• About
  • How to comment
  • I Sing the Sonnet
  • Publications/Releases

gists

~ given I sing the sonnet

gists

Tag Archives: Regret

Spotlighted on The HyperTexts

28 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by duncangmaclaurin in Publications

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christian Meonia George, Dunderhead, Horror Vacui, Just Rain, Mike Burch, No Bloody Way!, On Esperance Bay, On the Quiet, Regret, Sören Jessen's Sand, The Hyper Texts

Eight of my “significant” poems have been spotlighted on The HyperTexts. Thanks, Mike!

The following links will lead you to recorded versions of these pieces: “Sören Jessen’s Sand”, “On the Quiet” (music by and performed by Christian Meonia George).  Otherwise here.

55.526590 8.356750

Lucky Charms

11 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by duncangmaclaurin in Releases, Sonnets

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

A Moonflower, Ann Bilde, Candelabrum, car crash, Lucky Charms, original versions, Oxford, posting schedule, Red Moon, Regret

I intend to post here once a week. Thursdays or Fridays as a general rule. In due course I will probably say something about each of the eight sonnets showcased last week, but if there is anyone who would like to learn something more about one in particular before I get round to it, then feel free to say so, either by commenting here or contacting me by e-mail. Otherwise, what I intend to do next is present some of the other sonnets I sing, one at a time. Unless they are part of a sequence.

I’m very much a revisionist, and although I do occasionally feel like I’m hacking at a stone that should be left, I soon get over that. Often I see it as a good way of warming up when I want to write something new and don’t have a clue what that will be. Sometimes I’m perhaps fooling myself, but then I do sometimes actually succeed in improving some old pieces. I have made significant amendments to several pieces many years after having abandoned them.

I choose to update some of my pieces so that when/if I recite them tomorrow, they will represent me where I am today in relation to those pieces, rather than where I was yesterday in relation to them. The new versions don’t mean the old ones were inadequate. But I do like to think that when I change something I’m improving it.

One of the very first sonnets I wrote was “Lucky Charms”. I wrote the first draft in Oxford on 23rd December 1985, the day after the events described at the outset of “Regret, and four days after a friend and I had been lucky to survive a wipe-out on the motorway unscathed. I sensed a guardian angel had saved me that day. As the ending of “Regret” records, I fell in love with someone in Italy. Her name is Ann Bilde. I went to Denmark with her, we got married, and in May we’ll be celebrating our silver wedding anniversary. Her birthday is on 19th December.

So this sonnet has meant a lot to me personally. It was first published under the title, “A Moonflower”, in my collection of poems from 1987 called Red Moon. This is how it looked then:

A Moonflower

The sun had folded into clouds swarming in the west,
I felt at peace and thought about the way that I would rest,
The waxing moon reminded me, her messenger by birth
That like a flower I was planted in the listening earth.

I wandered through the dusk without a single fear,
The wind brought different noises to my silver ear,
The future of a car, the sainthood of a brook,
I was a little thirsty, so I went to take a look.

The water was refreshing, and I felt very good,
I decided to enjoy the wonders of the wood,
The precious trees invited me with their smiling charms,
Exhilarated, I embraced them with my gracious arms.

Before I fell asleep, curled up beside a log,
I found a revelation in the calling of a dog.

Please excuse my very poor punctuation for a start.

I later rewrote it, smoothing out the metre and excising the worst poeticisms, and managed to get it published in Candelabrum in April 2003 looking like this:

Lucky Charms

The sun had been surrounded by a gang of clouds out west;
I felt serene and thought about the way that I would rest.
The moon appeared, invigorated by a day in bed;
I sensed I’d better find a place that I could lay my head.

The silence of the countryside was music to my ear;
I listened briefly to a blackbird singing loud and clear.
The roaring of a car nearby turned out to be a brook;
I noted I was thirsty and resolved to take a look.

The water was delicious, and the air was sweet and good;
I walked upstream and came upon the shelter of a wood.
The ground was buried under leaves, a million lucky charms;
I tumbled down and pulled them to me with my legs and arms.

The stars conspired to close my eyes, and there, beside a log,
I found myself enchanted by the calling of a dog.

Here’s a recording (a release, folks!):

55.526590 8.356750

I Sing the Sonnet

05 Friday Aug 2011

Posted by duncangmaclaurin in Releases, Sonnets

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

14 by 14, A Slice of Lemon, Dunderhead, Esbjerg Gymnasium, Horror Vacui, I Sing the Sonnet, Just Rain, Lisa Leaving, Lucid Rhythms, No Bloody Way!, On Esperance Bay, Regret, Scarriet, The Barefoot Muse, The Chimaera, The Flea, The Shit Creek Review, Thomas Graves

Thomas Graves invited me to be his guest blogger on Scarriet, and my post appeared today

The song recording of “Regret” can be heard here as well:

To mark the opening of gists I am today releasing recordings of two sonnets:

“On Esperance Bay”

& “I Sing the Sonnet”

published here

55.526590 8.356750

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 557 other followers

RSS gists

  • Surreal Look-ins
  • For Ben Okri’s 60th
  • Owen, Sassoon, Barker and Me
  • Vi slænger os på Palmestranden
  • Bob Dylan’s Nobel Lecture
  • Easter Treasure: Cryptic Structures in Farjeon and Stallings
  • I Sing the Sonnet 2017
  • Melancholic
  • Saeby Haiku Diary 17
  • Bio
  • RSS - Posts
  • RSS - Comments

Blogroll

  • Baroque in Hackney
  • Books, Inq. — The Epilogue
  • Brevity
  • C.E. Chaffin's Blog
  • Commercial Poetry
  • Discuss
  • Dragoncave
  • First Known When Lost
  • Litrefs
  • Litrefs Articles
  • New Poetries
  • Nordic Voices
  • Our sweet old etcetera…
  • Poetry in Progress
  • Rogue Strands
  • Scarriet
  • Slow Lane Shuffle
  • Sunny Dunny
  • The Dog Days of Dumfriesshire
  • The Sheila Variations
  • The Solitary Walker
  • The StAnza Blog
  • The Truth About Lies

Archives

  • June 2019
  • March 2019
  • November 2018
  • June 2018
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • December 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • December 2015
  • July 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • September 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011

Recent Posts

  • Surreal Look-ins
  • For Ben Okri’s 60th
  • Owen, Sassoon, Barker and Me
  • Vi slænger os på Palmestranden
  • Bob Dylan’s Nobel Lecture

Categories

  • Ditties
  • Essays
  • Haiku
  • Illustrations
  • Love songs
  • Performances
  • Publications
  • Releases
  • Reviews
  • Silly songs
  • Songs
  • Sonnets
  • Spoofs
  • Uncategorized
  • Writing verse

A.E. Stallings A Giraffe Among Jackals Angle Anglo Files Ann Bilde A Time for New Dreams autobiography Ben Okri By the Sea Caledonia Candelabrum composition habits Cousin Steve Cry Freedom! DATE David Richards David WW Johnstone denzel washington Don Paterson Douglas Dunn Dunderhead Dunkeld Edinburgh 2012 ekphrasis Eratosphere Esbjerg Esbjerg Gymnasium Expanding Notes Fanö George Mackay Brown George Simmers Horror Vacui I Sing the Sonnet I Sing the Sonnet Collection Jayne Osborn Just Rain Kevin Gore L'Homme Révolté Leonard Cohen Lisa Leaving London Mama's Little Boy Margaret Griffiths Mark Allinson Mumford and Sons My Naked Heart No Bloody Way! On Esperance Bay On Fanö On Papsie’s 89th Birthday On the Quiet original versions Oxford Papsie perversion of justice Red Moon Regret Richard Wilbur Snakeskin Steve Biko Streets of Gold Teun Hocks The Bard that Sang Stromness The Barefoot Muse The Chimaera The Comic Destiny The Festival of Spirituality and Peace The Flea The Real Pity The Shit Creek Review The Story So Far The Sweetest Duet The Wanderer Who Needs an Easy Love? Wilfred Owen

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy