 Poetry: June 20, 2018 Issue [#8966] |
  Poetry
This week: John Betjeman Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady
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Ireland With Emily
by John Betjeman
Bells are booming down the bohreens,
White the mist along the grass,
Now the Julias, Maeves and Maureens
Move between the fields to Mass.
Twisted trees of small green apple
Guard the decent whitewashed chapel,
Gilded gates and doorway grained,
Pointed windows richly stained
With many-coloured Munich glass.
See the black-shawled congregations
On the broidered vestment gaze
Murmer past the painted stations
As Thy Sacred Heart displays
Lush Kildare of scented meadows,
Roscommon, thin in ash-tree shadows,
And Westmeath the lake-reflected,
Spreading Leix the hill-protected,
Kneeling all in silver haze?
In yews and woodbine, walls and guelder,
Nettle-deep the faithful rest,
Winding leagues of flowering elder,
Sycamore with ivy dressed,
Ruins in demesnes deserted,
Bog-surrounded bramble-skirted -
Townlands rich or townlands mean as
These, oh, counties of them screen us
In the Kingdom of the West.
Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place,
Little fields with boulders dotted,
Grey-stone shoulders saffron-spotted,
Stone-walled cabins thatched with reeds,
Where a Stone Age people breeds
The last of Europe's stone age race.
Has it held, the warm June weather?
Draining shallow sea-pools dry,
When we bicycled together
Down the bohreens fuchsia-high.
Till there rose, abrupt and lonely,
A ruined abbey, chancel only,
Lichen-crusted, time-befriended,
Soared the arches, splayed and splendid,
Romanesque against the sky.
There in pinnacled protection,
One extinguished family waits
A Church of Ireland resurrection
By the broken, rusty gates.
Sheepswool, straw and droppings cover,
Graves of spinster, rake and lover,
Whose fantastic mausoleum,
Sings its own seablown Te Deum,
In and out the slipping slates.
On August 28th, 1906 outside of London Ernest Betjemann and his wife Mabel welcomed their only child, John Betjeman into their family. Ernst was a cabinet maker and the couple ran the business together which had been in the family for several generations. Betjeman had a pretty lonely childhood. He was often found in the company of a teddy bear he named Archibald, which later in life would be featured in one of his books, “Archie and the Strict Baptists. Betjeman started his education at Highgate and then became a boarder at Dragon School in Oxford. By the time he was fourteen he started school at Marlborough College. During his years at boarding school Betjeman would go home for holidays and the family would go to Trebetherick in Cornwall. These times seemed to be the happiest times of Betjeman’s childhood, he wrote about them fondly in his poetry.
In 1925, Betjeman went to Magdalen College, Oxford. He did not finish his degree and failed the Divinity exam. Betjeman left college and became a teacher at Thorpe House School. He went on to be a private secretary and then back to another prep school before finding a job as an assistant editor at The Architectural Review. In 1931 he published his first book of poems, “Mount Zion.” Soon after his publication he met and married Penelope Chetwode. His second book was,”Ghastly Good Taste,” published in 1934. Betjeman and his wife moved to Uffington in Berkshire where Betjeman was a film critic for the Evening Star. “Continual Dew,” was published in 1937. The Betjeman’s son Paul was born in 1937 followed by their daughter Candida born in 1942.
In 1943 Betjeman worked for the Ministry of Information in England. During this time Betjeman continued his writing. The family finally settled in Wantage in 1951 and Betjeman published “A Few Chrysanthemums,” in 1952. By the mid 1950’s Betjeman was a well-known figure on the radio and on television. He was best one for his publication of “Collected Poems“ and his autobiography, “Summoned by Bells,” published in 1960. Betjeman continued his broadcasting career throughout the 1960's and 70's. In 1969 John Betjeman was knighted and when Cecil Day Lewis died in 1972 Betjeman was made Poet Laureate. Betjeman’s last book of poetry, “A Nip in the Air,” was published in 1974.
John Betjeman was diagnosed with Parkinson's and had several strokes caused by the disease. These strokes reduced his mobility greatly and he spent the last years of his life suffering. On May 19th 1984, in his home in Trebetherick, John Betjeman died. He was buried at St Enodoc.
Loneliness
by John Betjeman
The last year's leaves are on the beech:
The twigs are black; the cold is dry;
To deeps byond the deepest reach
The Easter bells enlarge the sky.
O ordered metal clatter-clang!
Is yours the song the angels sang?
You fill my heart with joy and grief -
Belief! Belief! And unbelief...
And, though you tell me I shall die,
You say not how or when or why.
Indifferent the finches sing,
Unheeding roll the lorries past:
What misery will this year bring
Now spring is in the air at last?
For, sure as blackthorn bursts to snow,
Cancer in some of us will grow,
The tasteful crematorium door
Shuts out for some the furnace roar;
But church-bells open on the blast
Our loneliness, so long and vast.
Seaside Golf
by John Betjeman
How straight it flew, how long it flew,
It clear'd the rutty track
And soaring, disappeared from view
Beyond the bunker's back -
A glorious, sailing, bounding drive
That made me glad I was alive.
And down the fairway, far along
It glowed a lonely white;
I played an iron sure and strong
And clipp'd it out of sight,
And spite of grassy banks between
I knew I'd find it on the green.
And so I did. It lay content
Two paces from the pin;
A steady putt and then it went
Oh, most surely in.
The very turf rejoiced to see
That quite unprecedented three.
Ah! Seaweed smells from sandy caves
And thyme and mist in whiffs,
In-coming tide, Atlantic waves
Slapping the sunny cliffs,
Lark song and sea sounds in the air
And splendour, splendour everywhere.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
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For years, he hauled the lines and hoisted sails,
as barque delivered goods around Cape Horn
against the mighty storms which blew their way
and brought such monstrous seas and screeching winds.
Recalling backyard fun with family,
before the wanderlust besieged his heart,
he thought about the smell of fresh-cut grass
and children's laughter striking joyful chord,
but ocean salt was coursing through his veins,
which kept him married to the sailor's life,
no matter how he longed to find relief
amid the fragrant flower beds of youth.
Today, he went to final resting place
and joined the whales and sharks in Neptune's realm.
Honorable mention:
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These are the rules:
1) You must use the words I give in a poem or prose with no limits on length.
2) The words can be in any order and anywhere throughout the poem and can be any form of the word.
3) All entries must be posted in your portfolio and you must post the link in this forum, "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] by July 14, 2018.
4) The winner will get 3000 gift points and the poem will be displayed in this section of the newsletter the next time it is my turn to post (July 18, 2018)
The words are:
painted, emotions, brush, canvas, colors, flowing, easel, blank
 Good luck to all
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