William Cowper

I am drawn to 18th Century English poet, William Cowper for his personality and poetry. He lived after a mental breakdown in his youth  in the care of friends in the English country side.  His semi-invalid life was punctuated with periods of  intense depressive suffering and, to use the extant term, madness. This fall from respectability of vocation and livelihood followed an attempt to take his highly sensitive soul and precarious mental state into the world of a law clerk. His poetry is the work of a sheltered being seeking through his endeavours to find meaning in the beauty of nature and the rhythms of a retired life. This is complemented with the enlightened and refined spirit of the marvellous century of his life.  So taking his simple materials to hand, his poetry turned to rural scenes, shrubs, trees, snails, rabbits, cats and  homely objects. One might surmise that his plain style was an attempt not to put too much pressure on his fragile nerves; not to force himself into something ambitious and grand. His subjects and his style created a lovely and timeless poetry. Cowper became one of the most beloved poets of his time and emerges from a bevy of 18th Century poets to be read in modern times. His letters are also delightful exercises in gentle manners and tactful sensibility.  I am lucky to have an 1835 fine bound collected edition of his works (Saunders and Otley) and it sits in pride of place in my lounge room bookcase.  Seeking repose on a winter's night before a fire there is nothing so refreshing a to dip into the handsome bindings of my Cowper's Works.

Engraving from Cowper's Works of his house at Weston 

J. Krishnamurti: wiseman, no guru

It was around the age of 14 that I discovered the Indian thinker
J. Krishnamurti.   He is the Doubters 'guru' and was a refreshing contrast to the Jesuit indoctrination I was receiving at school. What attracted me to Krishnmurti was that he seemed to hone in on the central human problem before that problem seeks escapist solutions in religion and metaphysics. As with the core philosophy of the Buddha, Krishnamurti was concerned with the malaise of the human psych which leads to  confusion, delusion and suffering. While Krishnamurti would have disavowed it, I suggest that by some process of osmosis he spoke a variant of the language of  the Buddha.  In other words how the psych in encountering reality never really sees clearly in the present moment but is interpreting through the accumulations or the conditioning of  experience which is formed by fear and attraction, our persistent craving and desire for permanence. But K was not one for meditation or rituals or elaborate canons of scripture all of which just create more conditioning. He eschewed followers or devotees. Having said this neither Krishnmurti nor the myriad of charismatic sages make much of another stumbling block to the cure of the ills of the individual and that is that a large proportion inherit neurotic complexes; these sit in the psych and emerge at inappropriate moments to cause havoc.  For these folk it is one thing to know the source of the problem another to effect the change necessary. But it is always better to know where you stand in the neurotic scale than be ignorant.  We all know those people who pass through life causing a trail of destruction thinking that all this is normal and they are merely being true to themselves. 

Academic Poets

At the Lifeline Bookfair I picked up a copy of The Morrow Anthology of Younger American Poets (published 1985).  It cost all of $3, a knock down price but some of the pages are falling out. As the title suggests, the poets are young and fresh in the promising stage of their poetic careers.  There is a section for each poet and  photographic portrait.   I have got into the way of looking up the poets by doing an on-line search. It is interesting to see that so many took the literary studies path, moved into academia and are now hallowed figures in American college settings. Of course they no longer look like their photographs and it is sad to see how quickly the bloom of youth fades into the nondescript blur of middle age.  Now they are seasoned college staff  with slight to significant reputations and books of poetry to their credit. Some have branched out to short stories and novels. You can see they have become part of a literary establishment.  One supposes the rage has gone out of them.  Life must be sweet with a captive audience of  students, speaking events, visiting positions and levers upon the grail of publishing. I tend to think that what is good for poetry is the precarious and simple life close to the common run of men and women. It is better to be a low-ranked colonial public servant like C. P. Cavafy or public revenue collector like the William Wordsworth, or, perhaps, just starving in a proverbial garret (but not mad was Chatterton).  The artificiality of academe, the aura of respectability, the dreary round of campus  life must be deadening to the muse.   

Here is a quotation from my commonplace book:

'In the end one comes back to the most obstinate question of all. Isn't there a certain basic antagonism between the very nature of a university and the very spirit of literature?  The academic mind is cautious, tightly organised, fault-finding, competitive -- and above all, aware of other academic minds. Think of the atmosphere of suspicion implied by the habit of fitting out the most trivial quotation with a reference, as though it were applying for a job. Think of the whole idea of regarding literature as a discipline. Literature can be strenuous or difficult or deeply disturbing; it can be a hundred things -- but a discipline is not one of them. Discipline means compulsion, and an interest in literature thrives on spontaneity, eager curiosity, the anticipation of pleasure; it is unlikely that a reader who comes to a book under duress, or weighed down with a sense of duty, will ever really read it at all, however much he may learn about it. Even the most intensely serious literature needs to be approached with a certain lightness of heart, if it is to yield it full intensity.'

John Cross
The Rise and Fall of the Man of Letters

Currawongs in the persimmon

I am very fortunate to have persimmon tree outside my window.  It is in a courtyard surrounded by camellias and azaleas.  It was planted in 1972 and has never grown too big so it keeps it ornamental quality. The persimmon tracks the seasons and now it is bearing small orangey yellow fruit. The long dry spell over summer has not been kind to the tree or its fruit despite our  additional irrigation from rainwater tank. In early autumn appear the currawong  which swoop into the dark green foliage and eat the sticky pulp.  The fruit at this time is hard and the birds consume  it all before it has a chance to become ripe and edible. The fruit which falls from beak to the ground is put on the wall; if the currawong does not salvage it the possums do. Having tasted a persimmon and not liking it I do not miss the opportunity to eat the fruit. It is an acquired taste. The pictures below are glossy from the gentle rain. 

PERSIMMON TREE

Up and down on the bare stems

the currawongs sway

tugging at their find,

light flashing off

oil and black feather,

their yellow and black eyes

super-cautious, malevolent.

Every year they come,

harvesting the unwanted crop

never looking older as we do,

generations to the same tree,

while we, half-hidden, watch,

wondering what the taste is like to them;

is it the sticky, floury sweetness,

the acquired flavour

not to our taste?

The season turns into short days,

the foliage is all but gone,

far out on a thin branch,

like a Chinese lantern on a pole,

hangs one remaining persimmon.

A currawong steps out cautiously,

the head jerking in an arc,

sticks clasping a stick, watching,

ever the black seeing eye.

Bird pecks from as far as dares

and the branch bounces wildly,

the talons tighten, the wings arch,

the air flapped for balance.

The persimmon and the bird

spring in unison, a pas de deux

in black and orange; an

unintended comedy.

A reach down to the fruit

leaving V shapes in the soft skin,

then a gobbling of the pinkish pap inside.

But it is hard work and precarious.

A few more pecks and an air borne woosh.

Later we take off this hacked piece

and place it on the courtyard wall.

The currawong returns and finishes it off.

It is a shame to waste good fuel

for a frosty night. 

George Herbert

Simone Weil was deeply affected by the poem Love III by George Herbert.  I could never see what Weil saw in this poem which seems saccharine,  pious and self-pitying. 'Love' in this case is a trope for God alias Jesus.  Herbert feeling 'Guilty of dust and sin' is beckoned by Love to 'taste my meat'.  Given that Weil, a non-observant Jew, did not really believe in the personal God but, as far as I can gather, a divine mystical force to be reached by 'waiting' and 'decreation' it is strange she is moved by what is plainly a coy poetical love feast between Herbert and his personal God.  I could understand Weil's ineffable approach to the divine but am confronted by the literalness of Herbert. I have just finished reading, Music At Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert by John Drury.  I am perhaps at some accord with Weil that in being acquainted with Herbert and reading his verse one can see something of the pure soul and this in itself is refreshing set alongside our confused time of shallowness, distraction and self-absorption.   Herbert so wove his humble life around the Christian project that his hallowed spirit is infused into his poems and his life. To read Herbert is to walk with him and feel welcome and trusted. Herbert is also a foil to the worldliness of contemporary Christianity with its powerful establishments, money-mindedness and pecuniary incursions into secular spheres. As for Weil - I see more Buddhism in her cosmic view than religion.  Those who 'sit' in quiet meditation are about the practice of 'decreation'. John Drury (a chaplain and fellow of All Souls College, Oxford) is  sympathetic but objective, scholarly but not abstruse. 

A Take on Meditation

In amidst a conventional life of work, family and interests I have practised meditation of the sitting and watching breath type with some pretentious link to Zen meditation.  I think over the many years I have 'learnt how to meditate' - whatever that means. By my own lights my short period of sitting (on a meditation chair) has afforded a brief segue into a gentler and more somatic consciousness which is refreshing and recreating. I mention somatic as I think the posture in meditation is as important as the attentiveness to  breath. Over time these experiences have perhaps tuned my outlook to a more detached kind. (As a natural Outsider I wonder if this is the right way to go.) I have always avoided any connection of meditation with spiritual things or other cosmic penetrations. I also do not put any great store in the curative effects of meditation physically or mentally. If meditation does impact upon the person it is somewhat ineffable and subtle, certainly not usefully detectable by self-analysis or crude scientific measuring of brain waves. But oddly while the 'results' are subliminal I find myself wishing to instil the practice into  a more Taoistic view of life. I am also no fan of the word 'practice' which suggests ambition, attainment-seeking and accomplishment.  My meditation chair was made by Dynamo House, Melbourne. It is the folding variety and has collapsed several time requiring makeshift repairs.  After I developed a circulation problem in my leg a kind thread person put some padding on the seat so now I would put it into the luxury category.  

A Difficult Cat

Our cat is anything but a nice cat.  He is rather grumpy. We think we was a factory cattery cat.  The big mistake was going to a pet store to buy a kitten but being talked into taking a free cat if we brought a certain value in cat paraphernalia. It is no wonder he was free.  But I do not dwell on his negative side.  I try to avoid the nasty swings of his claws or his quite strong nipping. His frustration when he does not get what he wants is just a facet of his congenital anxiety. This also comes into play when a stranger visits the house and he heads for the hills.  He learnt distrust I suppose from being separated from his mother at an early age.  He has never got over his separation from her suckling, warmth and love. So I try to fit in with him.  He is fed on time with good quality food.  I give him affection even when he does not respond.  I try to bring out his best side.  I do not condemn him. I do not negatively compare him to the other cats we have owned.  He is not here for our amusement. He is his own cat and has his own life. He rewards us with his beauty, even present after 12 years, his sullen superiority, his quiet dwelling in the garden and his presence which is full of a transcendent silence.