Final Post: Poems for Performance

Saturday, July 18th, 2009

Actually, I don’t write poems for performance although because I have a theatre background my work is sometimes performative. In my verse novels I try to capture the voices of various characters, to inhabit them as an actor would a character for the stage. ‘Lara’ and ‘The Emperor’s Babe’ are told in the first person. In the former there are many voices, in the latter, mainly one.

I digress. The 4 poems I’m showing you here were, unusually for me, written for performance. In the summer of 2003 I had a writers’ residency with the City of London Festival. It’s historically (some 40+ years) a classical music festival but they were broadening its scope. My remit was to write some poems about the City of London (as in the Square Mile) which would then culminate in a performance with the pianist Joanna McGregor and the saxophonist Andy Shepherd and a multi-media artist (name?). In the event, we met a few times, threw some ideas around and then I went away and wrote some poems.

I wandered around the City of London by day and by night. By day it’s an effing nightmare: congested traffic, everyone in suits so I felt quite freakish being there, noisy, too-tall buildings, no air!!!! At night it’s deserted – only 5000 people live within the square mile. I was also shown around the Bank of England and some of the amazing and antiquated Livery company halls. I seem to remember that there are about 50 churches still remaining in the Square Mile and I visited some of them too. The very, very old stone work juxtaposed with the brand-spanking-new, glass-fronted offices. This is the city. History sits side by side with modernity

So, in one way, my poems for the commission reflected the hectic, chaotic, overwhelming nature of the City as well as reflecting on its quiet, older spaces and places.

As an exercise for me, it was interesting. I work with narrative, even in my poems, but the nature of this project led me away from that. I also write about things I really care deeply about – history and its impact on the modern, Africa and its relationship to Europe, power imbalances, race and so forth – but did I care deeply about the Square Mile? As a financial centre it’s important but I don’t feel an emotional attachment to it and its population is negligible and mainly consists of city workers bedding down during the week. But it’s history, of course, is incredible. In ‘The Emperor’s Babe’ my character is a black Roman girl who inhabited the Square Mile some 1800 years ago.

All the poems (about 8 in total) were set to music and performed live with music et al in the 1000 year old St. Bartholemew’s Church near Smithfields. The performance was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during the festival.

The poems were written with performance in mind and to a very specific brief about Place. I would not have written them otherwise and I will probably never publish any of them. ‘Crane’ and ‘Rush Hour Opera’ exist as poems set to music and visual media. They capture time and place, they have atmosphere and evoke, but they hold no deeper or greater emotional significance for me and therefore, I imagine, the reader. ‘Tamasa’ and ‘A Quiet Place’ have more depth, and I so think they do have a life beyond the commission. When I re-read them I am stirred and remember how I felt when I wrote them.

Here are the four poems  (SORRY ABOUT THE LACK OF STANZA BREAKS. THERE ARE MANY IN ALL THE POEMS BUT WHEN I PUT THEM IN THE POST DISSOLVES THEM.  SORRY too about double-spaced lines. Cant’ work it out!)

CRANE

The skyline punctured

with yellow, red, green and white cranes

underneath lies 2000 years of city history

waiting to be dug up, dissected and preserved

narrow medieval streets

little back-alleys to remain untouched

neon-yellow hard hats and fluorescent waist-coated men

grinding concrete

powder swirling everywhere

raising the skeleton of buildings

limbs of steel girders

each one resembling

a multi-level car park

until the gaps are filled in with breeze-block or glass or concrete, the

noise, noise, noise

of drills and cranes and stone-crunching machinery

the dust of dissolving

stone buildings

the stereophonic jazz surround

of workmen’s vibrato drills breaking ground

the city pulled down

the city growing up

at our feet

accompanied by the intermittent scat

of hammers and chisels

the dusty-black, steel-toed boots of hod carriers

dragging on grainy concrete

like the tired scraping of a washboard

and, from the conducting finger of a crane

a block of concrete sways perilously

overhead

it is the city’s modern metronome

crane

the city’s modern metronome

RUSH HOUR OPERA

Saxophonic drawl of arriving trains

segues into the sibilant hiss of the high hat

as they glide to the end of their journey

silence

then

the release of streamlined feet

headed for the street

black notes stepping out as the score

of this our rush hour opera

the marching feet of economic soldiers:

respectable leather-soled brogues

and brisk staccato heels

of pointy-toed, castrati stilettos

seamless tights

singing legs

all

criss-crossing the station concourse

cymbals bashing into each other

two-step, quick-step, arpeggio

pay packet, promotion, pension

two-step, quick-step, arpeggio

pay packet, promotion, pension

the humming chorus of commuters

muffled from the cluster of amplifiers

dangling from the ceiling

a familiar refrain

We apologise for unavoidable delays due to

leaves on the line

body on the line

snow on the line

sun on the line

washing on the line

job on the line

limbo dancers on the line

then

a counter-tenor’s ranting aria

Just one more wheeskee, give it to me…

carbuncles bursting out of soiled sneakers

scuffling down the centre of the page

forcing oncoming notes to break step

until the beat police cut him off

mid-song

our dull outdoors thud

crossing over London Bridge

an overarching theme across the Thames

daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, forty years

of loyal and dutiful service

drowned out by traffic

carried away by wind

and into the city we pour

with courier motorcyclists and suicidal cyclists

double-decker buses, the occasional stretch limo

or chauffered roller

where we jump in between

the trumpeting of these impatient vehicles

a ritualistically, risky improvisation

we disappear through revolving doors

of glass-shattering, high-rise sopranos

or the symphonic, hush-carpeted halls

of grand, Masonic, symbolic buildings

this our daily overture

7am to 9am

this our day’s finale

5pm to 7pm

this our rushing hour

TAMASA (Thames)

Parliament

rising like a gothic castle out of the swamp of winter

Hovering space chip of St. Pauls

exquisitely lit mid-night at the end of the elegant, elongated swoop

of Millenium Bridge

Oxo tower illuminated

South Bank’s bunker-like barracks

River vista

sheets of iron

beaten by flying nails

in a storm

a river side

night wide

city side

view

A QUIET PLACE

Christopher Wren’s domed

sepulchre of prayer

where we gather to hear

the pure, unbroken chords

of choristers in soothing hymnal song

matins, eucharist, evensong

charging the batteries

of hearts flattened

by the hard casing and high voltage

haywire of trading

the hurly-burly of the metropolis

where the religiously

stained glass windows

filter in the city’s kaleidoscopic light

flag stone floor

grilled circle of holes

looking down into the crypt

below

whispering around the gallery

and lead us not….

we are the world

we are the people

who commemorate the dead

to reflect on your own

birth, life, death

and the spinning cycle of things

the world turning on its axis

the world we pray

for

the great domed church

after St. Peters in Rome –

a quiet place

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