Marie Marshall

Author. Poet. Editor.

Category: poem

May 18, 2014

‘Photography on wings’

Final Flyer

Photography on wings is the title of an exhibition, to be staged in Nottingham from 7th June to 31st July, of the photographs of Harminder Nagi. The photographs, all of winged creatures, will be accompanied by poetry by twenty international poets including myself. The exhibition is an extension of the book Continents Connect: poetry on wings which was published in 2012. If you’re anywhere near Nottingham between the dates mentioned above, please do make a point of going along to visit the exhibition. For those of you who can’t make it, here’s the poem I wrote for the book; it’s called ‘Eros and Psyche’, and I wrote it as though for Emily Dickinson.

I have your beauty safe in a box, ever since
I scotched my shoulder with a half-nocked arrow.
Sometimes I let it out to sit amongst the flowers
and drink; it settles until I shade it from the sun.

Things like this are made to delight us, I muse.
The cynic at my side shakes his head, quotes
a priori laws, says that the world is not about us.

The heart seeks pleasure first, I tell him firmly,
and I fall so deep in love with the phrase that
I etch it on my next arrow, drive that one deep
into the ambushed back of a poet, to her surprise.

2 Comments
April 19, 2014

A folk song from Inner Mongolia*

inner mongolia

*Free rendering of 'Pastoral Song' by Xixian Qu. Marie Marshall, 19th April 2014. Photo (detail), Wikimedia Commons.

*Free rendering of Pastoral Song by Xixian Qu.
Marie Marshall, 19th April 2014.
Photo (detail), Wikimedia Commons.

 

3 Comments
March 18, 2014

Mongolian Limericks

Mongolia

Five years or so ago, the late Vera Rich, poet and translator, let slip some ‘Mongolian’ Limericks just for fun. I replied in kind and tickled her. Here’s an exchange or two between us.

Vera:

A Mongolian dealer in koumiss
Told his daughter: “I’m angry with you, Miss!
Last night’s supper was spoiled,
For the tea was not boiled,
And the dumplings were sticky as glue, Miss!”

Me:

His daughter’s voice came from the yurt:
“To say the least, you’re very curt!
No need to be cocky –
Those dumplings were gnocchi,
Green tea is drunk tepid – I’m hurt!”

Apparently Vera wrote a whole series of these as a divertissement at a Mongolian Studies Conference in the 1980s – a far cry from her serious work translating Ukrainian and Belorussian poetry. Here’s some more.

Vera:

Said a PR man in Ulan Bataar,
“I really don’t know what’s the mataar!
But that cursed foreign press
Writes of us less and less,
Saying it has too much else on its plataar!”

Me:

The cleaner (whilst shoving her Huva)
Said, “No Mongol is the prime muva
Of things international.
Anonymity’s rational…
It could be worse – this could be Tuva!”

It does you good to let your hair down once in a while. Vera is very much missed by those of us who knew her and worked with her.

1 Comment
January 8, 2014

Song

Janus

Spring in the meadow
primrose in the grass
life is too new
to let it pass

Summer in the forest
laughter in the trees
lies and deceit
on every breeze

So the old man tells a riddle
and the girl plays tambourine
And it’s all for the pleasure
of a foolish king and queen
While the moments turning over
say it’s like they’ve never been
and we move on

Fall of the harvest
riches on the floor
colour of blood
in every store

Winter in the city
sleep is on your breath
life was a dream
but so is death

So the old man tells a riddle
and the girl plays tambourine
And it’s all for the pleasure
of a foolish king and queen
While the moments turning over
say it’s like they’ve never been
and we move on

Moon follows daylight
morning follows stars
silence dogs romance
of guitars

Janus follows Jesus
crosses follow birth
That’s just the spinning
of the earth

So the old man tells a riddle
and the girl plays tambourine
And it’s all for the pleasure
of a foolish king and queen
While the moments turning over
say it’s like they’ve never been
and we move on

3 Comments
December 25, 2013

‘What to do when Santa Claus comes a-knocking at your door’ and other weird stuff for kids.

I’ve been messing around lately seeing if I can write for a much younger readership than my usual target…

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

© Marie Marshall

2 Comments
December 6, 2013

The Song of Girls

public-domain-photo-of-3-girls

Today I received the latest issue of Rubies in the Darkness, a magazine of traditional, romantic, lyrical, and spiritually inspired poetry, and I was pleased to find that they had included a poem of mine. It’s one I wrote in 2008, when I was still flexing my formal muscles. The late Vera Rich had called for examples of a ‘Dyad’ – a double poem using the same end-words in each component. I replied with what was in effect, a ‘Sapphic ode’ in ‘mirror-dyad form’, which is to say the re-use of the end-words was reversed. Vera, I have to say, was not entirely convinced, although other readers were fascinated by what I had done. I shall reproduce it below for you. Just a couple of notes – a crummock is a staff with a gnarled or bent head, and is probably derived from the gaelic word cromag, and Aberdour is a town on the Fife coast in Scotland.

The Song of Girls

                        I

The song of girls each Sabbath day
belies the clock’s round, slow and dour,
and makes the moments flit away
across the moor

like dragonflies above the mire.
While sunlight shifts from tree to field,
the could-shade hides my heart’s desire –
I long to yield.

I am a slave to love and lust
who has no willingness to fight;
so lose I shall – if lost, I must
embrace by night!

                        II

I woke when last Shrove-Tuesday night
was still, and stale with rind and must;
and, half in sleep, I dared to fight
my wanderlust.

I’m harboured here. How can I yield
to what all travellers desire,
to stride with crummock far afield…
fresh lands admire?

My foot is now upon the moor,
the song of girls calls me away;
so step I down to Aberdour
to greet the day!

© Marie Marshall

1 Comment
November 17, 2013

Poor Susie Dean

37190485

Child Ballad 65: I love playing with themes of traditional ballads. This is an imagined Appalachian or Bluegrass version of a song we know in Dundee as ‘Bonnie Susie Cleland’. It has hints of miscegenation and infanticide in it (in the Scottish version the eponymous Susie falls for an Englishman).

Susie Dean and Billy Blue they ran away, ran away,
Susie Dean and Billy Blue they ran away.
Susie Dean she ran away,
But they catch’d her yesterday.

Now they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.

What’s that pretty little bundle by your side, by your side,
What’s that pretty little bundle by your side?
That’s no bundle by my side,
but my little dog that died.

Now they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.

Won’t someone find a fearless little boy, little boy,
Won’t someone find a fearless little boy?
Well here comes a little boy’ll
take a message to your joy

That they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.

Her father paid one dollar to a man, to a man,
Her father paid one dollar to a man.
Her father paid a man,
And through the town he ran,

Sayin’ “They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.”

Her brother built the gallows strong and high, strong and high,
Her brother built the gallows strong and high.
He built the gallows high,
Sayin’ “Susie, you must die!”

Now they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.

They hanged poor Susie Dean at noon today, noon today,
They hanged poor Susie Dean at noon today.
She was hanged at noon today,
And now all the people say,

That they went and hanged poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They went and hanged poor Susie Dean.

It weren’t for Billy Blue that Susie died, Susie died,
It weren’t for Billy Blue that Susie died.
It weren’t for him she died,
But the bundle at her side

That they went and hanged poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They went and hanged poor Susie Dean.

4 Comments
August 29, 2013

Corner of Bourbon and Dumaine

clover-grill2

naked-in-the-sea-cover-2The corner of Bourbon and Dumaine in New Orleans is where you’ll find the famous Clover Grill. I’ve never been there, but then I’ve never been to Baku, Uppsala, Rome, or Harlem, and that hasn’t stopped me writing about those places, either realistically or as fantasy versions of themselves. ‘Plain Jane $3.99’ is one of my handful of New Orleans poems. It appeared in my first book of poetry, Naked in the Sea, which you can still buy. Just a couple of days ago a friend and fan, resident of New Orleans (and, I have to say, the person most responsible for making me write about her city) decided it would be cool to record herself and others reading my poetry aloud, and in particular the New Orleans poems. The first step was a recording of ‘Plain Jane 3.99’, which you can hear by clicking on either the street sign above, or the book cover to the left, or by following this link. There’s a smattering of adult language – you’ll have heard far worse – but if you like this recording, pass on the link, particularly if you’re in N’awlins or know someone who is. If and when any other poems become available I’ll let you know.

Meanwhile, I know you’re all wanting to know how the teen-vamp novel is coming. Patience. You’re also going to have to be patient about my second novel The Everywhen Angels, which is due out soon, and about The Phoenix rising from the Ashes (the anthology of sonnets for which I am Deputy Editor). I’ll let you know as soon as something happens. Meanwhile, how would you like the chance to get a free e-book copy of my first novel Lupa? The first step would be to enter the P’kaboo Facebook Share Contest and hopefully, having followed the instructions, to ‘Like’ my novel on Facebook. Go for it.

2 Comments
August 17, 2013

‘My life as a coble’, and other things

poetry life & times2

Poetry Life & Times has published a poem of mine, ‘My life as a coble’. You can read it here. A coble, by the way, is a clinker-built boat common to the east coast of the UK, particularly Yorkshire; its construction is thought to come down directly from the techniques used to build Viking longships.

Meanwhile, P’kaboo Publishers have taken on my second novel, The Everywhen Angels. More news later, including some possible promotional events.

1 Comment
August 3, 2013

StAnza Poetry Festival: I’m on the ‘Digital Slam’ shortlist!

stanza_tw_header

The podcast of my poem ‘O great maritime bears’ (actually written in imitation of Lisa Jarnot’s ‘Ye white antarctic birds’ and originally featured in qarrtsiluni e-zine) has made it through to the shortlist of the ‘Digital Slam’ competition at StAnza. StAnza is Scotland’s premier poetry festival, and is held in the ancient burgh of St Andrews. The winner is decided by votes cast by visitors to the StAnza blog. For me, it’s gratifying to get as far as the shortlist; of course I have to say that there’s some fine entries by other shortlisted poets, some of whom have submitted YouTube clips and so on, but if you would like cast a vote for me, that would be greatly appreciated.

Vote

1 Comment