tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post9082357264416556038..comments2023-11-18T09:51:52.115+10:30Comments on Medlar Comfits: Bryophytes and grandmothers and many other thingsanna tambourhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-7227215582755164692009-05-09T14:49:00.000+09:302009-05-09T14:49:00.000+09:30Giles,
Thank you very much.
This is another post ...Giles,<br />Thank you very much. <br />This is another post from you that is far above what "comments" are. Beautiful! Both the poem and the more-than-explanation. There should be a name for it. The fruit? No. Do you have a suggestion. <br /><br />As to your band Marchantia. You can't mean <I>"never"</I>. You must mean <I>"not yet"</I>. You especially should be ashamed to mistake the merely dormant for the deceased. You write stupendously good poetry about and contort yourself trying to photograph things that most times look no more promising than the stuff people scrape from their shoes. You connect lines between disparates as well as any orb-weaver, so you've got no right to think a plan you once had is a dead thing, unless you don't wish to do something about it any more.<br /><br />I am also fascinated by liverworts, but was slow to discover their charms. For most of my life, they were just visual noise, like living in the city. <br /><br />Form Marchantia, and let's hear it! It deserves to be formed, if only because the sound of the word is music.anna tambourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-8495891173822865222009-05-08T16:32:00.000+09:302009-05-08T16:32:00.000+09:30Thanks, Anna. I'm hoping for the book too: I may ...Thanks, Anna. I'm hoping for the book too: I may end up self-publishing on Blurb or something. I'm looking forward to enjoying more of your writing too. Here's another poem, written last night in a sudden rush of liverwort-fever.<br /><br /><B>Marchantia</B>As deep a green as my liver is red<br />And lobed with equal fleshiness,<br />Liverworts line the meadow-drain<br />With their slick upholstery:<br />Slithers of thallus, anchored<br />By watersoaked rhizoids,<br />Their surfaces gleaming,<br />Wet as vulvas, dripping dew<br />Back into the stream. Each plant<br />Wears its sex on a stalk:<br />Primed gametophytes<br />Waiting for rain.<br /><br />Next year, they will invade<br />Our grandmother’s greenhouse<br />Perversely scaling the pots<br />Of tropical orchids, their goblets<br />Gorged with mist condensed:<br />The females stellar, rayed; <br />The males spreading parasols,<br />Shading a refracted sun.<br /><br />Source material: <I>Marchantia polymorpha</I> is the largest British liverwort, and is commonly regarded as typifying all the main characteristics of the order Marchantiales. It often colonises the banks of streams, but is equally at home in heated greenhouses. The upper surface is typically covered in goblet-shaped organs, and the gametophyte tissue is borne aloft on stalks, or peduncles. Male and female plants grow as separate individuals. See Arthur J. Jewell, <I>The Observer’s Book of Mosses and Liverworts</I>, London, 1955, pp. 27-28. I long entertained the notion of forming a progressive folk band called Marchantia, partly because of the fascination liverworts have exerted on me since childhood, partly because of the appropriateness of the middle syllable of the word, but mainly because the idea is so obscure that hardly anyone else is likely to think of it. Unfortunately, this plan has never come to fruition.Giles Watsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02823686641620119468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-77585311285756883672009-05-08T15:27:00.000+09:302009-05-08T15:27:00.000+09:30Giles,
Thank you! This is a wonderful poem and ess...Giles,<br />Thank you! This is a wonderful poem and essay in itself. One day I hope to buy a book by you, filled with your poems and the rambles you take us on, and illustrated with your glorious <A HREF="http://www.flickr.com/photos/29320962@N07/" REL="nofollow">pictures</A>. <br /><br />You'd write cracking haibun.anna tambourhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01338581782386113668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20078507.post-25235005012467561732009-05-07T20:27:00.000+09:302009-05-07T20:27:00.000+09:30Polytrichum communeA little neat besom,
Pliant, we...<B>Polytrichum commune</B>A little neat besom,<br />Pliant, well-combed,<br />Chestnut coloured<br />As maidenhair,<br />Dusts the wainscot<br />And chandelier,<br />Hanging and tapestry,<br />Curtain and rug:<br />A little neat besom<br />That grew in a bog.<br /><br />A little tough basket<br />For gathering of roots,<br />Woven of Silk-Wood<br />Wound in a plait,<br />Carried the provender –<br />Oyster and snail,<br />Ripe hedgerow fruits –<br />For a legion five-score:<br />A little tough basket<br />That grew on the moor.<br /><br />Source material: Maidenhair and Silk-Wood are vernacular names for the moorland moss Polytrichum commune, which grows in tussocks to a height of twelve to eighteen inches. The first verse is inspired by Gilbert White’s <I>Natural History of Selborne</I>, Letter XXVI, November 1st 1775, which describes the besoms which local people made using <I>Polytrichum</I>. Much of the vocabulary of this first verse is White’s. Richard Mabey’s edition of White’s book mentions that a moss besom of this type can still be seen in Sir Ashton Lever’s Museum. The second verse makes reference to an archaeological find: a basket woven of <I>Polytrichum</I>, found in the Roman fort at Newstead, Roxburghshire. It seems likely that the tradition of making baskets out of this moss is of considerable antiquity, and it is thought that the Newstead find is of native British workmanship, although it was no doubt pressed into service by the Romans, whose culinary tastes are reflected in its imagined contents. (See Paul Richards, <I>A Book of Mosses</I>, King Penguin, London, 1950, pp. 31-32.)Giles Watsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02823686641620119468noreply@blogger.com