2013-05-23T02:37:55-04:00 Tom Sperlinger http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=tom-sperlinger Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Tom Sperlinger Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1842962 2012-08-30T10:41:41-04:00 2012-10-30T05:12:01-04:00

Tom Sperlinger http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-sperlinger/ Burying the Wren. This question can be asked with an emphasis on either word: 'Now where?' or 'Now where?' In either case, there is a sense of distance already travelled and a fear of being lost. There is none of the breezy continuity with which one may ask, 'Where now?'

Such a feeling - of starting again, but not afresh - animates this whole collection. There is frequently a sense of speaking to oneself or of unfinished conversations. The poems are sometimes spoken to inanimate objects or natural things: slugs, a trilobite, birds, a shrub. Many read as elegies to Rees-Jones' late husband, the poet and critic Michael Murphy, who died in 2009.

The full final stanza of 'Three Glances at a Field of Poppies' reads:

Now where? To the dark, where a seed
might sing, imagining a life
pushed into form, pure colour.

This is a collection haunted by images of darkness. Yet the dark is also a source of creativity, of light. It is in 'the dark' that a seed 'imagin[es]' life, 'pushed into form'.

Often in these poems, renewal is closely allied to loss, including the loss of self. The (wonderful) 'from The Songs of Elizabeth So', for example, reads like a series of translations from a traditional ballad sequence, and implies a rich source material - all of it imagined. Within these songs, identities are dissolved ('Your name is one/ I will not speak') as though creativity begins in re-making.

Yet the poems in the 'Elizabeth So' sequence are not as fragmentary as its title implies. Here, too, 'imagining' is 'pushed into form'. For example, the first and final poems of the sequence answer one another. Both poems rely upon the simple preposition 'and', as though the speaker will not let a conversation end:

But my hands, beside yours in the sunlight, can't refrain
from singing as I hold them in my lap
and then a thousand birds begin to rise.

They sing and fly in the singing light
and the room is suddenly full of their music.
And I do not care that they will not listen

And I do not care that they will not stop.

'Stop' is the final word of the poem (in spite of 'not'), yet the circular nature of the sequence implies that this need not be an end. Similarly, the poem seems poised between its defiant litany ('I do not care/ I do not care') and the opposite feeling; it creates 'full[ness]' out of a feeling of emptiness. Creativity is sometimes close to conjuring.

A similar dislocated sense of self is at the heart of the 'Dogwoman' sequence, after Paula Rego's paintings. These eleven poems share with Rego's pictures a conceptual strangeness. At first the mind (or eye) refuses the comparison: how is a woman like a dog?

Dog sent to bed in deep disgrace. Dog shock, piss, squalor.
And joy, dearest, tail wag. Dog rhythm, dog riff,

dog's domain and death's dominion.
The body's frame's not enough for itself,

these pale fires of horror.

'Dog' often stands in for 'I' or 'she' in these poems. The use of 'dog' as a substitute for the speaking self reminds us of our strangeness to ourselves - particularly in grief. There is a sort of 'horror' in the body's dominion in these poems: at a body that has failed or at one that continues to sleep, move, or piss.

The 'Dogwoman' poems (and paintings) also suggest that our conceptual idea of ourselves might be wrong. We think of language as a marker of our rationality/superiority over other creatures. But suppose that what is happening to me is felt physically or eludes words. If language divides me from who I am, I may be more dog than self.

The question 'now where?' is echoed in the 'Dogwoman' sequence, in a statement that 'Words now are never enough'. These poems grasp, at various points, for 'unspeakable' or 'unworded' prayer. 'Now where?' is a particularly frightening question when the distance one has travelled - the words one has used - can no longer be traced back as a reliable trail, when there is no/where (now where?) to which one can return.

Two of Rees-Jones' signature words are 'love' and 'heart'; she returns to and insists on them. In the final, title poem of the collection, we see these words anew, with all the freight they now carry. The speaker recalls, 'getting you -// death-rattle, heart-stop -/ to where the struggle ends'. She states, with new clarity: '[it] was not// the end of love. Yet love/ you've been with me enough'. The use of 'love' as a pet name becomes a gentle way to seek continuance with the beloved, to stand outside the pain of the abstract feeling that swells in his absence. This is the only possibility, it seems, after a 'heart-stop', but when the heart's pains and affections have not ended. 'Love' is reclaimed as a concrete noun, as a person, if only in memory. For 'now', at least, this is 'enough'.

In the title poem to Michael Murphy's wonderful, clear-sighted - and, at times, very funny - last collection, Half-Life (which is included in his posthumous Collected Poems), the speaker says:

[...] Seeing me not here

you turn the ring on your finger, a living
shape, to dreams in which there is no 'I'
and birdsong enunciates every blessed thing.

If anything will survive these first clear
blasts of day they are the words you'll write,
the seeds of scattered night [...]

'Half-Life' concludes with an invocation: 'rehearse... rehearse... rehearse...' It sometimes feels as though Burying the Wren has grown out of such scattered 'seeds'. The 'I' of these poems is transmogrified into other things: a dogwoman, the singer of imagined ballads, or 'a thousand birds'. And it is birdsong that survives, to bury the wren.

At the end of this collection it states that: 'The wren is noted for its loud and complex song, sometimes as part of a duet, even in the wintertime'. This book reminds us that to live (to survive) is itself a creative endeavour, a struggle against formlessness, which requires 'heart' and 'love'. These poems are a moving record of such experience, and a complex work of art.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1423662 2012-04-16T19:00:00-04:00 2012-06-16T05:12:01-04:00

Tom Sperlinger http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-sperlinger/ The Golden Notebook, was published. As a recent retrospective in The Guardian made clear, it is a book that still has a capacity to inspire and divide readers. Diana Athill speaks for others when she criticizes Lessing for 'her tendency to overstate, and her style'. Yet, in a moving piece, Natalie Hanman describes how Lessing's book 'helped to steer [her] towards knowing which questions to ask' in her own life.

As someone who admires Lessing's work, I have sometimes found The Golden Notebook to be a hindrance when recommending her books. When I have mentioned my interest in her work to various people, I have been met with a sigh or found the other person rolling their eyes. 'Well, I've tried reading The Golden Notebook', they may say, or, 'I struggled through it - I got to the end'.

The Golden Notebook is a long novel and it is less formally inventive than Lessing herself has sometimes claimed (in another form of overstatement). Lessing says that writing the book 'changed the way I thought completely' - and this quality of thinking things out can make it an unusually provocative or personally helpful novel, as Hanman attests. The book also has value as a form of documentary realism. It captures (in Lessing's words) 'the intellectual and moral climate' of the late 1950s.

But I would argue that Lessing has written better books in the last 50 years, which have been overshadowed by the fame attached to The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing, her first novel.

Here, then, are five books that Lessing has written since 1962 that I would recommend to anyone who has struggled with The Golden Notebook, or who wishes to go beyond it:

The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five:
Lessing has dropped hints that she considers this to be one of her best books and has said of it: "this book goes down into me pretty deep... it will never happen again." The novel tells the story of a king and queen of different 'zones', their arranged marriage and its implications for their people. It is a legend, which borrows from science fiction for its form and premise, but also a realistic story about marriage, politics, community and the difficulty of knowing other people.

The Good Terrorist:
The 2010 film Four Lions made a convincing case that we should think of terrorism as the work of amateurs. Lessing's 1985 novel - which is dry, scathing and horribly believable - begins from a similar premise. She has said it grew out of listening to reporting of the bombing of Harrods in 1983: "Here the media reported it to sound as if it was the work of amateurs. I started to think, what kind of amateurs could they be? I got completely fascinated by this line of thought. Also, I happened to be in Ireland when they bumped off Mountbatten [...] and all the little boys, aged about 10 to 15, were rushing about, delighted, because of course they admire the IRA. I thought how easy it would be for a kid, not really knowing what he or she was doing, to drift into a terrorist group."

The Fifth Child:
One of my favourite Lessing novels, and the one I read first, at the age of 16 (probably the right time to read Lessing, who has retained something of a teenager's spirit throughout her long life). Lessing imagines a defiantly conventional couple, constructing a seemingly ideal life, which is interrupted by the birth of their extraordinary fifth child. The book makes a convincing case for how much of human character remains uncharted and that life is always likely to elude the naïve order we try to impose on it.

Mara and Dann: An Adventure:
Lessing has said she always wanted to write an adventure story, and perhaps few of her books are as pleasurable to read or have such imaginative scope as this one, which imagines a brother and sister travelling across Africa after a future Ice Age. It is a thrilling read and infused with Lessing's rich experience of the continent she grew up on - and with a late-discovered affection for her younger brother.

On Cats:
A combination of Lessing's writings about cats, from the feral creatures she encountered on the African farm where she grew up, to her domestic companions in London. This is a sharp, thoughtful book about human-animal relations - and one that, at moments, seems more revealing than Lessing's autobiography about the shape of her life. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1418045 2012-04-11T12:44:24-04:00 2012-06-11T05:12:02-04:00

Tom Sperlinger http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-sperlinger/ called him a 'complete footballer' after his two goals in the 3-0 defeat of Bolton Wanderers last week.

Dempsey's completeness is of a particular kind. He is not a natural striker, in spite of his impressive goal tally this season, and yet (as a favourite Fulham song relates), Dempsey scores with both left and right foot, as well as with his head. Nor is he an instinctively graceful footballer, yet he passes -and often scores - with style. Dempsey's success is not due just to natural gifts, for all that he is a gifted player. He makes the most of each of his abilities and of every opportunity. His greatest gift appears to be his character, particularly his capacity for persistence.

Dempsey has flourished at Fulham, for example, in spite of initially finding the transition to England difficult; he's now survived four changes of manager and he is currently the club's joint longest-serving player. It is fitting that Dempsey's most sensational moment in a Fulham shirt came with his winning goal in the 4-1 defeat of Juventus in the Europa League in 2010. The victory was improbable. Fulham had been trailing 3-1 from the away leg and went 1-0 down in the first few minutes at home. Dempsey's goal sealed a victory that showed what it is possible to achieve, even where the hope of success appears all-but nonexistent.

His attitude can be seen in smaller moments too. After missing a penalty or shot, or at the end of a defeat, you will rarely see his head drop. He is always looking for the next ball, the next game.

You can also hear this perseverance in many of Dempsey's remarks about the game. For example, when asked about his early difficulty breaking into the Fulham team in an interview for Sports Illustrated, he said: 'It makes you hungrier and forces you to be better to make sure you're out on the field. Because overseas it's difficult not playing. You do miss home. When you're playing everything's great, but when you're not playing it starts to weigh on you and you have to dig in deep.' Not all players have such a capacity to learn from their experience when things are not going well.

Much has been made of Dempsey's origins and his affecting personal story. He was born in Nacogdoches, Texas, growing up for some time in a trailer park. He briefly had to give up football, due to his family's desire to support his elder sister Jennifer's burgeoning tennis career. Jennifer died tragically young, as a teenager, and Dempsey often dedicates his goals to her.

Yet his success is not simply a story of triumph over adversity. Nor does an emphasis on his persistence imply a reductive account of his abilities. Indeed, Ralph Waldo Emerson thought that persistency was 'the characteristic of heroism' - and he was keen to show that such heroism could exist in present-day America: 'all these great and transcendent properties are ours'. Emerson also wrote that 'self-trust' was the 'essence of heroism' and this quality too is recognizable in Dempsey; he believes in his abilities without seeming arrogant or self-satisfied.

The American novelist Bernard Malamud wrote in The Natural, a novel about baseball, 'Without heroes we are all plain people and don't know how far we can go'. Dempsey's persistence has taken him further than many might have predicted. Fulham fans will be hoping he will soon commit himself to a new contract at the club (his current deal is due to expire in 2013). But, regardless, there can be no doubt that he has earned his success - and he may yet go further still.

Dempsey's attitude can also be applied beyond the football field. As Malamud suggests, heroes show each of us the possibility of making the most of, or transcending, our gifts. Emerson advised that: 'All men have wandering impulses, fits, and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, abide by it.' I recognize the sentiment. But I still prefer Clint Dempsey's characteristic version of the same advice: Keep grindin'.
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Tom Sperlinger http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-sperlinger/ It is happy for us that we gained a brilliant student in such an accidental way. But many other potential applicants do not apply, for similar reasons.

Figures released yesterday by UCAS show that the number of older people not applying, and thus excluding themselves, has increased because of the new funding arrangements. Whereas there has been a 4.1% drop in the number of 18-year-olds in England applying to university in 2012, 15.5% fewer 23-year olds have applied than in 2011 and 11% fewer over-40s. This trend is repeated across the different age groups above the age of 21.

This is not a surprise. The new funding model allows universities to charge up to £9,000 per year and asks students to repay their fees over a period of 30 years after graduation. It is a system clearly designed with an 18-year old student in mind, who has no prior debts and (in theory) a lifetime of employment ahead of him or her.

An older person will often need to make very different calculations from an 18-year-old about the benefits and risks there are in taking out a loan. Imagine, for example, that you are a woman in your early 40s, with three children under 12. Both you and your husband are on low incomes. You wish you could afford to save for a mortgage and would like to put some money aside to help with your children's education.

Or imagine you left school at 14 without qualifications, that you have spent time in and out of prison and battled with drug addiction. You have started to turn your life around, found part-time work, and signed up for a short return-to-study course at your local college. You have never earned more than £9,000 in one year and do not know anyone who has been to university.

In either situation, would you take on a £27,000 debt for a university education, even with the assurance that you would not pay anything back until you earned over £21,000? Even a more affluent middle-aged person, with children and a mortgage, might take fright at the thought of such a loan.

A substantial drop in applications from mature applicants thus not only means a change in the age range of students. It also demonstrates that the new system is likely to exclude those who already feel marginalised in society or by education. Mature students tend to be people who took a sharp turn away from education in their early life. They are often from less privileged backgrounds, from geographical areas where few people have experience of higher education, or from a socio-economic, ethnic or other background which is poorly represented in universities.

It is also worth noting that the figures released by UCAS do not give us the whole picture. There are no accurate figures for applications to part-time courses, as these are handled by universities and not through UCAS. Meanwhile, as a consequence of the higher fees, the quiet decimation of departments specifically dedicated to flexible learning opportunities for adults continues apace. The decline of the Centre for Community Engagement at Sussex University is only the latest example.

What can be done about all of this, including by the new director of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), who will be appointed soon? OFFA should push for admissions to part-time programmes to be handled through UCAS as soon as possible. Universities should also be required to offer better incentives than at present for students on low incomes with children, to prevent them from sacrificing their own education unnecessarily.

But there is also a need to think in more radical terms. For example, OFFA could insist that anyone over the age of 21, with no prior experience of higher education, be given an entitlement to 20 credits of learning for free at their nearest institution. This would do much to bridge the gap between universities and their local communities. Such students would also be more likely to understand the benefits (and risks) of a loan, after tasting university education for themselves.

That is one suggestion to stand for many. There is an urgent need for such creative thinking from OFFA and others, and for action to ensure that the balance between higher fees and widening participation is properly enforced. If universities are to become more inclusive, we cannot afford to rely on happy accidents.]]>