RAIN..................

 
paintings by 
Spyros Vassiliou, born 1903

  in Galaxidi, a village in Central Greece

A poem;
Rain by Shel Silverstein 

I opened my eyes
And looked up at the rain,
And it dripped in my head
And flowed into my brain,
And all that I hear as I lie in my bed
Is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

I step very softly,
I walk very slow,
I can't do a handstand--
I might overflow,
So pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
I'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.

 

Poetry Wednesday; to the Hudson, Elizabeth Oakes-Stokes

Robert Fulton's (1765-1815) steamboat the Clermont, on the Hudson River, New York, 1861
Richard Varick De Witt

(1800-1868

This is not the sort of poem that usually appeals to me, but this one did.

To the Hudson
  by: Elizabeth Oakes-Smith (1806-1893)

 

  
O RIVER! gently as a wayward child
I saw thee mid the moonlight hills at rest;
Capricious thing, with thine own beauty wild,
How didst thou still the throbbings of thy breast!
Rude headlands were about thee, stooping round,
As if amid the hills to hold thy stay;
But thou didst hear the far-off ocean sound
Inviting thee from hill and vale away,
To mingle thy deep waters with its own;
And, at that voice, thy steps did onward glide,
Onward from echoing hill and valley lone.
Like thine, oh, be my course--nor turned aside,
While listening to the soundings of a land,
That like the ocean call invites me to its strand. 
 

Poetry Wednesday; Nest Eggs, Robert Louis Stevenson

    Poetry Wednesday; remaining with the seasonal subject of EGGS

Nest Eggs
By Robert Louis Stevenson
Illustrated by Myrtle Sheldon
From 'A Childs Garden Verse'. 

Birds all the summer day
    Flutter and quarrel
Here in the arbour-like
    Tent of the laurel.

Here in the fork
    The brown nest is seated;
For little blue eggs
    The mother keeps heated.

While we stand watching her
    Staring like gabies,
Safe in each egg are the
    Bird's little babies.

Soon the frail eggs they shall
    Chip, and upspringing
Make all the April woods
    Merry with singing.

Younger than we are,
    O children, and frailer,
Soon in the blue air they'll be,
    Singer and sailor.

We, so much older,
    Taller and stronger,
We shall look down on the
    Birdies no longer.

They shall go flying
    With musical speeches
High overhead in the
    Tops of the beeches.

In spite of our wisdom
    And sensible talking,
We on our feet must go
    Plodding and walking.

Poetry wednesday; If I were a bear..........

I am so cold, it shouldn't be this cold, wet or windy in April........................

If I were a bear,
And a big bear too,
I shouldn't much care
If it froze or snew;
I shouldn't much mind
If it snowed or friz--
I'd be all fur-lined
With a coat like his!

For i'd have fur boots and a brown fur wrap,
And brown fur knickers and a big fur cap.
I'd have a fur muffle-ruff to cover my jaws.

And brown fur mittens on my big brown paws.
With a big brown furry-down up to my head,
I'd sleep all the winter in a big fur bed.

Poetry Wednesday; Very early Spring, Katherine Mansfield

Katherine Mansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp, in 1888, into a socially prominent family from New Zealand. She was born into a middle class family and was first cousin of author Countess Elizabeth von Arnim. Her father, Harold Beauchamp, went on to become the chairman of the Bank of New Zealand and was also knighted. The Mansfield family moved to Karori in 1893, where she would spend the happiest years of her childhood; she later used her memories of this time as an inspiration for her work

Very Early Spring by
Katherine Mansfield

The fields are snowbound no longer;
There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
The snow has been caught up into the sky--
So many white clouds--and the blue of the sky is cold.
Now the sun walks in the forest,
He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
They shiver, and wake from slumber.
Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears....
A wind dances over the fields.
Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
Yet the little blue lakes tremble
And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.


Artist Moy Mackay was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1966. She graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1990 with a BA (Hons) degree in Design. Since then, she has lived and worked in the Scottish Borders.

Poetry Wednesday; Winter Seascape

Winter Seascape
 by John Betjeman

The sea runs back against itself
With scarcely time for breaking wave
To cannonade a slatey shelf
And thunder under in a cave.

Before the next can fully burst
The headwind, blowing harder still,
Smooths it to what it was at first -
A slowly rolling water-hill.

Against the breeze the breakers haste,
Against the tide their ridges run
And all the sea's a dappled waste
Criss-crossing underneath the sun.

Far down the beach the ripples drag
Blown backward, rearing from the shore,
And wailing gull and shrieking shag
Alone can pierce the ocean roar.

Unheard, a mongrel hound gives tongue,
Unheard are shouts of little boys;
What chance has any inland lung
Against this multi-water noise?

Here where the cliffs alone prevail
I stand exultant, neutral, free,
And from the cushion of the gale
Behold a huge consoling sea.

http://www.johnbetjeman.com/

John Betjeman

a short biography

When John Betjeman’s Collected Poems came out in 1958 they made publishing history and have since sold over two and a quarter million copies.

But Betjeman was not only a poet. Through his broadcasting and journalism he opened people’s eyes to the value of the buildings and landscape around them and became Britain’s grand champion of its heritage. 

Paintings by Sir Peter Scott:

a short biography
http://www.wwt.org.uk/about-us/our-founder

 He foresaw that conservation of wildlife depends on safeguarding habitats and, crucially, on involving and inspiring peopl. Long before it became widely acknowledged, WWT's founder Sir Peter Scott recognised the threat human activity poses to the environment. He foresaw that conservation of wildlife depends on safeguarding habitats and, crucially, on involving and inspiring people. The wetland centres he set up provide more than a sanctuary; they allow people to get up close to, enjoy and learn about wildlife. He remained at the forefront of conservation throughout his life. In 1973 he became the first person to be knighted for services to conservation, and his legacy continues to break new ground.

Sir Peters paintings

As a young man, Sir Peter established himself as a leading wildlife artist. His scientific interest developed in parallel to his artistic interest, a balance that was a theme of his life. His final painting, left unfinished on its easel, is of his vision for the WWT London Wetland Centre bringing wetland wildlife to the heart of the city. London Wetland Centre opened 11 years later and is respected worldwide as a model for urban conservation.

Poetry; Snowdrop

Snowdrop Carpet by Tracy Butler contemporary Scottish painter

William Wordsworth


TO A SNOWDROP

LONE Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they
But hardier far, once more I see thee bend
Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend,
Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day,
Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay
The rising sun, and on the plains descend;
Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend
Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May
Shall soon behold this border thickly set
With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing
On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers;
Nor will I then thy modest grace forget,
Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring,
And pensive monitor of fleeting years!

1819.
Snowdrop Banks by John McSorely

 

Poetry Wednesday; Grace Nichols, artwork by Chris Ofili

Grace Nichols

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia;

Poet Grace Nichols was born in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1950. After working in Guyana as a teacher and journalist, she immigrated to the UK in 1977. Much of her poetry is characterised by Caribbean rhythms and culture, and influenced by Guyanese and Amerindian folklore.

Her first collection of poetry, I is a Long-Memoried Woman won the 1983 Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She has written several further books of poetry and a novel for adults, Whole of a Morning Sky, 1986. Her books for children include collections of short stories and poetry anthologies. Her latest work, of new and selected poems, is "Startling the Flying Fish", 2006.  Many GCSE students in the UK have studied her work on WWII. Her religion is Christianity after she was influenced by the UK's many religions and multi-cultural society.

 Poems from

The Fat Black Woman's Poems
by Grace Nichols

Synopsis;

Grace Nichols gives us images that stare us straight in the eye, images of joy, challenge, accusation. Her 'fat black woman' is brash; rejoices in herself; poses awkward questions to politicians, rulers, suitors, to a white world that still turns its back. Grace Nichols writes in a language that is wonderfully vivid yet economical of the pleasures and sadnesses of memory, of loving, of 'the power to be what I am, a woman, charting my own futures'.

The Fat Black Woman Goes Shopping

 
Shopping in London winter
is a real drag for the fat black woman
going from store to store
in search of accommodating clothes
and de weather so cold

Look at the frozen thin mannequins
fixing her with grin
and de pretty face salesgals
exchanging slimming glances
thinking she don’t notice
 
Lord is aggravating
 
Nothing soft and bright and billowing
to flow like breezy sunlight
when she walking

The fat black woman curses in Swahili/Yoruba
and nation language under her breathing
all this journeying and journeying
 
The fat black woman could only conclude
that when it come to fashion
the choice is lean
 
Nothing much beyond size 14
 
 

Looking at Miss World

 
Tonight the fat black woman
is all agaze
will some Miss (plump at least
if not fat and black) uphold her name
 
The fat black woman awaits in vain
slim after slim aspirant appears
baring her treasures in hopeful despair
this the fat black woman can hardly bear

And as the beauties yearn
and the beauties yearn
the fat black woman wonders
when will the beauties
ever really burn
 
O the night wears on
the night wears on
judges mingling with chiffons

The fat black woman gets up
and pours some gin
toasting herself as a likely win

Art work by Chris Ofili

Chris Ofili's new show is a lesson in learning to be free. Not of the shadows cast by other artists, but of his own. Early success makes some artists grow scared of their shadows; they get so stuck with the thing they have become known for that they are paralysed, unable to find a way forward.

Now in his early 40s, the Trinidad-based British artist recognises that the coherent development of his work isn't something he need worry about. He is centred and confident enough to know that the work will tell the story. At the end of the 1990s, having become famous for using his signature elephant dung for some years, Ofili told me he was retreating to the studio and staying out of the limelight. By then he had won the Turner prize (in 1998; he was the first black artist to do so), and been vilified by New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who in 1999 objected to the Brooklyn Museum of Art showing his black Virgin Mary.
But he didn't escape attention or controversy: in 2005, Tate bought Ofili's 2002 work The Upper Room, a complex installation of 13 paintings in a shrine-like space, designed by the architect David Adjaye. Ofili was a Tate trustee at the time.
Read more here


http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jan/25/chris-ofili-tate

 

Poetry Wednsday; Edward Lear, author, poet and artist.

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear
a poem by Edward Lear

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear,
Who has written such volumes of stuff.
Some think him ill-tempered and queer,
But a few find him pleasant enough.

His mind is concrete and fastidious,
His nose is remarkably big;
His visage is more or less hideous,
His beard it resembles a wig.

He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers,
(Leastways if you reckon two thumbs);
He used to be one of the singers,
But now he is one of the dumbs.

He sits in a beautiful parlour,
With hundreds of books on the wall;
He drinks a great deal of marsala,
But never gets tipsy at all.

He has many friends, laymen and clerical,
Old Foss is the name of his cat;
His body is perfectly spherical,
He weareth a runcible hat.

When he walks in waterproof white,
The children run after him so!
Calling out, "He's gone out in his night-
Gown, that crazy old Englishman, oh!"

He weeps by the side of the ocean,
He weeps on the top of the hill;
He purchases pancakes and lotion,
And chocolate shrimps from the mill.

He reads, but he does not speak, Spanish,
He cannot abide ginger beer;
Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish,
How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!
 

Edward Lear
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born 12 May 1812 Holloway, England
Died 29 January 1888 (aged 75) Sanremo, Italy

Edward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.Lear was born into a middle-class family in the village of Holloway, the 21st child of Ann and Jeremiah Lear. He was raised by his eldest sister, also named Ann, 21 years his senior. Ann doted on Lear and continued to mother him until her death, when Lear was almost 50 years of age. Due to the family's failing financial fortune, at age four he and his sister had to leave the family home and set up house together.

Largely self-educated, Lear has been described as idiosyncratic yet brilliantly talented. Lear also suffered from health issues. From the age of six he suffered frequent grand mal epileptic seizures, and bronchitis, asthma, and in later life, partial blindness. Lear experienced his first seizure at a fair near Highgate with his father. The event scared and embarrassed him. Lear felt lifelong guilt and shame for his epileptic condition. His adult diaries indicate that he always sensed the onset of a seizure in time to remove himself from public view. How Lear was able to anticipate them is not known, but many people with epilepsy report a ringing in their ears or an "aura" before the onset of a seizure. In Lear's time epilepsy was believed to be associated with demonic possession, which contributed to his feelings of guilt and loneliness. When Lear was about seven he began to show signs of depression, possibly due to the constant instability of his childhood. He suffered from periods of severe depression which he referred to as "the Morbids."

Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in Sanremo, on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named "Villa Tennyson." The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman 46 years his junior, which were not accepted. For companions he relied instead on a circle of friends and correspondents, and especially, in later life, on his Suliot chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef. Another trusted companion in Sanremo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson. After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888, of the heart disease from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to be a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear's physician, not one of Lear's many lifelong friends being able to attend.