Charles Causley's 'The Dancers' (#poetry)

The Dancers

To a clearing

in the foyer

at the Gallery

of Art,

and a chatter

of spectators

waiting for the show

to start,

five young men, black,

naked, dotted

white, and daddy-long-

legs thin

out of forty

thousand years of 

dreamtime came lightfoot-

ing in.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

And a primal

stillness fell as

when arose the earl-

iest sun,

each dancer an

emblem painted

on rockface, or scored

in stone.

With an unpre-

meditated 

seemliness they took 

the floor,

staring sightless

as is lightning

through a bronze by Hen-

ry Moore.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

    

To an insect

buzz of music,

snap of sticks, high nas-

al whine,

touched with brown and 

saffron ochre,

and their teeth a yell-

ow shine,

five young men came

barefoot, dancing--

the sun halting in

its climb--

effortlessly,

forwards, backwards

through the littoral

of time.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

Beaded and in 

feather bracelets

to the hoarse-voiced didge-

ridoo,

they were emu

and echidna,

swirling snake and kang-

aroo;

razoring this and

that way sharply,

swifter than the bush-

fire flame,

each a demon,

each an angel,

each a god without

a name.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

Suddenly the 

dance was ended,

clocks took back the Mel-

bourne day,

and it was as

if the dancers

melted like a mist

away.

In the restaur-

ant I saw them,

serious, and at smil-

ing ease:

five young men in

T-shirts, jeans, with

pavlovas and five

white teas.

    Ssss! hissed the dancers from Arnhem Land.

 

-Charles Causley

 

One of a series of poems in the volume about traveling in Australia.

Charles Causley was a British poet from Cornwall who died at the age of 86 in 2003.

 

 

Arnhem Land is an area in the north of Australia near Darwin with a majority aboriginal population. I lifted this picture from Wikipedia, though the individual (Timmy Burrarwanga) in the picture isn't quite 'daddy-long-legs thin'.

The Winner Is... (Classics Club Spin #39)

 

This spin's winning number was 3.

Which means for me, it's the Thebaid, Statius' Latin epic about Thebes, Odysseus, Eteocles, Polynices, Ismene, and Antigone. It's in twelve books (like the Aeneid) which is about 350 pages in my edition, translated by Jane Wilson Joyce.

I read Joyce's introduction (very good) to get started. Not much is known about Publius Papinius Statius. He was born between 40 and 50 A.D. in Naples and probably died before 96 A.D. His father was also a poet, though in Greek, and taught Greek and rhetoric. One of the father's pupils was Domitian, the future emperor. The younger Statius in addition to the Thebaid, wrote occasional poems collected as the Silvae, and had started an epic about Achilles when he died.

Statius was more read in the Middle Ages than he was in classical times (or now, I suspect,...😉). Dante was a fan, and Statius is an important character in the Purgatorio section of the Divine Comedy. Joyce's introduction was enthusiastic and I'm feeling fired up.

And so I'll be reading this by the 18th of December.

Did you spin? Did you get something fun?

Gwendolyn Brooks' Family Pictures (#1970Club)

 

Speech to the Young

Say to them,

say to the down-keepers,

the sun-slappers,

the self-soilers,

the harmony-hushers,

"Even if you are not ready for day,

it cannot always be night."

You will be right.

For that is the hard home-run.

Live not for battles won.

Live not for the end-of-the-song.

Live in the along.

-Gwendolyn Brooks

Paul Robeson

That time,

we all heard it,

cool and clear,

cutting across the hot grit of the day.

The major Voice,

the adult Voice,

forgoing Rolling River,

forgoing tearful tale of bale and barge

and other symptoms of an old despond.

Warning, in music words

devout and large,

that we are each other's

harvest:

we are each other's

business:

we are each other's

magnitude and bond.

-Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brooks' short volume of poetry Family Pictures came out in 1970. Two years earlier she had been appointed Poet Laureate of Illinois, a title she held until her death in 2000. She was also the Poet Laureate of the U.S. for the 1985-6 term. She was a lifelong resident of Chicago. Gwendolyn Brooks has always been a favorite of mine.

I'm not sure exactly which song of Paul Robeson's she's thinking of--by 1970 Paul Robeson's health was poor and he wasn't performing anymore. The poem suggests he's moved on from Ol' Man River, and it's true that Paul Robeson became much more political. (Not always in admirable ways.) So here's Paul Robeson singing "I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill," the union organizing song: