Inspiration

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

One of the nicest compliments I receive is from readers who say that as a rule, they don’t like poetry but enjoy reading the blog.

So can we try a little experiment? Please send the blog URL to at least one person you know (especially if they don’t like poetry) and ask them to do the same. Then we’ll see what happens:

http://rogertab.blogspot.com/

Meanwhile…

This poem was written with a woman in mind whose courage in the face of serious health problems as well as her natural beauty is truly inspiring. She is also a dancer. Oh, she’s not rich or famous, just one of thousands of ‘ordinary’ people who are far from ordinary.

This poem is a villanelle.

INSPIRATION

Dancer in the gloom

with angel poise

lights up any room

Sunshine in a storm

spreading its rays,

dancer in the gloom

A music all her own

across stone floors

lights up any room

To Penelope’s loom,

her soul she bares,

dancer in the gloom

Like heaven’s broom,

our fears she clears,

lights up any room

Mere flesh and bone,

our joy and tears,

dancer in the gloom

lights up any room

[From: The Third Eye by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2004]

Dancer At The Edge Of Time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Readers often ask me why I revise poems at all, especially when they have appeared in their original form in various poetry magazines and/or anthologies. I suspect it is because I did not quite manage to say what wanted to say the first time around. Years on, from a distance, I can home in on the poem and knock it into the shape. I may or may not have intended.

Our thoughts, attitudes and emotions are a kaleidoscope of mind-games whose patterns change even while retaining the same custom made model of perception we like to call insight, first cousin to imagination.

Sometimes readers prefer the original version; sometimes, I do as well. Sometimes, too, I look back at a poem and the kaleidoscope turns of its own accord; my focus on certain patterns of perception shifts, insisting the poem shift appropriately. Any resulting revision may be slight or major, but always significant; it does not cancel out the original version of a poem if only because it is an extension of it. Critics will take issue with me, of course, but it is as it is...

The old adage is so true; actions really do speak louder than words and few louder or more effectively than the art of dance.

To what extent, I often wonder, are we our own choreographers...?

This poem is a kenning.

DANCER AT THE EDGE OF TIME

On a custom-built stage,

reaching out to the mind seeking

to reason excuses for its petty

potholes that pass for smouldering

coals of body language

(potential for pretty words)

consigning empty rhetoric

to the earth above graves that rage

at our being misunderstood

Now gentle, meek and mild,

now run wild, this dance of a lifetime

they pay a high price to see

who turn up for a private viewing

expecting to see subtler steps

for Right, Left, (what's wrong?)

be spotted learning something

of what passes for ‘live art’ driving

a hard bargain with us all

Gracefully, gesturing a plea

to be discerned if rarely acknowledged

by an inner eye usually inclined

to be lazy, but given a shake now and then,

by home truths we’d rather ignore;

Dancer takes a bow. Performance over,

task all but ended, art’s love affair

with life staking its existence (and ours)

on daunting, haunting applause

Practising slow, slow, quick, quick, slow

till dead on our feet, me and my shadow

  

Copyright R. N. Taber 2006; 2012

[Note:  an earlier version of this poem appeared in Celebrations; 15 years Of The People’s Poetry, Anchor Books (Forward Press) 2006 and subsequently in Accomplices To Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]

Swan Lake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I have started posting my most recent YouTube recordings. If interested, you should be able to access my YouTube capers at any time from my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/rogerNtaber 

Treatment for my prostate cancer means I have to rest a lot either side of an active day out at the moment, but it is well worth it. Brighto, for example, has always been an inspiration for me since I was a kid, and it only takes an hour to this seaside town on a fast train from  London.

Meanwhile...

This villanelle has not appeared on the blog since 2007 and is here today especially for ‘Roseanne’ and who says, ‘I adore ballet and am training to be a ballet dancer.’

Here’s wishing you every success, Roseanne.

Me, I loved Tchaikovsky’s music long before I knew he was gay. (They don't tell you that at school.) What has sexuality to do with talent, anyway, or greatness for that matter? [After all, there have been many great gay men and women throughout history.]

SWAN LAKE

A love story on stage;
nerve strings of its composer
turning each page

As a bird flies its cage,
so music in glorious colour;
a love story on stage

Let dance, our pain assuage;
ensemble, solo, or pas de deux
turning each page

See art display the courage
of humankind’s old enemy, fear;
a love story on stage

Performance, paying homage
to the divided heart of its creator,
turning each page

Dancers, their talents engage
to read into art all human nature;
a love story on stage
turning each page

[NB.  Written after a brilliant performance by the Harlow Ballet Association at The Playhouse, Harlow, April 2007.]

[From: Accomplices to Illusion by R. N. Taber, Assembly Books, 2007]