Alex Josephy Poet
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A Restoration, revisited

31/7/2017

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In Italy the heatwave continues. It's made it hard to find the energy to write, so that anything I've produced in the past month has emerged very slowly, and I'd like to say thoughtfully. But mainly just slowly.
This photo shows part of a fresco in the church of Sant'Agostino near where I live in Montalcino, whose restoration has also been progressing very slowly and in fits and starts, but is now once more underway.
Over several years I've been fascinated by the process, which has a wonderful,  almost devotional quality. These beautiful frescoes (painted during the 14th and 15th Centuries, possibly by Bartolo di Fredi of the Sienese school) show scenes from the life of St Anthony. But what I love the most are the small peripheral depictions of everyday rural life at the time of the painting. In this one, three people (contadini?) are on their way to market, the woman carrying eggs, and on her head two unfortunate ducks! I wrote the poem below in 2014, when the fresco was just starting to reveal its rich colours. It's lovely to see the work coming close to fruition this year.



Duck Hat

Who is that woman with the two ducks 
strapped to the top of her hat?
A basket of eggs, such a timid frown.
I’ve knelt close on folded sheets 
for a fortnight, mending holes in her gown
with a fine white filler, edged

my narrow brush across her cheek.
As if she’s a lover or child, she needs 
my kiss, but salt obscures her lip,
mottles the words she tries to mouth
in efflorescence. Here in the faintest slip
of lampblack, her cottage

hides among pines. All day I scrape
blown mortar, soothe hail-stone scores
with a spatula. Hills at her shoulder
wobble, terre verte, verdegris. Hands
reach and fail, lost in a fall of plaster, 
caput mortuum, browned purple 

at her feet. This is the lost treasure –
woman, duck hat, dancing dog – if only 
I can give them back their shadowy journey 
close to the bare earth, terra cotta, umber, 
far from tin-leaf haloes, the well-worn story 
told in cinnabar, shell gold, peach-stone charcoal.


You can find this poem and others set in England and Italy in 'Other Blackbirds' available from Cinnamon Press.




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Past, Present and Future at Ledbury Poetry Festival

3/7/2017

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I spent a contemplative weekend at Ledbury Poetry Festival, immersing myself in poetry events, performing one of my poems at the launch of Adam Horovitz's gorgeous, sappy, botanical anthology 'The Physic Garden' (available from Palewell Press - follow the link)...
... then hiding (in a park, or at my comfortable, secluded B and B - Harlequin-Ledbury, recommended!) to think and write... for me a perfect combination.

One of my highlights was a little exhibition of artists' books (Ledbury Book Arts) where I discovered the book art of Anthony Bateman. Anthony told me he is proud to live next door to John Masefield's childhood home,  and he's made a beautiful art book from an edition of Masefield's work. Turning the pages with delight,  I came upon the opening of Masefield's poem 'Tewkesbury Road', and was thrown straight back to childhood, to the first poems that moved me. I still carry in my head lines and phrases from this poem, learned by heart at primary school:  'the shy-eyed delicate deer', 'the dear wild cry of the birds'. I suspect that traces of Masefield's rhythms and images linger in my own writing.

I also loved the way the whole town seemed drawn into the festival spirit, with a shop window competition, poetry chairs around the streets and free and fringe activities too throughout the weekend.


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I learned how to write a triolet with American poet A. E Stallings (a great teacher as well as poet; if you ever get the chance do go to one of her workshops).

I caught parts of 'Fair Field', a promenade version of Langland's 'PIers Plowman', too, brought up-to-date in anti-austerity style and performed around town and up in the Malvern Hills.

I cackled with the best of 'em at Nicholas Murray's feisty 'A Dog's Brexit'. Cathartic rage! (And shades of Bulgakov?)

And I carried home a pile of books for my 'to read next' shelf, from the poets I'd heard reading, too many to mention but perhaps the stand-out for me were Ana Blandiana, legendary Romanian 'Poet of Freedom' prize-winner, and Turkish/Kurdish poet Bejan Matur with her translator Jen Hadfield. These poems ('If This is a Lament') bear witness and lament without ever losing that sense of word-joy that poetry can give.  Bejan's  chapbook sold out before I could get to the book table - so I have it on order from the Poetry Translation Centre!

I guess for some of us, a poetry festival is the equivalent of an activity holiday, doing the things we love best in a different and beautiful setting. Thanks to the Ledbury Festival, I feel very fortunate to be able to do so.


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    Author

    I like what Franz Kafka said:
    ​'Paths are made by walking'

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Alex Josephy