A May blog

by Reamonn O’Donnchadha

The essence of psychopoesis is that it can show us that beauty simply is.   No need to go searching.   The conscious act of searching is in itself an act of avoidance.   True beauty finds us.   It is in us.   Sitting on the edge of Great Man’s Bay on a Friday evening with the wind whitening the tips of the waves as the sun lights the green, blue, yellow and purple flowers, to inform them that it is safe to come out, because winter has gone south with the youth of Ireland.   The daffodils in the garden bring Wordsworth to mind, as they dance in time to the waves; the unexpected cowslip astray on the footpath, shades of yellow and green harmonising with the tenor of the bluebell and as the tide turns it reminds us, as Heaney and Blake also do, that there is a rhythmic beauty in the world, and that we are but the trustees of the beauty around us.   That the ugliness of the dark sea bed revealed by the tide’s going out, is but the precursor to the return of the sun and the sky.   It reminds us that, as surely as it goes out, the tide always comes in, to envelope and soothe the healing pain.  That the pain of the dark days is in synchrony with the healing of the Sundays.   That hopelessness is an illusion.

The given note, the innate ability of the human being to take the spirit of life from what we have been given, to add something to it and to pass it on, enriched.   Looking beyond the literal into the soul of our being, we hear the echo of that which brings us into soul-making poesis.   It is the third eye that we all possess; the innate ability to see beyond the literal, to overcome the ego’s need to capture and possess; to kiss the joy as it flies that opens the way to our own beauty.   The daffodils, the bluebells, the cowslips are not ours, as the bereft tears of the picked flower so sadly attest.   Instead of trying to ‘master’ a tune, or a song, we open ourselves and let the music seep into our soul.   The sun sets and the tide recedes on one part of our psyche, and simultaneously they rise on another.   We receive, we nurture, we pass on.

Coral Beach, An Cheathru Rua Theas, Co Galway

Poem of the month

I have desired to go

where springs not fail,

To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail

And a few lilies grow.

And I have asked to be

where no storms come,

Where the green swell is in the havens dumb,

And out of the swing of the sea.

—–GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Answers to the following prompts are private. They are not for sharing online.

1. Where have you desired to go? You can take this question in any one of different ways. It could refer to a direction in life, to a place of calm and refuge at difficult times, or even to an imagining of what might lie after death.

2. Where have you asked to be? Do you think this is a different question, or the same as question one? One way or the other, if you have a response, you might express it in writing.

Two Cultures

	AN APRIL BLOG BY NIALL HICKEY

Mazza (2003) says: “Poetry Therapy involves a middle ground where literary and clinical boundaries are pushed.   Literature contains elements of therapy; therapy contains elements of literature”.
	We could be reminded of the saying: “when an irresistible force meets an immovable object, something’s got to give”.   But does PT in fact challenge matters, such as truth, reason and logic, in a fundamental way?   The answer I’d propose is, to quote Cole Porter: “It ain’t necessarily so!”
The co-existence of literature and science isn’t a modern thing, but has been going on since the age of Plato and Aristotle, and probably longer.   It came to a head in the 1950’s, in the debate of the Two Cultures.   Nobody won, and few engage in that debate now.   Both cultures have prospered, the scientific viewpoint has become predominant, but literature more than holds its own. In our recent PT Peer Group session, we worked using translations of “Yes, it Hurts When Buds Burst” and “Wild Apple” by the Swedish poet Karin Boye.   We listed polar opposites in the first text, and our poems reflected different ways of coping with these: merging, transforming or letting them rest parallel.   With the second poem we worked in pairs on the opposed terms: “glorious multiplicity” and “dark little kernel”.   This led to varied poetic responses: synchronised verse read together, dialogue of opposites and a word-journey into the unknown.
	We were aware we were close to something treasured by poetry therapists.   This is expressed in PT’s iconic poem, Auden’s “In Memory of W.B.Yeats”, with its poetic parade of polar opposites: “prison”/”free”, “unconstraining”/”persuade”, “rapture”/”distress”, “vineyard”/”curse”, “desert”/“healing fountain”.   These opposites echo biblical images, i.e. that grain needs to die to be re-born, one of many metaphors exploiting polar opposites in the language of spirituality.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed that genius was: “the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time”.   Such a notion might question the laws of logic.   But poetry isn’t necessarily logical or reason-based, having its origin more in the right rather than the left-hand side of the brain, and dealing with emotion, intuition and insight, not with rational argument.   Poetry “tells the truth but tells it slant”, as expressed by Emily Dickinson and frequently quoted by Lila Weisberger.   It’s often what’s not said that counts.   Poetry speaks through metaphor, as the bible does through parable.   Patrick Kavanagh expresses it thus: “we shall not ask for reason’s payment”.
Psychotherapists with clients emphasise toleration of ambiguities.   Without this, marriages may not fare well.   We learn in PT groups that each single member may react differently to the stimulus of a single poem.   The “either/or” approach does not always work.   Much better is the use of an approach based on “both/and”.
Science and literature co-exist, need not clash, but can learn from one another.   When Mazza speaks of their interaction, he might seem to suggest that the whole is greater than the sum of two parts.

 

Poem of the month: And Martha Served

Mary and Martha

 

Poem of the month for April comes from Victoria Field.

 

 

And Martha Served

 

 

They made a supper

and it was I who served

Lazarus, of course, was there

but it was I who served

 

I watched him, warm with life

among those chosen men

I’d swept clean the room

and arranged the chairs

 

It was I who served and I

like things neat, the plate

and cup within our Saviour’s

easy reach, everything

 

just so. I brought the bread

soft and white as flesh

and dark, warm wine

that poured both deep and slow –

 

it was I who served –

a shadow who was barely there

while she let loose her waves

of wild hair and perfumed

 

the room with something

strange and sweet, daring –

as I would never do –

to wash his dear, unblemished feet

 

 

Ignored and empty as the air,

it was I who served

Yes, I was there.

 

—–VICTORIA FIELD

 

 

 

TRY WRITING ON EACH OF THE FOLLOWING FOUR PROMPTS, OR ON AS MANY AS YOU CAN MANAGE.   YOUR WRITING IS PRIVATE AND FOR YOURSELF, AND IT THEREFORE SHOULD NOT BE SHARED ONLINE.   IF YOU WERE DOING THIS EXERCISE DURING A SUPERVISED PEER GROUP WORKSHOP, IT WOULD THEN BE QUITE APPROPRIATE TO SHARE, BUT ONLY WHAT YOU YOURSELF FREELY WANTED TO SHARE.

 

1. If we say that this is a poem about our need for acknowledgement and recognition, and how these are sometimes lacking to us, do you agree?
2. Martha expresses some positive feelings in the poem and also some negative feelings.   Can you list both of these in order to compare and contrast?   Can you identify with any of these feelings?
3. Can you draw any parallel between Martha’s experience and your own?   If so, try writing a poem about this, using those feelings and images that resonate with you from the poem , and introducing other feelings and images of your own if you find this appropriate.
4. On the other hand, is there a huge difference between you own experience and that of Martha?   Do you feel negatively or positively about Martha’s reactions to her situation and how she deals with it?   Is there in your view something to be learned from the manner in which Martha voices the pattern of her life, or else would you be in favour of managing things in an entirely different manner?

PoetryReach workshop this Saturday

“Exploring Where Poetry and Therapy Intersect“

A highly participative one-day workshop facilitated by

DIANA HEDGES & REAMONN O’DONNCHADHA

SATURDAY 23 MARCH ’13, 10am to 5pm

THE GLENROYAL HOTEL MAYNOOTH

Price: €70

For enquiries, or to reserve your place, contact:
Dr. Niall Hickey

poetryreachireland@gmail.com

Tel. 01 6291066 / 085 8586405

A March Blog

VICTORIA FIELD is a Certified Poetry Therapist, a much-published poet, prize-winner at Stokestown Poetry Festival and an established dramatist, as well as being a PoetryReach faculty member.   She has also been several times president of LAPIDUS, the state-sponsored Association for the Arts in Healthcare in Great Britain.   She has delivered widespread workshops in Britain, Wales, Ireland and internationally.

Victoria’s workshop with Anne Taylor, “Introduction to Therapeutic Writing”, will be delivered at University College, Falmouth, 15-19 July 2013.   Please contact: 00 44 1326 255782 or cpd@falmouth.ac.uk

 

A MARCH BLOG BY VICTORIA FIELD

This morning, Niall and I talked about self-esteem, especially in relation to young women where there is an alarming amount of self-harm.  All over the world, women suffer abuse and discrimination.

A poster campaign in London at the moment shows a young African woman and reads:  ‘Do you remember your first period? Leaving school?  Getting married?  Having your first child?’ – and then tells us the girl does, and that she’s 12 years old.

In Europe, there is legislation to protect women and girls but still there are subtle pressures to conform.  Particularly in religious settings, women can be told they are wrong for being independent, sexual, wanting – or not wanting – to have children and/ or careers.

There is a wonderful poem by Kaylin Haught in which the speaker asks God for permission to be melodramatic, short, and all the things one suspects the speaker has been criticised for.

God unlike the stern father-in-the-sky of so many patriarchal religions is personified as she and answers Yes!

You can read the poem here and there is also a Youtube clip of the poet reading it here.

The poem for me is good one to answer all those questions, not specific to girls, about whether we are really allowed to be ourselves.

I love the echoes of the word Yes!   Often in poetry therapy, participants or clients ask whether it’s okay to do x or write y – and of course, the answer is Yes, Yes, Yes

Victoria Field blogs at www.poetrytherapynews.wordpress.com

Poem of the month

Our first poem of the month is from Reamonn O’Donnchadha’s  collection, Chopin’s Grave, Boland Press, Wexford 2012, reproduced here by kind permission of Boland Press.   All rights reserved.

Comments are welcome, but if you make a personal response, as suggested below, that remains private to you, and ought not to be proposed for online inclusion.

 

THE ABYSS   It’s over a horizontal waterfall that the water begins its journey over rocks; tumbles through the narrow canyon splashes recklessly down the mountain suicidally seeking the comfort of the abhainn mathair* as she calmly meanders along the valley below. Water ski-ing down this waterfall, this head-longingly, heart-lovingly downfall trying to stay upright without support. Frees from the fatal need to be born again. It is only by being in it that we can get out of it.

 —–REAMONN O’DONNCHADHA

*abhainn mathair is Gaelic for main/parent/mother river, as opposed to its tributaries.

IF YOU WISH TO RESPOND PRIVATELY TO THIS POEM, HERE ARE SOME PROMPTS YOU MIGHT USE:

1. Is there a line, word or phrase in this poem which rings bells for you, in the sense of there being parallels with your own life?
2. You might ask yourself, do I in my life identify in any way with the progress of the water that is described.
3. If so, with which stage do you associate your present situation in life, and which stage would be your chosen situation?   If not, is there anything in this poem you identify with?
4. “The fatal need to be born again”: does this phrase resonate with you, or if you changed some of the words would it resonate with you better?
5. “It is only by being in it that we can get out of it”: what is your reaction to this line?   Do you agree with what is being said here?   Or would it help if you were to re-write this line?
6. Try writing a poem using the metaphor of flowing water, or an alternate metaphor that appeal s to you more, in order to describe the progress of your life.

PoetryReach workshop March 2013

“Exploring where poetry and therapy intersect”

 

	Two roads diverged in a yellow wood What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? A time to refuel yourself
I’m nobody, who are you? My mother’s old leather handbag To feel myself beloved on this earth		There is a deep hole in the sidewalk I am becoming the woman I’ve wanted Here is a glass of water from my well
	Give sorrow words There is a thread you follow.   It goes among things that change I shall paint my nails red
There’s nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so I can’t do this, she says.   Then she does Let me tell you ‘bout the cherry trees!		He put one foot on the first rung The roads leading to a castle that doesn’t exist When I am old I shall wear purple
	I fixed it tonight by moving a single board Winter, like a set opinion, is routed The door itself makes no promises, it is only a door
The whole pile is slipping! What happens to a dream deferred? Let grief be a fallen leaf		Flower in the crannied wall I turn to share the transport I walk down another street
	As I stir a pan of white sauce, the face of the moon stares back I have never been contained except I made the prison The art of losing isn’t hard to master
We know what we are we know not what we may be Wait till they learn I’m dropping out How to begin again or become m		Make a vineyard of the curse Love’s austere and lonely offices Love is no less practical than a coffee-grinder
	Your children are not your children I want to hear the marriage of water and rock May the flame of anger free you from falsity

“Exploring where poetry and therapy intersect” is a workshop facilitated by PoetryReach.

CLICK HERE FOR INFORMATION ON THE POETRYREACH WORKSHOP ON MARCH 23

Gregor’s Room

Gregor’s room is an odd place in every way.   First of all, the left-hand wall, where a door opens to the corridor, is not a wall. It is the floor of Gregor’s room. When you go into Gregor’s room, you’re actually entering by a trap-door through the floor.   But it doesn’t look like that from outside!   His family are confused and perplexed, since in the second place, Gregor walks on the wall. That’s natural, because for him that’s the floor, and he also goes to bed on the wall. In the third place, all his furniture stands at right angles to the wall, and not on what for everyone else is the floor.

Metamorphosis at the Lyric Hammersmith

Gregor himself is an odd guy.   But this wasn’t always so.   He used to slave long hours at his job to keep the rest of the family, his two parents and sister, in reasonable comfort, because his father lost his earnings, and Gregor’s wages were the only family source of income.   Then he became secretive and reclusive, his voice became indistinct so that you didn’t know what he was saying and he began to look more like a large misshapen insect than a young chap in his twenties.

This was a play called “Metamorphosis”, based on the Kafka story mentioned by Lila Weisberger in her January blog about a garage sale in the Metropolitan Museum, New York.   I went to see it three weeks ago at the Lyric Hammersmith, a co-production between the Icelandic national theatre company and the Lyric, a production played in many European cities, including Dublin.

The acrobatic stage-movements of the actor playing the central character constitute a marvel.   The audience finds Gregor to be a partly likeable boy-wonder.   But it is difficult not to feel some distaste, as well, for a being who has ceased to be quite fully human.

In the original story by Kafka, for no apparent reason Gregor turns into a large insect.   His family are at first sympathetic, then upset and ultimately revolted by the new Gregor.   His sister, who adored the diligent brother who strove hard for his family, now not only finds him repulsive, but is actually instrumental in ridding the family permanently of what has gone from being an embarrassment to becoming a threat and a menace that must be summarily dispensed with.

Photos reproduced with the kind permission of the Lyric Hammersmith

The added visual metaphor of an upside-down room is introduced by the director to shock the audience, which it does.   What Gregor is doing is agonising to watch and dangerous to himself and others: it very obviously cannot be allowed to continue.   Everyone in the audience sees this clearly, although everyone is unlikely to venture so far as to exterminate Gregor.

Difference alienates.   This human prejudice arises whether it involves skin colour, sexual orientation or a mental illness we don’t really want to know about.   His family do not delay for long debating:  “What shall we do about Gregor?”   Gregor’s fate is inevitable, and relatively swiftly enacted.

Follow this link to see what’s showing now at the Lyric Hammersmith!

Jameson Dublin International Film Festival 2013

The 2013 Jameson Dublin International Film Festival opens this weekend.

Updates on the festival can be found here, and the full schedule for the event is here.

A highlight from the festival two years ago was Lee Chang-Dong’s extraordinary film Poetry.

PoetryReach is looking forward to enjoying some quality cinema over the next ten days!

PoetryReach recommends the short film Just Saying: