Ian Hamilton Finlay: Acrobats

This poem comes from a fascinating interview with Finlay in Jacket, conducted in 2001 by Nagy Rashwan. It covers the whole of the poet’s career (and clashes with authority), includes images of several other works and provides references if anyone would like to know more. It’s odd, now, to think that work so firmly entrenched in ideas of making, of classicism, of place, should ever have been considered for the Turner Prize.

Ian Hamilton Finlay 1925-2006

An interesting article about Ian Hamilton Finlay in today’s Guardian. I’m not sure if his first — and, I think, only — collection of traditional, as opposed to concrete, poems is still available, but I thought it might be nice to put a couple of the poems here. If you’d like to read more, hunt out The Dancers Inherit the Party. (Or offer me an obscenely large sum of money for my copy.)

ANGELS

When we are dead we will all be angels
And we will see how many of us can balance on a pin.
I think we may manage seven or eight of us
Angelically balanced, if we all squeeze in.

THE WRITER AND BEAUTY

The best a writer writes is Beautiful.
He should ignore the Mad and Dutiful.

Meanwhile, of course, the Lie is there.
The posh Lie struts in the social air

And writers write it, and it is
Part of the analyst’s neurosis.

Well, a writer should defy
It. A writer writes of sky

And other things quite sad and Beautiful.
He should ignore the Mad and Dutiful.

See how lame and blind he goes!
See how he dances on his toes!

What men and women look at

I think this speaks for itself. Apparently men have the same degree of genital fixation when looking at dogs.

An Easter Tale

Thirty years ago, I went from Turin to Rome for Easter, with two friends, Charlie and Sue, and Sue’s dog, a boxer called Lucifero. We looked for a room in the centre of Bologna, but nowhere would take Lucifero and Sue refused to leave him asleep in the car, convinced he’d be stolen and used for breeding purposes. Finally, when it was almost eleven and there seemed to be no more hotels to try, Sue decided we’d head for Florence across the hills. There was bound to be somewhere on the road, she said.

We’d been driving for half an hour along ever darker, steeper roads when we came to a village. There was a scattering of houses and then a church and what seemed to be shops. All the shutters were closed, except for those of a small bar in the central square. A tall man with a yellow pullover was turning off the lights behind the counter as I ran in. ‘Prego,’ he said. ‘Un albergo,’ I stammered. ‘Cerco un albergo.’ He shook his head. I watched him as he glanced behind me, towards the corner of the bar, then turned to see what he was looking at.

Four old men were playing cards around a table. I hadn’t noticed them as I came in. They had earth-coloured clothes and stubby workmen’s hands, the creased, soiled cards minute in their fingers. They were playing with cards like the minor arcana in a Tarot pack: clubs and coins, cups and swords. They turned to stare at me, then one of them pointed up the road and started to talk. I didn’t understand what he was saying at first. ‘Un albergo?’ I said again and he nodded. ‘Si!’ he said. ‘Ad un chilometro.’

We drove along the road he’d indicated until, three or four minutes later, a light appeared to the left. We took out our bags, while Lucifero bounded around the car, peeing against the back wheel, taking in the air with great meaty sniffs.

The hotel looked like a converted farmhouse. A single sign above the door said PENSIONE, its light flickering on and off as we opened the door. Immediately in front of us, standing behind the desk, there was a tall man in a yellow pullover. ‘Prego,’ he said. He smiled as I turned round, and saw the table, and the four men playing cards, and one of them turning a card up with his stubby workman’s hand.

Sue didn’t believe me when I told her; I don’t remember what Charlie thought. Lucifero growled under his breath, then edged towards the stairs, while I stared at the men and the one who had sent us there nodded slowly, gathering the cards into his hands and mixing them, then dealing them out.

I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning we drove back down to the village so that I could see who was in the bar. The building was there, exactly as it had been the night before, but there was no bar, only a door and a doorbell, with a column of names. I stood in the square, looking round wildly, until a woman walked across from one of the shops and asked me what I wanted. Was I lost? I asked her about the bar. She shook her head, and smiled. I climbed back into the car.

‘You must have been dreaming,’ said Sue.

Prada…Gucci….

Now it’s Natuzzi! White leather! Want to know more? Click here.

Click on the little blue box!

This is fabulous. I’ve managed to rant about Ratzinger to such an extent that my google ads have picked up on it. The current one, for as long as it lasts, will send you to a site that promises to tell you the name of the next pope (apparently the last – promises, promises) and various other holy revelations. (I’m not allowed to click on them myself – or, rather, I am but haven’t installed the little program that allows me to yet).

Yesterday, you could have gone to a site that gave access to the personal records of practically anyone in the United States. Its selling line, though, was sex offenders and how to track them down (with photographs). So not much difference there.

Just in case today’s ad has gone by the time you read this, the site is here. (Believe me, it’s a hoot! Try the video…)

The Scent of Cinnamon: first review

The first review of THE SCENT OF CINNAMON can be found here. I know it’s only one line but I’m not complaining.

Elton update

Despite efforts to have him banned from a country in which homosexuality is widely condemned, Elton John insists that he will be performing at Plymouth Jazz Festival. But local church leaders haven’t given up. ABC News said:

“A group of Christian churches have failed to persuade the Tobago House of Assembly, which oversees the administration of the island, to join the call for a boycott of John’s appearance at the Plymouth Jazz Festival in late April.

But they said they would pursue the campaign against John, who married his partner David Furnish in 2005.

“We feel it can have a negative social impact. There are some who may not be sure of their sexuality and one has to be careful about how this can create impressions on impressionable minds,” pastor Terrance Baynes told Reuters.

It’s interesting to see the words used by “Eggs” Benedict to praise the church of Trinidad and Tobago recently, when greeting the island state’s new ambassador to the Holy See.

“As Your Excellency has graciously noted, the Catholic Church in Trinidad and Tobago works zealously in the area of human promotion. The network of Catholic schools, hospitals and social service institutions testifies to the cooperative spirit of the Catholic faithful in providing a better future for themselves and their fellow–citizens. Because of their profound conviction regarding the universal brotherhood of all men and women as God’s beloved children, Catholics and other believers are committed to fostering the common good in the context of a healthy and legitimate pride in their own country.”

Presumably these believers include Archdeacon Philip Isaac, who called for a ban on the chubby chanteur and warned: “His visit can open the country to be tempted towards pursuing his lifestyle. He needs to be ministered to.”

Not to speak of the local branch of the catholic non-governmental organization Caritas , accused of denying its caritas to gays.

Blood on Ratzinger’s hands

Last Tuesday, a sixteen year old boy in Turin threw himself from the window of his fourth floor flat. We shouldn’t know his name, because Italian law is supposed to protect the identity of minors. But now that he’s dead, and doesn’t need protecting, we’ve been told he was christened Matteo.

Matteo was the best student of his year in one of the most prestigious schools in the city. On Monday evening, he came home – in the words of his mother – “very tired and very sad”, and went straight to bed. The following morning he told his mother he wanted to stay at home and study. Her oldest son telephoned her at work later that morning to tell her that Matteo was dead.

He left two suicide notes, one to his parents – his mother, of Filipino origin, his father, Italian – and the other to explain why he’d decided to kill himself. He said that he was tired of not being accepted by the other students, who treated him as “different”.

They called him gay. They said he liked boys. They called him Jonathan, the name of a camp Big Brother winner two or three years ago. According to one report, the school principal knew and had tried to help, but without success; in another, she knew nothing.

Matteo couldn’t take it any more. After writing the letters, he climbed onto a chair in the kitchen and threw himself out of the window. He hit the drying rack on the balcony below and hurt his chest, but it was the 15-metre fall that killed him.

His mother said. “Why did they do this to him? He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was a human being just like them.” She also said the accusations were unjust. As though that mattered.

The Ministry has ordered an investigation at the school. Meanwhile, psychologists are worried that the students who drove Matteo to his death might be overwhelmed by a sense of guilt. It’s hard not to feel they deserve that, and more.

But the people finally responsible for the suicide of a sixteen-year-old are those who – day in, day out – stigmatise gays as deviant and disordered; who use the florid vocabulary of homophobia that all languages provide to insult and demean; who use their magister to deny basic human rights.

They’re celebrating Holy Week at the moment. Let’s hope they find time to think about their own role in the death of Matteo.

It’s raining men

King of Bling, Pope “Eggs” Benedict performs the old battle horse of the Weather Girls, It’s Raining Men, to the usual Wednesday afternoon punters.

Bless.