The new silence
By: Rob Cullen
Tags: Mourning, Resistance Poetry, Loose Words, Free Verse, Poetry On Medium

In memory of Eavon Boland

Born: 24 September 1944, Dublin, Ireland

Died: 27 April 2020, Dublin, Ireland

27th April 2020

©robcullen010620

-

At the start of the lockdown in March 2020 I suffered heart failure and after two operations was discharged to home and the reality of “shielding” which for a writer, living halfway up the side of a mountain surrounded by dense woodland is not much of a hardship. My response is simply to continue reading and writing. Oh and listening to music.

-

I began a mammoth rereading adventure firstly Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, and Garcia Lorca, sitting next to Samuel Becket on the shelf in front of me and followed by Eavon Boland. It was while I was reading Eavon Boland’s “In a time of violence” that the news of her death reached me. In response I wrote this poem. Poets who have been great influencing lights — their loss is hard to bare. But we live in a time when so many are experiencing that same loss — we are living in an extraordinary time. A time of disaster, but one that has a curious silence. The mourning bell for funerals no longer tolls and is silent.

-

This time of silence.

-

This time of silence has been remarkable for the full emergence of two evident powers. The first — the emergence of the necessity, brought about by Covid-19 restrictions, of office workers to continue to work at home — is portrayed as the benefit of the computer age and in some ways could be seen as its great redeemer. We hear less of the erosion of the division between personal time and space; and even less commentary on the invasion of our domesticity — although there was some provoked previously by the intrusiveness of the mobile phone and work by email. Our grandparents and forebears would be turning in their graves to witness the ease with which our personal time, so hard won by them, has been given away without ne’er a thought of regret or protest. There has been little in the way of discussion or consideration of the impact of this on mental health or on a greater sense of overall well-being.

-

The second power, is the growing reporting of the rate of mental health problems in the population as a whole. The combination of working at home, growing sense of isolation and alienation and mass unemployment — oh and don’t let’s forget to stir into this witches cauldron of a disaster a worldwide pandemic and a death rate that continues to grow through all generations. If this is not the “Perfect Storm” — then how so? Someone once said …”If nature isn’t thriving then neither are we”. Well we aren’t thriving!

I almost forgot the starting point — the function of the arts and poets and poetry — the voices of our society telling it as it is so that we all can see. The Arts and poetry in particular are in crisis — venues, theatres, meeting places are shut down — and the only choice available are on-line events or non-events as they seem to me. The sound of shouting into a bell jar. If only Camus could see what is taking place, working people, without knowing, undertake the never ending task of Sisyphus.

“A man devoid of hope and conscious of being so has ceased to belong to the future.”

― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

The starting point — a poets death…We are presently surrounded by death and the mourners’ bell is silent. When I was a child and there was a pit disaster — the pit hooters blasted out the warning call to the community to gather together. We grew up with a sense of ritual from death. Sudden death was a part of our lives, and the traditions surrounding the funeral for those grieving played important functions in holding families, workmates and communities together. Ritual allows the individual and the community to heal and return to life.

I was deeply affected by Eavon Boland’s unexpected death — someone, I only knew through her writing, but her writing had been a part of my life for several decades. Seamus Heaney too, had been an important reference point enabling me to find my voice. In this world of alienation represented only by the flat screen, with its absence of ritual or a sense in the need for ritual where are the reference points that nurture us, nurture our culture? The arts and poetry in particular must play an important role in rejecting this homogenous world of flatness.

Poetry must lead the way in rejecting and resisting mundanity and this age of silence.

“Freedom is a farewell with many meanings.”

Life without poetry, would be the emptiness of a still bell.

©robcullen23112020