READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

George Barker George Barker writes at length On sperm and roses and death. What I am really trying to say is George Barker writes at length On sperm and roses and death. Once or twice he offers the world To his four-year-old daughter in verse Or addresses a well-suited art critic In whimsical words that stand unsanded And heavy-handed, but most times George Barker writes at length On sperm and roses and death. His wives and mistresses And fifteen children are, I imagine, His most insightful critics As he writes at length about loneliness And the appreciable pains of hell.

  Here are my contributions to a seminar on Dante’s Divina Commedia conducted with Dr William Johnston on Thursday the 27 th of March 2014 at the Institute for Spiritual Studies, St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne. Will’s papers and other material from the seminar are available on the parish website. I. HOW POETS TODAY REWORK DANTE Peter Steele, of blessed memory, Melbourne poet and Jesuit, cites the American Ralph Waldo Emerson: the Commedia is “autobiography in colossal cipher”. By which he means, Dante’s life is written large through the code of his poem. Steele embellishes on that idea by adding that the Commedia “might also be called metaphor in colossal suspense.” Which I take to mean, Dante’s poem keeps us hanging on even as it goes on talking about ultimate questions. In literary terms generally today, this is a central issue because while some writers strive to find through their words ways of describing and explaining everything knowable in human ter...

This is one of two short papers given by Philip Harvey at the first Spiritual Reading Group session for 2014 on Tuesday the 18 th of February in the Carmelite Library in Middle Park. He also gave a paper on that occasion, which can be found on the Library blog, entitled ‘A Rationale for Purgatory’ . Nadezhda Mandelstam recalls in one of her books how her husband, the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam, would say that when reading poetry we can spend a great deal of time discussing what it means, but the first and main question about a poem is not what does it mean, but why was it written. That is the place to start. Here are eleven reasons that I offer quietly to help us think about this poem: Why did Dante write The Divine Comedy? You may have other reasons and these are invited. We will spend most of our time today looking at meanings, but also at why. I wrote these out as they occurred to me, so there is no priority order. 1.      He wrote the poem because ...

Pasternak Time: “Sorry, I missed what you were saying” Sorry, I missed what you were saying. I was thinking of someone from another lifetime, Her stride across the courtyards of youth, Her tempting laugh and forgotten lines, Her sharp readings and fatal portraits, Her lasting illusions, and erstwhile friends. These dreamy thoughts came from something you said. Sorry to have drifted off. Something about a play by Chekhov, That would be it. We are conscious the way the mind moves off In directions of its own, like in Pasternak. Her mother felt the film was not the book. Felt? “A complete misrepresentation.” The book makes you see up front How a woman can follow a man Through life, even when she is long gone. Or will walk around the corner Of another city, just by coincidence. She went off in search of diamonds. Maybe she found a few, Interstate, overseas, under a rock. The life of the theatre, The theatre of life, interchangeable, O...

Pasternak Time: "Quasi people, with more haste than voice"   Quasi people, with more haste than voice, Face book opinions ephemeral as crosswords; Friends more by accident than choice. Stasi people brandish orders of boss words; Watch hallways; their digits rip-off files. Incognito always, they engineer lost words. Power people, in private frantic, in public smiles, Know who they banish are stars they fought. Half a people respect them, the rest revile. Non-people, sorted or bought or fraught, caught On the wrong side of the street, the wrong year; Grew up wanting something, last left with naught. Anti-people paraded in news reports, raise fear By their every mention, have nowhere to hide; Live abroad, by the sword. Their fate is clear. Real people, with normalcy on their side, Stay silent wrong times; asked something, rave. We live and let live with their small prides. Near people, here, we will go with to the grave; Think dear about ...

Pasternak Time: “The Bible improves with years” The Bible improves with years. How useless the cynic with “It’s all useless!”, The optimist absurd as the pessimist. The psalmist knew many days Who waited with joy for sunrise, Gave thanks for small beauties it revealed. He had seen enough for a lifetime And exile was always just around the corner. Comes a time faith alone is all that’s left. The Bible, returned to as we do to home, Home’s landscape and meetings in all weathers. There rages argument about Russian, Which words in what order work and why. Tongues proliferate across the Soviets, Out across the world of raging nations. And Job sits amidst the results Sorting out how it’s them and it’s him, both: We sit down together gazing at loss. Tyrants may scan the borders, Send their enemies to the bombed frontline, But it is still a child governs the household And hope alone, immaterial hope, persists. The Bible, fragments left from b...

Pasternak Time: “She listened long after there was much to say” She listened long after there was much to say. There was always something to say. Winter days, remembering the times all day inside. So much to forget, inside. Imagine no-one to talk to while winter lasts, Sharing the spoken word, while time lasts. Those with no-one to talk to live so long. It is fearsome how much we long. Hermits receive visitors’ needs and uncertainties. Novelists write alone vastly from uncertainties.