Poem: Renunciation

[lynnoconnacht]

Today's poem will break the unofficial themes I've been sharing with you this week or, depending on how you want to view it, it adds another in the form of 'music'. It follows up on jjhunter's post on a week of encountering poetry as it was originally encountered: spoken. You can see our discussion in the comments there if you're curious, but the end result is this post, my last one this week as your poetry host. Enjoy!

I first encountered Pádraic H. Pearse's Renunciation through an adaptation by Connie Dover called The Wishing Well. It's a far freer adaptation than Sissel's She Walks in Beauty, as you'll see, but no less beautiful for that. Just different. The lyrics to The Wishing Well can be found here and you can listen to a(n unofficial) YouTube video here if you're so inclined. I don't know why the adaptation is the way it is, because I couldn't find any information on it, but hopefully the differences are as striking to you as they are to me. (If anyone would prefer an additional post with the song lyrics, by the by, please let me know!)

Pádraic Pearse was an Irish teacher and nationalist. He was one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising and was later executed for his involvement. You can probably find loads and loads of information written by people more knowledgable than I just by googling his name, though, and this link may well offer up some discussion on the poem here. It depends on whether the link works or not. If it doesn't lead you straight to the end of page 154, that's where you want to end up. It's not complete, but it should provide a starting point for anyone who wants to explore poetry in this way. ^-^ (The book in question is Patrick Pearse and the Politics of Redemption: The Mind of the Easter Rising 1916 by Seán Farrell Moran for the curious.) I hope it does work; it's pretty interesting stuff.

Renunciation

Naked I saw thee,
O beauty of beauty!
And I blinded my eyes
For fear I should flinch.

I heard thy music,
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I shut my ears
For fear I should fail.

I kissed thy lips
O sweetness of sweetness!
And I hardened my heart
For fear of my ruin.

I blinded my eyes
And my ears I shut,
I hardened my heart
And my love I quenched.

I turned my back
On the dream I had shaped,
And to this road before me
My face I turned.

I set my face
To the road here before me,
To the work that I see,
To the death that I shall meet.

~ by Pádraic Pearse
~ It's been collected in various places, but I'll direct you towards CELT for their online copy.

potential themed week plotting

[jjhunter]

Following up on my post from yesterday regarding the upcoming week, I think I may have found us a Poetry Host with audiobook & poetry recording experience! If ze decides to go for it, would people be interested in having the following week be a week-long Poetry Recording Fest? It would involve people from inside and outside our community recording and sharing as much poetry as possible. Each day would have a roundup post of links involving that day's suggested poem (listening to multiple recordings of the same poem can be surprisingly awesome) + whatever other poetry people felt like recording. Alternatively we could fall back on my original plan for this week being pushed to next week or doing a themed week with a different theme.

Questions, comments, observations and/or lamentations all welcome.