Monday, December 05, 2011

Extracts from "Gawain" at Horizon Review

I realised just now, when posting up my comments on Christopher Logue's death, that I had completely forgotten to flag up my extracts from "Gawain" that appeared at Horizon Review a few months back.

Anyway, the extracts may be worth reading if you're into that kind of thing, i.e. free translations or versions of Middle English poetry. It's a version of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", of course, but I've just called it "Gawain", as the former is a bit of a mouthful.

I haven't finished it yet. I may never finish it at this rate, with all the other demands on my time and the need to earn a living. But what's been done so far is not too dreadful. In certain places.

Here's a mini-extract of the extracts on Horizon Review. As a teaser to encourage you to click the link.

Oblivious to the hounds circling upwind and panting, muscular, rump
         to shoulder, eager for the chase,
the fox himself stands watchful at the edge of a clearing, surveying
stiff grass, ice-locked.
Frost clings raw to the iron-clad earth. The sun rises, ruddied
against the cloud rack, a red eye
utterly cried-out
that morning, scouring the welkyn, shuffling the sky’s massive drift
for signs of fox.
One whiff and he’s off. Helter-skelter, criss-crossing wet fields
and muddied tracks. The hounds
fly after him, their hard-baying tongues heard as far away
as Hautdesert. There, her white throat bare,
the lady is entering Gawain’s bedchamber. Tiny bright stones,
         exquisitely-cut, hang in her hair.
Both her back and her breasts are smooth and exposed: gorgeous,
light-footed, she comes to his bed
in a robe trimmed with fur, laughing and calling
         his name.
Gawain wakes, dazzled. With answering laughter, he lays aside
         all her kisses and hot protestations
of love. Again
she comes at him. “Take this ring,” she whispers. When he refuses,
         she unhooks a belt from her waist,
green and gold, hung with tassels and pendants, a rich girdle,
and urges him to accept it, bending her face to his: “A poor gift,
unless you wish to save a man from death.”
Horns blow, out on the reed-edged marsh. The fox doubles back
too late; the hounds have found his scent.
They fall on him, and he is rent, flayed by furious teeth and claws,
         bloodied, a trophy.

5 comments:

Poetry Pleases! said...

Dear Jane

You are quite superb at writing war poetry - it's not a genre that I've ever attempted myself. Thanks again for your wonderful review of my 'Back to Basics' on Amazon.

Best wishes from Simon

Jane Holland said...

Thanks, Simon! Though of course this particular poem isn't about war, it's about ... well, I suppose it's partly about honour, and partly about betrayal, and partly about initiation into adulthood. Gawain is a fascinating tale, and if you ever get time, I thoroughly recommend tracing it through its various incarnations, for it existed long before this rather stylised Middle English version, of course, with the tale of the young knight versus the tricksy or shapeshifting lord of the manor twisting and turning through the ages.

I find this kind of thing so much more satisfying these days than the short contemporary lyric.

Which probably explains why nobody reads my poetry.

Poetry Pleases! said...

Dear Jane

I read it. Honest!

Best wishes from Simon

Bo said...

That's EXCELLENT! x

Jane Holland said...

Thanks, Bo! That means a lot, coming from an expert in the field. It's not a translation, of course - I find straight translation intensely dreary, to be honest - but it tries to capture the spirit of the original, whilst also being a new poem in its own right. That's the theory, at any rate.

Jx