Heaney's Verses More than just Poetry in Emotion

When I first read about the Stendhal syndrome I was intrigued. The illness is named after the famous 19th-century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri-Marie Beyle), who described his experience with the experience during his 1817 visit to Florence in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. Apparently, it is a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when a person is exposed to art, usually when the art is particularly beautiful or a large amount of art is in a single place. 

I therefore reason that if there are curious reactions to beautiful art , then certainly there must be a term to describe the condition of one who is overwhelmed by the writings of great literary geniuses and Ireland has no shortage of such.

The recent demise of the poet Seamus Heaney on 30 August 2013 is a real loss to Ireland. The nearest I got to knowing the poet was through his poems and also by walking past his house in Sandymount, Dublin.

The similarities we share are an eye for detail and a love for the written word.

My first introduction to analysing poetry was during my Form Six days when I did the English literature paper four. Granted, poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea. Having said that, a good teacher and an innate passion for poetry appreciation transcends the bumps along the way and the combination of both finally led me to pursue a degree in English literature.

At 18, in a hot classroom with fans whirling, we learned to make sense of cultural imagery that was so far removed from our daily existence as light is to day. 

How similar could tropical heat and broiler chickens be to Yeats’ trees in their autumn beauty and nine and fifty swans upon the brimming water’? How similar could hibiscus shrubs be to Wordsworth’s host of golden daffodils?

And yet, we all survived. Imagination is a strange thing. We can paint vivid images in our mind just the way we read about them and we can even feel the same emotions that the poet wants to portray if not more. Such is the power of the ‘squat pen that sits between the finger and the thumb’ that Seamus writes about.

It is all about familiarity.

When imagination meets reality and they both harmonise and agree, that is when the magnificence of the written word dawns.

In his poem ‘Digging’ Seamus wrote about two main activities – potato planting and turf cutting.  I have planted potatoes and understand how ‘the spade sinks into the gravelly ground’ and how ‘the rump stoops in rhythm through potato drills.’   

The last time we got some turf from the bog, it was exactly like how Seamus described his grand father ‘nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods, over his shoulder, going down and down for the good turf.’

It became very familiar again when he talked about appreciation and acceptance.

How did the people in his town react to him being awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1995? In his own words to a friend, initially, they ‘ignored’ it for the most part. Then after his passing, I waited for the national television stations to screen tribute after tribute to Ireland’s pride, only to find that the number of documentaries on Seamus screened by the BBC far exceeds that.

Then I thought about  our very own Tan Twan Eng who won the 2013 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction for his second novel The Garden of Evening Mists and  Tash Aw who won the 2005 Whitbread Book Awards First Novel Award as well as the 2005 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel (Asia Pacific region). How many Malaysians have actually heard of them or read their works?

I have recorded the televised tributes to Seamus and I will watch them again. I have audio recordings of his readings and I will listen to them again. I have his poems and I will read them again.

And then unlike Stendhall who wrote about being ‘absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations… I had palpitations of the heart… Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling’, another kind of reaction could be born.

This time it would be a positive reaction related to the written arts.


Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/heaney-s-verses-more-than-just-poetry-in-emotion-1.374592?cache=03%252f7.198169%2F7.173253%2F7.480262%2F7.478218%2F7.478218%2F7.478218%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557%2F7.490557

On stage- feeling animated, enchanted and just right

WHEN I go and watch a musical, I always wonder how props are moved around with such ease, how a staircase can just appear from nowhere and how dancers tango in perfect symmetry. Sometimes I wonder, too, why the legendary Phantom of the Opera insists on his Box Five, how the Man of La Mancha is performed on a single set that suggests a dungeon or when the eyes of the camels in Joseph's Technicolour Dream Coat will move when you least expect them to.

I know now because I am on the other side of the performance hall: not sitting down and watching a musical but on the stage and being part of the cast, albeit a smallish role.

When the Nenagh Choral Society put up a notice last year in a local tabloid called The Guardian inviting interested amateurs to join the musical production of Beauty and the Beast, I knew I must give it a try.

I had watched the Disney movie countless times when my three children were young. We used to dance and sing in front of the television imitating the antics of Mrs Potts the teapot, Lumiere the Candlestick or Cogsworth the clock. So to actually be part of the cast, I asked myself, "Why not?"

The last time I performed before an audience was when a group of us staged a play at the Experimental Theatre in Kuala Lumpur. It was hard work but great fun. So I rallied my daughter to join me in this new adventure, although it meant driving miles on cold windy nights for practice, practice and more practice. We had each other for company and we knew we would enjoy being animated objects in the enchanted castle.

As with every endeavour, I braced myself for new experiences.

Under the wings of dedicated director Greg Browne and committed music director Laura Kearney, we learnt to sing and dance in harmony. I was practically singing or humming the songs during my waking hours and possibly in my dreams as well. The best part was the more we sang, the more confident we became.

Staging a good production comes with a cost. Costumes had to be made or rented. For instance, in the opening act, we are at a French market place complete with baguettes and bonjour. And for the enchanted castle act, we are transformed into knives, plates, napkins, wardrobe, teapots and such.

The fund-raising projects were varied and I took part in the packing of groceries for customers at the check-out counter of a local supermarket. This was something novel to me as supermarkets in Malaysia have a ready pool of salaried staff to do that for the customers.

The customers would hand me their shopping bags (plastic bags are bad for the environment) and I would put in their groceries. As with most innate organisational skills, I separated food items from non-food items. Then I separated the food items accordingly (wet and dry produce) and packed them. One of the customers said, 'I would have done exactly the same. Thanks a million' and dropped a generous contribution into the collection bucket.

The next challenge was, of course, making friends, which is never easy, especially when you are new to any group. I appreciate Francis Burke, who opened the door with a smile to the school hall for every one of our practices, and Majella Keogh, who coached us in our dance steps. Then there are Bernie and Margaret McGee, who make me feel at home with the crowd, Billy McNamara, my charming animated 'salt and pepper' partner, Alan O'Brien, the versatile and talented actor and singer, Jimmy McCarthy, who gracefully waltzes with me, and many others, too.

Needless to say, the greatest challenge was that of commitment and punctuality. Private agendas had to make way for the musical. This was especially crucial during the weeks leading up to the opening show. Being part of a team meant that if you were absent or late, the whole team would be affected.

Today is our second performance and we have six more to go before March runs out. It seems as if the stars are in alignment and everything is just right. I do not feel the passing of time, but only of the moment which leaves a good feeling within.

Absolutely no regrets.

Source: http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/on-stage-feeling-animated-enchanted-and-just-right-1.65703

CARPE DIEM! SIEZE THE DAY!

MUSICAL theatre...learn how to act...meet new friends! A fantastic four-day musical workshop, now enrolling. Young people aged 7 to 18 will have a chance to act in Lion King, Mamma Mia or Hairspray, shouts an advertisement displayed by a music academy.
This hip workshop is one of the extensive options available for summer. After all, school is out for three months and restless teens are inundated with opportunities to choose their creative fields and hang out with others of like mind.

They can test out the fantasy of a glamorous Broadway musical career even.

Given a chance, everyone can be passionately creative. I am talking about indulging in performing arts. The performing arts are those forms of art where the artiste makes use of his own body, face, and presence as a medium. This includes dance, music, opera, drama, magic, spoken word and circus arts. The artistes are called performers, including actors, comedians, dancers, magicians, musicians, and singers. My first foray into the world of performing arts was when I was studying at Universiti Malaya and acted at the Experimental Theatre.
So, I was glad I was invited to see the outcome of the musical workshop for amateurs last Saturday. Looking at the young ones prance and sing on stage, anyone would think that they had practised all their lives and not just four days. I could see that their faces were beaming. Beaming with pride, joy and expectation. After the performance, I went backstage and I could hear squeals of excitement.

An actress in Hairspray said, "Our sweat could probably flood a whole house but it was definitely worth it. I so totally want to join this again next year. It was a non-stop run through and we all were just freaking out hoping not to forget any lines, lyrics or dance moves but thank God, it was a success! It wasn't perfect, but it was pretty awesome!"

I am glad I appreciate the arts.

Even at school we were always caught up in the battlefield of Science versus Arts. Everyone seemed to clamour to enter the best science class, never the Arts. I remember I was in Form Four Science One and after one semester I knew I was more inclined towards the Arts. Making the switch was unheard of at that time. Every well-meaning teacher discouraged me from doing so because unfortunately, the Arts classes were synonymous with poor teaching and classroom management and certainly students who were thick in the head. It was good that my parents were behind me and I have no regrets making that switch.

And now, I have just returned from watching Les Miserables at the Queens Theatre in London and a strange feeling starts to wash over me. It was the same kind of bliss that I experienced when I watched the amateurs on stage: seeing the actors, singing along with them as every song is as familiar as a nursery rhyme, my shoulders untangled and a feeling of appreciation was all around. I felt so relaxed I almost forgot to breathe. The performers had the same passion as the young amateurs. The only difference was these were professionals acting almost every day of their lives and they carried out the musical very well.

The performing arts remind me of the need to stop and smell the flowers. From the day we arrived on the planet, we have not stopped blinking, running and working. It is almost a crime to enjoy life. So like Tracy in Baltimore who notices that the rats on the street all dance around her feet shouting, "Tracy, it's up to you", it is really up to us to make a life for ourselves, to choose how we want to live it to the fullest.

Carpe Diem, seize the day. If not now, when?