The following poem was written in response to an image, which I am calling surreal. I am also calling my poem surreal, though some may prefer the term ‘nonsense’. Surrealism can be defined as ‘ a movement in art and literature in the 1920s…characterised by the evocative juxtaposition of incongruous images in order to include unconscious and dream elements.’ (Collins Dictionary) Of course, surrealism has continued ever since the 1920s, when it was first named. I enjoy the work of many surrealist painters. The image is a collage created by a friend of mine, Charlotte Matthias, and more of her work can be found on her website, https://www.charlottebluetrees.com/ Take a look at more of her fascinating work.
In the poem the armchair is not empty. Or is it? Is the woman sitting in it just something in my imagination? Or in the imagination of Sibelius? Or in the imagination of you, the reader? Do you know with certainty that what is described in the poem never happened?
The poem is ekphrastic, that is, a response to an artistic image. It doesn’t describe the image, and in this case was simply a starting point, an inspiration, for a work of the poetic imagination. The image simply kicked something off in my mind, and I followed where it led me.
It doesn’t matter if you know the work of Sibelius or not, though you may like to know he was rather fond of wine to excess. He is a favourite classical composer of mine. I have also always loved the woods and trees.
You will find a link to a version of Sibelius’ Valse Triste below the poem. How about taking the time to listen to this piece while reading the poem? What are just six minutes out of your life at this moment? You might instead just enjoy the video images with this recording.
Here is the poem and the image:
Jean Sibelius refuses to face reality in an empty armchair in the birch woods of his homeland
Melancholy music haunts the darkening woods,
murmurs its serene dance on the air currents.
There among the trees sits an armchair,
Russian it is, golden fabric plumply stuffed,
and once sat upon by Leo Tolstoy in the waiting room
of a remote railway station near Kuznetsk;
and the forest where it glows its stuff is Finnish,
ancient birch trees, shadows of their former selves,
lichen-crusted, moss-furred trunks
green in the dark wood-light.
In the armchair sits a naked woman, possibly Norwegian,
but what can we ever know for sure?
She has her back to us, so sadly; can you see her?
Her bare shoulders heave their sadness
as she listens to a gramophone player
there at her feet, Sibelius with his wine bottle,
humming his Valse Triste, but crying
and now and then bending to suck her toes
one by one, kiss her ankles, her knees.
Such sadness in the grass, the Enchanter’s Nightshade,
Sibelius himself, the Norwegian woman,
Bryoria fuscescens lichen tresses hanging in her hair,
and Stag’s-horn Club moss growing from under her
fingernails. She speaks once to him:
‘The reality is that there is no reality.’
Sibelius takes another slug from the bottle.
‘Even this moment? All these moments together?’
A flock of cranes flies high, high above the forest.
The birch trees shed their green tears into the ferns.
© Dave Urwin 2020
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