Michael Longley's Poem: Ceasefire

Image by Colin Davidson

A couple years ago a friend of mine sent me a YouTube clip of a poetry reading by Michael Longley, Ireland Professor of Poetry from 2007–2010. The subject of the poem revolved around the clandestine meeting between King Priam of Troy and Achilles, the warrior who killed and kept the body of Priam’s son, Hector. For some reason the poem has been on my mind for the last month, and so I thought I would post it here for others to also enjoy.

The poem, Longley states, was inspired by a declaration of an IRA ceasefire in the mid ‘90s. At the time Longley happened to be reading Homer’s Iliad—an epic poem about the conflict between the Achaeans and Trojans. The combination of these events produced Longley’s poem, Ceasefire. 

Here is a very brief backstory. Achilles and Hector battled blade-to-blade and Hector fell. Achilles strapped the corpse to his chariot and ruthlessly drug it through the dust back to camp. Priam, later guided safely by Hermes to Achilles’ tent, woefully pleaded with the warrior to return his son’s body to him. Pope renders a beautiful but solemn plea to Achilles by Priam for his son’s body:

“Think of thy father, and this helpless face behold
See him in me, as helpless and as old!
Though not so wretched: there he yields to me,
The first of men in sovereign misery!
Thus forced to kneel, thus groveling to embrace
The scourge and ruin of my realm and race;
Suppliant my children’s murderer to implore,
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore!”

Longley’s poem, written in 1994, is his depiction of the same events recorded in the Iliad. His is a four part poem consisting of three unrhymed quatrains and a powerful concluding rhyming couplet. The poem wants to elicit a sense of empathy on the part of Achilles, his ultimate willingness to concede to Priam’s pleas, and Priam’s willingness to humble himself—even before an enemy—to achieve a higher goal.

I imagine that the notion of mutual self-abasement and even a sympathetic understanding in order to achieve a higher and more noble end was in Longley’s mind when scripting this work out. These dispositions certainly seem a prerequisite to any meaningful ceasefire whether it manifests itself in a contemporary armistice, or whether it does so in a temporary annulment of conflict somewhere near the ancient shores of Troy.

Below is Longley’s poem along with his reading of it. Hope you enjoy them both.
Ceasefire

I

Put in mind of his own father and moved to tears

Achilles took him by the hand and pushed the old king

Gently away, but Priam curled up at his feet and

Wept with him until their sadness filled the building.

II

Taking Hector's corpse into his own hands Achilles

Made sure it was washed and, for the old king's sake,

Laid out in uniform, ready for Priam to carry

Wrapped like a present home to Troy at daybreak.

III

When they had eaten together, it pleased them both

To stare at each other's beauty as lovers might,

Achilles built like a god, Priam good-looking still

And full of conversation, who earlier had sighed:

IV

'I get down on my knees and do what must be done

And kiss Achilles' hand, the killer of my son.'

Einstein and Apple Pi

“Pure mathematics is in its way the poetry of logical ideas.” Albert Einstein (born this day in 1879)

Hope everyone had a nice Pi Day … 3.14

Edward Rodeson Taylor: The Poet and The Poem

I have, of late, steeped myself in a depth-study of a poet most people seem to be unaware of. Edward Robeson Taylor is an incredibly talented and prolific writer of sonnets. His sonnet of choice seems to be the French and the Italian forms. I intend to elaborate a little more in detail on this poet in an upcoming blog post, until then I thought I would share a couple of his short poems. 

As a side note, and I have mentioned this elsewhere, I am nothing less than astounded when it comes to how much content can be expressed in just a few smart lines of a poem. This astonishment is what first drew me to poetry, and the beauty of so many works read have since then kept me captive. 

The Poet

He crushed his heart for wine of song

The sordid souls of men to glad,

By him passed the scoffing throng,

Nor dreamed he was divinely mad. 

—Edward Robeson Taylor

The Poem

All Beauty’s magic-weaving airs

Blow through the Poet’s answering soul, 

Til thrilled with ecstasy he dares
The building of some flawless whole.  —Edward Robeson Taylor

Warfare in Homer's Iliad

In no manner do I glorify warfare, nor am I a devout pacifist. I have mentioned before that the prospect and reality of warfare both horrifies and fascinates me at the same time. I cannot fathom the fact that we have it in ourselves to utterly vanquish one another by means of brutality that darkly transcends the violence we see in the animal kingdom; and at the same time, the methods and strategic means by which we wage war, the competitive ebb and flow of it, intrigues my imagination. Devoid of any morbid fascinations with warfare, it utterly amazes me every time I read passages from Homer’s Iliad how descriptive and poetically visual he renders the violent acts of combat. One of my all time favorite quotes from the Iliad, as I have mentioned in the past, comes from Book 7, lines 275–281:

“War—I know it well, and the butchery of men

Well I know, shift to the left, shift to the right

My tough tanned shield. That’s what the real drill

Defensive fighting means to me. I know it all

How to charge in the rush of plunging horses—

I know how to stand and fight to the finish

Twist and lunge in the War-god’s deadly dance.”

Inasmuch as Homer’s descriptive passages are concerned, and with regard to the language he uses to make their violent acts visibly accessible, below are a hand full that I found to be especially impressive.

“With that he hurled and Athena drove the shaft and it split the archer’s nose between the eye—it cracked his glistening teeth, the tough bronze cut off his tongue at the roots, smashed his jaw and the point came ripping out beneath his chin. He pitched from his car, armour clanged against him, a glimmering blaze af metal dazzling round his back—the purebreds reared aside, hoofs pawing the air and his life and power slipped away on the wind.”

“Eurypylus, chasing Hypsenor fleeing on before him, flailed with a sword, slashed the Trojan’s shoulder and lopped away the massive bulk of Hypsenor’s arm … the bloody arm dropped to the earth, and red death came plunging down his eyes, and the strong force of fate.”

“… Agamemnon lord of men spilled the giant Odius, chief of the Halizonians off his car—the first to fall, as he veered away the spearhead punched his back between the shoulders, gouging his flesh and jutting out through his rids—he fell with a crash, his armour rang against him.”

“Antilochus winged a rock and smashed his elbow—out of his grip the reigns white with ivory flew and slipped to the ground and tangled in the dust. Antilochus sprang, he plunged a sword in his temple and Mydon, gasping, hurled from his bolted car face first, head and shoulders stuck in the dune for a good long time for the sand was deep—his lucky day—till his own horses trampled him down.”

“Meriones caught him quickly, running him down hard and speared him low in the right buttock—the point pounding under the pelvis, jabbed and pierced the blatter—he dropped to his knees, screaming, death swirling around him.”

Frank Tenney Johnson's Night at the Trading Post [Poet]

There is a painting hung in the hallway near the main cafeteria of the hospital where I work called, Night at the Trading Post. It was painted in 1928 by the American Old West painter, Frank Tenney Johnson. Interestingly, while searching out the background of this work, I came to find out that the hospital actually owns the original. Very cool.

Anyhow, I walk by this work nearly everyday and I always look at it in passing because—prior to knowing who the painter was, or what the work was titled—I always wondered why the word ‘Poet’ was painted on the sign above the horse (click to enlarge)

After having looked up the artist and discovering what the title of the painting was, I have to admit, I felt a little silly for not taking a few minutes to solve my baffling question. Trading Post … of course. 

But truth be told, every time I pass by this painting, and despite having learned what the sign above the horse is meant to read, I can still mentally see Poet.

Walt Whitman: The Amiable Poet

One of my all time favorite books to read is actually a series of lectures given by William James at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in the beginning of the twentieth-century. Collectively these lectures are called, The Varieties of Religious Experience. The lectures are a psychological exploration of various individual types of religious experiences and their commonalities. In his fourth lecture—a lecture which investigates individuals with a healthy-minded religious perspective—James appends commentary written by Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke that pertains to the amiable disposition of America’s great poet, Walt Whitman. I found that this little nugget hidden away in all these lectures provided some wonderful insight into the kind of person this poet was, and I thought of no better place to share this insight than here: “His favorite occupation,” writes his disciple, Dr. Bucke “seemed to be strolling or sauntering about outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people. Until I knew the man,” continues Dr. Bucke, “it had not occurred to me that anyone could derive so much absolute happiness from these things as he did. He was very fond of flowers, either wild or cultivated; liked all sorts. I think he admired lilacs and sunflowers just as much as roses. Perhaps, indeed, no man who ever lived liked so many things and disliked so few as Walt Whitman. All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him. All sights and sounds seemed to please him. He appeared to like (and I believe he did like) all the men, women, and children he saw (though I never knew him to say that he liked any one), but each who knew him felt that he liked him or her, and that he liked others also. I never knew him to argue or dispute, and he never spoke about money. He always justified, sometimes playfully, sometimes quite seriously, those who spoke harshly of himself or his writings, and I often thought he even took pleasure in the opposition of enemies. When I first knew [him], I used to think that he watched himself, and would not allow his tongue to give expression to fretfulness, antipathy, complaint, and remonstrance. It did not occur to me as possible that these mental states could be absent in him. After long observation, however, I satisfied myself that such absence or unconsciousness was entirely real. He never spoke deprecatingly of any nationality or class of men, or time in the world’s history, or against any trades or occupations—not even against any animals, insects, or inanimate things, nor any of the laws of nature, nor any of the results of those laws, such as illness, deformity, and death. He never complained or grumbled either at the weather, pain, illness, or anything else. He never swore. He could not very well, since he never spoke in anger and apparently never was angry. He never exhibited fear, and I do not believe he ever felt it.” Often we read the poems of poets without a clue of who these men and women were or are. I am, for my own part, almost always pleased to hear details about a poet’s personal background, especially when the details indicate (insofar as we can know) what kind of man or woman the individual was or is—and most especially if it imparts an idea of how poetic inspiration came about and swayed their musings. If you have any similar excerpts like the one above, excerpts that reveal a little bit more about a poet’s character, how they derive inspiration, or even just little facts about them that most people otherwise would not know, please, copy and paste them in the comments area. In fact, if you have any interesting tidbits that pertain to artists of any kind, we would love to hear about them—I will do the same and add more to the comments area as I learn little things about other poets as time goes by.

Existentialist, Karl Jaspers: A Quote

“To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.”

Karl Theodor Jaspers (1883 – 1969)

Born 137 years ago on this day, I first came to know Jaspers after having read his cross analysis of Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, and Jesus. I remember delighting in the fact that he was a sort of existential psychologist, and one who was willing to embrace theological considerations within his philosophical worldview.

Jaspers helped reinforced in me the idea that existentialism was by no means the philosophical endeavor of atheists (a claim latently implied by some of the French existentialists); and that, as Aristotle might say, it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Hope's Epoch

Hope’s Epoch

How amazing to me the dawning light

Gilding with rosy flames the purple clouds

As His children below head out in crowds

To front another day with renewed might.

Fairer still, there below that amber height,

My varied kin wandering to and fro,

Blessed with many joys but besieged by woe:

These I love who conquer their daily plight …

These people my brothers and sisters are,
Whether known or unknown, or near or far.
May our common enemy, hate and fear,
Slip into oblivion’s lasting state

Til alas we with love will deem each dear,

And finally take hold of a noble fate.

-jwm

Of the Poem

Inspired by the poet Edward Robeson Taylor, and the many beautiful sonnets of his that I have recently come to know and appreciate (his classical style is for me refreshing beyond expression), I thought that I might humbly attempt one myself.

To my regret, I believe I may have written no more than a handful of sonnets over the last decade, and of these the poetic form that I chose was that of an English sonnet—otherwise known as a Shakespearean sonnet.

Taylor, who arduously experimented with the sonnet form, seems to have favored the Petrarchan model as typified by the French poets—a form whose poetic parameters seem to have been largely overlooked here in the United States. If you are visiting this page and have any interest, there is a recent article I posted which talks about the unique parameters of a French sonnet (other major sonnet forms are also highlighted there).

Inasmuch as my attempt at a French sonnet was concerned, and the subject of it, I initially began the first half of the octave praising the beauty of the sunrise as it occurs in my hometown of Aurora, Colorado. The second half of the octave was supposed to elaborate on the grunginess and beauty and diversity of the people of Aurora—all of whom I love and wanted to boast about.

My initial endeavor was to personify Aurora as a sort of mother’s beauty brooding carefully over her children as a new and renewed day approached them.

How amazing to me your dawning light,

Gilding with rosy flames the the purple clouds,

As your children below head out in crowds

To front another day with renewed might …

… children “bedeviled about by so many cares” and just desiring happiness. But the poem took a turn as a result of other things I was studying.

I was reading a powerful poem written by Jamaican poet, Claude McKay. The poem, which is a sonnet and a must needs read, is called If We Must Die. It is a poem about brutal oppression, the inability to tolerate it anymore, and an invocation to fight violently against it. The poem was essentially a response to a series of violent racest riots that occurred in 1919, a period known historically as the Red Summer.

After having read about these terrible events a sort of hopelessness and grief lingered with me, a sadness within me that we humans have it in us to be so hateful—murderously hateful—toward one another. It never seems to end, and when I begin to believe that humanity is progressing toward some higher goodness, invariably it seems that some next-level, monumental evil comes in and eclipses that hope. Still, I had to remind myself, if any of us wants to see change we cannot stop hoping for it, and the only way of effecting change is to change ourselves.

It was on this thinking that I began to edit the octave of the poem I began about my hometown and the diversity of its people, and began to ‘universalize’ it. I had the poem open with a new day, a new dawning light as the world (His children) sets out to face and make something of it.

Note the human condition as laid out in the octave: ‘fronting existence’, wandering to and fro (as if lost), besieged by woe, and yet still having within ourselves many joys. Note also how the narrator deems the diversity of the human race (my varied kin) as more beautiful (fairer still) than even that of the dawning morning sky—he especially has love for those who endeavor to overcome their plight (i.e. the human condition).

In a French sonnet the volta or turn in the poem occurs in lines 9 and 10 where a rhyming couplet is employed. In the case of this poem, the volta is an open acknowledgement that all people, whether known or unknown, are as close family to the narrator, and that this perspective must be held if effective and meaningful change is to occur in the world (as the following lines indicate).

The quatrain which then follows concludes with the idea that the enemy we face is not one another, it is xenophobia (fear) and prejudice (hate), and that these must of necessity be lifted if there is to be any hope for humanity. Indeed, the narrator suggests, it is only by banishing these in ourselves that one can even engender the kind of disposition that can love others as if they were our closest kin and family.

Imagine if this were the general disposition or creed of the American population of 1919, one could hardly imagine that the race-hating atrocities which occurred that year would have happened as it did, or at least not to the scale that it did. Imagine, what if this were the general disposition of people globally? What a difference it would make … we might even be able to change our fate.

If you are visiting this page and read this article, I would love to know your thoughts. How did you come to find interest in poetry? Have you written a French sonnet (or any other sonnet types)? How do you like the poem posted in this particular post? Any views on xenophobia and/or prejudice that you might have seen? If you are from another country, what kind of racial issues occur where you are from, and what solutions are being employed there to reduce it? I could go on and on. Nevertheless, I would love to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by.