Film Review: If Beale Street Could Talk

At it's heart, a story as old as time - deep, unbreakable bonds of love - but viewed through the prism of an African American experience that has been replayed a thousand million times: racially motivated police brutality and a system stacked so far against them as to be impossible not to fall foul of.

Exquisitely sensual - at times almost overpoweringly so - there is a sense of the unreal, the mythological, about Beale Street. It relies, largely, on delicately nuanced body language and subtle facial expressions, rather than physical action, to portray emotion. Long takes allow the viewers to immerse themselves in each scene, to soak up the atmosphere - the clothes, the details of the interiors, the colours - and every shot is carefully composed down to the smallest detail. The cinematography is exquisite and the score elevates the visuals to something almost ethereal. Key scenes relieve what might otherwise be an almost suffocating, lotus eater-like experience and whilst here and there a jarring note might sound, overall Beale Street is achingly beautiful. Sublime. Heartbreaking.

The Wrestling Poet

I'm back to pub titles as post titles!  Not that I wrestle on any kind of professional or amateur basis, you understand.  Well, not often anyway.

No, it's just that I've at last managed to finish a piece of work that I've been wrestling with since NaPoWriMo back in April.  It's been through five different drafts, plus a lot of editorial 'fiddling' to reach something approaching a finished version.  I ended up cutting the two lines I loved the most about it, in order to achieve a finished product.  Funny how that goes.  And it does hurt to do it - cut out something you personally think is really great.  But then I've still got the lines to use in something else.

Alphabetti Poetti

I'm a day late with this, but here's a little piece of nonsense that in no way reflects the greatness of the lady involved.  In fact, as tributes go it's seriously shabby.  Nevertheless, it's the best I've got.

C IS FOR CLERIHEW

In Rosa Parks case
being asked to make space
caused an almighty fuss
over a seat on a bus.

Bonfire Night Of The Vanities

Well it’s all very exciting!  I’ve known for a little while that two online poetry journals have each accepted a poem of mine for publication.  I’ve had notification today that both are going to publish in the week of 4^th November. Quite appropriately, I shall be as giddy as a Catherine Wheel!

What joy is joy if Sylvia be not by?

My mentor has sent me off to read, and more importantly listen to, Sylvia Plath.

I've bought ‘Ariel’ and today listened to her reading Lady Lazarus and The Birthday Present and one other from Ariel (which evidently made a huge impression as I can’t remember the name of it). So what do I think of her?

She's sharp, clipped, controlled, brittle and about as empathic as obsidian.  I have no sense, from listening to her read, of there being any softness or compassion about her: for others or for herself.  It's a very carefully constructed and presented persona that I don't think we are supposed to like. But then that would just feed into her negative feelings of self-worth, so it figures.  Leaving aside the fact that she’s clearly developed in a cultured and educated environment, there’s a sense of superciliousness about her; a sense of superiority and coldness, particularly in Lady Lazarus.  Maybe it’s the quality of the recording, but I think not.  I accept that it may well be deliberate.  I hear also a rather self-centred core: one that craves love and admiration and yet despised both those that offer that and the self for wanting it. 

And yet, when she took her life, I believe she was quite careful to ensure that her children would be as safe from the immediate physical effects of her actions as she could make them.  So not all bad, then. 

How much of her writing was a simple expression of the mental anguish and pain she lived with, and how much shock tactics designed to elicit sympathy in the reader is very hard to determine.  It’s almost impossible to separate one from the other in someone suffering severe, long-term mental illness. 

Should I be concerned that there’s little ‘emotion’ in her reading, especially in the case of something like Lady Lazarus?  I’m not particularly.  Mental illness can give people an interesting perspective on their own behaviours, often being deeply and overly analytical or distancing themselves emotionally (others, of course, are wracked with overbearing guilt, but she doesn’t strike me as falling into that camp).  Actually, that’s not true.  There is emotion in her reading, just not a kind that I find particularly appealing.  Affective, yes.  Attractive, no.

A...aa..and SHE'S BACK!!

Greetings, one and all.  Well, mostly one really widely read blog that this is.  *Waves at Steven*

Yes, I’ve been away far too long.  Busy getting a life and a job and some money and stuff.  Ok, so not that busy really.  But I can’t post from work, so …

Anyway …

… was at the Garden Centre yesterday (see what an exciting life I’m now leading?) and for a brief moment thought Ann Summers had finally infiltrated our sleepy corner of the Cotswolds when I saw a large banner advertising ‘SHAG WEAR’*…

*It’s a Canadian company that make purses and stuff.  If you’re interested.

Fantastic Ekphrastic ...

Oh, how I wish it had been!

Already you know my two day Ekphrastic workshop experience was somewhat underwhelming.  Maybe I didn’t read the publicity properly.  Or perhaps I didn’t do enough research into the person leading the workshop.  Either way, it was all a bit bollocks, to be honest. 

I should maybe have been alerted when I received the programme for the two days and read the phrase: “Psychological Induction for exploring the museum with a poet’s eye”.  Hypnotic Induction is really not my cup of tea and whilst it was not compulsory to take part (and I didn’t) I do rather think people should be told, clearly, what’s going on.  Not have it dressed up in Jungian psychobabble.  But then there was a lot of that!

I also have to take issue with anyone opening a workshop on poetry by denouncing most modern poetry as being largely rubbish and dismissing the use of Free Verse in favour of Iambic Pentameter.  That’s to rather exclude a huge number of work(s) before we’ve even got started, and it’s personal opinion.  And whilst anyone is entitled to their opinion, it’s not especially helpful to express such a proscriptive opinion to a group whose members you don’t know and who were, largely, new to writing poetry or Ekphrasis.  

If this had come from someone whose own work stood head and shoulders above the majority, I might be prepared to give a little more credence to the views expressed.  But I don’t think anyone is going to be offered the post of Poet Laureate by including the phrase ‘satanic mills’ in a poem on Jerusalem, even when referencing William Blake.  And don’t even get me started on the levels of courage and skill required to produce a phrase as original as: “So far and yet so near”.   

So, the first day was a bit of a write off for me, largely due to my own reaction to the psychological induction shenanigans.  It put me in a bad mood.  And I chose to stay there.  Day two, however, was an improvement.  Nothing to do with any real improvement in the quality of the workshop, more my own attitude.  Still, I finally got the poem down about the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A that’s been swilling round my brain since January, so that was good.  And I met some nice people, including a member of the poetry society I belong to (but who hasn’t come to any meetings since the beginning of the year).  That was nice.  And *may* give rise to a mixed media collaboration at some point, which would be fantastically good fun.  If nothing else, I shall go on one of her workshops to learn how to make myself a book!

There’s something about silver linings and clouds there.