Gerald of Wales, Three stories from the Journey through Wales.

On this week's The Poetry Voice Podcast my version of three stories from Gerald of Wales' 'The Journey through Wales' one of the most readable of 12th century texts.

You can hear them read here:

http://www.liamguilar.com/the-poetry-voice/2019/7/17/gerald-of-wales-three-stories-from-the-journey-through-wales

The first one is a brutal mini tragedy, it starts like this....

He stepped out into unobstructed wind,

shut and barred the door, half-dragged, 

half-carried the defeated child towards 

the parapet. His fumbling hand felt stone

felt for the edge and end of stone, found space.

Footsteps on the stair, pounding at the door.

A small crowd in the courtyard, pointing 

to a blind man and a child on the castle’s 

highest tower. The castellan was pleading: 

‘Give me back my son!’ and demanding 

to know how the prisoner had escaped.

Blinded and castrated, for a reason

no one could remember, he’d been there so long

he’d been allowed to grope his way around. 

No one thought he could be dangerous.

‘Give me back my son, my only son, my heir,

and I will set you free.’ ‘Castrate yourself,’ 

the blind man raged. ‘Castrate yourself or 

I will toss your son, your only son, onto the stones below.’

The gathered people saw the blade descend and groaned.

‘You’ve done it?’ called the man. ‘I have.’

‘Where does it hurt?’ ‘In my groin, ‘You lied.’ 

The blind man moved the child closer 

to the edge. ‘Wait,’ screamed the lord, ‘this time.’

.....it doesn't end well....

http://www.liamguilar.com/the-poetry-voice/2019/7/17/gerald-of-wales-three-stories-from-the-journey-through-wales

The poems were first published in The High Window. They are now available in A Presentment of Englishry (Shearsman 2019) available from online book sellers and direct from www. liamguilar. com

The Poetry Voice Podcast is fifty!

Despite Illness, howling dogs, screeching parrots, unwanted door knockers, the Australian Tradesman's strange habit of trying to listen to his portable radio while operating power tools and wearing the compulsory ear protection, not to mention hail storms, gale force winds and other natural disasters....The Podcast has made it to fifty episodes.
You can subscribe on iTunes. Just search for The Poetry Voice in their podcasts, or you can hear it at liamguilar.com 

You can also request poems.

So to celebrate being fifty,  this week's episodes will be ...different. Here's the first.

http://www.liamguilar.com/the-poetry-voice/2019/7/1/liam-guilars-lute-recitals


So far there's poetry from Old and Middle English, poems in translation from Poland to Palestine, well known poems, poems that should be well known, pieces so small I had to do more than one to make the podcast and some long pieces. Most enjoyable to read? 'The Rime of The Ancient Mariner' and David Jones's 'The Hunt'. Surprises? How awful some poems sounded. (They never made it to the podcast) and on a positive note how Bunting's 'Villion' and Pound's Canto ll swing.

A full list of the fifty episodes listed by Poet.

Anon (15th Century ) ‘I sing of a maiden’

Anon Old English, From The Battle of Maldon.

Anon. ‘Dom Niperi Septoe’ or ‘The Dairy Maid’.

Anon. From Old English ‘The Dream of the Rood’

Atwood Margaret ‘Marrying the Hangman’

Balmer  Jo ‘The Librarians’ power’

Boland Evan ‘Quarantine’

Bunting Basil ‘Villon’

Byron  ‘To Thomas Moore’

Campbell Joseph ‘Two Poems’

Carroll, Lewis  ‘Jabberwocky’

Carson Ciaran ‘Five sonnets from The Twelfth of Never’

Cavafy C.P ‘Ithaka’

Coleridge, Samuel, 'The Rime of the ancient Mariner'

Daniel Sam to ‘To Delia’. The first sonnet.

Darwish Mahmoud ‘Lesson From the Karma Sutra’

Dawe Bruce  ‘And a good Friday was had by all’

Eliot T.S. ‘The love song of J. Alfred Prufrock’

Feaver Vicki   ‘Judith’

Guilar Liam 'Lute Recitals'.

Guilar Liam ‘Laȝamon Remembers ireland’

Guilar Liam ‘Presentment of Englishry’

Heaney Seamus ‘The Given Note’.

Herbert Zbigniew ‘The Envoy of Mr. Cogito’

Hewitt John ‘An Irishman in Coventry’

Hope A.D. ‘The End of a journey’

Jones David ’ ‘The Hunt’

Kavanagh Patrick ‘Kerr’s Ass’

Kipling Rudyard  ‘Danny Deever’

Kipling Rudyard ‘A Three part song’

Kipling Rudyard ‘In the Neolithic age’

Laȝamon ‘The prologue to Laȝamon’s Brut’.

Laȝamon’s ‘Brut’, The conception of King Arthur.

Longley Michael ‘Laertes’

Macniece Louis ‘Cradle song for Eleanor’

Mahon Derek  ‘Everything is going to be allright’.

Meehan Paula 'My Father perceived as a vision of Saint Francis'

Mew, Charlotte  ‘The Farmer’s bride’

Milne A.A ‘Disobedience’

Pound Ezra ‘Canto 11’

Rossetti Christina  'A chily night'

S.Vincent Millay Edna, 'Bluebeard'

Saunders Lesley ‘Ephemera’

Saunders Lesley ‘Praise song for a pair of earings’.

Service Robert ‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’

Shelley Percy 'Ozymandias'

Sidney, Sir Philip Sonnet 1 from ‘Aristophil and Stella’

Tennyson Alfred  ‘Ulysses’

Thomas Dylan ‘Lament’

Thomas Edward ‘The Gallows’