psychiatry movement in the 1970s.
In the years since then there’s been a lot of artistic work based on this idea of aporias, gaps and holes - the Caretaker songs, The Father movie, Haneke’s L’Amour and other works about dementia. It’s a very fascinating area, full of the uncanny and the terrifying sublime.
Thank you Steve! I’ve been second-guessing things less recently. Just allowing myself to write intuitively and follow any idea or thought that I find interesting. I’m really enjoying it actually, because I think I really struggled with perfectionism and fear of putting work out! (Long way of saying I very much appreciate this comment :-))
Trust your instincts, they are serving you very well. The more you enjoy it the more that communicates to the reader as well. This is art, and creativity is supposed to be fun. Just be yourself.
The ward… It’s a devastating, and such a powerful poem, Holly. I’m speechless, so I had to rely on Mizoguchi and Miyagawa’s camera to express my gratitude.
The ward, and your work in it, reminded me that Ishiguro worked as a social worker. I don’t remember if it was a Japanese documentary, but he spoke about how formative his work with homeless people had been for him.
Oh, I didn’t know he was a social worker. I really love his work – have one of his books sitting by my bed. I think seeing those raw parts of human life can really make you need to express something. Even if sometimes expressing that means doing it through negative space or silence.
It has stayed with me, his deep human sense of the experience he went through, Ishiguro looking for the right words to express his respect for the people he met during this time and talking about their humanity.
And he’s just a master at finding the right words! I’m about to start ‘The Buried Giant’. It’s quite lovely to know that bit of background about him because I’ve never really done much reading about his life or his process. But knowing that, yes, it makes sense.
I think that makes sense – his prose is really clean. It’s emotionally deep, but it’s not cluttered. So I guess it’s an example as well of quiet, serious, intellectual English. It’s quite formal too.
One of his rare short stories, written as almost a framework draft for the “Unconsoled “ — the short story is … Ishiguro, and it’s good (and I love the illustration):
Motoyuki Shibata, one of the best translators from English into Japanese (Haruki Murakami works in close collaboration with Shibata when translating), always recommends Ishiguro’s English to those who want to read literature in English: exemplary grammar, vocabulary, and so on. It was a little surprising to me — I had been told to read Agatha Christie — but I can see what Shibata-sensei is aiming for with this recommendation
I think I’ve only seen one, too. They’re pretty difficult. I think you have to spend quite a while listening out for them normally before you see them…
i wrote a poem over twenty years ago titled HR. how those 2 letters became my fate. how i became a FAThEr in my young twenties. your poem resurfaced that memory. you’re good at that.
I almost feel that to know everything about this poem would be to strip it of its power. The 1930s coast really got to me because of my own mother growing up on the south coast of England at this time. It's what she might have seen and felt.
Yes, I often think that’s the case with writing – knowing too much can spoil it. I had both the south and east coast in mind. I grew up on the south coast of England, and it has never left me – the sensations.
Photo – my own. Sidmouth beach, September.
Brilliant
Thank you Aaliya 🩶
Gorgeous poetry. A fluttering of hearts, wings and memory until it stills into deepest blue.
I am left in awe.
What a lovely comment – thank you Istvan! 🩵
I so agree!!!
Thank you lovely! <3
mother degrading to moth... sets my mind on fire
Wrote this while I was working the ward. The first drafts were quite different but grandmother / mother / moth was central!
Speaking of the ward… I thought of this the other day when you mentioned it but then forgot. Did you read the last bit of Murphy by Samuel Beckett when he’s working in the wards?
I looked at bits of it again recently and I read something where he said he felt hardly any horror when he visited the wards himself…
He positively loves it, most of all the suppression of the outside world:
"the patients were described as “cut off” from reality, from the rudimentary blessings of the layman’s reality... All this was duly revolting to Murphy, whose experience as a physical and rational being obliged him to call sanctuary what the psychiatrists called exile and to think of the patients not as banished from a system of benefits but as escaped from a colossal fiasco. If his mind had been on the correct cash-register lines, an indefatigable apparatus for doing sums with the petty cash of current facts, then no doubt the suppression of these would have seemed a deprivation."
Such a fascinating idea. Also I feel like it’s very unique. I did not positively love it, but I was working on a stroke ward. This kind of ward has different issues to a place where people have dementia, and I think the thing that I found most frustrating for these people was that they were intellectually the same and yet they couldn’t express themselves. So I guess to view it through that lens, they weren’t fully cut off or suppressed from the outside world and it created this painful dissonance. It’s really weird reading my placement reviews because I was obviously acting quite normal there but in my head I felt like: WTF is this.
A terrible but at the same time sublime and valuable experience - life at the absolute edge of expressibility.
To me it seems that Beckett takes this notion and really develops it to the full in his post-war Trilogy, above all in Malone Dies where the steady separation of the narrator from bodily function tends towards an absolute zero - with The Unnamable trying to go beyond that zero.
These books were extremely influential in the anti-psychiatry movement in the 1970s.
In the years since then there’s been a lot of artistic work based on this idea of aporias, gaps and holes - the Caretaker songs, The Father movie, Haneke’s L’Amour and other works about dementia. It’s a very fascinating area, full of the uncanny and the terrifying sublime.
My least popular ever film essay was about that
https://backtobackmovies.substack.com/p/back-to-back-77-things-that-are-no
You continue to develop. This is beautifully restrained and yet entirely evocative. Keep doing you.
Thank you Steve! I’ve been second-guessing things less recently. Just allowing myself to write intuitively and follow any idea or thought that I find interesting. I’m really enjoying it actually, because I think I really struggled with perfectionism and fear of putting work out! (Long way of saying I very much appreciate this comment :-))
Trust your instincts, they are serving you very well. The more you enjoy it the more that communicates to the reader as well. This is art, and creativity is supposed to be fun. Just be yourself.
Thank you – I will try :-)
The ward… It’s a devastating, and such a powerful poem, Holly. I’m speechless, so I had to rely on Mizoguchi and Miyagawa’s camera to express my gratitude.
The ward, and your work in it, reminded me that Ishiguro worked as a social worker. I don’t remember if it was a Japanese documentary, but he spoke about how formative his work with homeless people had been for him.
Oh, I didn’t know he was a social worker. I really love his work – have one of his books sitting by my bed. I think seeing those raw parts of human life can really make you need to express something. Even if sometimes expressing that means doing it through negative space or silence.
It has stayed with me, his deep human sense of the experience he went through, Ishiguro looking for the right words to express his respect for the people he met during this time and talking about their humanity.
And he’s just a master at finding the right words! I’m about to start ‘The Buried Giant’. It’s quite lovely to know that bit of background about him because I’ve never really done much reading about his life or his process. But knowing that, yes, it makes sense.
I think that makes sense – his prose is really clean. It’s emotionally deep, but it’s not cluttered. So I guess it’s an example as well of quiet, serious, intellectual English. It’s quite formal too.
One of his rare short stories, written as almost a framework draft for the “Unconsoled “ — the short story is … Ishiguro, and it’s good (and I love the illustration):
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/05/21/a-village-after-dark
Ooh perfect, thank you! I’ll read it before bed 🕯️
Motoyuki Shibata, one of the best translators from English into Japanese (Haruki Murakami works in close collaboration with Shibata when translating), always recommends Ishiguro’s English to those who want to read literature in English: exemplary grammar, vocabulary, and so on. It was a little surprising to me — I had been told to read Agatha Christie — but I can see what Shibata-sensei is aiming for with this recommendation
Beautiful
Thank you, H
Kingfishers are a great thing to see. I’ve spent thousands of hours on or near water and have only seen one.
Maybe I’m unobservant.
I think I’ve only seen one, too. They’re pretty difficult. I think you have to spend quite a while listening out for them normally before you see them…
“her hands shade her eyes
gulls inside the grey” The writing throughout places the reader inside the moment. 👏
Thanks Sam, that’s always what I hope for :-)
So much grief, tenderness, and fading language held in such careful imagery. <3
Thank you Petra – glad you saw the tenderness! <3
this line got me: "her hand raised toward sky / and it stayed sky”
and your ending: beautiful. a moth: beautiful.
Thank you P <3
i wrote a poem over twenty years ago titled HR. how those 2 letters became my fate. how i became a FAThEr in my young twenties. your poem resurfaced that memory. you’re good at that.
“Sterile noon, a ward at two” - mastery of scene-setting in only a few words. Amazing x
Thank you very much M! <3
Most impressive…as you’ve definitely matched the tone and intention, of the types of poetry you’ve been posting recently your reading and researching.
It’s taking me back to your pace and narration on the type of work you were producing this time last year.
The student and teacher👏
Thanks MAC. I find learning and playing around with words really fun, so I hope I can continue to do so!
I assume you’ll be doing it until you pass to the other side.
I almost feel that to know everything about this poem would be to strip it of its power. The 1930s coast really got to me because of my own mother growing up on the south coast of England at this time. It's what she might have seen and felt.
Yes, I often think that’s the case with writing – knowing too much can spoil it. I had both the south and east coast in mind. I grew up on the south coast of England, and it has never left me – the sensations.
Really enjoyed this
Thank you a – I really enjoy your work.
Proper poetry
Thanks Evelyn; very much appreciated!
This is a great.
The first two lines grabbed me, the last two lines let me go.
Thank you CC, I love that description!