A Mouthful of Air: Poetry with Mark McGuinness

Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich   Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/88_Occupied_by_Tim_Rich.mp3 This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets Available from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK   Occupied by Tim Rich We buttered the cat's pawsand baked bread in borrowed tinsto make the unfamiliar speak of pleasureand our intentions to remain All that first daythe house talked to itselfabout us Later than I expected, light withdrew across our table, unopened cratesback through thin glasstowards tomorrow So the room released its formand we sat among one anothergiving our ears to the conversation:inner doorways muttering behind flat hands; oak floors—masonic in their black treacle gloss—deciding whether to settleunder our presence Later still, in bed, I stared sideways into an unlit universe, absentlymindwalking the bounds,relocking iron door-bolts like an old rifle, drawingdrawn curtains a little closer,charting the evaporating pathbehind that plane's descent In time, each stray thought went to its home, leaving this accommodation to take place: the air held here sighing gently,like contented tortoise breaths; the softening percussion of bodies sleeping; the punctuating crack and hiss as fresh eggs are brokeninto a smoking pan; someoneopening a window   Interview transcript Mark: Tim, where did this poem come from? Tim: So, almost always for me, poems just emerge out of some sort of inner dusk. I'm not someone that can go to their desk with a plan to write about a particular message or topic or piece of content. The poem just presents itself to me. And actually I don't really have any choice in the matter. I'm sort of just forced to be a transcriber in that moment. And I was looking at the sea the other day, and I had this moment when I just thought my poems are a bit like strange sea creatures that live on the seabed. And at a particular point in their life, they decide that they just want to go to the light and they start floating up through the murky water and explode in bubbles on the surface. And, you know, hopefully I'm there sitting in the poet's boat ready to haul them on board. So, that's almost always how poems start for me. And this poem very much began that way. I was at home on a winter's evening, and it just began to come through me, as it were. And the context for that was that after many years of living in the same house, my wife and I were starting to think about the possibility of moving. And, you know, it was a really exciting prospect but also it definitely was stirring up the sediment of my unconscious. I'm someone that really feels the need for a settled home, a settled place, and this unsettled me. So, I think that that was what was giving the raw energy to the content. And there was something else, which is what informed the scenery of the poem, if you like, which is this idea of light withdrawing from a space and what that does within the space. And when I was 11, I was living just with my dad, and he would come home from work later than I would get home from school. So, for the first year or so, he arranged for me to go to some elderly neighbours on the way home from school. So I was, sort of, watched, and we would sit in their front room, and they would load up their coal fire. And through the windows, the sun would set slowly, and they were so calm. They would hardly speak. When they did speak, it was about these, kind of, wonderful domestic details like, you know, what needs to be chopped for dinner, or are there any windfalls in the garden that we can harvest tomorrow? It was very, very calm. And, you know, the coals in the fire were glowing red, but the rest of the room just lost its light. And I remember the shape of their very heavy old furniture, and the picture frames, and the curtains all began to disappear. And that must have just lodged somewhere deep within me, because that's very much, as the poem came out, where I was also taken to in my mind. Mark: So, I like this. So, I mean, to put it bluntly, it's not like you moved into a house and then you wrote this. You were thinking about moving and then a house emerged from your unconscious, from memories of other houses and so on. Tim: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Mark: And I think that's kind of a salutary thing to hear because… And this is a poem that really you read it and you totally believe it. It feels like a first-hand account of, well, we did this and this is what happened. And yet you're, kind of, pulling the rug from under our feet here, which is a nice thing in poetry. I think that you can't necessarily take it literally or face value. Tim: Well, we moved house… Yeah, we moved house about six months after I wrote the poem. So, I went through the experience of living the poem, which seems to be quite a good way around. Mark: Did you conjure the house, Tim? Tim: Actually, it was wonderful because it confirmed to me part of what motivated the poem, which is that I think we can all become a little bit… I don't know. Complacent seems to be too loaded a term, but we get so used to how our houses speak that we stop hearing them. And actually, there's this kind of wonderful symphony going on the whole time, you know, radiators making those strange percussive noises, and the way that the door squeaks, or suddenly, you know, how your staircase gets to a particular temperature in the middle of the night and decides to squeak. And they're constantly making these noises. And when you're living there, you stop hearing them. But when you move to somewhere for the first time, or sometimes if you go and stay in a haunted Airbnb in the woods, that first night particularly, everything's coming to you fresh. So, I think there's a strong sense of what's it like when a person moves into a space for the first time and that space has a character, and an energy, and a being of its own. Mark: So, really it's that state of heightened awareness, isn't it? You know, apparently this is how the mind works. If you've got a constant stimulus, the mind will tune it out. It's that Heaney line, you know, ‘The refrigerator whinnied into silence,' which is just that moment of… You only hear the fridge when it stops. Tim: Yeah. Mark: And what you're describing is the reverse of that. When you're in the house for the first time and everything is new and you're on hyperalert for the voices of the house. Tim: Yeah. And we're listening to our houses right now because there's a 1066 Line train from Hastings that's just gone into the tunnel over there. But we probably can't quite hear it on the microphones, but it's in the air and it's just touching elements of the house. And we're surrounded by this the whole time. And I think it's important to say, as soon as the poem had laid itself out on the page for the first time, it was clear to me that this poem was about people moving into a home for the first time, but it is also quite a vivid description, I think, of what was going through me at the time in terms of that unsettled nature. You know, I was quite surprised by the nature of the metaphors that my unconscious had presented me with. I mean, it's quite a portrait of anxiety to double-check the curtains, to lock a bolt as if it's an old rifle. You know, this is partly a portrait of an unsettled, anxious mind, which is, I think, something that I was going through at the time. Mark: And you've got some great similes, you know, the iron door bolts like an old rifle. And there's this lovely bit where you talk about ‘drawing drawn curtains'. And if you look on the website, then you can see that there's a line break after drawing, so it's drawing, line break, drawn curtains, which really just emphasises it's already drawn. You don't need to do it. This is the OCD kicking in, which really speaks to that anxiety you're describing. And I really love the second section where you say, ‘All that first day, the house talked to itself about us,' which is just a wonderfully unsettling idea that we are the intruders and the house has an opinion. Tim: Yeah, I definitely wasn't being sort of whimsically mystical about infrastructure and materials. It was definitely the feeling that there is an exchange when animals, human and other, come into a space. There's a change in energies and temperatures and sound and smells. And, you know, the dynamism of creatures come into a space that has been unoccupied, which is what generally most houses are, you know, sometimes for days, sometimes for months, and years before the new occupants come in. And I was just really taken with that idea that the house also needs to find its way of settling under these new occupants. And that seemed like a moment of 24 hours of the two parties eyeing each other and listening to each other and wondering about, ‘Who is this that I need to live with for these next years?' Mark: And it's quite a humbling poem, isn't it? Because, you know, when you think of owning the house or occupying the house, it's like you're the one in charge. But this poem just kind of subverts that idea that it's the house that's weighing us up, as in the people in the poem. It made me think of that TV series David Olusoga does, A House Through Time, where he gets an old house, and he goes through the records, and he looks at all the people who lived in the house and tells their story. And there's quite a lot of them, like, much more than I would have expected. You know, each episode goes on and on and on, and you just realise the house is staying there. The house is constant. These people, they're temporary. They might think they're the owners, but we're just passing through. Tim: We are passing through. It is a reminder of our mortality and our houses often way outlive us. Also, in recent years and decades, there's been an increase in the way in which people work from home, but that isn't a new thing. So, I wrote this poem in the house we lived in before, which was built to be a weaver's cottage, a live/work weaver's cottage. And, you know, they would find their living accommodation in quite modest corners of the house because a lot of it, at different times in the process, was given to equipment and storing material and a very intense version of live/work and working from home. And, you know, I think that part of when people suddenly a whole generation through particularly lockdowns but also just this change in working habits are spending much more of their life within the home quite often and what that means in terms of their relationship to the space and how the house relates to that. Tim: I think, just as I'm speaking, it occurs to me that perhaps also part of the influence of the atmosphere in the poem is around some of the fiction that I enjoy. And I haven't thought about this until we were talking now, but I like an M. R. James novel, or, you know, The Haunting of Hill House has just come to mind, and buildings and atmospheres that speak, as sort of some of the atmospheres you get in a Robert Aickman type horror novel. So, some of the classic British horror novels and that type of fiction. And just as we were talking about that, and I was also casting my eyes down the poem, there's some of the dusk that you get with those places, which is in this poem. And it's great, isn't it, coming back to one of your own poems quite a while after you wrote it, and you perhaps see some of the reasons for its being in a slightly different way. Mark: I mean, that's the basic premise of the haunted house is that the house is alive. I mean, you've not gone full Hammer Horror with this one. It's maybe a little more subtle, but you've definitely got some really wonderfully suggestive details. I loved ‘inner doorways muttering behind / flat hands, oak floors – masonic / in their black treacle gloss'. And that's so true. There are so many of these old houses. It's like, what happens to the wood? How does it get to be like treacle? And there's that heaviness and that opacity about it that you convey really well. Tim: Yeah. I was taken with the idea of the house being almost quite an august figure in some ways. It would be wrong to say it's proud of itself, but deciding whether to settle under our presence is quite… Mark: It's not aiming to please, is it? Tim: It's not. It's not easily won over. I mean, you know… Yeah, let's see what these new occupants are like. You know, what do they get up to? What are their tastes? What do we think of the prints that they put up on the wall? Mark: Yeah. Will they get it? Will they behave themselves? So you've got this lovely line in the third paragraph, ‘So the room released its form / and we sat among one another.' Well, thinking about the form of the poem, how close is this to, say, the first draft when you were hauling the sea creature out from the depths over the side of your poetic boat? Tim: Yeah, when the poem came out onto the page, it actually made a demand of me. It said, ‘I don't want you to put me into very organised type measures. I don't want to be sorted into regular stanzas. And also, I want you to be quite careful about any linguistic bells and whistles.' It just was a bit like the house. It had almost a sort of slightly stern feeling to it as a poem. It was very clear, and it was saying each of these stanzas, or scenes maybe, has to be as long as it wants to be. ‘I don't want you to spend time evening things up or creating consistency.' And there are many other poems that I've written where, of course, I'm deliberately very measured, very consistent. At the moment, a lot of the poems I'm writing have a lot of half rhymes but particularly a lot of internal rhymes. And, goodness, audaciously, you know, I even have a rhyming couplet in a poem that I'm working on at the moment. But this poem just said, ‘I don't want any of that.' Now, that's not to say that there aren't some half rhymes or suggestions of rhymes, and certainly some lovely withholding with words at the end of the line that only resolve as you move through into the next line, the enjambment of the word and the meaning falling over into the next line. Definitely that happens. But I tried to edit this into different shapes. I probably tried it five different ways, and each time it just felt wrong quite quickly actually. I tried to give it a consistent number of lines per stanza, and it repulsed me as a poem. It just said, ‘No, I need to be this free form.' And also, I had to accept that it's probably a little bit messier than I normally feel comfortable with. And it was good. I was like, ‘Actually, you know, just stop fighting. Just stop fighting it.' Sometimes your poems can be more irregular, more free, less obviously organised. And I think it has its rhythms that hold it together. It does for me. And listeners will decide, when they hear it, whether those rhythms are actually holding it together. Mark: Well, for me, it feels a bit like one of those old houses where you go in and there's not a right angle in sight. You know, the floors are sloping. The doors have to be a kind of trapezium to open and close, which I think is obviously true to the spirit of the thing. And it's like the house itself. It's not trying too hard. You can read it quite quickly, and it seems quite plain-spoken and spartan. But when you look, you notice the little details. Like, you know, there's the door bolts like a rifle, and the ‘nasonic', a wonderful adjective. And I've just noticed now, as we were talking, in the final verse, ‘In time, each stray thought / went to its home, leaving this / accommodation to take place'. And that's a lovely reframing of ‘accommodation', because the everyday sense is a place where you go and live, but it's an accommodation in the sense of a mutual alignment, almost like a negotiation or getting used to each other, which I think is really delightful. Mark: Okay, Tim, so I have to ask, looking again at the poem, what on earth is going on with buttering the cat's paws at the beginning? Tim: So, buttering the cat's paws is a bit of folk wisdom. And the idea is that when you move to a new house, if you have a cat or cats, that you actually put lovely, creamy butter on their paws and that they, you know, as cats do, will then spend time licking and licking and licking. And it means that more of their scent is put into the floor and the grounds of the place so they feel at home quicker and sooner. So they're sensing the place much more actively sooner. Now, I don't think there's any scientific evidence to suggest it works. But, you know, if anyone has any experience with this, I would love to hear it. But I don't really care, because the whole image of spreading beautiful, creamy butter onto the paws of the cat and that somehow just inviting them to feel that this place is home is more than enough for me. And I'd heard the phrase years and years and years before. And again, I think it was just the very first phrase that came out as the poem emerged. I think it was opening the doorway to the poem, and it felt very natural for it to be the beginning of the poem. I wonder now, looking back, whether there's something to do with the eye opened with an animal spirit. And so much of this poem really has come up from the unconscious. And I'm not starting with a very measured, conscious human, you know, activity or… I'm not saying, you know, ‘we made the decision to move'. It's not a person-led piece in the sense that, okay, we're doing the buttering, but it's the cat that's front and centre in that open line. And that's not something that I particularly thought about consciously at the time. But looking back, I think there's a hint there that we're not just talking about a straightforward human, rational response to living in a place. There are animal spirits too. Mark: Yeah, and it feels like a wonderful piece of folk magic. I mean, cats are magical creatures like witches' familiars. And, you know, maybe there's a magical aspect to that. It's a little ritual, isn't it? Tim: It is. I had a question for you, but it just came out of part of my experience of this poem going out into the world, which is that I've just been surprised, in a wonderful way, by how diverse and often surprising people's responses are to poems, how I can never really tell what it is about a poem someone's going to pick up and come back to you about. You know, for example, someone has given copies of this poem to friends when they move house. Mark: Oh, lovely. Tim: …as a housewarming present, a printed letterpress, which is very, very beautiful. Someone else said that they really loved sort of, what did they say, the soft absurdity around the house being almost this grand piece. And others have responded in different ways. And I think it's one of the wonders of poetry, maybe something that doesn't get talked about quite so much, which is that we interrogate the meaning for ourselves. And if you work with your editor and sometimes reviewers, meaning is discussed. But actually, my experience, when poems go out into the world, is it's just incredible how broad the range of response is and what people pick up on. And I suddenly think, well, is that just my experience? So what's it like for you? Are you constantly surprised by what people pick up and come back to and focus on with your poems? Mark: Yeah, it's a little bit like a Rorschach test, isn't it? People see themselves in it to a degree, or they see something that will resonate for them. And to me, it's the sign of a real poem if it can do that, if different people see different things in it. If it was too obvious and too, you know, two-dimensional, then that's fine, but it's not really a poem. And I think this is part of the magic of why poems can persist over time. Society is shifting all around them. Maybe a few of the houses are constant, but the poem still inhabits the space, and people still relate to it for decades or hundreds or even thousands of years sometimes. Tim: Yeah, I think there's an important point for poets that you have to maintain your confidence in ambiguity and what might feel like potential confusion. Of course, you need to think through how you're writing it and avoid unintended, poor consequences. But there's also a point in which I think you have to protect some of the messiness of meaning and not try to pin things down too much. Of course, there are different types of poets, and some poets need to be very clear and very message-driven. But I'm thinking, for me, there are sometimes moments when I think, ‘Am I just leaving this hanging and ambiguous and a bit dusky in terms of meaning?' And that's the point at which I think, ‘No, quite often just trust that people will find their own way into the poem.' Mark: Yeah, absolutely. And this is something I've seen a lot in classes, and it certainly happened to me very often. You know, the teacher will say you can cut the last line because we already get it. You don't need to underline the message of the poem. Sometimes we feel a bit nervous just leaving it hanging. And you've absolutely had the confidence to do that with the wonderful ending of this, where you talk about ‘the punctuating crack and hiss / as fresh eggs are broken / into a smoking pan. Someone / opening a window' – and that's it. I mean, tell me about that ending. How did you arrive at that? And did you go back and forth? Did you think, ‘Can I leave that window open, that line?' And by the way, listener, there is no full stop either to hang on to at that point! Tim: Yeah. I have to say, I do find myself clearing away more and more of the furniture of the poems. And there is a very deliberate lack of a full stop there. It was all there in the first draft that came out. It wasn't a constructed or reconstructed ending later on. Again, the poem seemed to want to open into something rather than close itself down and make a point. I think that in the action of the poem, we've moved through this dusky night, including a sort of bout of insomnia, of staring into the darkness. And then morning is coming, and it's full of new things. And there is something about that morning of waking up in a new house. What a moment in someone's life that is. Mark: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tim: It's just extraordinary. And there's a natural link there into the egg as a symbol. Something new, something is being born. And yeah, there may be many reasons why that window needed to be open. The smoke from the pan is one thing, which is all about the… Mark: Right, right. Setting the smoke alarm off! Tim: Yeah, it goes off in our kitchen quite often. And of course, the cooking is, again, this thing of humans being in a house and occupying it and all of the energy and dynamics. And how are you most going to make a new home your own? You're going to get out and start cooking and making a mess and eating together and getting things moving. I have no idea who the someone is, and I don't know what their motivation is for opening a window. And I like that. Mark: Okay. Well, let's have another listen to the poem and maybe, you know, each of us, as we listen to this this time, just see what associations come up for you. You know, houses you've lived in, places you've been, memories it conjures up. Thank you very much, Tim. What a lovely space to explore with this poem.   Occupied by Tim Rich We buttered the cat's pawsand baked bread in borrowed tinsto make the unfamiliar speak of pleasureand our intentions to remain All that first daythe house talked to itselfabout us Later than I expected, light withdrew across our table, unopened cratesback through thin glasstowards tomorrow So the room released its formand we sat among one anothergiving our ears to the conversation:inner doorways muttering behind flat hands; oak floors—masonic in their black treacle gloss—deciding whether to settleunder our presence Later still, in bed, I stared sideways into an unlit universe, absentlymindwalking the bounds,relocking iron door-bolts like an old rifle, drawingdrawn curtains a little closer,charting the evaporating pathbehind that plane's descent In time, each stray thought went to its home, leaving this accommodation to take place: the air held here sighing gently,like contented tortoise breaths; the softening percussion of bodies sleeping; the punctuating crack and hiss as fresh eggs are brokeninto a smoking pan; someoneopening a window   Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets ‘Occupied' is from Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets, published by Paekakariki Press. Available from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK     Tim Rich Tim Rich grew up in the woods of Sussex and now lives and writes by the sea in Hastings. His poems have been published in numerous anthologies and journals, including Dark Angels: Three Contemporary Poets (Paekakariki Press) and Poet Town (Moth Light Press). The Landfall series – exhibited at the Bloomsbury Festival, London — brought together his poetry and photography. He has five poems in the anthology Family Matters, a collection of poetry about family, to be published in 2026. Alongside poetry, Tim writes, edits and ghostwrites books.  timrich.com Photograph by Maxine Silver   A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes Occupied by Tim Rich Episode 88 Occupied by Tim Rich  Tim Rich reads ‘Occupied' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness.This poem is from: Dark Angels: Three Contemporary PoetsAvailable from: Dark Angels is available from: The publisher: Paekakariki Press Amazon: UK... Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Episode 87 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold  Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold.Poet Matthew ArnoldReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessDover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies... Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Orna Ross reads and discusses ‘Recalling Brigid’ from Poet Town.

Episode 87 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/87_Dover_Beach_by_Matthew_Arnold.mp3 Poet Matthew Arnold Reading and commentary by Mark McGuinness Dover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long agoHeard it on the Aegean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night. Podcast Transcript This is a magnificent and haunting poem by Matthew Arnold, an eminent Victorian poet. Written and published at the mid-point of the nineteenth century – it was probably written around 1851 and published in 1867 – it is not only a shining example of Victorian poetry at its best, but it also, and not coincidentally, embodies some of the central preoccupations of the Victorian age. The basic scenario is very simple: a man is looking out at the sea at night and thinking deep thoughts. It's something that we've all done, isn't it? The two tend to go hand-in-hand. When you're looking out into the darkness, listening to the sound of the sea, it's hard not to be thinking deep thoughts. If you've been a long time listener to this podcast, it may remind you of another poet who wrote about standing on the shore thinking deep thoughts, looking at the sea, Shakespeare, in his Sonnet 60: Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,So do our minutes hasten to their end; Arnold's poem is not a sonnet but a poem in four verse paragraphs. They're not stanzas, because they're not regular, but if you look at the text on the website, you can clearly see it's divided into four sections. The first part is a description of the sea, as seen from Dover Beach, which is on the shore of the narrowest part of the English channel, making it the closest part of England to France: The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; – on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. And as you can hear, the poem has a pretty regular and conventional rhythm, based on iambic metre, ti TUM, with the second syllable taking the stress in every metrical unit. But what's slightly unusual is that the lines have varying lengths. By the time we get to the third line: Upon the straits; – on the French coast the light There are five beats. There's a bit of variation in the middle of the line, but it's very recognisable as classic iambic pentameter, which has a baseline pattern going ti TUM, ti TUM, ti TUM, ti TUM, ti TUM. But before we get to the pentameter, we get two short lines: The sea is calm tonight.Only three beats; andThe tide is full, the moon lies fair – four beats. We also start to notice the rhymes: ‘tonight' and ‘light'. And we have an absolutely delightful enjambment, where a phrase spills over the end of one line into the next one: On the French coast the light,Gleams and is gone. Isn't that just fantastic? The light flashes out like a little surprise at the start of the line, just as it's a little surprise for the speaker looking out to sea. OK, once he's set the scene, he makes an invitation: Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! So if there's a window, he must be in a room. There's somebody in the room with him, and given that it's night it could well be a bedroom. So this person could be a lover. It's quite likely that this poem was written on Arnold's honeymoon, which would obviously fit this scenario. But anyway, he's inviting this person to come to the window and listen. And what does this person hear? Well, helpfully, the speaker tells us: Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in. Isn't that just great? The iambic metre is continuing with some more variations, which we needn't go into. And the rhyme is coming more and more to the fore. Just about every line in this section rhymes with another line, but it doesn't have a regular pattern. Some of the rhymes are close together, some are further apart. There's only one line in this paragraph that doesn't rhyme, and that's ‘Listen! You hear the grating roar'. If this kind of shifting rhyme pattern reminds you of something you've heard before, you may be thinking all the way back to Episode 34 where we looked at Coleridge's use of floating rhymes in his magical poem ‘Kubla Khan'. And it's pretty evident that Arnold is also casting a spell, in this case to mimic the rhythm of the waves coming in and going out, as they ‘Begin, and cease, and then again begin,'. And then the wonderful last line of the paragraph, as the waves ‘bring / The eternal note of sadness in'. You know, in the heart of the Victorian Age, when the Romantics were still within living memory, poets were still allowed to do that kind of thing. Try it nowadays of course, and the Poetry Police will be round to kick your front door in at 5am and arrest you. Anyway. The next paragraph is a bit of a jump cut: Sophocles long agoHeard it on the Aegean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; So Arnold, a classical scholar, is letting us know he knows who Sophocles, the ancient Greek playwright was. And he's establishing a continuity across time of people looking out at the sea and thinking these deep thoughts. At this point, Arnold explicitly links the sea and the thinking:                                     weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea. And the thought that we hear when we listen to the waves is what Arnold announces in the next verse paragraph, and he announces it with capital letters: The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. And for a modern reader, I think this is the point of greatest peril for Arnold, where he's most at risk of losing us. We may be okay with ‘the eternal note of sadness', but as soon as he starts giving us the Sea of Faith, we start to brace ourselves. Is this going to turn into a horrible religious allegory, like The Pilgrim's Progress? I mean, it's a short step from the Sea of Faith to the Slough of Despond and the City of Destruction. And it doesn't help that Arnold uses the awkwardly rhyming phrase ‘a bright girdle furled' – that's not going to get past the Poetry Police, is it? But fear not; Arnold doesn't go there. What comes next is, I think, the best bit of the poem. So he says the Sea of Faith ‘was once, too, at the full', and then: But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world. Well, if you thought the eternal note of sadness was great, this tops it! It's absolutely fantastic. That line, ‘Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,' where the ‘it' is faith, the Sea of Faith. And the significance of the line is underlined by the fact that the word ‘roar' is a repetition – remember, that one line in the first section that didn't rhyme? Listen! you hear the grating roar See what Arnold did there? He left that sound hovering at the back of the mind, without a rhyme, until it came back in this section, a subtle but unmistakeable link between the ‘grating roar' of the actual sea at Dover Beach, and the ‘withdrawing roar' of the Sea of Faith: Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Isn't that the most Victorian line ever? It encapsulates the despair that accompanied the crisis of faith in 19th century England. This crisis was triggered by the advance of modern science – including the discoveries of fossils, evidence of mass extinction of previous species, and the theory of evolution, with Darwin's Origin of Species published in 1859, in between the writing and publication of ‘Dover Beach'. Richard Holmes, in his wonderful new biography of the young Tennyson, compares this growing awareness of the nature of life on Earth to the modern anxiety over climate change. For the Victorians, he writes, it created a ‘deep and existential terror'. One thing that makes this passage so effective is that Arnold has already cast the spell in the first verse paragraph, hypnotising us with the rhythm and rhyme, and linking it to the movement of the waves. In the second paragraph, he says, ‘we find also in the sound a thought'. And then in the third paragraph, he tells us the thought. And the thought that he attaches to this movement, which we are by now emotionally invested in, is a thought of such horror and profundity – certainly for his Victorian readers – that the retreat of the sea of faith really does feel devastating. It leaves us gazing down at the naked shingles of the world. The speaker is now imaginatively out of the bedroom and down on the beach. This is very relatable; we've all stood on the beach and watched the waves withdrawing beneath our feet and the shingle being left there. It's an incredibly vivid evocation of a pretty abstract concept. Then, in the fourth and final verse paragraph, comes a bit of a surprise: Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! Well, I for one was not expecting that! From existential despair to an appeal to his beloved. What a delightful, romantic (with a small ‘r') response to the big-picture, existential catastrophe. And for me, it's another little echo of Shakespeare's Sonnet 60, which opens with a poet contemplating the sea and the passing of time and feeling the temptation to despair, yet also ends with an appeal to the consolation of love: And yet to times in hope my verse shall stand,blockquotePraising thy worth, despite his cruel hand. Turning back to Arnold. He says ‘let us be true / To one another'. And then he links their situation to the existential catastrophe, and says this is precisely why they should be true to each other: for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain; It sounds, on the face of it, a pretty unlikely justification for being true to one another in a romantic sense. But actually, this is a very modern stance towards romantic love. It's like the gleam of light that just flashed across the Channel from France – the idea of you and me against an unfeeling world, of love as redemption, or at least consolation, in a meaningless universe. In a world with ‘neither joy, nor love, nor light,' our love becomes all the more poignant and important. Of course, we could easily object that, regardless of religious faith, the world does have joy and love and light. His very declaration of love is evidence of this. But let's face it, we don't always come to poets for logical consistency, do we? And we don't have to agree with Matthew Arnold to find this passage moving; most of us have felt like this at some time when we've looked at the world in what feels like the cold light of reality. He evokes it so vividly and dramatically that I, for one, am quite prepared to go with him on this. Then we get the final three lines of the poem:We are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night. I don't know about you, but I find this a little jarring in the light of what we've just heard. We've had the magnificent description of the sea and its effect on human thought, extending that into the idea of faith receding into illusion, and settling on human love as some kind of consolation for the loss of faith. So why do we need to be transported to a windswept plain where armies are clashing and struggling? It turns out to be another classical reference, to the Greek historian Thucydides' account of the night battle of Epipolae, where the two armies were running around in the dark and some of them ended up fighting their own side in the confusion. I mean, fine, he's a classical scholar. And obviously, it's deeply meaningful to him. But to me, this feels a little bit bolted on. A lot of people love that ending, but to me, it's is not as good as some of the earlier bits, or at least it doesn't quite feel all of a piece with the imagery of the sea. But overall, it is a magnificent poem, and this is a small quibble. Stepping back, I want to have another look at the poem's form, specifically the meter, and even more specifically, the irregularity of the meter, which is quite unusual and actually quite innovative for its time. As I've said, it's in iambic meter, but it's not strictly iambic pentameter. You may recall I did a mini series on the podcast a while ago looking at the evolution of blank verse, unrhymed iambic pentameter, from Christopher Marlowe and Shakespeare's dramatic verse, then Milton's Paradise Lost and finally Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey. ‘Dover Beach' is rhymed, so it's not blank verse, but most of the techniques Arnold uses here are familiar from those other poets, with variations on the basic rhythm, sometimes switching the beats around, and using enjambment and caesura (a break or pause in the middle of the line). But, and – this is quite a big but – not every line has five beats. The lines get longer and shorter in an irregular pattern, apparently according to Arnold's instinct. And this is pretty unusual, certainly for 1851. It's not unique, we could point to bits of Tennyson or Arthur Hugh Clough for metrical experiments in a similar vein, but it's certainly not common practice. And I looked into this, to see what the critics have said about it. And it turns out the scholars are divided. In one camp, the critics say that what Arnold is doing is firmly in the iambic pentameter tradition – it's just one more variation on the pattern. But in the other camp are people who say, ‘No, this is something new; this is freer verse,' and it is anticipating free verse, the non-metrical poetry with no set line lengths that came to be the dominant verse form of the 20th century. Personally, I think you can look back to Wordsworth and see a continuity with his poetic practice. But you could equally look forward, to a link with T. S. Eliot's innovations in ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' and The Waste Land. Eliot is often described as an innovator in free verse, which is true up to a point, but a lot of his writing in that early period isn't strictly free verse; it's a kind of broken up metrical verse, where he often uses an iambic metre with long and short lines, which he varies with great intuitive skill – in a similar manner to Arnold's ‘Dover Beach'. Interestingly, when ‘Dover Beach' was first published, the reviews didn't really talk about the metre, which is ammunition for the people who say, ‘Well, this is just a kind of iambic pentameter'. Personally, I think what we have here is something like the well-known Duck-Rabbit illusion, where you can look at the same drawing and either see a duck or a rabbit, depending how you look at it. So from one angle, ‘Dover Beach' is clearly continuing the iambic pentameter tradition; from another angle, it anticipates the innovations of free verse. We can draw a line from the regular iambic pentameter of Wordsworth (writing at the turn of the 18th and 19th century) to the fractured iambic verse of Eliot at the start of the 20th century. ‘Dover Beach' is pretty well halfway between them, historically and poetically. And I don't think this is just a dry technical development. There is something going on here in terms of the poet's sense of order and disorder, faith and doubt. Wordsworth, in the regular unfolding of his blank verse, conveys his basic trust in an ordered and meaningful universe. Matthew Arnold is writing very explicitly about the breakup of faith, and we can start to see it in the breakup of the ordered iambic pentameter. By the time we get to the existential despair of Eliot's Waste Land, the meter is really falling apart, like the Waste Land Eliot describes. So overall, I think we can appreciate what a finely balanced poem Arnold has written. It's hard to categorise. You read it the first time and think, ‘Oh, right, another conventional Victorian melancholy lament'. But just when we think he's about to go overboard with the Sea of Faith, he surprises us and with that magnificent central passage. And just as he's about to give in to despair, we get that glimmering spark of love lighting up, and we think, ‘Well, maybe this is a romantic poem after all'. And maybe Arnold might look at me over his spectacles and patiently explain that actually, this is why that final metaphor of the clashing armies is exactly right. Friend and foe are running in first one direction, then another, inadvertently killing the people on the wrong side. So the simile gives us that sense of being caught in the cross-currents of a larger sweep of history. With all of that hovering in our mind, let's go over to the window once more and heed his call to listen to the sound of the Victorian sea at Dover Beach. Dover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies fairUpon the straits; on the French coast the lightGleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!Only, from the long line of sprayWhere the sea meets the moon-blanched land,Listen! you hear the grating roarOf pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,At their return, up the high strand,Begin, and cease, and then again begin,With tremulous cadence slow, and bringThe eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long agoHeard it on the Aegean, and it broughtInto his mind the turbid ebb and flowOf human misery; weFind also in the sound a thought,Hearing it by this distant northern sea. The Sea of FaithWas once, too, at the full, and round earth's shoreLay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.But now I only hearIts melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,Retreating, to the breathOf the night-wind, down the vast edges drearAnd naked shingles of the world. Ah, love, let us be trueTo one another! for the world, which seemsTo lie before us like a land of dreams,So various, so beautiful, so new,Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;And we are here as on a darkling plainSwept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,Where ignorant armies clash by night. Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold was a British poet, critic, and public intellectual who was born in 1822 and died in 1888. His father was Thomas Arnold, the famed headmaster of Rugby School. Arnold studied Classics at Oxford and first became known for lyrical, melancholic poems such as ‘Dover Beach', ‘The Scholar-Gipsy', and ‘Thyrsis', that explore the loss of faith in the modern world. Appointed an inspector of schools, he travelled widely and developed strong views on culture, education, and society. His critical essays, especially Culture and Anarchy, shaped debates about the role of culture in public life. Arnold remains a central figure bridging Romanticism and early modern thought. A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Episode 87 Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘Dover Beach' by Matthew Arnold.Poet Matthew ArnoldReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessDover Beach By Matthew Arnold The sea is calm tonight.The tide is full, the moon lies... Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Orna Ross reads and discusses ‘Recalling Brigid’ from Poet Town. From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Episode 85 From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Mark McGuinness reads and discusses a passage from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Poet Samuel Taylor ColeridgeReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessFrom...

Episode 86 Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Orna Ross reads ‘Recalling Brigid' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness. https://media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/media.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/content.blubrry.com/amouthfulofair/86_Recalling_Brigid_by_Orna_Ross.mp3 This poem is from: Poet Town: The Poetry of Hastings & Thereabouts edited by Richard Newham Sullivan Available from: Poet Town is available from: The publisher: Moth Light Press Amazon: UK | US Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Queen of queens, they called herin the old books, the Irish Mary.Never washed her hands, nor her headin sight of a man, never lookedinto a man's face. She was goodwith the poor, multiplied food,gave ale to lepers. Among birds,call her dove; among trees, a vine.A sun among stars. Such was the sort of womanpreferred as the takeover was made:consecrated cask, throne to His glory,intercessor. Brigid said nothing to any of this,the reverence, or the upbraidings.Her realm is the lacuna,silence her sceptre,her own way of life its own witness. Out of desire, the lure of lustor the dust of great deeds,she was distorted:to consort, mother-virgin,to victim or whore. I am not as womanlya woman as she.So I say: Let us see.Let us say how she is the one. It is she who conceivesand she who does bear.She who knitted us in the womband who will cradle our tomb-fraying. Daily she offers her arms,clothes us in compassion,smiles as we wrigglefor baubles. Yes, it is she who lifts you aloftto whisper through your ears,to kiss your eyes,to touch her coolingcheek to your cheek. Interview transcript Mark: Orna, where did this poem come from? Orna: Hi Mark. Yeah, so it's one of a collection that I'm working on, around Irish women from history and myth. And these are women that I grew up with, as a young person, receiving a sort of a typical Irish education, if you like. Orna: And so some of them are saints, some of them are mythological people. Well, saints are also mythological people! Some of them are historical figures who've been mythologized. And I just wanted to go back in and do my own exploration of each of these women because everybody else had. So I've been gathering these poems over a long time, but it actually started with this one. It started with Brigid. And Brigid is a figure from ancient Irish mythology. And she was Christianized into a Roman Catholic saint. She is the patron saint of Ireland. One of. You've probably heard of the other one. Patrick. You probably haven't heard of this one: Brigid. And, so many things have been projected on her. And it's interesting to read what, what survives of what is written about her because what's written earlier on in time is quite different to what's written later on. And she continues to be an inspiration. Her feast day is the first day of spring in Ireland, which in Ireland is the first day of February. It's much earlier than it is in England. And she's just an interesting, personification of the female virtues as they've been perceived over time. Mark: So you said she was written about differently in earlier times to more recent times, which I think is pertinent to how you're exploring that in the poem. So maybe you could just give us a brief summary of that. Orna: Yes. So I, the poem refers to ‘the takeover'. And by that, I kind of mean the Christian, but hand in hand with Christian goes the patriarchal, takeover of old images of women in general. And Brigid is part of that. So earlier, renditions about her tend to focus on her as a healer, as a wise woman, as a very compassionate person, ‘ale to lepers' is one of the, images in the poem. Whereas later versions tend to emphasize her holiness and her saintliness and, her goodness and I suppose what we would typically think is a good, religious, icon. So it's interesting just to read how that changes and differs as we go. And she also then had her detractors, which is where we get to the ideas, about women generally that are in the poem – the consort, mother, victim, whore, those kinds of ideas. You see them brushing against Brigid over time, but she comes through intact actually, as a woman in her own right. And these don't tend to stick to her as they have stuck to others. Mark: And sometimes when poets use mythological figures like this, there's a kind of a critique of, ‘Well, that's a little bit old fashioned, it's poetry with a capital P'. But reading this and listening to you, it kind of really underlines to me that mythology and religion are really quite present in Ireland. Orna: Oh, gosh, yes! The past is very present in Ireland still, in lots of ways. And. It's interesting. I suppose it's something to do with being a small island on the very edge of, in inverted commas, civilization. Although the Irish like to think they civilized Europe during the dark ages by sending our saints and our scholarship, our images of people like Brigid, the truth is that old ways lingered on a long time, and particularly the part of Ireland where I grew up. So, I grew up in County Wexford down in the small bottom right-hand corner, the very southeast tip of Ireland. Around it, there is a river and a small hill that kind of cuts that area off. And around County Wexford in general, there are larger hills and a big river that cuts Wexford off. So they tended to travel by sea more than road, people from that part of the world. And it was the first part of Ireland to be conquered the Norman conquest and, Old English lingered there right up until, well, there are still words that are used in Wexford that aren't used elsewhere. Carols and songs as well. So other parts of Ireland and, obviously England, had moved on, it but kind of got stuck there. So I'm just kind of pointing up the fact that yes, things stayed, passed on in an oral kind of culture and an oral tradition. And hedge schools and such like, long after such things had faded away in other parts of Europe. Mark: And you say Old English rather than Irish was lingering? Orna: That's right. And, because they had, well, the Normans came to England first Hastings, actually where I live now. One of the reasons I'm here, I think is that I felt a lot of similarities between here and Wexford and I think the Norman invasion in both places, it was part of that. So yeah, a hundred years after the Normans landed in Hastings, they were brought over to Wexford by an Irish chieftain to help him win one of his battles with another Irish chieftain. So English came with the Normans to Ireland. Mark: Right. And this is another amazing thing about Ireland, is the kind of the different layers, like archaeological layers of language. You've got Irish, you've got Old English, you've got Norman French, you've got Latin from the church, you've got Norse from the Vikings and so on. It's incredibly rich. Orna: Yes. More diverse, I think. And again, because of its cut off nature, these things lasted longer, I think, because that's also true of England, but the overlay is stronger and so they don't make their way through. Mark: Right, right. And the ghosts can peep through. So, okay, that's the historical cultural context. What does Brigid mean to you and why did you choose her as the first figure in this sequence? Orna: She chose me, I think. I very much feel this poem, you know, some poems are made and some arrive and this one arrived. I wanted to do something to celebrate her. That was all I knew because it was the first day of spring, which I always loved, that first day of February. You know, when winter is really beginning to bite and you feel, I mean, there is no sign of spring except some crocuses maybe peeking up and, uh, a few spring flowers making a little promise. But usually the weather is awful, but it's the first day of spring and it's, been a really important day for me from that point of view. And then the fact that it does, you know, the fact that Patrick is such a great big deal everywhere and Brigid isn't known at all. So that's kind of where I started and I just knew I'd like to write a poem. And then it was one of those ones that I, if I had set out to write a poem about Brigid, I don't think this is what I would have written. It just arrived. And I found that I was thinking about lots of things and as the first poem of this sequence, I wanted to say some of the things about womanhood in the poem, and I, well, I realised I did, because that's what emerged. So for me, it's very much about that kind of quiet aspect of, so, you know, we've got feminism, which talks very much about women's rights to do whatever it is they want to do in the outer world. But for me, she, in this poem, represents the inner, the quiet virtues, if you like, always there for us. We're not always there for them, but they're always there and active in our lives all the time, and I wanted to celebrate that in the poem. So that's what, you know, I got, the rough draft just came pouring out, and that's what I found myself wanting to bring out. Mark: And the title, ‘Recalling Brigid', you know, I was thinking about that word ‘recalling', because it could mean ‘remembering', but it could also mean ‘calling' or ‘summoning'. Orna: Yes, deliberately chosen for both of those meanings, yes, very well spotted there, poetry reader. Mark: Well, you know, this is a very ancient function of poetry, isn't it? And it's where it kind of shades into charm or spells, to summon, or invoke a spirit or some kind of otherworldly creature or being. Orna: Absolutely. I think you've got the heart of what the poem is trying to do there. It is about calling forth, something, as I say, that's there, that we're all, you know, is there for all of us in our lives, but that we're not always aware of it. And our culture actively stifles it, and makes it seem like it's less important than it is. And so, yes, very much exactly all the words, the beautiful words you've just used there. I was hoping this poem would tap into that. Mark: Very much. And, you know, the beginning, ‘Queen of Queens, they called her'. So presumably this is in the old pre-Christian days, ‘they called her'. So there's that word ‘calling' again, and you give us the kind of the gloss, ‘in the old books, the Irish Mary'. And then you introduce the takeover: ‘such was the sort of woman / preferred as the takeover was made:' And then you get the other version. And then you've got: ‘Brigid said nothing to any of this,' which I think is really wonderful that she keeps – so you've gone from ‘they' in the past, ‘what they called her'. And then Brigid keeping her own counsel about this. She said nothing to any of this, ‘the reverence, or the upbraidings'. And then we get you where you say, ‘I am not as womanly / a woman as she. / So I say: let us see. / Let us say how she is the one. // It is she who conceives, and she who does bear.' Lovely, beautiful repetitions and shifts in there. So you really, you step forward into the poem at that point. Orna: I really wanted to, to place myself in relation to, to her and to all the women in this collection. Which isn't out yet, by the way, it's not finished. So I've got another three to go. No, I really wanted to place myself in relation to the women in the poems. That was an important part of the project for me. And I do that, you know, lots of different ways. But this poem, the first one is very much about, I suppose, calling out, you know, the ‘recalling' that you were talking about there a few moments ago, calling out the qualities. That we tend to overlook and that are attributed to Brigid as a womanly woman. And so, yeah, that's, that's what I was saying. I'm more of a feminist woman who is regarded by some as less womanly. so there is a, that's an interesting debate for me. That's a very interesting, particularly now at this time, I think, it's very interesting to talk about, you know, what is a feminist and what is feminism. And I personally believe in feminisms, lots of different, you know, it's multiple sort of thing. But these poems are born of a, you know, a feminist poet's sensibility without a doubt. So in this first one, I just wanted to call out, you know, the womanly virtues, if you like. Mark: Yeah. So I get a sense of you kind of starting as a tuning fork for different ideas and voices, calling her different things. And then you shift into, ‘Let us see. / Let us say…' I love the description earlier on where you said it's a celebration because by the end of the poem, it really is. It's all her attributes, isn't it? ‘It is she who conceives / and she who does bear.' And so on. Again, how easy was it for you to let go and, and, and step into that? Because it's kind of a thing that it's a little bit, it's not what we associate with modern poetry, is it? Orna: No, not at all. Not at all. But I had to ages ago, give up on modern poetry. If I wanted to write poetry, I had to drop so much, so much that I learned, you know, English Lit. was my original degree. And, you know, I, I was in love with poetry from a very young age. So, I learned everything I could about everything. And then I had to drop it all because I didn't write, I didn't write any poems between the end of my teens and my early forties when I lost a very dear friend. And then when I went on, shortly afterwards to, develop breast cancer. So those two things together unlocked the poetry gates and poems came again. And the kind of poems that came, very often were not, poems that they're not fashionable in that sense. You know, they're not what poetry tends to be. And from that point, in our time, if you like, some are, some, some do come that way, but an awful lot don't. And, for that reason, I'm just so entirely delighted to be able to self-publish because they speak to readers and say they communicate. And to me, that's what matters. And I don't have to worry about being accepted by a poetry establishment at all. I don't spend any time whatsoever thinking about that. I work at the craft, but I, it's for myself and for the poem and for the reader, but not to please anybody that, you know, would be a gatekeeper of any kind. Mark: Well, some listeners will know this – you are very much known as a champion of opportunity and diversity in publishing for writers and self-publishing, independent publishing, however you call it. But I think what I'd like to focus on here is the fact that, you know, by writing a poem like this, you highlight the conventions that we have in modern poetry. And it's easy to see the conventions of the past, but maybe not so much the ones in the present. And I love the fact that you've just sidestepped that or ignored that and written the poem that came to you. Orna: Yes. Yes, very much did and do. And like I said, I don't spend, I did at one time spend time thinking about this, but I spend absolutely no time now thinking about this at all. Mark: That's so refreshing to hear! [Laughter] Orna: No, it's, it's great. It's certainly a liberation. I think very much about the poem and what the poem needs and wants from me. And I make mistakes. I, you know, I don't do well on some poems. I go back, rewrite, sometimes years later, sometimes after they're published. so yeah. It's not that I don't think about form or structure or, you know, all of the things that poets think about but I only think about the master, you know, is the poem itself or the reader possibly or the communication between the bridge between me and the reader, something like that. But yeah, it's liberating for sure. Mark: And how did that play out in this poem? I mean, how close is this to the original draft that came to you? Orna: It's one of the poems that's closest to the original. It kind of arrived and I didn't want to play with it too much at all. So yeah, it, I just left it be. I let it be what I wanted to be because for me there are echoes in this poem as well of Old Irish poetry and ways of writing. you know, that if you, I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of reading Old Irish poetry in translation? Mark: Yes. Orna: So, you know, that sense of I'm reading something from a completely different mind. It's, it isn't just that the, you know, the structures are different or whatever. It's like the whole mind and sensibility is something else. And that was one of the things I wanted to slightly have to retain in this poem. You know, I felt that it, it carries some of that forward and I wanted to, to leave it there as an echo. Mark: Yeah. Quite a lot of those Old Irish poems have a kind of a litany, a list of attributes of the poet or their beloved or the divine being that they're evoking. And that comes across very strongly here. Orna: Yeah, definitely. That's sort of a list of, which to the modern ear can sound obvious and, you know, just not poetry really. So yeah, I think that's one of the qualities that it carries. Mark: And I love the kind of the incantatory repetitive thing. Like I was saying about the, ‘So I say: let us see. / Let us say', and then ‘It is she… It is she… she who', you know, it just carries you along. It's got a hypnotic quality to it. Orna: Yes. And the she part, you know, the emphasizing the feminine, I suppose, touch of the divine feminine, but very much the physical feminine, and activities as well. So, you know, women held the role of birth and death very much in Irish culture again, up to really quite recently. I remember that, in my own youth and okay, I am getting on a bit, but, it's still, you know, it was quite late in time where, women did the laying out for burial. They did the keening of the, the wake, all of that. I remember very well. so at the beginning and end of life at the thresholds, if you like, that was a woman's job. And, that was lost, I think in the takeover. But I still think all the emotional labour around those thresholds are still very much held by women, you know, silently and quietly. And yeah, Brigid doesn't shout about it, but in this poem, I want to call it. Mark: Yeah. Recall it. Okay. And then let's go back to Hastings, which we touched on earlier, because this, okay. It's, it's going to be in your collection. It's been published in a wonderful anthology poetry from Hastings called Poet Town. Tell us a bit about that book and how you came to be involved. Orna: Yeah. So I heard about it and, Richard [Newham Sullivan] wonderful, poet and, publisher and general literary person. He now lives in New York, but he grew up in Hastings and lived here for many years. And it was a kind of a homesickness project he told me later, for him just. But he carried the idea in his mind for a very long time. He wanted to, he knew that there was an incredible, poetic history in Hastings, which people were not aware of. So Hastings is very well known. Hastings and St. Leonard's, where I live, both are very well known as arty kind of towns. Visual arts are very, very visible here, and all sorts of marvellous things going on, and music as well, there's brilliant Fat Tuesday music festival every year, but there's also, there's classical music, music in the pubs, music coming out your ears, literally. But very little about the literary life that goes on here, and lots of writers living here. And so Richard wanted to just bring forward the poetry side of that. And so he decided it's a passion project for him. He decided to, he worked with the publisher, a small publisher here, in Hastings for it. It's Moth Light Press. And he set out to gather as many living poets into one collection as he could. And this is where I was interested because as, I'm a historical novelist as well, so history is big for me, and I was really interested in the history, you know, the history and the poets who had lived here. There were quite a few. It's not every day you find yourself in an anthology with Lord Byron and Keats, and, two Rossetti's! So that was a joy, discovering all the poets who, had a connection to Hastings back to, I think he went back to the early 1800s with it. So, yeah, it's been a huge success, and, people are loving the book, and it has really brought poetry, brought pride, I think, to the poetry community in the town, which is lovely. Mark: Yeah, I'm really enjoying it, and I love the fact that it's got the old and the new. Because, of course, that's what I do here on A Mouthful of Air. I always think the ghosts of poetry past are always present in the work of the living. I hadn't realized what a deep and rich poetic history Hastings had. So, yeah, Poet Town, a great anthology. Do check that out while you're waiting for Orna's sequence to come to light. And Orna, thank you so much for sharing such a remarkable poem and distinctive take on the poet's craft. And I think this would be a good point to listen to the poem again, and appreciate your praise and celebration once more. Orna: Thanks so much, Mark, for having me. I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Queen of queens, they called herin the old books, the Irish Mary.Never washed her hands, nor her headin sight of a man, never lookedinto a man's face. She was goodwith the poor, multiplied food,gave ale to lepers. Among birds,call her dove; among trees, a vine.A sun among stars. Such was the sort of womanpreferred as the takeover was made:consecrated cask, throne to His glory,intercessor. Brigid said nothing to any of this,the reverence, or the upbraidings.Her realm is the lacuna,silence her sceptre,her own way of life its own witness. Out of desire, the lure of lustor the dust of great deeds,she was distorted:to consort, mother-virgin,to victim or whore. I am not as womanlya woman as she.So I say: Let us see.Let us say how she is the one. It is she who conceivesand she who does bear.She who knitted us in the womband who will cradle our tomb-fraying. Daily she offers her arms,clothes us in compassion,smiles as we wrigglefor baubles. Yes, it is she who lifts you aloftto whisper through your ears,to kiss your eyes,to touch her coolingcheek to your cheek. Poet Town: The Poetry of Hastings & Thereabouts ‘Recalling Brigid' is from Poet Town: The Poetry of Hasting & Thereabouts, published by Moth Light Press. Available from: Poet Town is available from: The publisher: Moth Light Press Amazon: UK | US Orna Ross Orna Ross is an award-winning poet and novelist. Her poetry, rooted in Irish heritage and mindfulness practice, explores love, loss, creativity, and spiritual renewal through a female lens. As founder-director of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), she champions creative freedom for poets and writers. Her forthcoming collection, And Then Came the Beginning—Poems of Iconic Irish Women, Ancient and Modern—is available for pre-order at OrnaRoss.com/TheBeginning. A Mouthful of Air – the podcast This is a transcript of an episode of A Mouthful of Air – a poetry podcast hosted by Mark McGuinness. New episodes are released every other Tuesday. You can hear every episode of the podcast via Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts or your favourite app. You can have a full transcript of every new episode sent to you via email. The music and soundscapes for the show are created by Javier Weyler. Sound production is by Breaking Waves and visual identity by Irene Hoffman. A Mouthful of Air is produced by The 21st Century Creative, with support from Arts Council England via a National Lottery Project Grant. Listen to the show You can listen and subscribe to A Mouthful of Air on all the main podcast platforms Related Episodes Recalling Brigid by Orna Ross Orna Ross reads and discusses ‘Recalling Brigid’ from Poet Town. From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Episode 85 From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge Mark McGuinness reads and discusses a passage from ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.Poet Samuel Taylor ColeridgeReading and commentary by Mark McGuinnessFrom... Alchemy by Gregory Leadbetter Episode 84 Alchemy by Gregory Leadbetter Gregory Leadbetter reads ‘Alchemy' and discusses the poem with Mark McGuinness.This poem is from: The Infernal Garden by Gregory LeadbetterAvailable from: The Infernal Garden is available from: The publisher: Nine Arches...

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