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Titles: Wednesday Workshop

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Titles
Wednesday’s Workshop
02 November 2016

I am currently thinking and re-thinking the titles to my books.

Clearly, the title is of the utmost importance. The title should draw the reader in while offering some information on the content. Alas, my earlier titles did not do this.

Monkey Temple, for example, really doesn’t say much about what the book contains. Nor does its subtitle: A narrative fable for modern times. Those who have read poems from the book or who have heard me read excerpts from it, know what it is about. However, deep down the title really says little about the life and times of Monkey, the protagonist who works and suffers in the corporate Monkey Temple.

In similar fashion, Though Lovers Be Lost is a wonderful title, taken from Dylan Thomas, and illustrating his theory that “though lovers be lost, love shall not, and death shall have no dominion.” If readers have these lines on the tip of their tongues, as most people from Wales do, then they will have a fair idea about the contents of the book. However, without that intimate knowledge of one of the great Welsh poets … many readers will be lost and the title will lack meaning, check my post on Intertextuality.

Bistro is a collection of flash fiction. I am not sure that the title suggests that instead of a standard and expected table of contents the book has a menu that refers to the 34 pieces of flash fiction are contained within its pages. The pieces are so varied, rather like a meal of sashimi or sushi, that it is difficult to describe the contents (or menu) in such a short thing as the title. Does the one word, Bistro, draw the reader in? The cover picture might and the combination of title and picture and cover may go further. However, I have my reservations.

Empress of Ireland, on the other hand, is a book of poems about a specific event: the sinking of the Empress of Ireland  in the St. Lawrence River in May, 1914. Here, title and event are closely linked and hopefully the title is rather more indicative of the contents. Even here, as in the cases of the books mentioned previously, a brief description of the book is necessary.

Sun and Moon is a great title, provided you have lived in Oaxaca, Mexico, and know that Sun and Moon are the official symbols of the state of Oaxaca. Without that knowledge, the sub-title, Poems from Oaxaca, Mexico, is essential. The cover photograph with the state symbol of Sun and Moon is intriguing, but it is still necessary to read the description to find out what the book is about. Are title and sub-title enough in themselves? I’m still not sure.

Obsidian’s Edge is a tricky title. I thought everybody knew that obsidian is the shiny black glassy stone produced in volcanic areas. Further, I thought most people knew that the edge of obsidian is used in weapons and knives that cut. By extension, obsidian knives were used by the Aztecs and others in their human sacrifices … so much knowledge that is clear to the writer but unclear to the reader who may not realize that we all live at Obsidian’s Edge with the sacrifice of our own lives hanging by a thin thread on a daily basis. Oh dear, I have been to workshops and readings recently where people knew nothing about obsidian and its properties … my title gives so little information.

Land of Rocks and Saints has yet to be revised and rewritten. Few English readers will associate it with the old Spanish saying, Ávila: tierra de cantos y santos / Avila, Land of Rocks and Saints. The tragedy of living a life in more than one language is that the cultural knowledge so easily understood in one does not necessarily transfer readily into a second or third language. Some of my readers write me to say that they Google all these terms and learn a tremendous amount from the books. Alas, I have to improve my titles. I need to sharpen them and use them to draw my future readers in.

Ávila: cantos y santos y ciudad de la santa, the Spanish translation of Land of Rocks and Saints that I have just put up on Amazon / Kindle, is a better title. Avila is both the province and the capital city of the province. The rocks and saints are clearly linked to the name and the city itself is the city of the saint, St. Teresa of Avila, of course. Hopefully, this title, in Spanish, will attract some Spanish readers. I can only hope.

The book on which I am currently working was originally called Iberian Interludes and had no sub-title. In my revision, I am selecting poems about Spain from various earlier collections and placing them together in one large compendium. I have selected poems from two collections Iberian Interludes and In the Art Gallery (oh dear, I never mentioned that it was the Prado and that all the paintings could be found there). To these I have added a selection of individual poems either published in reviews and literary magazines or taken from other collections.

I am still working on a title for this collection, hence today’s post. I have rejected Iberian Interludes as too vague (how many of my potential readers know that Spain is Iberia) and I am now looking at a bold assertion: Spain. If I do this, I will need a sub-title. The evolution of the subtitle looks like this: Bull’s Blood and Bottled Sunshine, ¡Olé!  >  Bull’s Blood and Bottled Sun >  Bottled Sun and Bull’s Blood. I wonder if Spain: Bottled Sun and Bull’s Blood will be catchy enough. Will it draw readers in and attract them? There’s still time for me to think and re-think and all observations will be gratefully accepted.

By all means, let me know what you think.

Velásquez’s Secret

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Velásquez’s Secret

Two large paintings
hang on the wall,
one in front of the other:
Las meninas.

I gaze at the serving maids,
the royal princess,
the court dwarf,
the sleeping dog.

The painter,
stranded behind his easel,
paintbrush waving,
stares back at me.

I turn around.
The second painting
is not a painting:
It’s a mirror.

There I am,
standing by the princess,
one of the family.
I move my hand
and wave at myself
across the centuries.

Like the four court dwarfs
staring out from their wooden
prisons on the walls in another room,
I emerge from obscurity
and join the élite:

the painter
waves his magic wand
and
Velásquez
paints me
as I stand beside
the king and queen.

In Absentia 4

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In Absentia 4
Kibble

I pick up the cat’s bowl with the claw and place the bowl by the cat food. No kibble. So, holding the blue plastic measuring spoon in one hand I take my two canes and balance the spoon between my right thumb and the cane handle. Then I limp down the corridor to the laundry room where I store the kibble. I fill the measuring spoon from the packet, reseal the bag, pick up my canes and wedge the now full measuring spoon back between thumb and cane handle. The cat mews happily and runs out between my legs. I lurch and … disaster … the spoon slips from my arthritic fingers and the kibble forms neat, rolling patterns on the floor.

What can I do? I think immediately of the Dyson and limp into the hall where I have left it. I extend the handle, hold the handle with my right hand, cane and all, and push the Dyson down to where the cat is feasting. I plug the Dyson in and switch it on. One rumble from the Dyson and the cat abandons the kibble and seeks the safety of the basement. I manoeuvre the Dyson toward the cat food but the Dyson is in carpet mode. It beats the floor and will do nothing but push the kibble before it. I push the kibble into a neat pile and leave it there. As I turn the Dyson off, the garden kneeler catches my eye. I go to fetch it and balance it against my leg, kicking it forward so it won’t catch against my canes and trip me.

I have brought the cat’s bowl with me this time and I kneel before the kibble. Then I start picking the pieces up, one and two at a time. My back aches from the slow bending and twisting and my heart is breaking as I consider my own stupidity. Hot tears of frustration prick at my eyes and I blink them away. This operation is so long and so slow. I slip forward and place my hand palm down on the kibble. My palm is sticky with sweat and I raise a handful of kibble as I push myself up. This I scrape into the cat bowl. Using this new technique, I transfer the kibble stuck to my hand first to the cat bowl and then to the measuring cup.

It’s time to get to my feet. I cannot heave myself up on the garden kneeler’s handles and hang on to the cat food: too much risk of a second spill. I have leaned the claw against the all with my sticks so using both hands on the kneeler handles I struggle to my feet. As I do so, I knock both canes over. Now they are lying flat on the floor with the claw. The canes have a rubber tip and if I stand on the edge of it, the cane will rise in the air like magic. I do this twice. Then I use the canes to grasp the claw and the claw, now in my possession, to raise the cat food. Success!

I struggle my unbalanced way down the corridor, place my sticks on the counter, put the right amount of kibble into the cat’s bowl and, with the cane, lower the cat’s food to the floor. I glance at my watch. This operation has taken me fifteen minutes, half of which I have spent kneeling on the floor. I call the cat. The cat appears. I reach for my canes. The claw falls to the floor. I grab for it and knock down one of my canes. The cane strikes the cat who is greedily feeding. The cat jumps away and spills her water all over the floor.

I stand there, horrified. Hot wet tears of humiliation trickle down my face.

Monkey Teaches

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Monkey Teaches Sunday School on Mondays
(With apologies to Pavlov and his dogs)

Younger monkeys e-mail elder monkey
and expect an answer within two minutes.
Elder monkey drools and writes right back.

 He is turned on by the bells and
whistles of his computer.
“Woof! Woof!”
His handlers hand him a biscuit.

Elder monkey has grown to appreciate
tension and abuse:
the systematic beatings,
the shit and foul words hurled at his head.

The working conditions are overcrowded.

Elder monkey is overworked.
Yet he has managed to survive,
to stay alive and fight
what he once believed was the good fight.

Now he no longer knows:
nor does he drool anymore
when bells and whistles sound
and his handlers bait him with
an occasional, half-price biscuit.

 

Monkey Temple Prologue

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Monkey Temple

The monkeys appear, as if by magic.
They tumble out of windows and doorways.
They clamber through the holes in the temple’s ruined roof.
They are quiet at first.
They inspect their surroundings.
They ogle the crowd gathering for the afternoon show.
They watch the watchers watching them.
They pulsate, for no reason at all, they pulsate, then ululate,
They jump up and down and swing from the temple’s roof.
They pontificate, gesticulate, and regurgitate.
They sit and sift for fleas. They defecate and urinate.
They masticate cautiously. They castigate and fornicate.
They ruminate. They masturbate. They rush to the top of the temple
and on the uplifted faces of the crowd they ejaculate.

Monkey’s Tractatus

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Monkey’s Tractatus
(after a philosophical argument between
Ludvig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell)

When monkey sees a hippopotamus in the temple grounds
he knows it is grounded in fact.
We really must get rid of it!
It obediently vanishes.

There is a silence in the temple cells
broken only by the broom’s clean sweep
as insects are swept away from the footsteps of the unworthy.

Monkey sees the hippo trapped beneath a chair.
He can feel it struggling to set itself free.
Now hippo gets tangled in monkey’s hair.

Monkey will have its hide for a shield against dark thoughts,
an unbroken umbrella to guard him from this rain of teardrops.

Hippo bathes in a hip bath of crocodile tears:
Sunt rerum lacrimae.
He wallows in philosophical sorrow.

When the hippo leaves the temple,
there is a silence as the unspoken word returns,
a silence broken only by the hum of the hoover,
and the beat of a condor’s invisible wings.

In Absentia 1

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In absentia

Prelude

1

 The Beaver Pond

Tomorrow, early, my love, you’ll fly away.
Today, you’ll walk round the Beaver Pond
where red and yellow leaves abound. A thin grey

webbing garlands one dead tree. I’m not too fond
of tent worms. I hate them when they swing
from low branches. Give me a fresh green frond

caught by the morning sun in early spring
or else bright autumn leaves so soon to fall.
I love American Goldfinches when they sing

that last departing song. I love most of all
those occasional visitors: do you recall that bright
blue Indigo Bunting with his “I’m-a-lost-bird call?”

The hunting hawks give everyone a fright.
They perch on top of a garden tree
then step off into space to claw-first alight

on some poor songbird trilling away, quite free
from fear, his unfinished symphony of song.
It’s getting late, my love. You walk towards me
out of the woods. I’ll end this poem with a plea:
don’t forget me … and don’t stay away too long.

Last Dance FFF

 

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Last Dance
Fast Fiction Friday

                   The vocalist has rhythm but, unlike her audience, she doesn’t have cancer. She has come here tonight with her band to the hospice to entertain those who do. The band donates their time. They don’t do this for money. Nobody does.

The vocalist looks round the almost empty room. She has been here before and knows that when she starts to sing, many more patients, attracted by the music, will come drifting in. She introduces the trio that accompanies her to the few who have arrived and the evening’s entertainment begins.

The music circulates round the hospice, and the inmates, secluded in their rooms, tap out the rhythm of the first song. They leave their rooms and descend the stairs. The low lights give the patients courage and they trickle shyly into the dining room, now turned into a dance floor. As they enter, they see some of the bravest patients out on the dance floor, moving in time to the music. The late-comers stand straighter, adjust their headscarves, lean less on their sticks, and forget for a moment their suffering. They settle in chairs towards the back of the room and leave the front rows empty. Then they exchange glances and nods of encouragement. Many of the men stand at the rear, leaning on the chair backs of the women who are seated in front of them.

Some dance, but not everyone does. Some join in the chorus, humming or mouthing the words. One takes a pair of plastic spoons from his pocket and follows the rhythm. Two ladies hold hands and encourage each other onto the dance floor where they join the growing numbers who are moving around. Those who are not yet brave enough to step out, clap loudly and one or two cheer.

The music volume increases and laughter and merriment grow. More and more patients join the dancers on the floor. The lights are lowered even further and people who scarcely knew each other a week or two ago now dance in close friendship.

As they move beneath dim lights, the dancers half-close their eyes and enter a dreamland of sound and music. Here the women’s hair grows lush and long again. The men stand straighter, throw away their sticks, and rely on their partners to keep them upright. One man touches the place where his partner’s amputated breast should be. She recoils immediately, but he holds her close, whispers in her ear, brushes her cheek with his lips, and gradually she relaxes. As the evening comes to an end and the lights dim further, the dancers move closer together dreaming on and on in time to the music.

When the vocalist announces that this will be the last dance, the music stops for a moment and the hospice’s oldest inhabitant, an elderly lady, cancer-stricken, hauls herself to her feet and walks to the center of the dance floor. When she gets there, she holds out her hands before her and nods at the vocalist. The other dancers make space for her and the last dance begins.

This elderly lady dances alone, clinging to the empty air as if she were dancing with a well-remembered partner. A muted spotlight highlights her as she moves. It could be midnight, in some sacred grove where shadows shift, and moonlight makes its own sweet music, and her, the spirit of the wood, moving in tune to a rhythm that promises, in spite of everything, joy and ever-lasting love.

 

Gower

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To Be Welsh in Gower

To be Welsh in Gower is to spell it funny
and pronounce it worse: Gŵyr.

It’s to know how to say Pwll Ddu.

It’s meeting the cows in the lane to Brandy Cove
and knowing them all by name and reputation,
which one kicks, which one gores,
when to walk in the middle of the lane,
and when to jump for the safety of the hedge.

It’s to know the difference between the twin farmers
Upper Jones and Lower Jones.

It’s to recognize their sheepdogs, Floss and Jess,
and to call them with their different whistles.

It’s knowing the time of day by sun and shadow.

It’s knowing the tide is in or out
by the salt smell in the air
without ever needing to see the sea;

and now, in this far off land,
it’s hearing your stomach growl
for caws wedi pobi, crempog or teisen lap
whilst memory’s fish-hook tugs at your heart

like your father tugged at salmon bass,
fishing from the sand-pebbled beach
at Rhossili, Pennard, or Three Cliffs.

Wales

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Wales

Wales is whales to my daughter
who has only been there once on holiday,
very young, to see her grandparents,
a grim old man and a wrinkled woman.

They wrapped her in a shawl and hugged her
till she cried herself to sleep
suffocating in a straitjacket of warm Welsh wool.

So how do I explain the sheep?

They are everywhere, I say, on lawns, in gardens.

I once knew a man
whose every prize tulip was devoured by a sheep,
a single sheep who sneaked into the garden
the day he left the gate ajar.

They get everywhere, I say, everywhere.

Why, I remember five sheep
riding in a coal truck leering like tourists
travelling God knows where
bleating fiercely as they went by.

In Wales, I say, sheep are magic.

When you travel to London on the train,
just before you leave Wales
at Severn Tunnel Junction,
you must lean out the window and say
“Good morning, Mister Sheep!”

And if he looks up,
your every wish will be granted.

And look at that poster on the wall:
a hillside of white on green,
and every sheep as still as a stone,
and each white stone a roche moutonnée.