Poetic Voices: Chelsea Rathburn and Kristina Marie Darling

Poetry and grief are no strangers; one can find expressions of grief in poetic form going back to Homer and Virgil, Beowulf and Dante. Tennyson wrote the book-length poem In Memoriam A.H.H. over the course of 17 years to express his grief at the death of his friend, Arthur Hallam.

Two recent collections by Chelsea Rathburn and Kristina Marie Darling both deal with grief, but is a grief different from that over physical death. These poems are expressions of grief at the end of relationships.

Chelsea Rathburn even puts “grief” in her collection’s  title, A Raft of Grief. And she notes the double meaning of “raft” – both as a symbol of surviving as well as signifying a large amount. The poems address the end of relationships (or perhaps the singular “relationship”) or departures, what happens immediately after, and new beginnings.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Clara Benson’s “The Murder at Sissingham Hall”

It’s a murder mystery story by something of a mystery author.

According to her biography on both Amazon and Good Reads, Clara Benson was a rather upper class Englishwoman born in 1890 who wrote a series of mysteries during the golden age of murder mysteries – the 1920s and 1930s. She never published them, considering the manuscripts to be only a hobby. Even her family apparently knew nothing of them until long after her death in 1965. Almost 50 years later, in 2013, the family began to publish the stories.

So far, nine have been published in the last two years or so, and another is in the works. They have all been published in ebook format only.

Perhaps it’s the lack of biographical detail, or the impression that the first novel in the series reads less like one written in the 1920s and more like someone undertook a huge amount of research about English country life in the 1920s. There’s something that seems a bit too contemporary for this to have been written 90 years ago.

So I have my suspicions. Clara Benson may not be Clara Benson at all.

In The Murder at Sissingham Hall, Charles Know, a youngish man returning to his native England after eight years of making his fortune in South Africa, is invited for a long weekend at Sissinghurst Hall, the home of Sir Neville Strickland and his wife Rosamund. Rosamund is the reason Charles left England in the first place; she broke off their engagement without much explanation.

It’s the almost stereotypical English house party so familiar in the Agatha Christie mysteries. Well-to-do people gathered together, passions running as a strong undercurrent beneath the brittle surface, and then a murder. In this case, the victim is Sir Neville. And most of the guests have a potential motive – the relative who is going to be written out of the will and his rather shallow wife; Rosamund Strickland; Charles Knox; and the niece, the secretary, and a flock of servants. Another guest is a friend of Rosamund’s, Angela Marchmont, who turns out to be something of an amateur sleuth and will help the police solve the murder.

What’s surprising is that the novel is described as the first of the Angela Marchmont mysteries, and the character has a relatively small role in this particular story. Charles Knox serves as the narrator for the entire book.

The Murder at Sissingham Hall is an enjoyable, classic 1920s-type mystery. And notice I said “type,” because I remain unconvinced that Clara Benson was a real person.

Photograph by Lynn Greyling via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Like stones

After Acts 17: 16-34

Each day we sit and listen

like stones, one speaker

after another, and then,

like stones, we discuss,

we dispute, we argue because

it is what is expected of learned

men, if not stones. This is what

we do, listen to the wise and

foolish, babblers and orators,

all are equal here, the equality

of ignorance, like stones.

This one before us seems

no different; he begins

auspiciously, talking about us,

but I see the glaze of boredom

covering the eyes around me;

another babbler or borderline

lunatic with some new idea,

some new religion, this one

from Palestine from which

we all know no good thing

comes. I see yawns.

But he continues; I listen.

Slowly I hear the clarity

of his words, crystal shards

piercing even while sneers

and yawns remain around me,

but I no longer care; the opinions

of my learned friends, the regard

of my fellow philosophers, have

become like stones.

His words end; he is dismissed

with derision and laughter,

laughter which stops when

I step down and follow him.

I don’t look back.

Illustration: St. Paul in the Areogapus, drawing by Mariano Fortuny (1855-56); National Museum of Art of Catalonia.

Saturday Good Reads

A Brit living in New York has some insight into Americans (or at least New Yorkers). What makes a human life worth anything? What is love in a world full of fakes? And a primer on how the church can effectively discourage artists.

One of the best stories I've read this week is linked below -- on why Twitter is dying. The short answer: Twitter did it to itself. Citing free speech, it allowed all kinds of abuse and even death threats -- until Twitter's co-founder received his own death threat amd advetisers had begun to flee. But the change may been too late. 

And we were in London earlier this week when Planned Parenthood announced it would no longer accept payment for harvesting organs from abortions. Which I thought they said they hadn't been doing. Hannah Arendt was right - evil is banal, and it's facilitated by our news media.

Life and Culture

A (very) rough guide to American from an Englishman living in New York – Paul Owen at The Guardian (Hat tip: J of India).

Why Twitter's Dying (and What You Can Learn from It) -- Umar Haque at Bad Words (Hat tip: Kathy Richards).

There’s a Way to Stop Mass Shootings, and You Won’t Like It – Rob Myers.

We Need to Chat: How technology has changed how we relate to each other – Jessica Love at American Scholar.

CGI vs. Car Guy – David Murray for ARC Magazine.

Fruit of Good Labours: Discovering the Earliest Known Draft of the King James Bible – Jeffrey Alan Miller at The Times Literary Supplement.

Shadowlands – Billy Coffey at What I Learned Today.

Faith

The Sky is (not) Falling, or Six Things I’ve Learned about the Seasons of Life – Shawn Smucker.

Pierced with Grace – Matthew van Maastricht at thealrteadynotyet.

For want of wonder (Part 1) – Corey Poff at Torrey Gazette.

What is love in a world full of fakes? – Jen Avellaneda at Rich Faith Rising.

What Makes a Human Life Worth It? – Jefferson Bethke at Storyline.

How to Discourage Artists in the Church – Phil Ryken at The Gospel Coalition (Hat tip: Janet Young).

Kocho – Jeanne Damoff at The View From Here.

I Am Not the Hero of the Story – Damaris Zehner at Internet Monk. 

What Bono’s ‘Aha’ Moment Teaches Us about Ourselves – Kristin Brown at Faith, Work anf Economics.

Writing

Where the Obsession May Lead – Mick Silva.

One Thing Every Writer Needs to Succeed – Ann Kroeker.

Why the copyright page is one of the best in my book – Monica Sharman.

Finding Your Sweet Spot – Doug Spurling at Spurling Silver.

Planned Parenthood 

Planned Parenthood Not Off the Hook – Jonathan Tobin at Commentary.

Art

British broadcaster Jeremy Paxton introduces the new exhibit of Goya: The Portraits at the National Gallery, London.

Photography

Tree, Fog, and the Rising Sun – Tim Good (via Pinterest).

Poetry

Dave Harrity – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

A Trio of Micro Poems – Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper.

The Craft of Christian Wiman – Mark Bauerlein at First Things.

Esso-So-So-So – Elizabeth Dark Wiley at Curator Magazine.

Time Machine by Dave Malone

Top Photograph: One of the 17 houses in London that Dr. Samuel Johnson lived in, and the only one still standing. On the top floor was where he prepared his famous dictionary.

Sun, St. James Park

Once a place for royal hunting,

close by the palaces of Westminster,

surrounded by royal vestiges

of horse guards, and statues,

ministries and The Mall leading

to the most royal residence,

now a royal park, for commuters

hunting the shortest way to office

or tube, appointment or bus,

and fathers tossing Frisbees

whiles mothers push prams

and joggers run in packs

as cyclists circle the perimeter

seeking a way past no cycling

signs, occasionally overlooked

by the errant seeking the hypotenuse

to avoid the rush of traffic

of cars and tourists rushing

to see Her Majesty’s Guard

change at 11 a.m. sharp.

Photograph: St. James’s Park, London, Sept. 27, 2015.

Rain, St. James Park

This rain, cold, already

has drenched my American

walking shoes and socks,

each step a frigid squish

to the tune of Yankee Doodle,

like stepping through snow

covering amber waves of grain.

Summer’s last day, already

embracing fall, ivy leaves

barely beginning to redden

against a gray-white but no blue

sky, a few yellows dotting

the trees, a slight turn

to impressionism.

The park’s perimeter, already

surrounded by commuters in cars

and on bicycles, a rainy mayhem

of horns and watery whooshes

splashing unwary walkers and

joggers in the dawn’s early light,

the back of my English sweatshirt

already soaked by a combination

of steady rain and small umbrella.

I’m smiling.

Photograph: St. James Park, London, taken Sept. 22, 2015. The London Eye is barely visible above the trees in the left center of the photograph.

Peter Ackroyd’s “London Under”

I’ve walked Fleet Street and Cannon Street in London. And Whitehall. I’ve taken the underground or tube more times than I can count. I’ve ridden buses down Charing Cross and up to Hampstead Heath. My knowledge of what was underneath my feet was, like most visitors and even many residents of London, was limited to the tube. Little did I know that I was walking over more than 2,000 years of buried history, secret tunnels, abandoned air raid shelters, closed tube stations, channeled rivers (several of them), old wells, and both formal and informal sewer systems.

Peter Ackroyd, writer, biographer, and cultural historian, has set me straight in London Under. It’s a fascinating, readable account of what lies under the streets, sidewalks, and buildings of one of the world’s great cities. It’s also made me aware of the outlines of abandoned tube stations, unobtrusive doors that lead downward, and the possible implications of what we mean when we say “underground.”

And what’s under London has shaped what’s on the surface. Streets often follow paved-over and channeled rivers (which explains a lot of strange twists and turns in the City of London, that square mile that is the city’s origin and financial district). Bus rides to and from Hampstead Heath on the surface are simultaneously boat rides down various rivers.

London’s history generally goes down about 26 feet. Ackroyd notes that one perhaps one of the few benefits of the German air blitz of London in 1940 and 1941 was the uncovering of a considerable portion of the city’s Roman history. All Hallows by-the-Tower Church was hit by a bomb and fire bombs, and the floor of a Roman residence was discovered. (Much later, excavations under the Guildhall uncovered the site of a Roman amphitheater.) Above the Roman layer is the Anglo-Saxon layer, topped by the medieval, Tudor and more modern layers.

Ackroyd looks at how London has channeled and enclosed its rivers; how underground London came to be associated with the criminal underworld; the history of London’s sewers (at one time synonymous with its rivers and streets); the construction of the underground rail system; the tunnels built for various reasons (including a tunnel which stretches from Trafalgar Square down Whitehall almost all the way to Parliament); and the use of the tube system and its stations during both world wars as air raid shelters.

Peter Ackroyd

For all of the iconic scenes in World War II movies showing people taking shelter in tube stations during the blitz, what Ackroyd points out was that it was a practice forced on the government by the citizens. At first, the Ministry of Transport forbade people using the stations as shelters, which the people obligingly ignored.

London Under is filled with unknown facts and well-researched insights, but it is more than a collection of trivia. Ackroyd is too good a writer simply to publish a trivia collection. Instead, he plumbs the terrain that is beneath London’s streets and buildings with a practiced and experienced eye, and sees through the darkness this great city is built upon.

Related:

The lost rivers that lie beneath London, from BBC News.

Subterranean rivers of London – Wikipedia.

Here at Faith, Fiction, Friends:

            Reading Peter Ackroyd.

            Peter Ackroyd’s Foundation. 

            Peter Ackroyd’s Turner.