Wednesday 27 March 2013

Seurat, it's a long Sunday

Here is some background to my poem 'Seurat, it's a long Sunday' which is published in my recent collection 'All the Invisibles' (SPM Publications)

 
 
 
I was particularly affected by three of Seurat's paintings while I was writing this poem. The first is 'Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grane Jatte:
 
 
 
 
Many people have written about this scene, commenting on the symbolism of certain images. What struck me was the isolation of it all - a crowded scene but each person blocked in his/her own dreams or nightmares.
 
A child in white is looking at you,
if that’s you by the canvas edge.
A crowded Sunday riverside scene
but the sound’s turned off and nobody’s
talking or kicking up needles under the pines –
they’re not even looking at yachts.
It’s a case of each in his solitary zone
with a drooping sun and a single cloud,
an overhang of moody, pensive green.
 
The second painting (which preceded the first) was 'Bathers at Asnieres'
 
 
 
 
This could be a joyful scene, a day off work and a chance to relax and enjoy the river and the company of others. But how gloomy and bored they all look and the sky is heavy with industrial smoke.






Well, leave them in their joyless profiles
and cross to the other side. Someone’s
standing in the river, his voice is booming
through his hands. No? No good?
Sound muted here as well? Clouds
blend into a watery mist. How lethargic
and flabby they seem, these men
on their one day off.


The final painting 'The Channel at Gravelines' shows one of Seurat's favourite places where he spent his last summers before his tragically early death. I find it very moving.

 

Here is the whole poem;
 
Seurat, it’s a long Sunday

A child in white is looking at you,
if that’s you by the canvas edge.
A crowded Sunday riverside scene
but the sound’s turned off and nobody’s
talking or kicking up needles under the pines –
they’re not even looking at yachts.
It’s a case of each in his solitary zone
with a drooping sun and a single cloud,
an overhang of moody, pensive green.

Well, leave them in their joyless profiles
and cross to the other side. Someone’s
standing in the river, his voice is booming
through his hands. No? No good?
Sound muted here as well? Clouds
blend into a watery mist. How lethargic
and flabby they seem, these men
on their one day off.

You know the solution, don’t you?
Go north. Away to the emptiness of the coast,
its long bare beaches, yellow-soft sand.
Un-people the lot of it. See what’s left –  
terrains of light, a stippled blue,
a post to tie up your own rowing boat,
anchors at twilight that hold.