TOM CLARK: Stevie Smith: "I am a Child of this World" / The rout of the wandering infidel at Idomeni

TOPSHOT - A boy sits on a bus as he waits to be transferred to a reception centre during an evacuation operation by Greek police forces of the makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border, near the village of Idomeni, on May 24, 2016. In an operation which began shortly after sunrise on May 24, hundreds of Greek police began evacuating the sprawling camp which is currently home to 8,400 refugees and migrants, among them many families with children, an AFP correspondent said. At its height, there were more than 12,000 people crammed into the site, many of them fleeing war, persecution and poverty in the Middle East and Asia, with the camp exploding in size since Balkan states began closing their borders in mid February in a bid to stem the human tide seeking passage to northern Europe

A boy sits on a bus as he waits to be transferred to a reception centre during an evacuation operation by Greek police forces of the makeshift camp at the Greek-Macedonian border, near the village of Idomeni, today: photo by Yannis Kolesidis/AFP, 24 May 2016

Stevie Smith: Bog-Face: "I am a Child of this World"

Cranberry (vaccinium oxycoccos) in a bog, coastal Washington: photo by Keith Weller (Agricultural Research Service / U.S. Dept. of Agriculture)

Dear Little Bog-Face,
Why are you so cold?
And why do you lie with your eyes shut? --
You are not very old.

I am a Child of this World,
And a Child of Grace,
And Mother, I shall be glad when it is over,
I am Bog-Face.

Virgin boreal acid bogs at Brown's Lake Bog, Wayne County, Ohio: photo by U.S. National Park Service, 2004

World Chronicle Charlemagne: German Miniaturist, c. 1300, manuscript (Ms. 302 Vad.), 305 x 210 mm (Kantonsbinliothek Vadiana, St. Gall)

Sébastien Mamerot: The Campaigns of the French against the Turks: French Miniaturist, 1474-75, manuscript (Ms. français 5594), 320 x 230 mm (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris)

Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith (1902-1971): Bog-Face, from Mother, What Is Man? (1950)

The rout of the wandering infidel at Idomeni

Greek authorities began an operation at dawn on Tuesday to gradually clear the country’s largest informal refugee camp at Idomeni on the Macedonian border, blocking access to the area and sending in more than 400 riot police.: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 24 May 2016

Final daybreak in #Idomeni Police forces arrived at 6 AM, evac started an hour after, as camp was still fast asleep: image via Giorgos Christides @gchristides, 24 May 2016

Greek police move to shut down Idomeni refugee camp

Tent housing at makeshift refugee camp, Idomeni, Greece near the Macedonian border: photo by Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Greek authorities began evacuating the camp at Idomeni near the Macedonian border: photo by Dimitris Sideridis/Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Greek authorities have begun an operation to clear the country's largest informal refugee camp in Idomeni on the Macedonian border, blocking access to the area and sending in more than 700 riot police: photo by Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Idomeni camp was home to at least 8,400 people, including hundreds of children: photo by Dimitris Sideridis/Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Refugees and migrants are transferred on a bus to government camps from Idomeni: photo by Dimitris Sideridis/Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

The rout of the infidel at Idomeni

Remember that the 1000s at #Idomeni are real people with stories, beautiful faces and names. This is Mohammed and Ahmed.: image via MSF Sea Verified account @MSF_Sea, 24 May 2016

Food has been blocked to #Idomeni. Bulldozers are taking down tents. Refugees scared and tired. #RefugeesWelcome: image via Paul Carr @aid_act, 24 May 2016

First 4 buses started coming out of #Idomeni #refugeesGR @d_tosidis @dwnews: image via Marianna Karakulaki @Faloulah, 24 May 2016

Irony: most buses who have been transporting refugees out of #Idomeni are from a company called Crazy Holidays.: image via Carol Moreno Verified account @anarina, 24 May 2016 Kentriki Makedonia, Greece

Looking back at Idomeni migrant camp Photo via @ReutersUK: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 24 May 2016

Greece starts evacuating squalid Idomeni migrant camp: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 24 May 2016

A boy carries his belongings during a forced clearing of a migrants' makeshift camp on the Greek-Macedonia border: image via AFP news agency @AFP, 24 May 2016

Greece begins to clear Idomeni refugee camp - in pictures

A migrant carries his belongings during a clearing operation by Greek police forces of a makeshift refugee camp near the village of Idomeni on the Greek-Macedonian border: photo by Yannis Kolesidis / AFP, 24 May 2015

Police stand next to an armoured vehicle parked on a railway line. The government’s spokesman for the refugee crisis, Giorgos Kyritsis, said Monday that police would not use force, and that the operation was expected to last about a week to 10 days.: photo by Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters, 24 May 2016

The camp, which sprung up at an informal pedestrian border crossing for refugees and migrants heading north to Europe, is home to an estimated 8,400 people -- including hundreds of children -- mostly from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.: photo by Yannis Kolesidis / Reuters, 24 May 2016

At its peak, when Macedonia shut its border in March, it housed more than 14,000, but the numbers have declined as people realised the border was shut and began accepting authorities’ offers of alternative places to stay: photo by Yannis Kolesidis / AFP, 24 May 2016

A refugee boy on a wheelchair passes in front of riot police. In Idomeni, most have been living in small camping tents pitched in fields and along railway tracks, while aid agencies have set up large marquee-style tents to help house people.: photo by Yannis Kolesidis / Reuters, 4 May 2016

In recent weeks, the camp had begun taking on an image of permanence, with refugees setting up small makeshift shops selling everything from cooking utensils to falafel and bread: photo by Yannis Kolesidis / Reuters, 24 May 2016

Twenty buses carrying various riot police units were seen heading to the area while a police helicopter observed from above. An estimated 700 police were participating in the operation.: photo by Robert Atanasovski / AFP, 24 May 2016

The Greek government has been trying to persuade people staying in Idomeni to leave the area and head to organised camps. This week it said its campaign of voluntary evacuations was already working, with police reporting that eight buses carrying about 400 people left Idomeni on Sunday.: photo by Yannis Kolesidis / AFP, 24 May 2016

BRISTOL, UNITED KINGDOM - MAY 24: A woman passes a mural that has been painted on a derelict building in Stokes Croft showing US presidential hopeful Donald Trump sharing a kiss with former London Mayor Boris Johnson on May 24, 2016 in Bristol, England. Boris Johnson is currently one of the biggest names leading the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union in the referendum which takes place on June 23 and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump has also backed a so-called Brexit. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

A woman passes a mural that has been painted on a derelict building in Stokes Croft showing US presidential hopeful Donald Trump sharing a kiss with former London Mayor Boris Johnson, Bristol, England: photo by Matt Cardy, 24 May 2016

US President Barack Obama waves as he disembarks from Air Force One at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City on May 24, 2016. Obama told communist Vietnam that basic human rights would not jeopardise its stability, in an impassioned appeal for the one-party state to abandon authoritarianism. / AFP PHOTO / CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULTCHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT/AFP/Getty Images

US President Barack Obama waves as he disembarks from Air Force One at the Tan Son Nhat airport in Ho Chi Minh City today: photo by Christophe Archambault/AFP, 24 May 2016

A Shi'ite fighter stands next to a religious flag near Falluja, Iraq, May 24, 2016. REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani

A Shia fighter stands next to a religious flag near Fallujah, Iraq: photo by Thaier Al-Sudani/Reuters, 24 May 2016

As Greece begins to relocate migrants from Idomeni, we look back at scenes from the squalid camp on the Macedonia border: image via Reuters Top News @Reuters, 24 May 2016

Covered in blankets, refugees stand in line in front of an temporary refugee camp at the Greek-Macedonian border while the dawn already begins: Photo by Mohammad, a refugee who left Syria when faced with conscription for military service: image via Kevin McElhaney/Project #RefugeeCameras, 2016

Assad planes bombed residential buildings in the city of Aleppo: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 21 May 2016

Tree of life amid the rubble #Aleppo Photo: Baraa Al Halabi: image via baraa al halabi @baraaalhalabi, 22 May 2016

2 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE25 May 2016 at 07:28
Tom,

Quite a wake-up call this morning, moving from that first boy sitting on the bus to

I am a Child of this World,
And a Child of Grace,

to That tree of life amid the rubble #Aleppo . . .

That boy with his elbows and arms against the bottom of the bus window strangely prefigured in these lines from "To Carry the Child" (included in a review of Stevie Smith's All the Poems in the new NYRB) -- "a poor child . . Trapped in a grown-up carapace . . . peer[s] outside of his prison room/ With the eye of an anarchist."
TC26 May 2016 at 13:15
Steve,

Many thanks. That photo of the Tree of Life amid the rubble was taken by a boy from Aleppo who has been made into a man and an artist by the war. He is a sentinel.

Yes, Stevie's several re-inhabitations of childhood, distinguished by the characteristic hard-eyed unsentimental view, do come to mind. The one you've noted in fact appeared here once upon a time. And here it is again now you've mentioned it:

To Carry The Child

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

Stevie Smith: "I am a Child of this World" / The rout of the wandering infidel at Idomeni

Tent housing at makeshift refugee camp, Idomeni, Greece near the Macedonian border: photo by Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Tent housing at makeshift refugee camp, Idomeni, Greece near the Macedonian border: photo by Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Greek authorities have begun an operation to clear the country's largest informal refugee camp in Idomeni on the Macedonian border, blocking access to the area and sending in more than 700 riot police: photo by Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Idomeni camp was home to at least 8,400 people, including hundreds of children: photo by Dimitris Sideridis/Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

Refugees and migrants are transferred on a bus to government camps from Idomeni: photo by Dimitris Sideridis/Al Jazeera, 24 May 2016

2 comments: