I
In 2001 maak ek kennis met John Stammers se debuut: Panoramic Lounge-bar.
Versend as ‘n geskenk deur ‘n vriend, indertyd ‘n student aan Cambridge in die Regte. Jean Meiring natuurlik.
Hierna volg hierdie leser Stammers se verruklike, komplekse, slim digkuns. Hy is onder andere ‘n samesteller van liefdesverse en uiteraard bekroon. Filosofie bestudeer, maar al die verwysings en toespelings maak die gedigte ryker. In Stolen Love Behaviour (2005) staan hierdie vers opgeteken:
Testimony
You guided me through Dublin and Derrida
and I went along with you though you told me
that one could not be “wrong” or “right”,
that these were “words”. You stressed
there was no such thing as the canonical text,
nor even the next best thing. You drew me
into Bewley’s Oriental Café standing cloned
in its own postmodern pastiche
and Grafton Street. There, over sticky buns
interpolated with glacé cherries that pressed red imprints
into the buns’ white substance, you somehow de-conjured up
the self-styled “writer”
of the Codex Ulysseus
so that when he put in a radical failure of appearance
you were able to sever any connection
between author and oeuvre,
“What is it, after all, that is authorized?”,
you said, and gave an allusive nod,
with your feathered black fringe and Irish-blue eyes,
to Althusser whilst continuing to assert
recondite doctrines through unpursed lips
pinkened with cerise so that I tumbled
head-long into ideological concurrence with you:
I knew what you were talking about and I didn’t care.
From there we pursued a line of argument
along the General Post Office where I read the proclamation
In the Name of God and the Dead Generations
leaded into the brass plaque beneath Cuchulainn
and I inserted an interpretative finger into bullet holes
typed there on the wall in belt-fed lines;
the beautiful stone, the terrible queerness
of just standing there with the paths the bullets had taken
passing right through me. So we were pleased
to walk the free streets and follow
our merely quodlibetical ratiocinations
in the sight of dead heroes and live tin-whistlers.
But, when we crossed the singular Trinity quad
and perused the Book of Kells
etched forever on the stretched skin of unknown dead sheep,
I felt a revision begin.
There were its principal letters lit up
like O’Connell Street on Paddy’s Day night,
knocking seven bells out of itself,
fiddling and chanting and beating the bodhran
to the infinite glory of God
and the resurrection, with its parchment
grey from multifarious eyes draining the light from it
in rays, surveying its apostolic dogmas inscribed there
by quills snug against ink-stained finger calluses,
the nibs screeching like peewits
against the manuscript’s interface, relentless,
taking pains and decades
to give the work the full weight of God’s law.
So it was that I saw two sides of an antinomy take hold
and go to undo me like a zip
and I saw that it was writ
that we should be the critics of our own juxtaposition,
to deconstruct what there was between us
and discover if it was all just so much periphrasis
or something more.
Therefore when we found ourselves
beneath the spiral staircase
at the hub of the circular bookshop, in Tomes St
I think it might have been,
with the steeped banks of shelves in aisles that receded
on all points of the compass like the world itself, I delved
into the shelf labelled Poetry / Irish / in English,
came up with The Collected of yer man,
unread and silent straight from his tongue,
which I held out to you and you took hold of
so it spanned our two hands like an arc of electric
that cracked and spat between us,
both wanting to let go, each unable to.
II
Dublin die stad van James Joyce. Op reis deur Ierland, tien jaar terug, het ek die beroemde James Joyce-wandeling meegemaak.
https://dublinulyssestours.com/ Besoek 25 Mei 2024
As jong student tydens ‘n wintervakansie die hele Ulysses deurgewerk in die Standertonse dorpsbiblioteek. Notas gemaak in my groen Old Mutual-dagboek, ‘n geskenk van my vader. 1978. En langs my Stuart Gilbert se James Joyce’s Ulysses: A Study (Penguin, 1969). (Hierdie notas het ek bewaar.)
‘n Groot roman beïnvloed jou manier van kyk na ‘n stad. ‘n Stad op sy beurt verander weer jou manier van lees. Leesaksies verander, soos jy, die leser.
Stammers se gedig is ‘n vers wat werk met Derrida se konsepte absence/presence. En dus différance.
“The repression of writing as the repression of that which threatens presence and the mastering of absence”, soos Derrida dit stel in “Freud and the scene of writing” (1978, 197).
Dis ook ‘n liefdesvers wat iets bewaar van saamwees:
both wanting to let go, each unable to.
Dit is waarskynlik ‘n gedig wat vrae vra oor die kwessie van kanonisering in ‘n tyd van “postmodern pastiche”. En die dood van die outeur en die verhouding tussen ‘n skrywer en sy oeuvre. En tekste se “allusive nods” of kopknikke na ander tekste. Die posbus (die versending van ‘n brief) aktiveer Derrida se bekende teks uit 1980: La Carte Postale (The Post Card). En vraagstellings oor kanonisering teenoor die kanonieke boeke in Die Bybel.
Hy gee vir ons landmerke of bakens soos Grafton street, ‘n belangrike gedeelte in die sentrum van die stad met winkels: vraisemblance dus.
Cuchulainn verwys na die held in die Ierse mitologie, die reïnkarnasie van die god van lig (Lugh), sy vader. Die Book of Kells (Codex Cenannensis is in die Iers Leabhar Cheanannais, is ‘n werk met uitstaande kalligrafie, 800 NC. Dit bevat die vier Evangelies uit die Nuwe Testament met etlike besinnings oor hierdie tekste. Dit het ontstaan in kloosters in Skotland of Ierland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells Besoek 25 Mei 2024
III
So it was that I saw two sides of an antinomy take hold
and go to undo me like a zip
and I saw that it was writ
that we should be the critics of our own juxtaposition,
to deconstruct what there was between us
and discover if it was all just so much periphrasis
or something more.
Quodlibetical ratiocinations: akademiese diskoers wat presiese denke opeis, eie aan die filosofie.
Ons moet inderdaad krities wees oor ons eie jukstaposisies en dekonstrueer wat tussen ons tekste staan, besluit hierdie leser.
En watter Ierse digter word hier gevind op die boekrak?
Natuurlik wyle Seamus Heaney (1939 – 2013) wat die gedig “Testimony” geskryf het en die Nobelprys in 1995 ontvang het.
Testimony
“We were killing pigs when the
Yanks arrived.
A Tuesday morning, sunlight
and gutter-blood
Outside the slaughter house.
From the main road
They would have heard the screaming,
Then heard it stop and had a view of us
In our gloves and aprons coming
down the hill.
Two lines of them, guns on their
shoulders, marching.
Armoured cars and tanks and open jeeps.
Sunburnt hands and arms.
Unarmed, in step,
Hosting for Normandy.
Not that we knew then
Where they were headed, standing
there like youngsters
As they tossed us gum and tubes of
coloured sweets”
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/testimony-7/ Besoek 25 Mei 2024
Die “bullet holes” by Stammers word ‘n voortuitwysing na hierdie gedig van Heaney wat ‘n filosofiese vers, ‘n liefdesgedig én ‘n besinning oor oorlog word.
Daar is nog vele verwysings en toespelings in hierdie ryk, geskakeerde vers wat ‘n hele studie sou kon opeis. Ulysses en die bewussynstroom-tegniek. Ulysses en die mitologiese verwysings.
Hier word van die leser verwag om die strome in die teks te volg. En na te dink oor kanonisering: Ulysses versus spirituele tekste.
En waarom die verwysing na Louis Althusser, die Frans-Marxistiese filosoof?
Ons sal hierop verder ingaan.
Joan Hambidge
25 Mei 2024
Bronne:
Derrida, Jacques. 1978. Writing and difference. Londen: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Vertaal deur Alan Bass.
1980/ 1987. The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stammers
Bekronings:
- 2001 Forward Prizefor Best First Collection (for Panoramic Lounge-Bar)
- 2001 Whitbread Poetry Award shortlisted (for Panoramic Lounge-Bar)
- 2005 Waterstones Best New Poetry (for ‘Stolen Love Behaviour’)
- 2005 Poetry Book Society Choice (for ‘Stolen Love Behaviour’)
- 2005 Forward Prize for Best Collection (shortlist) (for ‘Stolen Love Behaviour’)
- 2005 TS Eliot Award (shortlist)(for ‘Stolen Love Behaviour’)
Tekste:
- Panoramic Lounge-bar (Picador, 2001)
- Buffalo Bills (pamphlet, Donut Press, 2004)
- Stolen Love Behaviour (Picador, 2005)
- Interior Night (Picador, 2010)
- The Picador Book of Love Poems (Editor, Picador, 2011)
- Gerard Manley Hopkins – Poet to Poet (Editor, Faber and Faber, 2012)