Saturday, June 09, 2007
“The unnameable constellation of islands on the Eastern Atlantic coast”
Still waiting for my Tom Paulin The Camouflage School, I’ve been told it’s at the final proof stage, but in the meantime I thought some of our more literary inclined readers might be interested in a new publication from Clutag Press. It’s a literary magazine, Archipelago, due to be launched at Emmanuel College Cambridge on 23th June. The title brings to my mind John Hewitt’s oft-quoted line on identity, although the remit seems wider, and the first issue promises contributions from, amongst many others, Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley and Derek Mahon.
From the blurb
ARCHIPELAGO is to be a literary magazine in the ordinary sense, in that it will contain writings in non-fictional prose, and verse. Extraordinary will be its preoccupations with landscape, with documentary and remembrance, with wilderness and wet, with natural and cultural histories, with language and languages, with the littoral and vestigial, the geological, and topographical, with climates, in terms of both meteorology, ecology and environment; and all these things as metaphor, liminal and subliminal, at the margins, in the unnameable constellation of islands on the Eastern Atlantic coast, known variously in other millennia as Britain, Great Britain, Britain and Ireland etc; even, too, too readily, the United Kingdom (including the North of partitioned Ireland), though no such thing ever existed, other than in extremis during wartime, but in the letter. But while the unnameable archipelago is its subject, its vision is by implication global, and its concerns with the state of the planet could not be more of the hour.
Orders are to be supplied on a first come first served basis so if you want a copy, or two, probably best to print off the order form[pdf file] asap. Mine’s in the post already.
Pete Baker @ 01:18 PM
Archipelago sounds like an interesting venture - if ever so slightly intimidating! Its noticeable that in dealing with the relationship between the land, historical memory and identity, writers are now using Irish experiences as a gateway to exploring the ‘mainland’. In particular no longer is the North seen as comfortably seperate from secular Britain. A welcome development, or am I exaggerating this trend?
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 02:35 PMThank you Pete,
here is a poem by Tom Paulin some may not have read.Published in LONDON REVIEW of books.
Volume 22 Number 1 6 January 2000James ‘Mick’ Magennis VC
By Tom Paulin 2000You get of the boat
and they call you Paddy
- Paddy or Mick
of course its the same thing
and sometimes that nick -
name’ll stick
as it stuck to me
- clamped - mine
waiting for that time
we nudged our midget submarine
under the Takao’s keel
- I tried open the hatch
but it hit on the cruiser’s bottom
- there was no room to get out
so I loosened the catch
on my breathing set
took a deep charge
of oxygen
then pushed the set through
followed it out
and fixed the set back
- talk about setbacks
that was like squeezing
between two positions
but the ship’s bottom
it was all one dense mass
of barnacles weed
and razorsharp shells
that tore my hands and my diving suit
- no way could I make
the limpet mines stick
I went back to the sub
and noted the gap
was even narrower now
- the tide was dropping
- and I’d be trapped
then captured - and worse - by the Japs
so I took some rope
and lashed the mines to the keel
then back to the sub
and squeezed my torn rub-
ber suit and me in
to the wet and dry compartment
- I closed the hatch
and started to drain down
but to free the sub
from under the cruiser’s keel
was almost impossible now
so Lt Fraser - Titch -
he blew out the ballast tanks
and we bobbed to the surface
just for a moment
- no searchlight nothing
we dropped back
onto the ocean floor
just a few yards from the Takao
then he pulled a lever
- both side carriers
two tons of Amatol explosive
they fell away
but the limpet mine carrier
it wedged us hard in
and wouldn’t drop clear
Titch said he’s go out
-I was bate sweating dogtired
but no this was my job of work
so taking a big spanner
I made a third visit
outa that jammed hatch
and turned off the crate
then got the fuck out
not a moment too late.
I tell it now
for all that it was
- an exact adventure
except that hatch
and the ways I squeezed through
come back like a catch
in my lungbursting tale
- Sir Crawford McCullough
a hardbollock
Unionist Lord mayor
he wouldn’t make me a freeman
of the City of Belfast
while down at St Finians
my old school on the Falls
no one stood in the classroom
- not a single Nationalist
I’d betrayed the cause
that’st they said
I left the navy
and when times got hard
sold my VC
- but I- BUY-ANYTHING- Kavanagh
he gave me it back
- my photie in the Tele!
I was shamed to the world
so I left belfast for good
- I blew up that ship
but the cith
it blew itself up
again and again and again
this is no green rub
no hard luck story
for when I took that deep breath
to push out of the sub
I was inside history
and away far out of it
- I’d squeezed through the gap
and swum free
a silent bubblebrushed diver
who moment by moment
knew exactly what it was
to dive like a gannet
into the deep deep ocean
then rise out of it again
free and complete
yes a one off a genius.Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 03:44 PMCurious
A poem eulogising a no-warning bomber. Very nice. Who did he fight for? Eh? Then it’s OK then.
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 04:08 PMCall it the “Eastern Atlantic Isles”.
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 05:35 PMThere is a very useful discussion on the naming of the archipelago in Norman Davies’s book “The Isles”. What is unfortunategiven it’s manifesto, is the diatribe about the use of the United Kingdom, and the noticeable lack of the most common name for the archipelago. is this just another example of the takeover by the Celts.
“Fred”
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 08:59 PMI thought it was a group of islands we lived on and not a group of stars.
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 09:19 PMThat would depend on your interpretation of ‘island’, Bill. ;o)
Cheers, curious.
TD
Too early to say?..
Looks like an interesting venture, indeed. I’m looking forward to reading the content.
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 09:50 PMNoun
Wikipedia has an article on:
ConstellationWikipedia
Singular
constellation
Plural
constellationsconstellation (plural constellations)
1. (astronomy): Any of the 88 officially recognized collections of stars in the night sky.
2. An arbitrary formation of stars perceived as a figure or pattern.
3. An image associated with a group of stars.
4. (astrology): The configuration of planets, as used for determining a horoscope.
5. (figuratively) A wide, seemingly unlimited assortment.#5 would seem to refer to Canada, Philipines, Finland and Indonesia (among others) but not http://sluggerotoole.com/index.php/weblog/comments/here-there-and-everywhere-but-northern-ireland/
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 10:13 PM*shakes head*
Ever heard of poetic licence, Bill?
Posted by on Jun 09, 2007 @ 11:39 PMIrish Pages is well worth a look if you’re interested in this kind of thing. It’s in a similar vein, but with the focus on Ireland in a local, national, and global context; so much the same idea, and operating out of the Linenhall Library (and some offices on Ormeau Road) in our very own Belfast.
Not so many big name writers, but some good stuff nonetheless. I’m personally a bit wary of some of these international superstar poets. They sometimes smell a bit too strongly of University Literature departments and Critical Theory. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but can be an awful thing.
Anyway, just a thought, and do have a look at Irish Pages. It’s really quite good.
Posted by on Jun 10, 2007 @ 12:33 AMIt is a question of who licenses the poets!
Posted by on Jun 10, 2007 @ 10:43 AMCheers to you, snakebrain, and to Pete and curious as well.
Bill, I have no idea why, but I’m thinking if “Slugger O’Toole” should ever become a movie (cough, splutter, wheeze) the part of Bill should be played by Rhys Ifans. “Canada, Philipines, Finland and Indonesia (among others)...” I have to give it up to your tenacity. Cheers to you, too.
Posted by on Jun 10, 2007 @ 12:03 PMI understand the Philipines and Indonesia and I suppose at a pinch Canada, but Finland?
Posted by on Jun 10, 2007 @ 12:57 PMFinland, land of a thousand lakes with at least one island per lake.
And when (not if) I get the Oscar for best supporting actor I will dedicate it for all those who did not have Japan or the Phillipines accepted as answer to what country is known as the land of a thousand islands.
Posted by on Jun 10, 2007 @ 01:44 PM
