Category Archives: Poetry

70 years ago

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The first executions began at Babi Yar in Kiev, Ukraine. They began on September 27, to be exact. The first victims were patients at the local psychiatric hospital. They were murdered by Nazi occupiers together with local collaborators. Then the city’s Jewish population was taken there. They were told that they were being “resettled.” And you can guess what happened next.

Babi Yar is the final resting place of many, many people – mostly civilian Jews, as well as Soviet POWs, Ukrainian nationalists, Roma folks who were rounded up, etc. I am distantly related to some of the people who were murdered there, as a lot of Kievans are.

My first play featured an incident at Babi Yar as it is today, but I couldn’t do justice to the setting.

Poet Evgeny Yevtushenko wrote of Babi Yar: “I am like a constant, soundless scream, over the buried thousands. I am every old man shot to death here. I am every child shot to death here.” At the time that Yevtushenko wrote these words, the Soviet powers were still steadfastly refusing to place a monument at Babi Yar.

All of that has changed. And a museum is likely to be built. I guess that justifies the “Good News” tag, maybe.

Monday Music, for famous Seamus

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Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

I don’t prattle on about Seamus Heaney nearly enough on this blog. I love Seamus Heaney. You know how much I love Seamus Heaney? I love him more than instant coffee, which is really another way of saying that I love him more than life itself. This one time, I was in the presence of none other than Paul Muldoon, and when he used the phrase “famous Seamus,” I kinda wanted to thump my chest and say “Ave,” and the only reason why I didn’t do that is because I didn’t want to go down in the annals of the English Department as that Chick Who Sketched Out Paul Freaking Muldoon.

I have been rereading Heaney lately, for several reasons, and it’s a bit like having happiness dissolve on your tongue (yes, bad metaphor, nobody reads with their tongue, stupid Natalia does not care for such trifling details in her quest to sexualize the hell out of her relationship with great poetry). All I can do is dedicate some music to him.

Seamus Heaney, even when your poetry is brimming over with guilt and longing and despair, this is how you make me feel:

Love You ‘Till the End – The Pogues
Wai – Bonnie Prince Billy
Crazy He Calls Me – Billie Holiday
Tugboat – Galaxie 500
Mama Anarkhia – Kino
I’m Going Away Smiling – Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band
A Journey in the Dark – Howard Shore & New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Fruit Machine – the Ting Tings
La Duchesse Anne – Grizzly Bear
Il Pleut – Emilie Simon

“Il Pleut” is a great, amazing, haunting pop song, one of the few pop songs that oddly goes along with famous Seamus’ poetry. Here it is live:

And this is oddly soothing:

(I love these random YouTube image compilations set along to great songs)

I am Ireland-themed, at the moment. It’s brought back all sorts of memories. And made new ones.

You know, I’d say that this entire Derek Walcott thing has left a bad taste in my mouth

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…But then, some pervert might interpret it as a come-on. 

*haw haw*

As evil_fizz recently pointed out – most people are aware of Walcott’s reputation as, well, someone who doesn’t respect certain boundaries with women. As most of the recent defenses of Walcott attest, it isn’t that anyone is denying that improprities have occurred – instead, people are saying that we should have a different standard for Walcott than we do for other people. 

I am sympathetic to Ruth Padel, Walcott’s rival for the Professor of Poetry post at Oxford, who had to resign after it was alleged that she engaged in a “smear-campaign” that forced Walcott to withdraw his nomination for the post. I think she was being careless when she talked to the media, but what does it say about our priorities when Walcott only recently saw his inappropriate conduct affect his career, whereas women like Padel are automatically reduced to the status of evil trolls when they discuss information that’s already in the public domain? 

As a young female journalist and aspiring novelist, I am routinely warned to never, EVER criticize men like Walcott. If I want to have a writing career, I am told, I need to shut up and smile and allow the Great Men of Letters to bask in their Greatness. Perhaps then they’ll let me sit in their laps, or something. 

More importantly, we are taught to believe that certain men who Live the Life of the Mind can and should get away with demeaning women. Tom Wolfe can call young college women “sluts,” Derek Walcott can be the sort of man whom female undergraduates are explicitly warned against and not be the worse for wear, and so on. Not harassing or demeaning women is already seen as a tough business for your average man, but a man whose “brain is the size of a planet” cannot be held responsible as they are too distracted by their own brilliance to act as responsible residents of this sinful firmament – hell, poor guy was only thinking deep thoughts on Daniel Defoe when he accidentally stumbled into your pants, lady. 

Odd how these excuses are only extended to men wherein their conduct with women is concerned. If Walcott was prone to picking fellow academics’ pockets or abusing his cat, would we be even having this discussion? 

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Being nearly 25, unmarried, female and from Kyiv

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Being thus is a flashing green light for anyone who is dying to quote out loud that awesome thing they read this morning on the metro in a women’s magazine. 

Being thus is that pause in conversation.

Being thus is the following phrase: “Get married, you can always have affairs later!”

Being thus is remembering Yaroslava, whom someone else remembers with “…and for some reason, this beautiful girl just didn’t have a husband. And then she died.”

Being thus is a prickly blanket of loneliness even if you are not lonely. 

Being thus is comparing yourself to those wilting teabags that are saved in the little dish in the cupboard above the sink. 

Being thus is telling people that they sound as though they are from a village. 

Being thus is not telling people your whereabouts. 

Being thus is an intimacy. 

Being thus is being pitied and adored.

Being thus is a passing glance.

Being thus is whispers hanging in the air like cobwebs in the damp-stained corners of rooms with high ceilings.

Being thus is digging at a clump of frozen raspberries with a spoon.

Being thus is an invitation to the parties of your parents’ friends. 

Being thus is advice on how sex prevents cancer – “but I’m having it” – “but you’re an idiot.”

Being thus is a conversation that gets spread outward and outward, like butter.

Being thus is a reassuring smile from beneath a veil from a woman in a church. 

Being thus is the looks from your neighbours. 

Being thus is the quiet lassitude of the swallow-streaked evening skies, and the kettle boiling right as he calls. 

Loosely inspired by the infinitely superior Being Poor (in case you’re wondering).