Littlestone
|
Re: Charles Valentine Le Grice: To A Fallen Cromlech
Apr 07, 2016, 11:48
|
|
carol27 wrote: I fear the possible impermanence of web stuff; no doubt totally illogical:) I've just read the poem by Penelope Shuttle & you mentioned The Wise Wound; a book given to me at a tender age by my fantastic aunty Jean. The book turned my thinking about the processes we women go through completely around; transforming the "curse" into a celebratory, almost mystical experience! Well, sometimes! Of course other female friends thought I was barking! I still have it around somewhere.
Hello Carol
The book hasn’t materialised I’m afraid, but most of the poems on this thread are also on the Megalithic Poems blog (with accompanying illustrations). The blog is also backed up on disk. Penelope Shuttle’s poem, that you mention, is also on the blog here (second poem from the bottom of the page) with an image by Mr Hamhead.
|
WORDANDSILENCE
|
Re: Charles Valentine Le Grice: To A Fallen Cromlech
Dec 28, 2016, 18:53
|
|
Sorry to leave a message here, but I'm wondering if you take submissions for Megalithic Poems... I've a handful about Orkney & others; some have been published by many not, & it seems good & appropriate company if they appeared.
|
Littlestone
|
Re: Charles Valentine Le Grice: To A Fallen Cromlech
Dec 29, 2016, 11:00
|
|
WORDANDSILENCE wrote: Sorry to leave a message here, but I'm wondering if you take submissions for Megalithic Poems... I've a handful about Orkney & others; some have been published by many not, & it seems good & appropriate company if they appeared.
Hello.
People are free to post here so long as their posts are generally on the prehistoric/megalithic theme.
|
Littlestone
|
Gillian Clarke: Stone
Mar 06, 2017, 18:34
|
Stone
Near the cromlech
lies my favourite.
It’s fallen out with the others,
left out of the circle,
ditched in a damp hollow
like a huge toad
keeping its head down.
Megalith, giant stone.
Nobody knows it’s there,
hidden in long grass
cooling its bluestone bones,
asleep under the sun,
under the stars
for four thousand years.
So when I stroke it,
I’m sure it’s the first time
anyone gave it a friendly scratch
for at least four millennia.
I’m sure its stone heart
is beating under my thumb.
I’m sure it’s breathing.
Gillian Clarke
|
Rhiannon
|
Re: Gillian Clarke: Stone
Mar 06, 2017, 18:37
|
|
She was on Jeremy Paxman's programme last night talking about the embryonic Severn... I'm guessing you saw her?! It was a nice programme.
|
Littlestone
|
Edited Mar 06, 2017, 19:06
Re: Gillian Clarke: Stone
Mar 06, 2017, 19:01
|
|
Rhiannon wrote: She was on Jeremy Paxman's programme last night talking about the embryonic Severn... I'm guessing you saw her?! It was a nice programme.
No, missed that unfortunately. moss found the poem sometime ago and passed it on. There’s more about Gillian Clarke here (National Poet of Wales 2008-2016) if anyone's interested.
|
moss
|
Re: Gillian Clarke: Stone
Mar 06, 2017, 21:13
|
|
Rhiannon wrote: She was on Jeremy Paxman's programme last night talking about the embryonic Severn... I'm guessing you saw her?! It was a nice programme.
Well I must have found the poem in 2012, she is writing about Pentre Ifan, and says...
"What set me on this stony path was working on a commission to write about a megalith which I’ve known all my life, since early childhood days spent in Pembrokeshire with my grandmother on the farm. The megalith is a massive but elegant cromlech known as Pentre Ifan, in the hills above the Irish Sea. The huge weight of the capstone seems scarcely to touch the orthostats. Within sight of the sea, under the granite outcrop of Carn Meini - source of the bluestones of Stonehenge - Pentre Ifan is a pictogram from the alphabet of stone. I read its silhouette as the very word for cromlech. Carn Meini is formed from igneous granite, as old and as hard as any rock on the planet, an outburst of molten dolerite and rhyolite from the Earth’s mantle. Under Carn Meini the fields slip downhill to the sea, the underlying sedimentary rock blown away in the wind, aeon by aeon, from Carn Meini’s bony shoulders."
Apparently the poem must have been in a book called "Megalith: Eleven Journeys in Search of Stones". Can't remember reading it though.
|
carol27
|
Re: Gillian Clarke: Stone
Mar 06, 2017, 21:31
|
|
These words written, & so wisely deliberated over..the way they can capture the essence & experience of being in a place. It takes a certain kind of pace of brain I think. Regardless of facts surrounding; I know that these words describe stuff I can't adequately express. See,"stuff"..)
|
Littlestone
|
Edited Mar 24, 2017, 17:04
Re: Gillian Clarke: Stone
Mar 06, 2017, 22:05
|
|
moss wrote: "Pentre Ifan is a pictogram from the alphabet of stone. I read its silhouette as the very word for cromlech. Carn Meini is formed from igneous granite, as old and as hard as any rock on the planet, an outburst of molten dolerite and rhyolite from the Earth’s mantle."
Ah... the Dolerite connection.
Dolerite, porphyry, gabbro fired
At the earth's young heart: how those men
Handled them. Set on back-breaking
Geometry, the symmetries of solstice,
What they awaited we, too, still wait.
The first poem in this too long-lasting thread... but... still my favourite :-)
Though not strictly megalithic it reminded me of the herepath in Avebury that runs down from the Ridgeway (Green Street). That path (the herepath) must surely predate both the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans.
Herepath
Wide as ten men abreast
The old military road
Cuts between farms
Dips down to the river
Rises up over the moor
Rabbits lollop along it
Lambs bleat in fields beside it
Rosebay glows at sunset
Where were the wars that you marched to?
What were the victories that you won?
Here on the old Herepath
The road truly goes ever on
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond. The Cheesesellers wife.
|
Littlestone
|
Edited Mar 24, 2017, 21:14
Kim Whysall-Hammond: Herepath
Mar 24, 2017, 17:06
|
Though not strictly megalithic it reminded me of the herepath (Green Street) in Avebury that runs down from the Ridgeway. That path (the herepath) must surely predate both the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans.
Herepath
Wide as ten men abreast
The old military road
Cuts between farms
Dips down to the river
Rises up over the moor
Rabbits lollop along it
Lambs bleat in fields beside it
Rosebay glows at sunset
Where were the wars that you marched to?
What were the victories that you won?
Here on the old Herepath
The road truly goes ever on
Copyright © 2017 Kim Whysall-Hammond. The Cheesesellers wife.
|
