The Tallis Scholars

I went to hear The Tallis Scholars at the Cadogan Hall on Tuesday.It was a fantastic evening. I wanted to go especially because they sung a Palistrina Mass - Missa Papae Marcelli - I first heard in 1977. It was my first experience of Palistrina and I fell in love with it immediately. I used to play it a lot when I was ill in the 1970's and it was a real comfort to me then. And had not heard it for years. It was great to hear it performed live. But the whole evening was fabulous.

Their voices like flames in a fire ignited with each breath, red embers glowing through the spring twilight, lighting my way home through the darkness. Their voices still warming me as I write this.

escaped sunlight
on the woodland paths
primrose and anemone

cherry blossom
withered dirty pink
pools around the trunk

blue earth below
green sky above
the bluebell wood

Photo Bluebells in Micheldever Wood, Hampshire by Anguskirk

on the priory lawns
hail stones and daisies

fallen petals
in the gutter -
broken promises

Photo by iheartpandas

Film Review The New World

This year the director Terrence Malick will release his sixth film - 'The Tree of Life'. His first film Badlands was released in 1973 - 37 years ago. He has made some of the most beautiful films I have ever seen and in anticipation of 'The Tree of Life' I'm going to review all five of his previous films over the next couple of months.

'The New World' - is Malick's most recent film - released in 2006 and is based on the true story of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas. It is set in Virginia in 1607 and follows the arrival of the first English settlers to America and the establishment of the first English settlement that eventually became Jamestown.

Perhaps one way of summing up the film "The New World" is to quote a line from 'To His Mistress Going to Bed', by John Donne. Donne writes to his lover as he seduces her, "O my America, my new found land". There is bound up with this erotic line a particularly colonial and masculine sensibility that we may not appreciate in the early 21 st century. But underpinning these sentiments is a wonder and a feeling of awe that forms the core of this breath taking film. Malick seems to make a reference to it when he has John Smith call out with yearning as he thinks about her,'O my America'.




The film follows the relationship between Captain John Smith - who arrives in chains and the wild, enigmatic and beautiful Pocahontas - daughter to a local Chief. The two are mezmerised by each other as they explore their different languages and ways of life. Their growing relationship is in stark contrast to the communities they represent that grow increasingly fearful and suspitious of each other, often breaking out into violence.





Although the film begins with John Smith - the explorer and adventurer - which promises an action film. Instead after Smith's departure, the film follows Pocahontas's oddessy. It follows her grief in her separation from Smith, her exile from her own people and isolation from the new settler community. Eventually she arrives in England with husband and child and an audience with James I. It is in England she meets Smith again and is able to be reconciled with Smith. She seems to finally commit herself fully to her husband. But she dies soon after.





I loved the depiction of 17th century England and the contrast it makes with the America scenes. I loved Malick's evocation of nature that owes so much to the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki - who is also working on The Tree of Life. I thought the presentation of the English settlement facinating. There were echoes of Lord of the Flies - in power conflicts, the desperate day to day fight to survive as the settlers struggle to create a sustainable community. I loved Q'orianka Kilcher who played Pocahontas. I loved the depiction of native American's. Malick researched very carefully the native American tribes in the Jamestown area. This was done so beautifully, sensitvely. They had a vitality and integrity of their own.

At the end of The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald writes about another colony, a Dutch colony, situated further south along the eastern coast that later became New York. In the last paragraphs of the novel he writes of the sailors that first encounted Long Island.

". . . gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder..."

The New World captures that unique moment in history and we watch in wonder and dread as that history unfolds.

Henry Moore

Henry Moore 7 by Steve.wilde

There is an aura that surrounds a Henry Moore sculpture. They were perhaps dimmed a little by the limited space in Tate Britain and the busy crowds that seemed to come and pay their respects to a great sculptor.

But it is a spellbinding exhibition of sculpture and drawings all the same. Although the larger pieces seem to demand a large space, in the last Gallery called Elm - we seem to join the six huge figures in an intimate communion. The room is light and the graceful curves and natural grain of the wood draws us in. We are in a warm and familiar space here as Moore works again on his main theme. And walking among them we are transfigured by them. I felt honoured to be a passing shadow wandering through this space.

But I loved it all. The early work inspired by Sumerian art, the later abstractions and surrealist experiments. Then there are the disturbing subterranean drawings taken from war photographs of Londoners sheltering in the Underground during the blitz. They conjure up images of the holocaust. And the later disturbing post war figures, menacing and threatening, the hard unforgiving Helmets, fallen Warriors and in contrast the domestic Rocking Chair figures,and finally the Elm figures. They form a kind of synthesis of all the work displayed.

Often I am confronted by a gulf between a work of art and me. There is a conceptual distance between us. It is a good thing. It is as it should be. Whether it is music or poetry, film or painting, I am faced with the works strangeness and separateness from me. I often feel excluded from it and there is a tension a struggle for meaning and understanding. But not this time. I felt sort of at home with his work. Perhaps the raw impulse of his art makes his work universal and accessible. After all there is something childlike and playful here.

Oh yes and what I also found addictive about the figures was there elemental quality. I wanted to touch them, to stroke them and perhaps even to hug them. Too embrace them within my own arms. Even the stone figures had a drift wood quality about them. Sea water washing them over and over again with the ebb and flow of ancient oceans. Except that its not water but a single man's mind, a single man's hands - just amazing.

What I didn't expect. And what I think you cannot get from looking at a print or photograph of the work is the material from which his work is formed. The colours and textures are a narrative by themselves. They tell there own story - an ageless one of England and its own geological history. Moore has not destroyed that narrative but added his narrative to the older story of the rocks. They are entwined with each other. They tell a spiritual story. They are a love story. And I loved every bit of it.

The exhibition is on at Tate Britain until August.

God spoke to Moses
from a burning bush -
flowering Magnolia

Easter

What ripened fruit hung
from those dead branches
torn down and planted,
seeded deep into the earth?

What crop will it bring?

Terrence Malick

This year the director Terrence Malick will release his sixth film - 'The Tree of Life'. His first film Badlands was released in 1973 - 37 years ago. Since then he has made some of the most beautiful films I have ever seen. And in anticipation of 'The Tree of Life' I'm going to review all five of his previous films over the coming months.

Vernal Equinox

These verses have been on my mind for awhile. I began thinking about them a few months ago. I was going to add and adapt a verse and post it to someone. "There is a time to write and a time to stop writing." But today I've decided to post these verses for myself.I am still writing but I'm not sure what to post to this blog.

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

6 a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

driving home
ravens gather
in the tall trees,
their rasping cries echoing
from the shadows of winter woods

Courage

“Well, I don't know what will happen now”
Martin Luther King April 3 1968 Mason Temple, Memphis Tennessee

He breathes in long and deep
but his mouth is desert dry.
He almost gags on his words
but swallows hard down
and carries on through glutinous fear.

Suddenly he forgets himself.
His eyes focus sharp, alert
on a distant light
his words sure and steady,
rise through the crowd.

But then silence breaks in
his wild eyes stare out -
his mind wrestles with death
for a moment
and again he finds his voice
pushes it on.

With wide eyes he blinks back tears,
searches the roaring crowd -
and stares into the barrel of a camera.
then slumps like a child into a chair
and the fragile embrace of a friend.

© David Loffman

You can watch the speech this poem is based on by following this link or click on the title of the poem at the top of the page. Martin Luther King's Last Speech.

February
in the jewel blue sky
a flood light sun

I'm startled by the
iron chimes of church bells
echoing off the moon

Dawn

caught in a snare
of black bare branches
sunset

Photo Dawn by EnKayTee

Orion

Orion and me
the night clear and cold before us
dogs at our feet

Photo Orion by Danny McL

pre dawn dark fox
disturbs the thin skin
of frost

Iced Grasses

frost
white washed woods
diluted vague pale

Photo Iced Grasses by sbisson

Rain Richmond Park

twilight woods
pierced with rain
the cries of birds

Photo Richmond Park by Pixelhut

T S Eliot Poetry Prize 2009

We were at The Queen Elizabeth Hall last night, to hear the ten shortlisted poets for the T S Eliot Poetry Prize 2009 read a selection of their poems. It was a really great evening where the poetry world - or at least the one that has London at its centre all came together.

We bought the books of the poets we thought had a good chance of winning and who we really liked. We chatted to them and wished them all the best for the announcement that was given today at 7.30.

We were really pleased that Philip Gross won. Katy built and manages his website and I've met him at The Troubadour in Earls Court where he read last year.

Another poet we thought was really good was Jane Draycott. I was invited to hear her read last summer at a club in Hampstead Heath along with other members of The Poetry Workshop. Hugh - my colleague and friend at Richmond College - is also a member of the workshop.

Katy also met up with an old colleague who was also shortlisted for the prize. Christopher Reid was poetry editor at Faber and Faber when Katy worked there. And since T S Eliot was one of the founding directors of the publisher, that rather neatly brings us full circle back to the T S Eliot Poetry Prize.

Anyway enough of this.

in blue twilight
the sound of water falling
into gutters

Slow thaw

in the park
the grey remains of snowmen
slowly dissolving

roads choked with snow-
dissolves dirt grey
under exhaust fumes

Richmond Park

fields sown with snow
now a harvest of ice

Photo Richmond Park by BillKatyGemma

London Winter Dawn

London dawn
shrouded in a gauze
of mist - pierced
with red reflected light
from high city windows

Winter Dawn

snow covered
branches shining amber
in dawn light

Photo Winter Dawn at Granchester by mushi_king

Snow Woods

alone in the dark woods
the snow swallows our footsteps
and laughter

Photo The Snowy Evening by Storm Crypt

White Tree

frosted winter trees
a fragile white blossom

Photo White Tree by Jos van Wunnik

Morning Frost

the clear night conjures
iced white washed fields

Photo Morning Frost by Odalaigh

12.30 am New Year's Walk

i

under a blue moon
we walk a milk white path
beside the river

ii

moon swollen river
swallows field, footpath and
crust of blue frost

Photo River Flit by Moonlight by ellyukrm

Ice

the country - a black
plate of ice, sculptured by the
contours of our lives


Photo Ice Rink by Dave Amis

streets glaze with ice
tonight the earth -
a moon mirror

Winter Heat and Cold

inside dry, heavy and smothering heat
outside the cold, fresh, sharp and pure


Photos La Llama - The Flame by Luis Fabres and A very cold day by broodkast

Trees fog

dawn -
dirt grey
smudges a line of trees

Photo Light Fog by technopolitan

Winter Moon

intruder moon
a hard cold blade of light
disturbs my sleep

Photo Winter Moon by 5150fantast

dead leaves
at the front door
a gift of the wind

Climbing Snowdon

All night wind and rain
score the mountain slopes

Climbing Snowdon by Kris Thirty6Red

Quotation & Comment A Streetcar Named Desire

"They told me to take a streetcar named Desire, and then transfer to one called Cemeteries and ride six blocks and get off at Elysian Fields."

Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

These words are uttered by Blanche DuBois when she first arrives at her sister Stella’s apartment called Elysian Fields in New Orleans.

It tells us she is on a journey. ‘They’ refers to the attendants at the station who give her directions.

Symbolically ‘They’ indicates Blanche is vulnerable and powerless. All the men in Blanche’s life - family and lovers - have always had power and followed their sexual desires. She too has lived like this and it has brought her to rejection and exile which is a form of death.

Here at Elysian Fields Blanche hopes to start again.

beneath the oaks
we walk a bed of dead leaves
crushed fired glass

Photo autumn leaves on grass by pkirrage

Quotation & Comment

I'm starting a new project shortly.

The idea is to take a quotation from a work of literature which may include the Bible. It will probably be from a text I'm studying with my students or a text I've taught in the past. I might take quotations from the Conjured Sunlight blog. It will be a line or a phrase, perhaps even a word.

Then I'll comment on the quotation.

And I hope people that visit the blog will add a comment too. Either a response to the quotation or on my comment. Everyone is free to comment.

Anyway lets see how it rolls out.

Join in

David

dawn, looking west
trees in shadow
beyond a tower block rising gold

the river
smudged by mist and drizzle
dissolves into twilight

wet leaves, limp, black
glistening
a broken mirror

beneath the trees
a corrugated mat
of rusted leaves

Photo Autumn Forest Ground by elventear

Misty Morning

mist rising
along the water line
the river’s breath

Photo Misty Morning by RWM

Canada geese

Canada geese
the summer folded away
in their wings

Photo Canada Geese by Henry McLin

the dead slowly gather
in wind swept corners
and gutters

At Antwerp Station The Sound of Music

Here is a beautiful video Katy found on the web while she was researching a sermon. It is a gift.

David


How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria - Audition Task