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Shadow Seasons: An Epilogue, 2011

Dedicated to the few who messaged on New Year’s Eve.

2011 was a story I don’t know how to tell. It’s a year that had so many structural positives, countered by surface negatives. Perhaps it’s best defined by what others have said.

Shadows

In the early summer, I was ‘strange’, ‘sick’ and ‘damaged goods’. Thanks. In the mid-summer, I was an expletive abomination. Consequently, in the late summer, I was branded a defeatist.

Victimisation does arise sometimes. Not because it is wanted – if there’s a brand of people who don’t want to be happy, this author is not one of them – but because it’s a way of dealing with the various angles of attack and the after-effects that cannot be disguised.

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Agency: Too Much Left Unsaid

Published December 17, 2011 Leicester , Literature , research Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Early Modern, Literature, Poetry, Print Culture, Privacy, Secrecy

What is said, matters. How it is said, matters. To whom it is said, matters. When it is said, matters.

The little nuances of our communication are more intricate and powerful than we often care to believe. How much value do we place on the words ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’? When does ‘never’ mean never? Why does one person’s way of speaking catch our imagination in a different way to another?

After the Fact

I’ve had the privilege of hearing the inspiring Tom Lockwood twice before: at the British Milton Seminar in 2008, and at his Chatterton Lecture on John Donne in 2009 (I’m heard 67 minutes in). His recent presentation at Leicester’s Early Modern Seminar on ‘agency’ presented a particular conundrum which is encountered – as often happens – in study and life combined.

What agency do words have after the fact? If something is said too late, does it matter that it was said at all? What if something is not said, or revealed too late?

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New Horizons

Published November 12, 2011 Geneva , Leicester , Literature 1 Comment
Tags: Aegis Quest, Andrew Marvell, Blogging, Geneva, Poetry, Psychology, Self-Discipline

Inspired by, and dedicated to, those who didn’t write me off. (And welcome to any students who are looking for information on Marvell and arriving here. Please do contact me if you want any help).

This could be a maelstrom: of sentiments; of changes; of minds and mysteries. Much has changed in recent weeks, with positive challenges and valued rewards. It has been difficult to document it all, and the positivity comes with understandable nervousness and a touch of trepidation.

“The only way is onwards…”

Ideally, we want our lives to lead upwards trajectories. When somebody hits particular heights for themselves, they struggle to contemplate living within or below that potential. That’s the intricate psychology of accomplishment.

My life took such a monumental leap four years ago that when the subsequent falls struck with intent, no amount of trying, support, or soul-searching could arrest the slide, nor console its gravity. And this beautiful little portal came to life, with its artistry, its cadence, and its candour, as sadness drove and inspired my best writing.

I’ve told stories through feelings, and feelings through stories. I’ve read poetry through loneliness, and loneliness through poetry. I’ve discovered Marvell through myself, and myself through Marvell.

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Behind Closed Doors

Published August 19, 2011 Culture , Leicester , Literature Leave a Comment
Tags: Elizabeth Bishop, KUSP, Poetry, Privacy, Psychology, Radio, Robert Browning, Santa Cruz, Solitude

When I consider the poetry that inspires me the most, it all seems to have privacy at its root. Perhaps, given an earlier definition of poetry as ‘95% loneliness’, this is not surprising. Yet, not only does poetry have a long tradition of being a public form, but privacy as a theme remains a dark and complex subject that manifests itself in fascinating ways.

Our recent instalment on KUSP Radio, Santa Cruz, a 1-on-1 discussion with Gwynne Harries, was generously dedicated to my favourite poems. The (perhaps surprising) choices to best fit into the parameters of the show were ‘Sestina [September Rain]’ by Elizabeth Bishop, and ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ by Robert Browning, two poems that I’ve known and loved for many years, and which both deal with loss and loneliness from vastly different perspectives. As an addendum to what was discussed on the show, to compare these together offers something striking and special.

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Brands of Solitude: Poets and their Nature

Published May 19, 2011 Leicester , Literature , research 5 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Christina Rossetti, Conscience, Literature, Poetry, Privacy, Psychology, Radio, Santa Cruz, Self-Confidence, Solitude

The highlight of this year has been participating in recordings for The Poetry Show on KUSP Radio, Santa Cruz. This post is indebted to a discussion of Andrew Marvell’s ‘The Garden’ and Christina Rossetti’s ‘In the Willow Shade’ for our fourth installment which aired on 8th May, the best to date.

We all enjoy solitude at points in our lives. Privacy is not just a right, one might argue, but a human requirement. We all enjoy that little realm when the door is shut firmly behind us and we can lapse into self-sufficiency.

The fundamental problem is how to draw the right balance. Managing solitude can be vital to our psychological wellbeing. It is difficult to maintain relationships that have little contact, and even harder to develop new ones. We live in times where it is easy to get lost and forgotten if we do not project ourselves publicly. It is rare that people will come looking for us.

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East Midlands Early Modern Colloquium

Published April 21, 2011 Culture , Leicester , Literature , research 1 Comment
Tags: Censorship, Drama, Early Modern, English Revolution, Icons, Interregnum, John Donne, Kingship, Literature, Print Culture, Public Sphere, Quakers, Religion, research, Self-Discipline, Self-Promotion, Seventeenth Century, Visual Culture, William Shakespeare

Religion, Print and Visual Culture in the Early Modern Period [April 2011].

The second East Midlands Early Modern Colloquium convened at De Montfort University in April 2011 after a three year hiatus. Delegates from Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham, and Nottingham Trent joined home convenor Siobhan Keenan at the impressive Clephan Building for an equally impressive set of papers. [Full schedule attached here].

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A Long Winter’s Tale

Published April 17, 2011 Leicester , Literature , Politics , research 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Cultural Revolution, Early Modern, English Civil War, English Revolution, Geneva, humour, John Milton, Leicester, Literature, Nigel Smith, Politics, Print Culture, Public Sphere, Reformation, Religion, Seventeenth Century, Teaching

A summary of research activity from January-March 2011. This features a lecture by Nigel Smith at the Andrew Marvell Centre in Hull; a teaching event at the University of York; and the biannual British Milton Seminar at Birmingham Central Library.

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Poetry and Appearing on KUSP, Santa Cruz

Published March 29, 2011 Leicester , Literature 5 Comments
Tags: Art, Ekphrasis, Elegy, Leicester, Literature, Mirrors, Poetry, Privacy, Radio, Santa Cruz

This post embraces loneliness by celebrating togetherness. The conduit is that indefinable, elusive, and enigmatic craft of poetry.

95% loneliness: Poetry

The falling leaf poem, the first in e.e. cummings’ collection 95 poems, inspired the strongest definition of poetry I’ve ever been able to come up with: ‘95% loneliness’. It’s impossibly inadequate, of course. It says nothing of genre, form, or even of certainty; it just vividly suggests something about authorship. For me, it stands the test of time.

Poetry is an enigma that delves beyond certainty. It doesn’t write itself, and whatever brings it about evokes just as many harrowing questions as that which appears on the page.

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