Coleridge, Iron Maiden and the Paris students by Miriam Halahmy

I am holding a version of the Rime edited by Sassie, Anne Rooney.

After visiting a Paris school in January to run workshops on Peace and Tolerance, the Sixth Form students came to London last week on a literary tour and I invited them up to Highgate Village. I was keen to share my enthusiasms for Coleridge, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and all the literary connections in Highgate.  The students walked up Highgate Hill which warmed them up on that cold and drizzly Sunday and I told them about the Dick Whittington.

Painted by Ben Wilson, Chewing Gum artist.

Our first stop was my chewing gum painting, completed by Ben Wilson in 2010. I told the students how Coleridge and Keats had met in 'Poets Lane'/ Millfield Lane and shaken hands. Afterwards Coleridge had said that Keats was 'not long for this world.' Keats died the following year aged 25. All of this was recorded by Ben on a tiny piece of chewing gum and as you can imagine, the students were bowled over.

We then walked on to number 3, The Grove, where Coleridge lived for the last 18 years of his life with the Gilmans. Dr Gilman helped him to reduce his addiction to laudanum. I read extracts from the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to the students and explained how Coleridge was a radical, influenced by the French Revolution and often regarded with deep suspicion in England as a possible traitor. An outsider, who suffered terrible nightmares, the ancient mariner reflects so much of the character of the poet.

The students in The Grove near Coleridge house
where Kate Moss now lives!

"Aha!" says Viktor ( the one with the thumb up in the photo and long hair) "have you heard the Iron Maiden version of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner?"

No, I hadn't - I mentioned that when I grew up Led Zeppelin was rather popular -

 Viktor - who plays just about every musical instrument - learnt to play guitar bass to 'Whole Lotta Love' when he was only twelve!

But if you are keen to follow this up - here is the Youtube link to Iron Maiden and the Rime. It is quite mind blowing!

It was lovely renewing all my friendships with the Paris school. These students will be leaving next term and going on to university in the autumn. I have been invited back to the school in October to run more workshops for their European peace project. But I won't be seeing Viktor and Janis and Julie and all their friends again. I wish them all the best and it was great to take them round one of my favourite bits of London. Salut mes amis!

Now we are friends on Facebook and here are some of the comments.

"C'etait geniale, Miriam...thank you for your visit, I enjoy to see you again." Julie.

"We really enjoyed visiting Highgate Village, it was interesting and fun." Janis.

www.miriamhalahmy.com

On Certainty - Andrew Strong

Most of the time, when I'm starting to think of what to write for this blog, I begin by confidently choosing a topic, then plunge in. I start writing, and before long, often within the first paragraph, I have the overwhelming sense that I have no authority whatsoever to speak on the subject I've chosen, that I'm deluded to imagine that anybody would want to read my thoughts, take them seriously, and even if they get that far, learn anything.

However, by the second paragraph, I've usually restored my self-confidence.  I've come to terms with my inadequacy by considering that if only adequate people wrote anything, then the world presented in the written word would appear even more frightening to those who, like me, don’t think they've really got that much to say, or who don’t know what they’re doing.  The world is already too full of people declaring their certainties or their conclusions.  I rarely have either, so if I can give comfort to those who share my failings, then I’ll have achieved something.

What I'm trying to get at here is this: uncertainty, doubt, confusion are rather splendid things, and should be nurtured. How to cultivate them, though, is a different matter, as I don’t think it’s a good thing for absolutely everyone. I don’t really want a surgeon to have such uncertainty, especially if it came to the matter of which of my legs he needed to remove.  (My legs are both perfectly fine, so there isn't really any serious matter at stake here.)  And I want mechanics, engineers, carpenters, electricians, and airline pilots to embrace certainty, especially when they are in my service.  Although, thinking again, I’d rather not.  I’d like to think these people are cautious, would make sure what they thought was correct, double checked and so on.  A little more self-doubt could save lives. 

But when it comes to matters of less urgency, I find I simultaneously loathe and admire people who are too certain.  These are often politicians, or they are selling something.  Politicians, like William Hague, for example, who made up his mind about what he believed long before he was eighteen, presenting his self-assured young self at a Tory Party conference, and he hasn't changed his mind since. A smug adolescent is determining British foreign policy.  Most teenagers think they know it all, but few of them get to run the world.

There is a wonderful scene at the very beginning of Howard Brenton and David Hare’s Pravda, in which a Rupert Murdoch figure addresses the audience.  He says something like this: 'I have over a ten thousand books in my library, but I don’t need to read any of them. I have already made up my mind.'  I remember laughing and feeling chilled to the marrow at the same time.  I was young when I saw that play, and felt I had to read at least all of the Penguin Classics and have a go at Wittgenstein before I was anywhere near to being educated enough to have a view on anything at all. 

Those of us who concur with Keats’ notion of ‘negative capability’, who are able to suspend judgement, who resist the need to draw conclusions, we are cast aside in the stampede towards the glittering prizes.  People who have made up their minds rule the world, and I am completely unable to make up mine.  It may be I'm timid, that I never like putting all my eggs in one basket, or it could be that I'm a ditherer, a moral coward.

And here is a paradox, for if we are to write fiction well shouldn't we be able to circle around an argument, see things from more than one point of view, to take the role of the omniscient narrator and claim an infinite perspective, rather than just trumpeting our own self-satisfied certainty?  But if we can never make up our minds, then nothing will ever get written.  It’s almost crippling. 

E M Foster wrote: 'How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?' And I sort of know what he meant.  I've finished my blog.  I can see what I've said. 

But I've still no idea what I think.

What's in a name by Ann Evans

Does the place where you live fill you with inspiration? Is the view from your window of crashing waves, or a rugged clifftop, or maybe fields of poppies dancing in the breeze? No? Me neither. Just a view of houses and gardens, roads and pavements. Except there is inspiration there – in the street names.

The area where I live is called Poets Corner, where as you might guess, the streets are all named after poets. Amongst them we have Longfellow Road, Tennyson Road, Shelley Road, Keats Road, and various others who I have to admit I know little about, such as Meredith Road and Herrick Road.

Seeing as I walk or drive along these streets every day, I thought it only right to find out who these poets were. Obviously I'd heard of Longfellow, Tennyson, Shelley and Keats. But as to Herrick Road, I had to ask Google.

I discovered that Robert Herrick was a 16th century clergyman and poet who wrote more than 2,500 poems, which makes me feel slightly ashamed to say I hadn't even heard of him. I have now though and I've enjoyed browsing some of his work. Here's one of his short poems that you may not have read:

Robert Herrick

Four Things Make Us Happy Here

Health is he first good lent to men;

A gentle disposition then;

Next, to be rich by no by-ways;

Lastly, with friends t' enjoy our days.

        Robert Herrick

We have an Omar Road too, named after the Persian scholar and poet Omar Khayyam. I knew the name but was amazed to learn that he was an 11th century writer – such a long time ago yet we all remember the name.

And then there's Lord Lytton Avenue. Research reveals that this was Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton a 19th century English statesman and poet. I was fascinated to also learn that he was the first person to use the phrase: "The pen is mightier than the sword". It was a line from his play Richelier. 

And through checking him out on the good old internet I discovered that he also wrote under the name of Owen Meredith – which solves my query regarding who Meredith Road was named after. Two for the price of one here!

Under the pseudonym of Owen Meredith, one of Lytton's works was a 24 verse poem called Vampyre which I've copied and pasted into a file to read at length – possible inspiration for a scary story at some point, maybe. Here's the first verse:

Robert Bulwer Lytton

           Vampyre

I found a corpse, with golden hair,

Of a maiden seven months dead.

But the face, with the death in it, still was fair,

And the lips with their love were red.

Rose leaves on a snow-drift shed,

Blood-drops by Adonis bled,

Doubtless were not so red.

    Owen Meredith

And here's a verse that Lord Lytton penned under his own name:

       A Night in Italy

Sweet are the rosy memories of the lips

That first kiss'd ours, albeit they kiss no more:

Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships,

Altho' they leave us on a lonely shore:

Sweet are familiar songs, tho' music dips

Her hollow shell in thoughts's forlornest wells;

And sweet, tho' sad, the sound of midnight bells

When the oped casement with the night-rain drips.

        Robert Bulwer Lytton

And to finish with, one from John Keats. We all know the opening line, but as for the rest of his poem I had long forgotten it.

       A Thing of Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowers band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season, the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

And endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring into us from the heaven's brink.

                John Keats

Okay, so where I live is just an ordinary street which may not seem inspiring, until you delve a little deeper. How about you? Are there hidden depths behind where you live?

Please visit my website: www.annevansbooks.co.uk