Thanks to Bill Thompson for documenting the launch of SONGS. A historic moment certainly, thrilling viewing maybe not. Tim Wright and Tim Heath joined us later.
When my mother died I was very young, And my father sold me while yet my tongue Could scarcely cry ‘weep, weep, weep, weep,’ So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
There’s little Tom Dacre who cried when his head, That curl’d like a lamb’s back, was shav’d: so I said, ‘Hush, Tom, never mind it, for when your head’s bare, You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’
And so he was quiet, & that very night, As Tom was a sleeping, he had such a sight, That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack, Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.
And by came an Angel who had a bright key, And he open’d the coffins & set them all free; Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run, And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind; And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags & our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm; So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.
The Chimney Sweeper
A little black thing among the snow, Crying ‘weep, weep,’ in notes of woe! ‘Where are thy father & mother, say?’ ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.
‘Because I was happy upon the heath, And smil’d among the winter’s snow, They clothed me in the clothes of death, And taught me to sing the notes of woe.
‘And because I am happy, & dance & sing, They think they have done me no injury, And are gone to praise God & His Priest & King, Who make up a heaven of our misery.’
Holy Thursday
Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduc’d to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine, And their fields are bleak & bare, And their ways are fill’d with thorns: It is eternal winter there.
For where’er the sun does shine, And where’er the rain does fall, Babe can never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.
London
I wander thro’ each charter’d street Near where the charter’d Thames does flow, A mark in every face I meet, Marks of weakness, marks of woe.
In every cry of every Man, In every Infant’s cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban, The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.
How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry Every black’ning Church appalls, And the hapless Soldier’s sigh Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro’ midnight streets I hear How the youthful Harlot’s curse Blasts the new born Infant’s tear, And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
Yesterday we wandered thro' the charter'd streets of Central London talking to people about work and Blake and poetry, then met at the Poetry Cafe for fascinating conversation, favourite Blake and the first site of Bill Thompson's Blake-in-a-Box. More of all this soon with film. For now some photos:
Bill shows the Blake netbook to writer Lisa Gee, actor Toby Jones and professor Sue Thomas.
Digital writer Tim Wright and Tim Heath, chair of the Blake Society.
Sasha Hoare and Lisa Gee filming
Toni LeBusque talks to Sasha. And here's the drawing Toni created while we spoke
Shirley Dent of the Institute of Ideas and co-author of RADICALBLAKE has kindly agreed to be an advisor on if:book's Songs of Imagination & Digitisation project and sends news of this very relevant event:
POETRY AND RADICALISM: MOUTHING OFF OR MAKING A DIFFERENCE? with Penned in the Margins
7 October, 7pm-9pm at Vibe Live
A new generation of poets seems to be reclaiming poetry as a political, not simply cultural, ‘way of happening’. And often it is explicitly associated with calls for political change, from Poets Against War to last year’s Love Poetry Hate Racism events. Is poetry reclaiming its radical roots? Or is this just self-flattery, with too many modern bards mouthing platitudes? Are we neglecting the genuine potential of great poetry to subvert and unsettle the way we see the world, even if as Auden said, it ‘makes nothing happen’?
These questions about poetry and politics today will be tackled by a panel of poets, critics and political journalists, as well as the famously lively Vibe Live Battle Satellite audiencehttp://www.newstatesman.com/society/2008/08/folk-music-british-today. Whether poetry lovers or political animals (or both!) we encourage you to come along and join in the debate and banter with the panel, who include:
Brendan O'Neill editor, spiked; weekly blogger Comment is Free; regular writer for New Statesman, Christian Science Monitor and BBC News website
Todd Swift
international poetry activist, anthologist, editor, and poet; editor of the best-selling British poetry CD, Life Lines: poets for Oxfam.
Imogen Robertson
novelist, poet and reviewer; author, Instruments of Darkness (forthcoming).
Chris McCabe
poet and joint librarian, The Poetry Library; author, Zeppelins
Paul Dunn
assistant editor, Opinion, The Times; regular contributor, Times Books
Dr Gary Day
fellow, Royal Society of Arts; Secretary, British Society of Eighteenth Century Studies; author, Eighteenth Century Literature and Culture
David Bowden
poet and playwright, MA Creative Writing student
With chair:
Dr Shirley Dent
communications director, Institute of Ideas; producer Battle Satellites programme, 2008; development editor, Culture Wars; columnist at Guardian Unlimited Arts; co-author Radical Blake
I think these poetry animations are very disconcerting and rather creepy; they don't convince me I'm seeing the living Blake. Watch this space for our own films to follow.
