Reading Rossetti's poem, The Blessed Damozel, a Pre-Raphaelite moment here in Lewes.

I have been obsessing on the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882) as I reported in yesterday's blog. Sorry about this but Rossetti's poem The Blessed Damozel (1850), new to me until this week, has continued to play around in my head. I read it at one of my regular online poetry events the other day and thought I would just have to get it out of my system by recording myself reading it here in my room.

Self-Portrait (1847) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828 - 1882)

The Blessed Damozel is dead. She has been in what the poet imagines as Heaven for ten years now leaving him, her bereft lover, on Earth pining for her. She is pining too even though she is meant to be in a state of bliss. She looks over the golden balcony of Heaven down to Earth and hopes (and prays) that her love will come soon to join her because then they will be able to continue their Earthly passion in Paradise.  She looks forward to the totally impossible time when she and her lover will fulfil their erotic desires in the garden Paradise protected, even more inprobably, by the Virgin Mary herself.  The Damozel imagines this reunited life just like any heart-broken lover down here on Earth. The poet, I think, does not really believe this literally of course but he succeeds in showing the power of love and romantic passion even in some imagined unattainable eternal bliss.  He was much influenced by Dante's La Vita Nuova (1295). Dante, of course, knew all about thr soul's suffering in both Heaven and Hell.   Rossetti worked on this poem for over twenty years and then made a painting of it too - also called The Blessed Damozel (1875 - 1878) - where the Damazel has lost her golden hair for pure Pre-Raphaelite auburn. Her lover, the poet, lies moodily gazing up towards Heaven from a lyrically beautiful English woodland.

The Blessed Damozel (1875 - 1878) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Anyway, here it is - recorded yesterday here in the recording studio that is my desktop computer at home in Lewes, UK. I hope you get at least some of its haunting Romantic flavour.

Stephen Dearsley makes it to The Huffington Post

I was thrilled this week to read a truly encouraging review in the popular Huffington Post for my novel Stephen Dearsley's Summer Of Love from Dr Michael Petry, the director of London's Museum of Contemporary Arts. It was equally encouraging and terrifying as it came just before the announcement of the short list for this year's Polari Prize. I was lucky enough to appear on the long list of 12 books and next week I will discover if I've made it to the short list of five. I keep telling myself it is great even being on the long list so I'm turning my face to the wall but not holding my breath. Whatever the outcome, it is so pleasing to receive such an understanding review from someone who obviously "got it" as far as I'm concerned. It is great to have my work compared to that well-known author Philip Hensher too. I know that my much put-upon character Stephen Dearsley would have been happy to have known that he has a such a supporter in his troublesome life trying to find himself in the late 1960s.

Here is a section of Michael Petry's article:

"Hensher is well known and highly regarded with his The Northern Clemency being shortlisted for the 2008 Booker Prize and Kitchen Venom winning the Somerset Maugham Award. His The Emperor Waltz is a wonderful read across many time periods. Early Christians in the 3rd century clash with young artists at the Bauhaus and young men in the 1970's at London's first gay book store. How they all link together is rather complex and like David Mitchell's The Cloud Atlas a brief description does them no service at all. But there is a neat surprise at the end of the waltz through time, which involves signed copies of a novel. As a book collector myself, I know how exciting it is to find a signed copy or better still, one inscribed to a mysterious person whose identity I will likely never know. But holding those physical objects is another link across time, and as long as physical books exist I am sure there will be people like me who want to have them. An e-book is not quite the same, and is there a first edition of a digital book?

Colin Bell's Stephen Dearsley's Summer of Love is on the longlist and I do hope it makes it to the next stage. It also cuts across time as the young fogey Stephen, who is uptight, and upright, finds love, drugs and the facts about the mysterious Austin Randolph who's biography he has been commissioned to write. Like Hensher's the form of the book is alternating chapters of time and characters, that gather together to create a whole picture of various times and lives. Randolph proves to have been one of Oswald Mosely's Blackshirts, yet a highly charismatic figure who everyone, including his own half brother was in love with and lusted for. Stephen's summer of love in Brighton is well observed. Bell and Hensher easily convey a sense of what it must have been like to have been at the many times described. Bell is published by Ward Wood (a small UK company) while Hensher works with Harper Collins (a large international publisher) and their coverage has subsequently been very different. I don't really like artistic competitions as they are inherently based on the personal biases of the judges. What I think, matters to a few friends, but I hugely enjoyed reading both books and hope others do too."

Dr Michael Petry

Artist, curator and author, director of MOCA London

Huffington Post 4th September 2014.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-michael-petry/