http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/rss.php?w=new New Blogs in Tusitala - Teach! Teach! Teach. en-gb Tue, 07 Oct 2008 11:53:51 +0100 Tusitala - Teach! Teach! Teach RSS mike@24-7easyweb.co.uk http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=709 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=709 Mrs Lazarus    I had grieved. I had wept for a night and a dayover my loss, ripped the cloth I was married infrom my breasts, howled, shrieked, clawedat the burial stones until my hands bled, retchedhis name over and over again, dead, dead.Gone home. Gutted the place. Slept in a single cot, widow, one empty glove, white femurin the dust, half. Stuffed dark suitsinto black bags, shuffled in a dead man's shoes, noosed the double knot of a tie around my bare neck, gaunt nun in the mirror, touching herself. I learntthe Stations of Bereavement, the icon of my facein each bleak frame; but all those monthshe was going away from me, dwindlingto the shrunk size of a snapshot, going, going. Till his name was no longer a certain spellfor his face. The last hair on his headfloated out from a book. His scent went from the house.The will was read. See, he was vanishingto the small zero held by the gold of my ring.Then he was gone. Then he was legend, language; my arm on the arm of the schoolteacher-the shockof a man's strength under the sleeve of his coat-along the hedgerows. But I was faithfulfor as long as it took. Until he was memory.So I could stand that evening in the fieldin a shawl of fine air, healed, ableto watch the edge of the moon occur to the skyand a hare thump from a hedge; then noticethe village men running towards me, shouting, behind them the women and children, barking dogs, and I knew. I knew by the sly lighton the blacksmith's face, the shrill eyesof the barmaid, the sudden hands bearing meinto the hot tang of the crowd parting before me.He lived. I saw the horror on his face.I heard his mother's crazy song. I breathedhis stench; my bridegroom in his rotting shroud, moist and dishevelled from the grave's slack chew, croaking his cuckold name, disinherited, out of his time. First Stanza:   Carol Ann Duffy's narrator Mrs Lazarus seems as dead as her famous husband at the begining of the dramatic monologue. Unsurprsingly and indeed compassionately, Duffy seems very much concerned with the possibility of 'resurrection' in this poem although ironically it is Mrs Lazarus's resurrection she is concerned with centrally rather than Lazarus himself. The theme of resurrection haunts Duffy's 'The World's Wife' and indeed her poetry in general. Duffy's characters reanimate themselves in challenging and individual ways and it is this courage which renders so many of her speakers compelling. Mrs Laraus is bereft, abject with the inconvertibility of death. Duffy's deployment of a vocabulary that is final and 'past' communicates the bleak 'foreign' landscape of loss that removes the mourner from any sense of belonging or community. To borrow one of Julia Kristeva's memorable insights, Mrs Lazarus is 'foreign' to herself. She is estranged from 'herself' even to the point of being animal-like in her abject despair. How effective the repetition of the past tenses all ending in 'ed' are in solidifying the harsh certainty of death. The mention of time seems both specific and elastic. 'Night' and its separation from 'day' seem arbitrary. Slippery even. Despair makes such distinctions unnecessary. Death marks us and the bleeding hands( terrible stigmata?)  and uncontrollable vomiting make loss physical to the point of self-'disgust and even self-annihilation. Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=708 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=708 Countess,  your mouth, always my hunger... Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=707 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=707 I was to borrow everything. This come back kid was home and raring to get out there but my 'form' just needed a little tweaking. I hadn't worn clothes of that kind for so long that I stared at 'things' trying to reorganise or was it reorientate my eyes, my hands around buttons, zips, things that sealed the shape, protected modesty. Then there were the colours. If I hadn't been desperate then maybe I wouldn't have dared to return.But I wanted to stay, I wanted to speak and feel the saliva again. So I took two things, carefully, tenderly off the shelves and laid them innocently on the bed. Now was my new time. I would try again.   Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=706 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=706 Once upon a time there was a mouse who lived in a dump! It had paper clips and pencils and all dirty rubbish! So, Pop decided to move into a house. She loved sweets and  in a house, there would be lots of sweets....But sadly, there were no sweets in the dump where she lived. However when she got to the house there were sweets, but also another  mouse! Pop found some clothes where the human lived and used them for pillows, the other mouse tried to grab the clothes with her tail......( to be contd!) Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=705 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=705 rotten leaves, rusty pipes,  bandaged ghosts! Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=704 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=704 Secretive 'editor' seeks non-scene ex-soldier...   Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=703 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=703 Toyboy seeks bellringer.  Big ears optional. Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=702 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=702 Ambitious Scottish Soldier wltm Killer Queen! Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=701 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=701 Gentleman with high hopes  seeks star!   Hurt lady  seeks susceptible listener's  heart! Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=700 http://www.tusitala.org.uk/blog/blog.php?bid=700 Spirited beauty seeks wealthy, solemn enigma! Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100