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quinaraThis is where I hope to call on the great ranging knowledge of my flist: my grandpa took my family to see the stage version of Terry Pratchett's Nation at the National Theatre a couple of weeks ago and the play was pretty awful, but I was passing by a book stall on the South Bank and poked through the poetry section, not looking for anything in particular, and happened upon a little book covered with card and very thin leather, entitled POEMS. in gold lettering, in a quite pointy caveman-esque type font. Amongst the knackered paperbacks it caught my eye - however, on opening it up I couldn't find the author's name (there's a foreword signed THE AUTHOR but that's it). Flicking through, none of the poems were familiar, and since it was the sort of Romantic pastoral kind of thing I quite like I thought I had to buy it - it was only a fiver and I reckoned I would never see them again otherwise.
I kind of assumed, though, that a quick google-fu would tell me who the author was and reveal that I had just managed to find a really weird edition of someone fairly standard but generally believed to be crap. But I can't find them at all! So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for methods of enquiry? Or wild stabs in the dark (especially of date):
The collection contains a massive load of quatrains, some specifically in the style of Omar Khayyám and others in the Rubáiyát form, 'Three Chinese Pictures', some haikai (with a footnote explaining it's an exclamatory Japanese form - they're all 17 syllables but in random amounts per line), 'inscriptions for sundials' and various other occasional things including the one I've typed up below the cut, which is a reflection on Sibelius' incidental music for The Tempest (quite a few imply the author was into music):
"THE TEMPEST."
The distant moan is threatening in its plaint
As of a giant distraught, yet on his vengeance bent,
Thinking no mercy, and in his strength -
Catching the elemental powers to force them to his will,
Dimming the pallid sun as dusk descends.
With rising wind and shrieking gust -
The straining halyards bear their greater burden.
Then with a wilder cry and fury mad unpent
The storm is hurled upon our frail craft -
This atom in a sea with rage o'ermastering,
And with screaming blasts the whitening foam
Surges on shuddering decks that yield and creak.
Wild delirium, casting fear aside, makes us feel
Exultant in the rhythmic pulsing of the gale
While like to some wan demon calls afar
We hear faint trumpet blasts, - teasing our spirits
As with frail hope they call - mocking always.
What matter now that spars fly splintering,
And masts go by the board? We are at one -
At one with this titanic pulsing - caring not
Whither the unknown fury bears us.
Phantom spirit voices hear we in the storm's wild scream
Calling us, and we, at last, obey.
I might just say they're by Spike and have done with it. ;)
I kind of assumed, though, that a quick google-fu would tell me who the author was and reveal that I had just managed to find a really weird edition of someone fairly standard but generally believed to be crap. But I can't find them at all! So I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for methods of enquiry? Or wild stabs in the dark (especially of date):
The collection contains a massive load of quatrains, some specifically in the style of Omar Khayyám and others in the Rubáiyát form, 'Three Chinese Pictures', some haikai (with a footnote explaining it's an exclamatory Japanese form - they're all 17 syllables but in random amounts per line), 'inscriptions for sundials' and various other occasional things including the one I've typed up below the cut, which is a reflection on Sibelius' incidental music for The Tempest (quite a few imply the author was into music):
"THE TEMPEST."
The distant moan is threatening in its plaint
As of a giant distraught, yet on his vengeance bent,
Thinking no mercy, and in his strength -
Catching the elemental powers to force them to his will,
Dimming the pallid sun as dusk descends.
With rising wind and shrieking gust -
The straining halyards bear their greater burden.
Then with a wilder cry and fury mad unpent
The storm is hurled upon our frail craft -
This atom in a sea with rage o'ermastering,
And with screaming blasts the whitening foam
Surges on shuddering decks that yield and creak.
Wild delirium, casting fear aside, makes us feel
Exultant in the rhythmic pulsing of the gale
While like to some wan demon calls afar
We hear faint trumpet blasts, - teasing our spirits
As with frail hope they call - mocking always.
What matter now that spars fly splintering,
And masts go by the board? We are at one -
At one with this titanic pulsing - caring not
Whither the unknown fury bears us.
Phantom spirit voices hear we in the storm's wild scream
Calling us, and we, at last, obey.
I might just say they're by Spike and have done with it. ;)