The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. The winning poets receive $65,000 (Cdn) each and an additional $10,000 (Cdn) goes to each shortlisted poet who reads at the annual Griffin Poetry Prize Shortlist Readings in Toronto, Canada.
They said, ?You have a blue guitar, You do not play things as they are.? The man replied, ?Things as they are are changed upon the blue guitar.? - The Blue Guitar (Wallace Stevens)
I do my best to tell it true a thing exceeding hard to do or tell it slant as Emily advises in her poetry, and, colour blind, how can I know if green is blue or cinnabar. Find me a colour chart that I can check against a summer sky. My eye is on a distant star. They said, ?You have a blue guitar.?
?I have,? the man replied, ?it?s true. The instrument I strum is blue I strum my joy, I strum my pain I strum the sun, I strum the rain. But tell me, what is that to you? You see things as you think they are. Remove the mote within your ear then talk to me of what you hear.? They said, ?Go smoke a blue cigar! You do not play things as they are.?
?Things as they are? Above? Below? In hell or heaven? Fast or slow ??? They silenced him. ?It?s not about philosophy, so cut it out. We want the truth and not what you are playing on the blue guitar. So start again and play it straight don?t improvise, prevaricate. Just play things as they really are.? The man replied, ?Things as they are
are not the same as things that were or will be in another year. The literal is rarely true for truth is old and truth is new and faceted ? a metaphor for something higher than we are. I play the truth of Everyman I play the truth as best I can. The things I play are better far when changed upon the blue guitar.?
It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet, has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness; and the hands keep on moving, smoothing the holy surfaces.
‘In Praise of Ironing’, PABLO NERUDA
It has to be loved the way a laundress loves her linens, the way she moves her hands caressing the fine muslins knowing their warp and woof, like a lover coaxing, or a mother praising. It has to be loved as if it were embroidered with flowers and birds and two joined hearts upon it. It has to be stretched and stroked. It has to be celebrated. O this great beloved world and all the creatures in it. It has to be spread out, the skin of this planet.
The trees must be washed, and the grasses and mosses. They have to be polished as if made of green brass. The rivers and little streams with their hidden cresses and pale-coloured pebbles and their fool’s gold must be washed and starched or shined into brightness, the sheets of lake water smoothed with the hand and the foam of the oceans pressed into neatness. It has to be ironed, the sea in its whiteness;
and pleated and goffered, the flower-blue sea the protean, wine-dark, grey, green, sea with its metres of satin and bolts of brocade. And sky – such an O! overhead – night and day must be burnished and rubbed by hands that are loving so the blue blazons forth and the stars keep on shining within and above and the hands keep on moving.
It has to be made bright, the skin of this planet till it shines in the sun like gold leaf. Archangels then will attend to its metals and polish the rods of its rain. Seraphim will stop singing hosannas to shower it with blessings and blisses and praises and, newly in love, we must draw it and paint it our pencils and brushes and loving caresses smoothing the holy surfaces.
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