Syvia Plath writing in her journal, 23 Fitzroy Road, London, February 1963 - genesis of the poem and video link

Writing my Sylvia Plath homage poem involved reading several biographies of Sylvia, a biography of her poet husband, Ted Hughes, and a biography of the woman he left Sylvia for - Assia Wevill.
I also re-read Sylvia's poems, especially the ones written in the last weeks of her life.
A key fact that helped me in writing the poem was learning that the winter that Sylvia killed herself was the coldest London in 100 years.
Melbourne poet, David Lumsden, also encouraged me to write a Sylvia Plath poem that didn't mention gas - unlit gas fumes from the kitchen oven being the cause of Sylvia's death.
Over the course of two years I revised the poem a dozen times. Reading all the biographies concerning Sylvia, Ted and their circle, was invaluable to me in realizing the poem. I get lots of poems from reading - reading continues to seed poems for me. Click here to hear and see me read the Sylvia poem.

Portrait of Blood - background to the poem and link

Click on "Portrait of blood" (in purple) in the last sentence of this post to hear and see me reading "Portrait of blood" from my poetry collection, "Beneath Our Armour".
The poem is personal in that I was born premature with a hole in the heart and have undergone heart surgery twice, once at the age of six and once at the age of thirty-seven. Consequently, I've seen my own blood in tubes and syringes in doctor's surgeries and hospitals throughout my life.

The poem is universal in that we are all mortal/finite, all have red blood coursing through us no matter what colour our skin.
We are all vulnerable to bullies, conflict, known and new diseases, the fickleness of biology and luck.
"Portrait of blood" is the last poem in my poetry collection, "Beneath Our Armour", because I always like to have a philosophical poem ending a book and a poetry reading.

An open letter to translators

I try and write as clearly as possible. I do my best to refrain from inserting fog, cloudiness, confusion in any poem I write. I try to use ordinary language to say extraordinary things.

I've chosen the words I've chosen and no other words as each word has a specific sound and power.

Given the above, my expectation of the translator is to reveal and state in their language what I reveal and state in my language. My expectation is a mirror of the poem in the translator's language.

What I DON'T want is dilution, erosion, corruption, renovation of the poem.

Translation involves care and faithfulness by the translator. It involves trust by the person being translated. It is an honour to be translated. Translating is a labour of love.

Translation of poetry opens doors, shows the reader what is observed, what is thought important, what is thought worthy of a poem.

I prefer

For Wislawa Szymborska

I prefer
chess to boxing,
solitude to gossiping,
the graves of the elderly to those of the young.

I prefer
the bullied to the bullying,
wands to truncheons,
reason to patriotism.

I prefer
strolling to fleeing,
buoyancy to gravity,
misplacing my glasses to misplacing my trust.

I prefer
self-improvement to nostalgia,
galaxies to ruts.

I prefer
the seeker to the know-it-all,
luck to luxuries,
the blushing to the poker-faced.

I prefer
winters that are external,
interruptions to loneliness,
when life
increases in value.

from "Days That We Couldn't Rehearse" (Hale & Iremonger)

Talking about Mario in the public bar of the All Nations Hotel

He’s

all talk

all muscle

shallow

deep

in the know

in the dark

for real

unreal

my friend

your friend

Well I wouldn’t call him a friend friend.

He owes me

I owe him

Haven’t seen him since high school

Saw him two hours ago

I’ve never seen him with a woman

I’ve never seen him without a woman

Trust me, he’ll show

He’ll never show now

He’ll know that we’ve been talking about him.

On that, gentlemen, we agree.

ABC Radio National "Poetica" special on "Beneath Our Armour", 3pm 9 July

At 3pm, Saturday 9 July, ABC’s Radio National will broadcast a 35 minute “Poetica” special on Peter Bakowski’s volume of portrait poems, Beneath Our Armour”.

In the program Peter Bakowski speaks to Mike Ladd about the genesis of the poems and reads a selection of works. Poems read on the program will include:-

10 Rosebank Terrace, Lower Templestowe

Bernard and Monique

Portrait of the colour black

Portrait of blood

Sylvia Plath writing in her journal

Blues

Macau, City of Exiles

Adozindo Fernandes and his family

Portrait of Verna Tan

The program will be repeated at 3p.m. on Thursday, 14 July. The program may also be downloaded via the following link http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2011/3241325.htm

Peter Bakowski was born in Melbourne in 1954 to Polish-German parents. His second book, In the Human Night, won the Victorian Premier's Award for Poetry. His sixth, and most recent collection is Beneath our Armour, a book of poems made up of portraits of real people such as Sylvia Plath and Diego Rivera, portraits of imaginary people, and of places and things, such as 'Portrait of blood' or 'Portrait of the colour black'. Part of the book was written while Bakowski was on writer's residencies in Macau and at Suzhou University in China.

Peter Bakowski Reads His Greatest Hits

Upstairs above the PAPERBACK Bookshop, 60 Bourke Street, Melbourne, in the Sarah Scout Gallery, at 6p.m. on Thursday 23 June, I'll be reading poems from 28 years of writing, from my last five poetry collections. Any requests please feel free to email me pbakowski@yahoo.com

Please feel free to invite any friends, work colleagues, students, those scared away from poetry at an earlier age.