Poem by Nathan Hamilton

Eyewear is very glad to welcome Nathan Hamilton (pictured here). He recently studied in the UEA MA Creative Writing program - where I was very glad to have met him.

He is a very fine young poet.

His poem, below, is very welcome here, as well as being a fitting fin-d'ete offering.

South of France, 2005

Attempting distractions at roadsides,
As a journey sidetracks upward
Through mountains, I jot:
Pale pink and yellow houses
Tessellate above rusted earth,
Green vines, spice markets of soil.
Your thin hairline is recalled
In sparse fronds by the next peak.

Fields are more staved
Than those behind me,
Words more fresh – oublier;
The bark of plane trees impressionist;
Cypresses more defiant
Than the boughs of willows
Drooped with the low cello note
That feeds the earth.

Intermittent thumps of wind
In sails almost articulate.
Unpacked and garden wandering,I
'm busy with the blossom
Of white snails, the lumber
Of fat, ink-stain bees,
And note the chitter-chatter
Of cicadas, traded for traffic noise.

A slow handclap of shutters
Announces a storm.
Its curtain draws,
Darkening the valley's green.
A bruised sky
Detonates,
Cannot console.

poem by Nathan Hamilton

Paranoia Agent

If you have to see one Japanese Anime TV series this year (and you know you do) then let me recommend director / creator Satoshi Kon's curious audiovisual guilty pleasure, the cult Paranoia Agent (Vol. 1) - the rest of the series is out later this month.

"Paranoia" may be a bit of a 90s theory thing for those of us in the West (see Panic, and the X-Files as sub-sets) but it has naturally made a come-back thanks to events like September 11th, whose latest anniversary is fast approaching.

Kon's series, which is expertly animated, escalates, each episode building from the previous one, in terms of levels of violence, sexual perversion, and indeed menace, so that, in fact, the viewer participates in a spiralling level of unease, and paranoia.

It starts innocently enough - a kid's cartoon designer (pictured above) begins to crack under corporate-life pressure before being apparently hit on the head in a random attack by L'IL SLUGGER - a weird boy with golden in-line skates and a bent-like-it's-broken gleaming baseball bat.

Enter a duo of very laconic detectives, and a cast of alpha-students, schizoid sex workers, mafia types and bent cops... complete with knowing references to cult American TV of the 90s, like Twin Peaks from David Lynch.

Having very recently been in Japan (and having been the credited story editor for the last season of Sailor Moon) I can maybe attest to the intelligent and nuanced way in which the series deals with issues of urbanization, globalization, techno-media-mania, work-related stress, environmental destruction, loss of identity in an alienated post-industrial world, in the context of the Japanese experience - but, startlingly, in a universal way, too.

It may not be The Simpsons (often considered the pinnacle of animated TV product) but this surely sets new standards for serious-yet-hip, smart-yet-fun, adult Japanese Anime.

Ways of Looking at Poets

The image above says it all.

Derek Adams, poet and photographer, has put together a striking show of images of poets - and I am honoured to be among them, along with some of the finest practitioners now in the UK. Very much an exhibition worth going to see. Runs until September 30.

Open Air Cymbeline Now and 55 Years Ago

I have just seen the final night of the Open Air Theatre Regent's Park performance of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, which was very good, and made more delightful by the surroundings, complete with summer Christmas lights in the rustling trees. The only distractions were random planes and preposterusly inappropriate fireworks in the third act, but that is half the fun of such stages - they are vunerable to the world.

The play itself, often thought to be complex to the point of (willful?) absurdity, under the nuanced direction of Rachel Kavanaugh, revealed itself to be a profound unveiling of layers of reconciliation - all things pardoned.

The young, good cast yielded several star turns, among them a lithe, swarthy, over-determinedly strutting Malkovichian Iachimo, played by Simon Day, and an exuberant, under-sized and comical Cloten, from James Loye.

The play, seen by some as a footnote, strikes me as one of the greatest from the master - and, as one of his last - a profound redressing of tragedy itself as a genre. The key terrors of the play - murder of a wife by a jealous husband (Othello); poison of a king (Hamlet); sleep misread as death (Romeo and Juliet); a weak king who disowns those he should trsut (Lear); Roman violence (Julius Caesar) - I could go on - are resolved and dissolved in the denoument, which seems to sweep aside both fiction and fact to achieve an unparalleled vision of grace.

I found this clipping showing that Cymbeline (not seen in the Open Air of Regent's Park for 50 years until this season) was played in such an environment in my home of Montreal, 55 years ago, by the Canadian thespian, Christopher Plummer, as a much younger man.

Willy Wonka

Am I the only one who prefers Gene Wilder's Willy to Johnny Depp's?

Tim Burton's version is, in many ways, superior: the songs, the mise-en-scene, the special effects, perhaps even the colour. But Wilder had an uncany, unexplained aura (call it mystery) mixed with a melancholy, that was more Sickert than sick.

Depp, with his (dental) family drama is more mental than anything, weird when he should be wonderful, and poutingly adolescent when he should have been magical - next they'll be recasting Depp as Humbert Humbert, and making him the young one.

Willy Wonka doesn't need a Freudian backstory. He transgresses and transcends the Oedipal struggle.

Wilder made me shiver and was unfogettable. Depp's too lightweight here, all tics and homages to Jackson and Rogers. His greatest performance remains Ed Wood. Now that's weirdness well done.

The Oxfam Poetry Reading Series continues

The Oxfam Poetry Reading Series continues with its Autumn season, after a very successful Summer Festival.

Both upcoming events feature some of the best, most popular, and compelling poets now writing in the English language, globally, from Australia, America, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and South Africa.

Due to the extraordinary demand likely for these events, please do contact us if you are interested in reserving a ticket.

*

Tuesday, September 13, 2005
7-9 pm, Oxfam Books & Music Shop
91 Marylebone High Street, London W1

Four Poets for Oxfam:

Les Murray, Lachlan Mackinnon
Isobel Dixon
and Todd Swift

*

End of Year Finale
Thursday, November 29, 2005
7-10 pm, Oxfam Books & Music Shop
91 Marylebone High Street, London W1

Six Poets for Oxfam:

Lavinia Greenlaw, Sophie Hannah, Sinead Morrissey
Charles Bennett, Leah Fritz
and Briar Wood

*

Admission free - suggested £8 donation - all proceeds to Oxfam.

To reserve a ticket (for a place, not necessarily a seat) call 020 7487 3570
or email oxfammarylebone@hotmail.com

Fa yeung nin wa

I consider Fa yeung nin wa (In The Mood for Love) directed by Wong Kar-wai the supreme work of art of the last decade of the 20th century (culminating in 2000), for its sublime and supreme mix of fin-de-siecle tropes, images and style, taken from both Western and Eastern cinema, literature and art.

I think it is the finest High Erotic Drama in 20th century film, after Vertigo, which is the second best film ever created, for the intense, beautiful and multiple elements surrounding love-death themes from Wagner, Freud and Chandler, which it unleashes.

2046 would be in any list of created works that might vie against Bob Dylan's album (see previous post), but ultimately is slightly weaker than its prequel, though perhaps more fascinating, even visually intricate. However, Fa yeung nin wa seems to me to have generated its own textures - moods, flavours - so as to almost invite radical comparison with so-called reality: it is, arguably, the embodiment of desire.