4. Soneto de fidelidade: We Must Enjoy Everything While It Lasts - Eduardo

Brazilian poet Vinicius de Moraes

Text of the poem in Portuguese:

SONETO DE FIDELIDADE

São Paulo , 1946 

De tudo, ao meu amor serei atento
Antes, e com tal zelo, e sempre, e tanto
Que mesmo em face do maior encanto
Dele se encante mais meu pensamento.

Quero vivê-lo em cada vão momento
E em louvor hei de espalhar meu canto
E rir meu riso e derramar meu pranto
Ao seu pesar ou seu contentamento.

E assim, quando mais tarde me procure
Quem sabe a morte, angústia de quem vive
Quem sabe a solidão, fim de quem ama

Eu possa me dizer do amor (que tive):
Que não seja imortal, posto que é chama
Mas que seja infinito enquanto dure.
 

Estoril, outubro de 1939

Source

Translation of the poem:

Sonnet of Fidelity

Above all, to my love I'll be attentive
First and always, with care and so much
That even when facing the greatest enchantment
By love be more enchanted my thoughts.

I want to live it through in each vain moment
And in its honor I'll spread my song
And laugh my laughter and cry my tears
When you are sad or when you are content.

And thus, when later comes looking for me
Who knows, the death, anxiety of the living,
Who knows, the loneliness, end of all lovers

I'll be able to say to myself of the love (I had):
Be not immortal, since it is flame
But be infinite while it lasts.

Source



About the poem:

https://allpoetry.com/sonnet-of-fidelity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinicius_de_Moraes

3. The Masque of Anarchy: The Ultimate Protest Song - Bryn

Percy Bysshe Shelley by Alfred Clint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley

Text of the extract from The Masque of Anarchy:

Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war.

And if then the tyrants dare,
Let them ride among you there;
Slash, and stab, and maim and hew;
What they like, that let them do.

With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay,
Till their rage has died away:

Then they will return with shame,
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek:

Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!


Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1847). Shelley, Mrs. (ed.). The works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. pp. 231–235

About Shelley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_Anarchy

Corbyn reads Shelley

About Bryn

Bryn also produces his own podcast the latest of which is an interview with Mike Jackson the co-founder of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners who was portrayed in the film Pride. Search for the Labour Left Podcast with your favourite provider or click here to watch it on YouTube.

2. La medida de mi madre: How We Always Found A Way To Love Each Other - Julia

Julia - The Elixir Poetry Podcast guest - Episode 2

Episode 2 Commentary by Tobias Elia

(Read ‘La medida de mi madre’ below)

The Measure of My Mother- Begoña Abad  

This week Helen is joined by Julia to discuss the poem, ‘La Medida de Mi Madre’, or  ‘The Measure of My Mother’ by the Spanish poet Begoña Abad. Taking the perspective of the author, the poem looks back at the relationship between her and her mother, particularly at growth, and how over the years she has grown taller than her now small mother. Julia identifies with the sentiments expressed in the poem - her own stepmother having been only 150cm is a fundamental reason why.

However, even for those whose parents exceed belly button height, the poem is still able to resonate.  The feeling as though you and your parents are no longer in balance with each other, the wrong fit,  misaligned, is something many of us will have experienced throughout our lives, usually most painful and acute in our teenage years. 

These growing pains last past adolescence and into adulthood, so it seems impossible to find a way to balance a life created for oneself and the one our parents created for us and inhabit themselves. The struggles row back and forth and subsequent compromises and re-compromises are underpinned by a mutual desire to stay part of each other’s lives, and are most eloquently summed up by Begoña Abad-  

Through the years  

We’ve stretched and stooped  

Seeking the perfect height  

Where our love fits just right

This perfectly encapsulates the difficulties in creating one's own life and rules whilst finding a way to peacefully and meaningfully allow our parents into it.

Find Tobias Elia on Instagram


Text of the poem in Spanish:


La medida de mi madre


No sé si lo he dicho:

mi madre es pequeña

y tiene que ponerse de puntillas

para besarme.

Hace años yo me empinaba,

supongo, para robarle un beso.

Nos hemos pasado la vida

estirándonos y agachándonos

para buscar la medida exacta

donde poder querernos. 



[Begoña Abad, La editorial Olifante publicó en 2008 el poemario La medida de mi madre]




Translation of the poem:



The Measure of my Mother

I may not have mentioned it before: 

my mother stands small, 

tiptoeing to kiss me. 

Years ago, I imagine, 

it was I who reached up, 

to snatch a kiss from her. 

Through the years, 

We’ve stretched and stooped

seeking the perfect height,

where our love fits just right.




About the poet:

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begoña_Abad

https://www.pikaramagazine.com/2012/07/begona-abad-de-la-parte-la-poeta-que-desea-no-desearportadoras-de-suenos/

Seis poemas de Begoña Abad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmCYWJDxM7E

1. The Ruin: I Feel Less Lonely When I Read This Poem - Kate

Episode 1 Commentary by Tobias Elia

(Read ‘The Ruin’ below)

In this week’s episode, host and poet Helen Wing is joined by Kate to discuss her current favourite poem, ‘The Ruin’ - an ancient Anglo-Saxon piece of unknown origins.

The poem explores themes of loss, imagination, and nostalgia. Written during the dark ages of ancient Britain, the narrator explores the landscape after Rome had ceased its governance of England, taking with it its order and stability. A lonely Anglo-Saxon wanders through the now ruined city of (presumably) Bath, imagining the life, warmth and revelry that would have once flowed through the now quiet and deserted ruins.

Comparisons can be drawn between the world our Anglo Saxon poet inhabits, and our own. Scenes of destruction, abandonment and grief are familiar sights to us now, as is a reminiscence for a time before collapse and uncertainty. The uncertainties that the wanderer faces bring about a desire in them to seek refuge and comfort in the past- a fondness for it that comes more to resemble idealised nostalgia, rather than an accurate recollection. The passing of time and how we are all headed to our own ruin is something further discussed by Helen and Kate.

The time period of the poem is particularly pertinent. After the fall of Rome, Britain was transformed from an organised and advanced civilisation, to one plunged into chaos and disorder. The rise, collapse, and rise again of a nation can call into question our own ideas of progress. Is it linear? Are we always advancing as a society? Perhaps, like the wanderer in the ruins, we are currently in our own dark ages, in which order and reason seem increasingly hard to come by. And so we too can find ourselves looking to the past, to what we believe were the glory days.

However, as Kate Expresses, even if something is in ruin, it can still be reached and reconstructed through memory and connection with others.

The podcast finishes with a reading of the poem in its original Anglo-Saxon, a language which has in itself now become a ruin. The reading is beautifully guttural and it is fascinating to hear it be spoken in its originality, how it was intended to be heard by its original writer.

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This resource is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Text of the extract from The Ruin:

Beorht wæron burgræced, burnsele monige,
heah horngestreon, heresweg micel,
meodoheall monig mondreama full,
oþþæt þæt onwende wyrd seo swiþe. 
Crungon walo wide, cwoman woldagas,
swylt eall fornom secgrofra wera; 
wurdon hyra wigsteal westen staþolas,
brosnade burgsteall. Betend crungon 
hergas to hrusan. Forþon þas hofu dreorgiað,
ond þæs teaforgeapa tigelum sceadeð
hrostbeages hrof. Hryre wong gecrong 
gebrocen to beorgum, þær iu beorn monig 
glædmod ond goldbeorht gleoma gefrætwed,
wlonc ond wingal wighyrstum scan; 
seah on sinc, on sylfor, on searogimmas,
on ead, on æht, on eorcanstan, 
on þas beorhtan burg bradan rices.



Translation of the extract from The Ruin:


Bright were the castle buildings, 

many the bathing halls, 

high the abundance of gables, 

great the noise of the multitudes, 

many a mead hall full of festivities 

until fate, the mighty, changed that. 



Far and wide the slain perished.

Days of pestilence came. 

Death took all the brave men away. 

Their places of war became deserted places. 

The city decayed. 

The rebuilders perished. 

The armies to earth. 

And so these buildings grow desolate 

and this red curved roof parts 

from its tiles of the ceiling vault. 



The ruin has fallen to the ground, 

broken into mounds where at one time 

many a warrior, joyous and ornamented 

with bright gold splendour, 

proud  and flushed with wine, 

shone in war trappings, 

looked at treasure, at silver, at precious stones, 

at wealth, at prosperity, at jewellery 

in this bright castle of a broad kingdom.



About the poem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USlTpdyfebE  The Ruin by Tegan Blackwood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin

https://oldenglishpoetry.camden.rutgers.edu/the-ruin/

https://www.mylearning.org/stories/multicultural-york-the-anglosaxons-ad400866/117

https://archive.org/details/codexexoniensis_2404_librivox

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