{"id":10563,"date":"2020-03-28T10:38:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-28T10:38:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=10563"},"modified":"2020-04-03T10:51:05","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T10:51:05","slug":"a-gleam-of-starlight-from-the-window-poetry-for-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2020\/03\/a-gleam-of-starlight-from-the-window-poetry-for-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"A gleam of starlight from the window: poetry for a pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trees are cages for them: water holds its breath<\/p>Norman MacCaig: Stars and Planets<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Look up. Only look up. The night sky framed in my window is an escape from lockdown. Into darkness or light? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two nights ago, on Thursday 26 March, windows and doorways spilled light and sound into strangely silenced streets. The nation\u2019s neighbourhoods erupted in cheering and clapping, pouring out our full-hearted thanks for the NHS teams risking their lives to save ours. They are our precariously equipped frontline of defence against a seemingly vengeful virus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tonight ( Saturday 28 March) we\u2019re invited to our windows again, but this time we are urged to put out the lights. Let the stars shine and planets glow. Earth Hour<\/a>, first launched by WWF in 2007, has extra ironic significance in a socially distanced world. This year it is a digital event. We switch out the lights to click and connect with an online pledge to save the planet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s hard to think that the earth is one \u2013
This poor sad bearer of wars and disasters
Rolls-Roycing round the sun with its load of gangsters,
Attended only by the loveless moon.<\/p>Norman MacCaig<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s look up. Perhaps it\u2019s a cloudy night. Never mind. Above the clouds on 28th March, astronomers say<\/a>, there\u2019s Venus and a thin sliver of a crescent Moon. Here\u2019s poetry and song for the gloaming to fire imagination.  \u2018For,\u2019 as the poet Ben Okri writes in The Guardian<\/a> urging us to fight the contagion of fear, \u2018like fire, imagination can create or it can destroy.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stars and Planets <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Norman MacCaig\u2019s Stars and Planets seemed an inspired choice as Scottish Poetry Library\u2019s poem of the moment. Just think, that was only a couple of weeks ago. Now the library is closed and who knows when it will feel safe to open to the public again. But poetry cannot be confined. [Indeed SPL in quarantine is working at home to \u2018keep the flame of hope alive\u2019 \u2013 you can keep up with that on their Covid-19 blog<\/a>.] And MacCaig (1910-1998) is a perfect guide to wry reflection on the state we\u2019re in \u2013 the lifelong pacifist served a term in prison for his beliefs during World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stars and Planets<\/a>, probably written in the 1970s, is a succinct three-verse poem. So seemingly effortlessly written, I wonder if this was what he would have described as \u2018a one or a two cigarette poem\u2019? (He was, says SPL<\/a>, always dismissive of the writing process). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For all its apparent simplicity, this is far from an easy ride into the heavens. The third verse ends with that clear, cold image of the loveless moon shining on our poor disaster-stricken planet and its load of \u2018Rolls-Roycing gangsters\u2019.  But I am drawn back to the first two verses where the stars seem suspended for us, so \u2018twinkle still\/inventing new spaces and huge explosions\u2019 while water holds its breath for fear of smudging that gleam of light.   [Read the full poem here<\/a>.<\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A River of Stars<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

You burn with four thousand suns<\/p>

And yet\u2026<\/p>

Your waves are cold to the touch<\/p>Sam Illingworth<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are echoes of MacCaig\u2019s imagery in a poem by Sam Illingworth<\/a>, a Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at Manchester Metropolitan University. His research involves ‘using poetry to develop dialogue between scientists and non-scientists’ but his website, The Poetry of Science,<\/a> carries a curiously self-deprecating description: \u2018This is sixth form poetry, not Keats or Yeats\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He does himself down. The infinite wonders of space feature often in his poetry. River of Stars<\/a>, written in February 2019, was \u2018inspired by  research, which found a stellar stream of at least 4,000 stars that have been moving together for over a billion years, covering most of the southern celestial hemisphere.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A billion years. In our time of isolation, whether enforced or voluntary, there\u2019s something comforting in that notion of stars clustering together for so very much longer than human life on earth. [Read the full poem here<\/a><\/em>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Made from dust, and to dust you will return,<\/p>

Your wavelets start to decompose<\/p>

Scattering sediment across the empty void<\/p>

From which new life will flow.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Sing the gloaming <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Now for music that brings light and sound together.  Poets and songwriters reach for the right words but some words contain their own songlike sounds.  There\u2019s a fascinating link between science, art, music and the power of words in this beautiful collaborative work by Simon Kirby, Rob St John and Tommy Perman, which first appeared as a sound installation in the Galloway Dark Sky Park in 2015. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sing\nthe Gloaming<\/a> is an ongoing project based on the\nresearch of Edinburgh\nUniversity\u2019s Professor Kirby<\/a> into the evolution\nof language, and in particular a group of words beginning with gl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gleam, glitter, glow \u2013 evocative words that feel good to say and sing \u2013 are, linguistically speaking, phonaesthemes. Not in itself a word that flows easily off the tongue but, as Simon Kirby explains, phonaesthemes<\/em> are \u2018words where a particular form (or sound) is paired with a similar meaning\u2019.  There are other phonaesthemes in the English language and it could be fun of a housebound evening to look for the sound and meaning linked in words beginning with, say, fl (suggesting movement)\u2026 flurry, fling, flight. Or, perhaps too close for comfort, sn (dealing with the nose)\u2026snot, sniffle, sneeze.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A glimmer of hope: we can be as one<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Right now gl words, associating their sound with light and vision, are more uplifting. The gleam in gloaming transcends the gloom. Working together, although separately, the professor and the musician\/artists, are developing the next phase of their project, The magically haunting music of Sing the Gloaming \u2013 gl<\/strong>orious, you could say \u2013 will be released as an album in the summer of 2020 by Blackford Hill<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The launch was to have been at the Glad Caf\u00e9 in Glasgow on 20 June. That seems unlikely. But even if a physical event is not possible, the music which first sang through glowing speakers to the dark skies of Dumfries and Galloway, will allow us digitally into ever-expanding open space. Looking up, listening and imagining. At times like these we are, or can be, one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through my window, and I hope yours, a glimmer of hope.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttpss:\/\/vimeo.com\/244359097\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Featured image: Tommy Perman <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Further reading: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scottish Poetry Library: Poetry in Quarantine<\/a> and We shall overcome <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Guardian: Ben Okri Fear of Covid19: a mental contagion we can fight <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stargazing: Ten of the best sites in Britain<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poems and songs for Earth Hour on Friday March 27 (ICYMI)…”In our time of isolation, whether enforced or voluntary, there\u2019s something comforting in that notion of stars clustering together for so very much longer than human life on earth.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10573,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[102,604,135],"class_list":["post-10563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-community","tag-covid-19","tag-scottish-poetry-library"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}