{"id":13573,"date":"2021-06-15T15:20:11","date_gmt":"2021-06-15T15:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=13573"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"poems-for-the-dawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2021\/06\/poems-for-the-dawn\/","title":{"rendered":"Poems for the dawn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\n

I went out to the hazel wood,<\/p>\n

Because a fire was in my head. WB Yeats<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And what a fire it is in Ben Okri\u2019s head<\/strong>. Luckily for us he\u2019s set it down in this volume of poetry which takes you through the day from the unknown hour to invocation hour and ranges the continents to the very tip of the highest peak. Here is truth that we need to hear and confront in this viral age.\u00a0 First read on Radio 4 broadcast<\/a> his poem Notre Dame is Telling Us Something<\/em> . But what ?<\/p>\n

\u201cBut Notre Dame is telling us something<\/p>\n

In its flames and fallen spire.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been sinking lower,<\/p>\n

Been mesmerised by lies,<\/p>\n

Destroying truth,<\/p>\n

Instead of rising higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

This collection urges us to rise higher whether it\u2019s the poem for Ken Saro Wiwa to the hopes raised by Obama for change. But with the poems \u2018 Africa is a reality not seen\u2018, \u00a0\u2019Decolonisation \u2013 From Fanon\u2019 , \u2018The Insider \u2013 After Camus\u2019 or the poem for George Floyd \u2018Breathing the Light\u2019 there is a reminder that we have a duty of care to each other and collectively to challenge injustice and oppression .<\/p>\n

\u201cbring a clear dream for the world<\/p>\n

you who walk this way.bring your light.<\/p>\n

bring your wisdom, your fire, your hope.<\/p>\n

Bring a new courage, a new fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Invocation for the Shrine 4\u2019.<\/p>\n

And this fight is taken to many fronts. The poem \u2018everest\u2019 was read aloud by Ben Fogle at 8000 metres when he climbed Everest in July 2018. There are poems here which were part of Grace Wells Bonner\u2019s exhibition \u2018A Time For New Dreams\u2019 at the Serpentine Gallery in 2019. \u2018cosmosis\u2019 was recorded as a song by Tony Allen, Remi Kabaka and Damon Albarn in 2020. A trio of poems were part of a dance drama performed at Edinburgh International Festival at Dance Base in 2019.<\/p>\n

For those lost<\/h2>\n

But the centrepiece and worth the price of admission is the coruscating poem published by the Financial Times on 23rd<\/sup> June 2017 \u2018Grenfell Tower, June 2017\u2019. This poem works as testimony for those lost. It works as an indictment on those who let it happen. It works as reminder that the tower still stands and those that survived are still hurting and still to go back to their homes. Still to get the support they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who were living now are dead<\/em><\/p>\n

Those who were breathing are from the living earth<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Fled.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you want to see how the poor die, come see<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 Grenfell Tower.<\/em><\/p>\n

See the tower and let a world-changing dream flower.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

This chorus is repeated throughout the poem and then each line used as the first line of each of the concluding verses. Here is where the invocation to \u2018read slowly\u2019 truly hits home. Recognising this and following this epic the volume concludes with \u2018Walk in a Moonlight Wonder\u2019. A welcome respite from the intensity evoked by \u2018Grenfell Tower, June 2017\u2019.<\/p>\n

She walks in beauty<\/h2>\n

A welcome respite from the intensity of modern life and a reminder that you can also \u2018listen slowly\u2019 is the collaboration between Marianne Faithfull and Warren Ellis \u2018she walks in beauty\u2019. This is a sumptuous collection and a remarkable production in so many ways. It was commenced during lockdown so contributions were recorded separately. With half a dozen readings recorded Marianne contracted Covid and spent three weeks in intensive care pulling through thanks to the dedication of NHS workers. This prevented her from her original intention of singing: \u2018So we\u2019ll go no more a roving\u2019 as a blues but her voice on this and the cellos of Vincent Segal work. The rendition of \u2018Ozymandias\u2019 benefits from this post-covid alteration to her vocals.<\/p>\n

In the sleeve notes, French first English second, Marianne tells us that \u201cWe did some of it before I got ill and some of it we had to do afterwards. It was terribly hard, especially afterwards, because of all these side effects. I got very ill. I nearly died. They wrote on my notes at the hospital, \u2018palliative care only\u2019. Anyway, I didn\u2019t die, thank God. Thank everybody. The doctors said they\u2019d never ever treated anybody with such an intense desire to stay alive. I didn\u2019t know that. I was amazed. I survived, and I\u2019m still recovering, and the poems that we did afterwards are wonderful, because they\u2019re even more vulnerable\u201d.<\/p>\n

A golden treasury<\/h2>\n

This is a spoken word album with background or indeed ambient music. It includes Iphone field recordings by Warren Ellis and when he couldn\u2019t figure out what to do with \u2018The Bridge of Sighs\u2019 and \u2018 La Belle Dame sans Merci\u2019 he gave it to Brian Eno who heard what Warren couldn\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n

Warren played some of the recordings to Nick Cave over the phone and he recorded some piano pieces to accompany the tracks. Mixed by Head at Milborne Port and illustrated with watercolours by Colin Self this is all topped off with sleeve notes where Marianne and Warren comment on each recording. This is an object of beauty and is inspired by Palgrave\u2019s Golden Treasury which Marianne bought when she was 13 or 14. \u201c \u2026I\u2019ve been thinking about it for so long, this album, it\u2019s been in my head for so long, I think I really knew exactly what I wanted. I just picked the poems I really loved, and I can\u2019t help but say I think I was very lucky. We got it.\u201d She sure did and you should get it too.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Slowly; Listen to Beauty<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Fire In My Head – Poems for the Dawn, Ben Okri, Head of Zeus, 2021<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

She Walks in Beauty \u2013 Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis,<\/a> BMG, 2021<\/em><\/p>\n

Marianne Faithfull with Warren Ellis – She Walks in Beauty (Lyric Video) – YouTube<\/a><\/p>\n

httpss:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GMsM_zWvWvo<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is truth that we need to hear and confront in this viral age. Gordon Munro finds it in new work by Ben Okri and Marianne Faithfull<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":13583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[270,55],"class_list":["post-13573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-music","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13573","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\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18569,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13573\/revisions\/18569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}