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By Richard Evans on 10 January 2010 at 18:18:31
Decimals falling in a degreeless noon.
The dance of the gnat-sized lovers.
When the heavier stress falls on 'is'.
Ground-addressed envelopes.
Lord Robert and myself on the snuff.
Tommy fall be'ind.
Queene of confort and of good compaignye.
Deep embattled clouds.
Little feet moving sacred sand.
A sky that never cared less.
Fourteenth century scholastic philosophy.
The purple egg-stones.
The Vision of fulfilled desire.
A basin.
The secret law of rebellious linen.
Antarctica, uttered sound by sound.
Old prayers, granted, melting.
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Life before Life
By Richard Evans on 05 January 2010 at 22:22:37Out of curiousity, intensified by reading Jim Tucker's book 'Life after Life', based on the scientific research of Dr Ian Stevenson, I have been trying to find a suitable match for my previous incarnation. Everyone thinks they were James Dean or Sylvia Plath. There was an experimental psychologist in the last century who thought it would be a reasonable treatment to put all his 'Jesus' reincarnates in one room together. As you can imagine, it didn't help.
Dr Stevenson would have dismissed these examples. He would have dismissed my playful investigation into life before life as well, for the simple reason that I have been exposed to far too much information, which could easily form the basis of any past-life regression. There was a woman who recalled a former life in detail under hypnosis, only to find out later it was the plot from a period novel.
It's only in the early years that non-contaminated examples of past-life memory can be found. In 'Life before Life' there are many such examples, of children of three or four, who have recounted previous existences; lives of people unknown to their family and who lived many miles away were described - the names of their friends and families given, details of where they lived and how they died; these sometimes matched birthmarks, identical to injuries visible in autopsy reports of the previous life.
This could all, of course, be new age blabber; and if it wasn't for the fact that Dr Stevenson was so merticulous in his studies (his heavy-duty volumes are filled with thousands of substantial case studies), and had no interest in gaining fame or entering the world of paranormal quick-rich schemers, I would be standing firmly with the skeptics. However, he was a scientist, and whether you draw the same conclusions from his results or not - his research was solid.
Mine, as you will see, is far less so. I took the following criteria as the basis for the investigation: 1) a tendency to play as a child in a way which indicates a previous profession/life-style. 2)Memories of unknown places 3)images that powerfully emerged during spontaneous writing and seemed particularly unconnected with my life.
1) Now, as a young child (of three or four) I played at writing books, in my own hieroglyphics, not being able to read or write yet. So, quite pleasingly to my poet-ego, my first clue was that I was a writer or - why not, as I'm being fanciful - a poet.
2)I had a dream several years ago that I was returning to a hotel and a group of houses at a place called Rock-a-nore in Hastings. I felt strong longing for the place, and was joyful to be returning. In reality, there are no buildings in the place I dreamt of, it's a sheer cliff-face and a beach.
However, recently, in a book of old photos of Hastings, I found a picture of Rock-a-nore about a hundred years ago, and was shocked to see there had been houses there. So I reckon - stay with me on this one - I must have lived around that time, and possibly in that area.
3) This is likely to be the least reliable evidence, as the imagination will do lots of peculiar things when let loose. But there has been one personality which has come up in my spontaneous writing very powerfully over many years, who would fit the bill. It is a female who is very disturbed by the loss of someone.
I felt this gave me enough to go on. I was looking for a woman poet, who lived in Hastings old town about a hundred years ago, and perhaps experienced great loss. I reseached in the only way I know how; I started googling. I was pretty stunned when I found that there had been a person that sat very comfortably within this description - who (apologies for my ignorance) I had never heard of before.
The author of 'The Spider and the Fly' Mary Howitt lived in Hastings old town in the 1840 and 50s. Her most famous, and very sinister poem, is quite in line with my aesthetic. She had seven children, but only two outlived their mother, and her husband died seven years before her - perhaps the cause of the terrible sense of loss.
Uncannily, a few months ago I had a very vivid dream that I met an elderly Hans Christian Anderson - I was going to translate his work. In reality, I am not particularly interested in him, but loved the film about him when I was a child. I was pretty gobsmacked, I must admit, when I read this week that Mary had been his first major translator into English.
I find this all very intriguing. Still, the Dr. Stevenson in me only smiles weakly and makes moves to get his coat.
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Craig Raine has a headache
By Richard Evans on 02 January 2010 at 22:22:51
Transcription of a recording made at the third annual interplanetary poetry festival: attempts to assuage a didactic and inquisitive group (replace 'group' with correct collective noun; drok?) of Martians, following the announcement that Craig Raine would sadly be unable to attend due to illness. Only the speaker's voice can be heard clearly on the recording, the various whistles and snaps of Martian language go on throughout, behind a heavy fuzz, but are not loud or distinct enough to be deciphered.
* * *
I'm afraid he has a bad headache, a migraine.
No, there's no smell as far as I'm aware; perhaps bleach and vomit - but that's probably just the smells I'd associate.
Well, a sharp electric blue if I had to say a colour, but no, it's more a manic flickering.
Not in the room, inside his head. I mean, I don't know, every headache is different.
Well, no, they're the same, in that they're a pain located above the eyes and below the crown.
I know - but below that and it would be an eye-ache, or jaw-ache, or chin-ache or something else.
Well, it just hurts.
Because you're very aware of it, and you want it to go away, but it won't.
Yes, a bit like a screaming toddler. So you just have to sit in a dark room and wait till it stops.
I don't know why you would want to sit in a dark room with a screaming toddler. You wouldn't, would you? I suppose you just sit there, hoping it'll go to sleep. And it's similar with a headache.
Well, no, of course they don't sleep as such, but they sort of sink away, like a toddler going to sleep, but in their own time.
What? No. Not at all. The only lullabies available for a headache like that are bloody strong painkillers and a dark, cool room.
No, I can't sing them to you. They're not . . .
If you stop nagging at it, it'll go of its own accord eventually. Or it won't, who knows. Now I must . . .
Of course not, that's impossible.
Because it's a sensation, not a physical object that can be removed or handled.
Well, if you could, I suppose it would be some kind of sharp-clawed ant, very hard to catch, very quick. And the worse the headache, the more you'd have of them. They'd leak out everywhere in a violent panic, but I'm afraid we must fini -
Okay, but this must be the last one.
Yes. I suppose they would be harder to catch in a dark room. But you must understand that was just a turn of phrase, in reality a headache can't be removed so simply. It IS the head it's in, so to speak.
Oh, you mean a chameleon? No, it's not anything like that.
No, I told you. It's not solid. It's not a metamorphosising parasite or a head-snatcher or anything else. It's just an unpleasant sensation in the head. And I'm afraid that is where we will have to finish.
Well, it might not sound very much to you, but I can assure you it is not nice at all. Now, I am very sorry that Mr Raine could not be here, but on your way out could I trouble you all to sign the get-well postcard?
No, it's not medicine. It's a kind of . . . oh forget it.
Craig Raine, 'A Martian sends a Postcard Home'
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