Poetry Workshop

[radiantfracture]

I've been eating honeycomb, so now I'm drinking weak tea to melt the beeswax from my teeth before I go to bed.

I bought the honeycomb at the rain-walled farmer's market on Saturday -- that and bright late strawberries and a sachet of strong lavender.

Saturday was the best day I've had in ages -- the kind where you forget the good things you did in the morning because the good things you did in the evening were even better.

The best thing I did was see, or I would say witness, Tanya Tagaq perform Qiksaaktuq.

I hope to write about that as soon as the words to do so have been invented.

The next best thing I did was attend a poetry workshop. I'd been violently nervous out of mostly phantom social fears, but in the event there was much mellowness and pleasant chill and a little magic.

We did three pieces of freewriting: one based on people reading out various poems and bits of prose (the only one that comes to mind now was a Poe poem); one a letter to a friend (I had trouble with that); and one was a set of directions or instructions (the guy next to me had a lovely line: "Don't go down / go back down").

This is a second draft of my first, vaguely Poe-inspired piece (& obvs. a whole raft of Romantics are running around in there). I don't know if it can be anything, ultimately, what with its oddly formal voice, unless something speculative from a world where such a voice would fit, but I liked things about it enough to work with it a bit.




Where is my
Ozymandias?

What is buried up to its neck in me?

In this deep old desert
where all experience is reduced
to rubble, to gravel, and at last to dust

Whatever I broke, whatever I toppled or shattered,
it fell where I pushed it and lay there, decaying.

Who built these monuments? Of what materials?
I must have built them. It must have been of sand.
Statue or pleasure-dome, shattered,
fallen, sifted, heaped up,
bound with lime and water, refashioned.

Do they improve with iteration, my idols?
If inhaled, chewed out of the air,
do they provide -- sustenance? Flavour? Information?

Make up your mind: are you a ruin or a desert?
If a ruin, you must once have been magnificent.
If a desert, you must once have been
a forest full of cool vapour
or the bottom of a sea, seething with life.

Who is the wanderer?
Who is it breathes in my dust,
contemplates my ruin?

It must be me again. How tiresome.
Unless someone else can be recruited.
Unless you will do it.

Who is my Ozymandias?
It must be that man
I thought I could become
through imitation.

I must be the sculptor who captured his curled lip.
No kiss, not even of this outsized stone mouth.

Well, why not? Climb up and kiss it. As dry
as anything imaginable.

Comments

[sovay]

Well, why not? Climb up and kiss it. As dry
as anything imaginable.

I like it.

[radiantfracture]

Thanks! Maybe I'll hang onto that bit.

[sovay]

Maybe I'll hang onto that bit.

Quite a lot of the poem is worth hanging onto. I didn't find the register to be offputting, I like the initial question, and "Make up your mind: are you a ruin or a desert?" and much of what it follows wouldn't need any editing at all.

[radiantfracture]

Hey, thanks for these observations -- that's really helpful.

It does seem to solidify in a way at "make up your mind."

[glinda]

I'm glad you had a better Saturday full of good things.

Oooh I'm envious of your seeing Tanya Tagaq perform. A few years she did a performance of her re-imagining/re-scoring of Nanook of the North for Radio 3 here. (They did a simulcast with the iPlayer, so people listening to the concert at home could watch the film too.) It was quite the experience and I've wanted to see her perform in person ever since.

[radiantfracture]

I wish I'd seen Tagaq's version of /Nanook/ -- she comes up with such brilliant projects. There's probably no video of it, is there?

[glinda]

I suspect not. I don't know that the BBC actually filmed the concert as the visual part of the experience was the film. I'm sure there exists a video of the film with her performance somewhere in the BBC archive but it doesn't appear to be available anywhere. From what I've read about it, she toured with the film and improvised the score each time so every version is different. (The longest clip I can find on youtube of any of the concerts is about 3 and half minutes.)

And...now I've fallen down a rabbit hole of Canadian Indigenous music on Spotify...

[radiantfracture]

If you surface with anything you think particularly excellent, I'd love to know...

[sovay]

A few years she did a performance of her re-imagining/re-scoring of Nanook of the North for Radio 3 here.

Is there a recording of that?

[glinda]

Unfortunately, not that I've been able to track down. I think most of the performances were at film festivals, I don't think a DVD ever happened. Which is a shame because it was beautiful.

[cosmolinguist]

I love your poem.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you! It's wonderful to be told that.

[sabotabby]

I love your poem.

I didn't know that humans could eat honeycomb! I'm sort of picturing Winnie the Pooh here.

The best thing I did was see, or I would say witness, Tanya Tagaq perform Qiksaaktuq.

I hope to write about that as soon as the words to do so have been invented.

This has been my reaction every time I've seen her.

Eating honeycomb

[radiantfracture]

When I had attained the age of animation but not of knowledge -- say about ten years old -- I used to make toast absolutely saturated and running over with honey. (Well, I still do.)

I told my mother I thought it must be like honeycomb, and she said, "Oh, no, honeycomb isn't nice at all. Honeycomb is just wax. I tried it and I was so disappointed." So when I was first offered real honeycomb, I turned it down.

Someone convinced me to try it... in my mind's eye, it's university and an older-and-wiser someone (aged, say, 24) is saying "Are you sure you don't want any?"

And it was lovely. You chew up the beeswax, and all the honey runs down your tongue and around your teeth. The wax gathers up into a sort of chew, which you can chew for a while if you like.

The Internet tells me you can also just spread the lot on toast, comb and all, and eat it, but I've never done that. I swallow the bits of wax that flow out with the honey, and then I discreetly dispose of the chew.

Re: Eating honeycomb

[intertext]

For some reason, one of my vividest memories of early childhood (VERY early, like, say 3 or 4) was of my father bringing home a piece of honeycomb and eating it for tea along with brown bread and butter. It was truly wonderful.

Re: Eating honeycomb

[radiantfracture]

I'm glad I mentioned it. I like all these honeycomb stories. And I love the idea that a piece of comb could be more or less a meal.

Re: Eating honeycomb

[all_strange_wonders]

I am a fiend for honeycomb these days. When you put it on toast (or crumpets, or pancakes...), the heat softens up the wax a bit and gives it a somewhat different--but still delightfully chewy--texture. If anything, I think it's a little nicer spread on warm toast than it is straight off the fork, but it's a pretty near thing. Also, nice crusty-crunchy toast helps with any wax residue.

Re: Eating honeycomb

[radiantfracture]

I've eaten my whole comb, so I sh'll have to go back for more and try this!

[twistedchick]

I really like the imagery in this poem, and the contrasts.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you! I imprinted on the romantic landscape early.

[heliopausa]

Your opening line had me murmuring "he on honey-dew hath fed" - a promise of things to come. :)
I like your poem, especially the reiteration of the realisation that "I must have built them", "It must be me again."

[radiantfracture]

Hah. You diagnosed me immediately & correctly.

Thanks for the comments -- I was discovering the answer as I wrote it, which is a fun place to be.

[intertext]

btw, I join the chorus of love for your poem. I particularly like the last four lines. And If a desert, you must once have been / a forest full of cool vapour. Nice.

[radiantfracture]

Thank you!