Ekphrasis pamphlet

ANDREW MCCALLUM KRISTINA ZIMBAKOVA BIGGAR POETRY GARDEN 2012

EKPHRASIS a collaboration

Andrew McCallum and Kristina Zimbakova

Copyright Š Andrew McCallum and Kristina Zimbakova 2012 All rights reserved

Allura She threads through a crush of bantering shoulders to swoop on our dead men.

It is the swaying barmaid.

It is she whom we have always loved, she of the long salty heartaches, the flirtation of passing hip and thigh pressed into our scrapbooks of desire.

We hear the begging fiction of nylon-rasp, the silky diction of limbs dipping into the moist labour of our drinking.

We lap at the dregs of her, the cherry red suggestiveness on the brim of a glass, its foaming emptiness.

We play the line of her high-heeled banter, teetering on the nether edge of fantasy.

She leaves carrying a silver tray loaded with ten-a-penny sins.

Ours is a sordid kind of love.

But even as the beer-spills run, even as the beer mats sink in their own saturation, it is better than not to have known the mystery of it all.

Daunce Tанц

Yer daunce is lik music; yer step, ootby itsel an bricht, muives ti the meisur o its ain dumm sílence.

The sounless spartlin-back o siplins i the win speiks throu yer bodie’s lissom strenth, an throu yer slicht an slenner heicht tids the lithe rhythm o the bluid.

An wi ilka braith yer breist airches, liftin ye lifewart in lang lines o brawness… syne draps ye doun the braes o daith again

Dance Your dance is like music; your step,/outside itself and bright,/moves to the measure of its own voicelessness./ The soundless springing back of saplings in the wind/ speaks through your body’s graceful strength,/and through your slight and slender height/tides the supple rhythm of the blood./And with each breath your breast arches,/lifting you lifeward in long lines of beauty…/then drops you down the slopes of death again.

deleerit lassie луда девојка she sets i the faur neuk scaurs vísible on her naikit airms wan-shoothert lik venus de milo we cam here on a thursday efternuin ti speik for twa-three oors for ordnar – in whíspert syllables fornent oor ain her wuirds are fire alairms beseikin aab'die ti rin ti the exits but we set an herken ti her aintrin ailphabet her unco vowels ettlin ti ken hou her ‘now-time’ feels agin aa the oors an meenits spent scartin her shackles Mad girl she sits in the far corner/scars visible on her naked arms/whiteshouldered like venus de milo/we come here on thursday afternoons/to talk for a couple of hours/usually – in whispered syllables/against our own her words are fire alarms/warning everyone to run to the exits/but we sit and listen to her strange alphabet/her peculiar vowels/striving to understand how her ‘now-time’ feels/compared to all the hours and minutes spent/cutting her wrists

dream o the butterflees Сонот на пеперутките

licht-farrent they faa on the gairden bricht butterflees o spring chitterin braiths breid frae heiven sakeless they licht upon the green that yester-year’s kail-wuirms strippit doun ti grou the wíngs o this year's brawness

Dream of the butterflies frivolous they fall on the garden/bright butterflies of spring/shimmering breaths manna from heaven/innocent they light upon the green/that last year’s caterpillars defoliated/to grow the wings of this year’s beauty

the weight of logic burdens him makes pessimists of the blindest of watchmakers just as the wax begins to warm the earth is forgotten icarus follows his father’s tunnel through the sky the sun follows icarus, orbiting his temptation sweat drips into the sea below swiftly they move - meandering guided by landmarks towards their destination he has had all time to plan but he twists – a moment’s careless genius -flies back the way he came sun stalks his father still

flying together Заедно во лет

diving back into morning as far as the night before icarus calls to the top of the sky the sky sinks to meet him

they leave the wind is slow cool invisible through the wind their arms waft icarus ascends swimming through air he puts distance between himself and the sea

he rises her legs pull him upwards into the safe warm comfort and excitement of her behind the light the lovers enfold in perpetual uninterrupted night

gaeins-on in naitur Случување во природата "Gin the doors o perception war soum’t, aahin wad be kyth’t ti man as it is, mairchless. For man haes steek’t himsel up, til he sees aahin throu the nairae gaigs o his co’." – William Blake

the craws are stappin chimleys inti their kists an flittin ti the laund o the pharaohs snaa white is makkin freens wi hailstanes staurs wi rings throu their lugs are settin on twirlie stairs a haun draws back the simmer rain alang wi the girse that grous doun lik hingins frae the luft up i the glen a loch sprauchles ti its feet ti ser as a keekin-gless stanes are stane-cauld betimes lik bairnies blabbin alang the burns – an the dorbie’s gleg eneuch ti trowe whit they say a muinth o muins rises lik the stove o oor braiths ane wuird leads ti anither ti mak poetrie fou o brawness lik the nicht daidlin a neu daw in its airms ilkane the aik-nit o the morn

I speik ti god but the luft is tuimt Му зборувам на бог но небото е празно god’s forleetin me he telt me sae I ast whit fir, an he said thon’s juist the wey it is I ast him whit I wad dae athoot him he ast me, whit will ye dae?

I ast cud I dae onyhin I wantit he said, ye can dae that onywice I ast wad I gang ti heiven he said, heiven’s nou dae you hae heiven?

I ast wad I iver see him again he said – ye’ve ay bín the een I leuk throu

I speak to god but the sky is empty god is abandoning me/he told me so/I asked him why, and he said/that is just the way things are/I asked him what I would do without him/he asked me, what will you do?/I asked if I could do anything I wanted/he said, you can do that anyway/I asked would I go to heaven/he said, heaven’s now/do you have heaven?/I asked would I ever see him again/he said – /you have always been the eyes I look through

mother and ember Мајка и жарче say a quiet word to the cat when you wake in the dark house before the light grows loud say good morning to the fears that scuttle across your bedroom floor say hello before they dart beneath the shadows say good evening to the flies scrambling in and out of the honey pot say a word to them to the geese working towards a place of greater warmth say goodbye without hesitation

The wundit warld Ранет свет We ast the deid ti bide awa -wee laddies, buggert an strangelt, fed ti hungert syle neist muckle gallaes; sodgers, shreedit throu the cuisinarts o roadside bombs an guidit míssiles; auld fowk, aipples flain bi baignets, left ti shrível in the sun – but the deid war sneistie an misbehauden.

They war owre thrawn ti tak the empie forms o ghaists. They crowl't inti oor harns lik keds. An whan they wammelt their mittelt bodies, we cudna gainstaun the thochts we’d shapt that haurd ti birrie.

Whit fur are ye daein this? — we speirt.

Reddin ye — they said – juist reddin ye.

The wounded world We asked the dead to stay away - /small boys, sodomised and strangled, fed to hungry soil beside large gallows; soldiers, shredded through the meat grinders of roadside bombs and guided missiles; elderly people, apples peeled by bayonets, left to shivel in the sun./ - But the dead were disdainful and unobliging./ They were too intractable to take the empty shapes of ghosts. They crawled into our brains like sheep-ticks. And when they writhed their mutilated bodies, we could not withstand the thoughts we had tried so hard to bury./ Why are you doing this? – we asked./ Preparing you – they said – just preparing you.

God knows what the wind will blow away Кој знае што се ветрот ќе однесе An old woman, who hasn’t died a winter yet, wanders the fields, gathering daisies.

the ratton’s staur Ѕвездата на стаорецот

Every flower in her apron is a star; her apron is the sky.

we haedna a hantle o time…

When she returns to her house, she scatters them to dry like shells on a beach, to bring good fortune, to whisper the days to come.

the hunchie-backit win led the wey throu the wuids oor sílence gart us leuk lik ghaists that haed roup’t their corps we socht ti fuind oor ain skíns an be haill wi them aince mair

Her hair glistens in the sun.

A star glints in her golden earring.

The daisies dry.

leal-hertit we taen the nairae gait the win ruívin oor faces

But next winter, when the future comes, it will silence the whispers.

She will be buried with her ancestors.

the rat’s star we did not have much time…/the humpbacked wind/led the way through the woods/our silence made us resemble ghosts/that had pawned their bodies/we were looking to redeem our own skins/and be whole with them again/faithfully we took the strait path/the wind lacerating our faces

Then her hand, scarred by labour, that spun the wool of the ewes and flourished her wedding dress, gathers the dried flowers to sell.

And yet – as if by chance, as if by magic, as if by a miracle – behind her house daisies will continue to grow each year.

Many seeds have flown; these have remained.

Artist’s Statement – Andrew McCallum

Artist’s Statement – Kristina Zimbakova

“A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears.” - Gertrude Stein

''As is painting, so is poetry'' - Horace

“A guilty conscience needs to confess. confession.” - Albert Camus

A work of art is a

Born in 1959, Andrew McCallum is a widely published poet from Biggar in southern Scotland. He writes in both English and synthetic Scots.

Andrew was brought up listening to the Scots of his grandparents’ generation and associates the language with the local landscape in which that generation lived and worked and left their traces. Much of his writing reflects a powerful connection with that landscape and its resonances.

While studying philosophy at Dundee and Edinburgh, Andrew was particularly attracted to the ideas of those writers, inspired by Der Blaue Reiter group of artists, who explored the role of poetry in ‘disclosing’ aspects of the world – its moods and meanings – which are ‘forgotten’ in the hustle and bustle of modern life and ‘forbidden’ in scientific narratives. In much of his poetry, he tries to disclose the moods and meanings he finds in the landscape in which his biography and family history are rooted. He calls this project 'an attempt to lyric existence’. He is strongly committed in his practice to the idea of poetry as this kind of expressive engagement with the landscapes of one’s own life-world.

Andrew is also interested in interdisciplinary creative practice. His ekphrastic work ties in with his expressionist aesthetic: attempting to express one’s sense of an artwork poetically is an [authentic] way of engaging with it as part of ‘the landscape in which one dwells’.

"Poetry is a speaking picture, painting a silent poetry.'' Simonides of Keos Born 1975 in Strumica, the Republic of Macedonia, the artist and philologist Kristina Zimbakova lives and works in Skopje.

Since the early 1990s, most of her work has involved the creation of paintings and drawings that are essentially a subtle confession. Her personal world of both anguish and bliss is rendered through expressive, colourful, symbolic representations that evoke feelings which all of us can identify with: love, pain, fear, ecstasy. Her art is an attempt at healing and self-discovery.

With a degree in English Literature from Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, her literary background also informs her paintings in a variety of ways and contributes to her interdisciplinary approach to visual art. Language is a prominent feature of her work. References to the poetry of Sylvia Plath have been a lush source of inspiration. Kristina often incorporates text into the piece and creates graffiti-style, witty, embroidered inscriptions.

Pertaining to techniques, all her artworks are mixedmedia. In addition to conventional art material (acrylic, pastel, charcoal, pencil, wax), Kristina commonly applies collage of wood shavings, shredded paper, poppy seed, raffia, fabric, leather, wire, hair, as well as found objects (fungi, minerals, shoes etc). In the last two years she has also resorted to hand-embroidery. Texture is a vital element to the content of her work and, since her beginnings as an artist, she has found that the richness of mixed media provide her with the necessary freedom of formal expression.

No matter how contradictory it may sound to produce art that is concurrently discrete and confessional, in many aspects fine art equals poetry. Hence it must retain the alluring mystery of its visual language.