Meanwhile, we thought it was time to give you a taster of our Arctic poetry. We've each picked one poem from our collections - Creatures of the Intertidal Zone and Firebridge to Skyshore: A Northern Lights Journey. And we'd love to hear any thoughts you have about them.
When I first visited Tromso in Norway, they were in the middle of Polar Night. At latitude 69ยบ and into the Arctic Circle, the Far North of the country sees no sun between late November and mid-January. Although there was daylight from about 10am, it was dusk at noon and pitch dark by 2pm in the afternoon. A laavu is a Saami tent, similar to a teepee, which we stayed in when we visited a reindeer herder in Ramfjorden.
POLAR NIGHT
is a sodden blanket
pulled in close
to the hulk of mountain
the scattered pebble
glitter of a city
morning is
a weft of muddy yarn
a pelt of scraped skin
thrown around the
jagged birch-sticks
of a laavu
noon is a puddle
of rising murk:
like reindeer milk
in a stomach sac
the light curdles
into dark
© Siobhan Logan 2009
Susan: During my time in Greenland, I was lucky to have the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong ambition by going husky sledding. I knew I wanted to write a poem about this extraordinary experience - but really took myself by surprise when it turned into a poem about the frustrations of writer's block and waiting for creative inspiration!
WAITING AT THE BREATHING HOLE
The white of this screen burns
my eyes. Its unswerving glare
might well make me snow-blind.
There was a time when words would fly
across the screen, like a dog-team speeding,
each at its peak and pulling
equally and all I’d have to do was leap
aboard the sledge, guide it
in the right direction, then
relish the ride.
But suddenly,
we hit uneven ice.
Bumped over ridges.
I fell from the sledge. The dogs fled.
The instructions I yelled
had no meaning.
So now, with tender eyes,
I must hunt for a hole in the white
and wait
patient
at the rim
for the whiskered nose of inspiration,
for a flippered urge to surge to the surface.
And when it comes, I won’t shoot it,
harpoon it skin it rip its liver out and eat it raw
leave banners of blood on the snow.
No. I’ll feed it all the saffron cod and shrimp it needs,
teach it to move with the ease it knows beneath
the ice
but first, I’ll take a few steps back
and just let it
breathe
© Susan Richardson 2009
Thanks for posting these poems, I really enjoyed reading both of them.
ReplyDeleteAnd can I say, Liz, how much I enjoyed the 2 'Scattering' poems on your blogpage? Wonderful sounds and images and lovely to see them together.
ReplyDeleteSiobhan
Dramatic way of describing the experience of writer's block, Sue. As if the external experiences of dogsledding/wildlife observation and the internal hiatus blended into one train of thought and the
ReplyDeletesights you've found so inspiring came to the rescue and made the references to writers block almost ironic, considering how much action, passion and imagery is packed into so few words. So while the conscious act of creation wasn't apparently happening, you were somehow connected directly to the part of the mind where metaphors are made, it seems...
Siobhan, sounds like you at least partially 'went native' in the Artic region, with the harshness of the enviroment
causing a (conscious or unconscious?) focus on the things necessary to keep yourself alive, so the things 'locals' regard as most important (because of their relation to warmth/survival) fought for your attention with the environment itself. Not feeling particularly comfortable physically seems to be evoked by Polar Night, and perhaps a degree of awe at the power Nature compared to frail humanity?
Sorry if the above is pretentious of me in any way, I occasionally become fascinated by the nature of the interaction between the external world and the imagination, and to what degree people who create are in control of, or an outlet for what is going on subconsciously.
You're absolutely right, Bill, about the way landscape can trigger the unconscious. This poem came very quickly, soon after we landed in Tromso. And apart from the skies, I was thinking of the exhibition we'd seen at the local musuem about Saami culture, especially those laavu wrapped in reindeer hides or blankets. Of course, we ourselves were staying in a very comfy hotel - so not exactly living on the edge : ) Siobhan
ReplyDeleteI obviously assumed from the poem that you'd camped out overnight, due to such details as the sodden blanket being quite evocative of how it would feel to do so. But I guess part of the benefit of having an imagination
ReplyDeleteand not being afraid to use it (as some people seem to be) is being able to empathise about how it would feel to live 'on the edge' and also imagine the sky itself as a sodden blanket, without actually having to suffer the
actual discomfort of the extreme conditions.
And, just in case it will amuse, when I first looked at your brief bio on the blog, I initially misread 'auroral scientists' as 'amoral scientists' :)
I think Stan and Darren would see the funny side : )
ReplyDeleteI'm about to appear with them at a Northern Lights event in Feb. at the National Space Centre. I'll consider your alternative intro. to them ...
Siobhan
Thanks for the lovely comments, Siobhan. Looking forward to your book.
ReplyDelete