tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post8756764599947064753..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Stevie Smith: Thoughts about the Person from PorlockUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-74891618851806423582011-02-19T04:44:10.519-08:002011-02-19T04:44:10.519-08:00Thanks, Michael. And like they say, small world.
...Thanks, Michael. And like they say, small world.<br /><br />Tom L. and I became friends very long ago at Cambridge and have kept in touch over the years, so he has been keeping me up to date on his remarkable inhabitation (shall we call it) of the persona of the author of Kubla Khan.<br /><br />I appreciate the link to your interesting online journal excerpt from Tom's continuing work, and recommend it to others.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-46771826623185960962011-02-19T02:31:23.713-08:002011-02-19T02:31:23.713-08:00You may be interested to know that Tom Lowenstein ...You may be interested to know that Tom Lowenstein has recently brought to light a new journal of Mr Coleridge's ruminations on the great Khan, written at Ash Farm.<br /><br /><a href="http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-have-in-my-hand-volume-which-is-new.html" rel="nofollow">href="http://intercapillaryspace.blogspot.com/2011/02/i-have-in-my-hand-volume-which-is-new.html</a>Michael Peveretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17090710369630916194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-82671034161570754282011-02-18T04:39:03.799-08:002011-02-18T04:39:03.799-08:00Yes, yes, that's what we ought to do, certainl...Yes, yes, that's what we ought to do, certainly.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-28513301016193689802011-02-18T02:47:40.244-08:002011-02-18T02:47:40.244-08:00"smile smile and get some work to do"......"smile smile and get some work to do"...wonderful words...wonderful piece....thanks Tom!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2511762577259615832011-02-17T22:17:29.721-08:002011-02-17T22:17:29.721-08:00Yes, Bill, and one might even imagining the myster...Yes, Bill, and one might even imagining the mysterious missing Person traversing it, trudging on the way to assert that famous (and convenient?) historical interruption. <br /><br /><br />Steve, and how (the rain)...intense here day through night since Monday, blinding downpours, hail spells<br /><br />the same, today known<br />as a continuation, of rain<br /><br />...all too, too reminiscent of the teeming night (two months ago yesterday) when those parking lot spikes made a cripple out of me. <br /><br />(Celebrated the memorial by bravely hiding under the covers, but when I climbed out again... still pouring.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-58034955965379397122011-02-17T12:56:36.385-08:002011-02-17T12:56:36.385-08:00nice patch of purple heather (Exmoor photo)...nice patch of purple heather (Exmoor photo)...bill shermanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04168365468808561496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-90993107486136110982011-02-17T10:56:35.103-08:002011-02-17T10:56:35.103-08:00Tom,
Yes, those images of Porlock (an actual plac...Tom,<br /><br />Yes, those images of Porlock (an actual place!, maybe also an actual person from Porlock? maybe delivering STC's anodyne?) help to make the poem somehow as real as its Author's Note seems to make it, just some ordinary event down there on the coast of Somerset. Rain coming down here, hail last night, ridge disappeared in clouds. . . .<br /><br /><br />2.17<br /><br />light coming into sky above still black<br />plane of ridge, red-tailed hawk calling <br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> way of thinking that is not<br /> the same, today known<br /><br /> as a continuation, of train <br /> of thought, almost as<br /><br />silver of sunlight reflected in channel,<br />white cloud in pale blue sky on horizonSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-47449498869585385382011-02-17T07:53:47.134-08:002011-02-17T07:53:47.134-08:00Curtis,
The images of Porlock were an illuminatio...Curtis,<br /><br />The images of Porlock were an illumination for me -- the place having always assumed in the imagination a sort of cloudy phantasmagoric character undoubtedly cast by the spell of Coleridge's poem.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-83130289408595187312011-02-17T06:27:19.375-08:002011-02-17T06:27:19.375-08:00I woke up (actually having fallen soundly asleep -...I woke up (actually having fallen soundly asleep -- finally -- a big change) this morning both early and late -- I needed to be at the airport by 5 am. The words and image on my mind were "out of road". The mental picture I had formed looked a lot like the photo of Porlock Weir. I marvel at this poem. It's so unlike anything else I know and it amazes how Smith quietly but definitely constructs a "big finish" conclusion. This moves me also because Kubla Khan was the first substantial poem I committed to memory. It was for an English assignment in early high school and I don't remember clearly what caused me to choose Kubla Khan, but I've always been glad I did because it has stayed with me always.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-18007460668426440952011-02-16T10:10:29.141-08:002011-02-16T10:10:29.141-08:00Steve,
grey-white of sky
this morning here, too,...Steve,<br /><br />grey-white of sky<br /><br />this morning here, too, with intermittent dashes of hail.<br /><br />Puts one in mind, a bit, of the beach at Porlock.<br /><br />Forlorn, forlorn, without that familiar Person. <br /><br />It has been suggested that the Person was actually Coleridge's supplier of the "anodyne" (i.e. laudanum, opium).<br /><br />Which might clear up this or that or, on the other hand, cloud over the Other.<br /><br />It has been said, too, of the Person from Porlock that in Stevie Smith's poem he becomes "a person of the suburban middle classes like herself", and as such also a hero, relieving Coleridge (and us) from the burden of "Kubla Khan". <br /><br />That about fits -- and to great extent also, perhaps, relieving the poet herself from the portentous burden of the reputation of Coleridge and his poem?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1833500961944478302011-02-16T07:56:35.588-08:002011-02-16T07:56:35.588-08:00Tom,
"This fragment with a good deal more, n...Tom,<br /><br />"This fragment with a good deal more, not recoverable" <br /><br />"all the rest had passed away like the images on the surface of a stream into which a stone has been cast" <br /><br /><br />2.16<br /><br />pink cloud in pale blue sky above still<br />shadowed ridge, green of leaf on branch<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> time implicit in comparison,<br /> as ‘instances of now’<br /><br /> object regarded in terms of<br /> limits, exact, can be<br /><br />grey-white of sky reflected in channel,<br />shadowed green of ridge across from itSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com