1. |
Her Name is Sorrow
07:46
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Text by Anna A. Friedrich © 2022 Commissioned by Anselm McDonnell
Thank you she said
it like a question
while we walked along
ocean, creek, tributary
— made no difference —
our conversation was all
chemistry — alkali
and acid: elemental sisters warring,
waiting — we their mediators.
Taking my hand, she made me
hold the life gone from a starfish, then took
my arm and led me to Jennette’s pier, now decrepit?
She took my eyes and told me I’d be fine
in heaven blind — she took my eyes! —
one in each enormous hand
and chucked them in the sea so I might
see the coral reef’s white bones
she mused
then left me on the beachrock
shouting like Bartimaeus.
My eyeballs floated
in the flotsam before one sank
in the drink; it must have been
my weightier eye — serious, tireless, landing
long after in a bathyal baleen
whale fall.
The other — my light-hearted eye
rushed into a shallow current
rich with a community
of pink and purple plastic.
Above the sea, the rest of me sat down
in defeat. Soaked by unexpected waves
— not tears, my eyes were lost, recall — I cried
out with the seagulls
Sorrow! Sorrow!
until I sensed her presence —
mercy, shame, again
she said Thank you — her voice
wide and deep inside a yawn. The tide
came up to tuck her in
to bring the night’s oblivion
that makes the day’s woes
bearable — its acid
and its alkaline — she slept,
I think. And I awoke.
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2. |
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Text by Stanisław Barańczak © 1960s
Jeżeli porcelana to wyłącznie taka
Której nie żal pod butem tragarza lub gąsienicą czołgu,
Jeżeli fotel, to niezbyt wygodny, tak aby
Nie było przykro podnieść się i odejść;
Jeżeli odzież, to tyle, ile można unieść w walizce,
Jeżeli książki, to te, które można unieść w pamięci,
Jeżeli plany, to takie, by można o nich zapomnieć
gdy nadejdzie czas następnej przeprowadzki
na inną ulicę, kontynent, etap dziejowy
lub świat
Kto ci powiedział, że wolno się przyzwyczajać?
Kto ci powiedział, że cokolwiek jest na zawsze?
Czy nikt ci nie powiedział, że nie będziesz nigdy
w świecie
czuł się jak u siebie w domu?
Translation by Professor Magnus J. Krynski
If china, then only the kind
you wouldn’t miss under the movers’ shoes or the treads of a tank;
if a chair, then one that’s not too comfortable, or
you’ll regret getting up and leaving;
if clothes, then only what will fit in one suitcase;
if books, then those you know by heart;
if plans, then the ones you can give up
when it comes time for the next move,
to another street, another continent or epoch
or world:
who told you you could settle in?
who told you this or that would last forever?
didn’t anyone tell you that you’ll never
in the world
feel at home here?
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3. |
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Text extracts from Belfast. 99 ścian pokoju by Aleksandra Łojek (translated by the author) © 2015
She thought Belfast would be like London,
Only smaller, of course, cheaper, greener.
Sadly, further from Poland,
Well… she’d never buy a house in London.
So, she bought a house on the interface,
Northern Ireland must be something like England.
Only smaller, of course, cheaper, leaner.
Only, further from Poland.
And the house was attacked one night in the riots.
All the neighbouring houses were attacked in the riots.
Smaller, and there were riots, of course, cheaper, given the riots, bleaker.
She never thought one day she would be sitting at a meeting,
with representatives,
Catholics and Protestants from the interface.
She never thought one day she’d be the only person,
Asking for the Peace Wall to stay,
Asking for the gates to be closed,
Asking for the kids to be separated,
Asking to be left alone on this side (whoever this side is).
She thought Belfast would be like London,
Only smaller, cheaper, green...
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4. |
Kraina III. Kraina
05:25
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Text from Pielgrzym by Adam Mickiewicz © 1826
U stóp moich kraina dostatków i krasy,
Nad głową niebo jasne, obok piękne lice;
Dlaczegoż stąd ucieka serce w okolice
Dalekie, i - niestety! jeszcze dalsze czasy?
Litwo! piały mi wdzięczniej twe szumiące lasy
Niż słowiki Bajdaru, Salhiry dziewice,
I weselszy deptałem twoje trzęsawice
Niż rubinowe morwy, złote ananasy.
Tak daleki! tak różna wabi mię ponęta;
Dlaczegoż roztargniony wzdycham bez ustanku
Do tej, którą kochałem w dni moich poranku?
Ona w lubej dziedzinie, która mi odjęta,
Gdzie jej wszystko o wiernym powiada kochanku,
Depcąc świeże me ślady czyż o mnie pamięta?
Translation by Edna Worthley
A rich and lovely country wide unrolled,
A fair face by me, heavens where white clouds sail,
Why does my heart forever still bewail
Far-distant lands, more distant days of old?
Litwa! your roaring forests sang more bold
Than Salhir maid, Baydary nightingale;
I’d rather walk your marshes than this vale
Of mulberries, and pineapples of gold.
Here are new pleasures, and I am so far!
Why must I always sigh distractedly
For her I loved when first my morning star
Arose? In that dear house I may not see,
Where yet the tokens of her lover are,
Does she still walk my ways and think of me?
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5. |
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Text by Peter Skrzynecki ©1978
He has grown tired
of the clichéd
pronunciation of his name—
countering
the inadvertent ‘How d' yer . . . ?'
that humour
or rudeness asks,
a few vowels
and tooth-grinding consonants
that must be
phonetically rehearsed
alone or at night,
to forestall jibes,
embarrassments, false curiousity—
the wasted time
that a Handbook-and-Timetable
devotee provokes.
Yes, he would argue,
there must be places
in history
where land or heritage
asks no exile
of the children it nourishes
and helps to breed,
where a name's
not laughed at, reviled
or twisted
like some gross truth
or as yet unnamed, imported
European disease.
So, he asks,
Tell me of Strzlecki,
count-turned-explorer—
beside whose name
a creek flows
through the deserts
of South Australia?
Or why a mountain, peaked
with snow,
should resemble a tomb
and be named
Kosciuszko?
Their eyes narrow,
nostrils quaver—
the seconds
between them toll.
Deeply breathing
their mouths open
darkly
and groper-slow.
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6. |
Common Places
12:49
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Text by Andrew Roycroft © 2019
Open wide your heart,
In these common places,
To the deeper daily things,
To the rarer given things,
To the fire in the west of winter sky,
The battle lost but burning still;
To the queenie boats in Coalpit Bay
Like tidal stars washed down-sky to here;
To the hint of foxes on the journey home,
Like conscience, taking cover out of light;
To the pitiable edges of a loved one’s days
Their shared and shattered weakness
Away from all that calls for strength.
Open wide your heart,
In these common places,
To the deeper daily things,
To the rarer given things
To the children’s treasured plastic jewels
And staggering gait in mother’s heels;
To the elderly woman with the baby doll
In the common room, who once weaned
All those who no longer call;
To the cortège with its unravelling yarn
Of cars, and flawless punctuation
Up in the burial ground,
To the later laughter over tea.
Open wide your heart,
In these common places,
To the deeper daily things,
To the rarer given things.
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7. |
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Text extracts from Sea-bedazzle by Euan Tait © 2021 Commissioned by Anselm McDonnell
“Stephen the archangel takes to the skies of the seas and sweeps all the souls from the deepest rocks and stills their weeping, their unjust ends, and sets them tenderly on the Strand to coo like sea-chickbirds and sing song-comfort to each other until the choke of their drowning is no more. Only shore-children, in their green-woollen hats, in the delight of seashells crunching underfoot, can see them; and their tender, amazed laughter is a mystery to their parents.
All houses are made from the light drawn from human hands, brick dust dissolves as the brickie builds, and brother Keane will come back years later when he is old, afraid and in pain and cry out ‘see!’ And his windows will wink and his facades shimmy-seduce and his slates get blown upright in the strongest winds from the east, just as the lover he came home to, each built day, comforted him by ruffling his hair.
Nothing can comfort Stephen. He has become the sea, and storms are his wings, the shattered heart who witnesses the sinking of the innocent in a great ship, a woolen doll floating on the surface of the December sea, the light as fluorescent as the flesh of houses.
When Stephen hears an old man is dying, he knows that pain like mist burning from the surface of the bay on a day no one could have imagined could be this hot. The houses are long drowned when Stephen leaves the shore. But he is legend-rain every bloomsday. He is light following a dark shower of pollen, of blood, of seaspray.”
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8. |
Moving House
06:11
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Text by Leland Bardwell © 1984
The house unfolds and straightens
with relief. We’ve discarded the stone, the elephant,
the Japanese parasol and the pile
of unfinished poems
- They are like rotten fruit –
(might be a core worth extracting.)
Are you taking the piano? – Yes
the mice are nesting in the keys
and sit with paws crossed like expectant choirboys.
We are tired of this move
and all the other moves we’ve made
and tired of the people who are tired
of carting memories around.
The magic of summer took us by the neck
and wrung us out like an old sock
is it possible we’ve accumulated
so much rubbish in so short a time?
Let us go then quickly before dark
in this way we’ll close the shutters of absence
and find a new set of trivia and attachments
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Anselm McDonnell Belfast, UK
Anselm McDonnell is a composer of Irish/Welsh heritage based in Belfast, who has composed over ninety pieces for orchestra, chamber groups, choirs, soloists and electronics. A diverse range of interests have led to the creation of work in collaboration with rap artists, lighting designers, theologians, poets, filmmakers, improvising musicians, fashion designers, dancers, and actors. ... more
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