Kim Batchelor

Writer of magical realism and other imaginative fiction

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May 16 2018

William Butler Yeats

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One writer most influenced the dreamscape of my youth—the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. I read his poems in assigned texts in my high school English class. I memorized two of them thanks to songs by folk singers Judy Collins—the poem “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”—and Donovan—“The Song of the Wandering Aengus.”

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

 

This poem always conjured up thoughts of a place in a clearing in the woods, a place of solitude and contemplation. Who can resist the lure of a small cabin and living ‘alone in a bee-loud glade’?

While Innisfree took me to a quiet cottage in the Irish countryside, “The Song of the Wandering Aengus” presented a mysterious story full of unusual and mystical images. According to Wikipedia, the Aengus (Old Irish: Oíngus, Óengus) is a character from Irish mythology who is a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann—a supernatural race. He is “probably a god of love, youth and poetic inspiration.”

I went out to the hazel wood,

Because a fire was in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

 

The trout becomes a ‘glimmering girl,’ who calls him by name and runs, fading through “the brightening air.”

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done,

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun.

 

Two recent books brought Yeats back to mind for me. In the recent young adult novel, The Hazel Wood, by Melissa Albert, is the story of seventeen-year-old Alice Prosperpine, who finds out about her grandmother’s death while on the road with her mother. Her grandmother, a children’s book writer, lived on an estate called The Hazel Wood. When Alice’s mother is kidnapped and taken to a supernatural place where her grandmother’s dark fairy tales are set, Alice is left no choice but to search for her mother with the help of one of her grandmother’s avid readers.

The actor David Duchovny wrote his most recent novel, Miss Subways, based on an obscure play by Yeats that has its roots in the Ulster Cycle of Irish Mythology. In the play, “The Only Jealousy of Emer,” Emer falls in love with the warrior hero Cu Chulainn. When Cu Chulainn inadvertently kills his own son, Emer is presented with a cruel bargain by a faerie Sidhe. If Emer gives up Cu Chulainn and her hope of growing old with him, the Sidhe will let him live. Duchovny’s book, Emer is a 41-year-old school teacher and her writer boyfriend is Cuchilain, otherwise known as Con. The modern Emir is presented with a similar bargain as her ancient counterpart. The Sidhe in this retelling is a doorman, and the bargain is that if Emer gives up her dreams of a life with Con, who is at that moment flirting with another woman outside a restaurant, he will be spared the fate of being hit by a car. Decisions, decisions.

I have no doubt that Yeats helped to inspire my book, The Mists of Na Crainn, and the mystical place I’m often fantasizing about.

 

 

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Written by Kim · Categorized: Celtic, Forest, Imagination, Magical realism, Poetry · Tagged: Innisfree, Song of the Wandering Aegus, William Butler Yeats

Feb 01 2016

Freedom and Apology

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inmatesThe jail where I teach creative writing once a month is almost all concrete and steel. I check in on the first floor, trade my id for a clip-on card indicating I should be escorted and make my way up to the classroom on the fourth floor. At various steps, I wait at those heavy steel doors to be buzzed in, one right after the other, passing the desk where I tell another set of deputies who I am and who I’m with before making my way to the final set of doors where the class is held, to examine the subject of apology.

Last  month, the subject was apologies. We started with three songs—from Brenda Lee, Elton John and John Lennon. “What’s the common thread?” I asked them. Several surprised me by how the songs brought out their emotions of regret. Children, partners, family members—they related to the singers’ words of apologies even though the songs were more than a decade old and they are largely in their 20s and early 30s. Later, gathered in groups, they turned the words of those three songs into one of their own—and then sang or rapped them. One performance was musical, another serious and passionate, and the third, extremely funny.

We wrapped up with one of William Carlos William’s poems, the one about the plums he apologized for taking from the ‘ice box’ but that were so cold and delicious, so how could he not? Apology with no regrets. The women wrote their own poems about apologizing for something that they weren’t really sorry for. One wrote of the rush from taking a drug she was now ready to say, ‘bye, bye’ to. Another prefaced her reading by saying she never really believed an apology was sincere, while all around her the women she shared space with spoke of their feelings of regret. About what they’d done in the past. The affect of their actions on others.

We ended by talking about the act of saying, “I’m sorry,” apologizing with intent of making things right. The 12 Steps of Recovery are posted on the wall. Make a moral inventory. Make a list of all persons harmed. Become willing to make amends to them all.

And not apologizing for everything, as we women tend to do, as if everything’s our fault.

Once the class was done, I walked into the night with the two volunteers who provide vital assistance during those two hours. We escaped the concrete and steel, free to do what we wanted to do and go where we wanted to go, I thought of those women I left behind, hoping the power of putting their thoughts to paper helps them along to that same freedom I enjoy at the end of each class. Free of whatever regrets holds them now and threatens to keep them coming back.

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Written by Kim · Categorized: Creativity, Imprisoned women, Inmates, Poetry, Writing · Tagged: apology, creative writing class, Dallas County jail, regret

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