Good morning, Maureen, and Happy Christmas to you. I really appreciate your comments and the effort you made to write them. They are so lovely!
I have since written a note to go with the poems because some readers may find it interesting and helpful. In it I say that I did in fact send a Christmas card to the graveyard, and it was delivered (because I know the postman).
This a very fine comment, Maureen, and I thank you for taking the time to read this post and comment on it. I agree with everything you have written here. Martin possesses a rare gift for writing intensely moving poetry. I personally find that so much of the academically acclaimed “poetry” of today is devoid of any genuine feeling and emotive power. We desperately need more poetry like Martin’s.
These are fine poems by Martin Mc Carthy and show his range as a poet. It bears noting that Martin doesn't slight the Muses himself. Take, for instance, his poems written for and about Sappho, the Tenth Muse.
Thank you, Mike, for your kind comment on the three poems included here, and for noting my range as a poet. I do indeed love Sappho's work (and perhaps Sappho herself) and have written the best poems I could write in her voice an style as a tribute to her. Happy Christmas to you and yours.
It may happen sometime in the next year. I'm leaving that possibility distinctly open. But already a lot of other ideas, and possible poems are in my head. It depends on how the Muse or spirit moves me. As Mike said in his opening comment, I have a wide range.
I couldn’t agree more, Mike! Martin has a very impressive poetic range, and his Sappho poems are nothing short of phenomenal. Thank you for taking the time to comment today.
It's a great honour and privilege for me to have three poems of mine featured in the Christmas special edition of The New Stylus, and I wish to sincerely thank its editor, Shannon Winestone, for doing this for me. All three poems are relatable and totally appropriate for the day and week that's in it - which, for most of us, is a time when we remember a loved one who is no longer with us, and also treasure those who are. Happy Christmas to all Substack readers - especially those who have taken the time on this busy day to read this. All comments are most welcome.
You’re most welcome, my friend! I was happy to do it, and the honor is all mine. I agree that all three of the poems are extremely relatable and appropriate for the season. Your poems in general are very relatable to say the least.
I join you in wishing Substack readers a merry Christmas. I greatly appreciate people taking time to read this post today, and I also welcome any and all comments.
I just want to wish you personally a very Happy Christmas after the busy year you had. Your achievement in publishing the first breathtaking issue of The New Stylus (all 19 instalments of it) is nothing less than extraordinary. It would make quite an anthology of poetry.
You're most welcome. I just had my morning tea - I really love tea - and I'm about to boil the ham. So it will be a day of preparing things for tomorrow and reading Substack at the same time. Not a bad day at all.
Believe it or not, a friend gave me a present of some tea for Christmas. It's called Barry's Earl Grey, and it's described as 'A classical blend of black tea infused with aromatic bergamot.' It's fantastic! I must send you a few bags.
Martin's poetry surprises me with its beauty, diversity and scope. If poetry has a touch of stardust, i.e. the constituent matter of everything that exists, beauty and sensitivity must be present in poetry, just as when we look at the stars in the sky and realize that we are nothing but a bit of stardust, i.e. we are all poetry, but only a few can write it.
'We are all poetry, but only a few can write it.' What an extraordinary thing to say! So poetic in itself. Thank you so much, Rolando. You've brightened up my day
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment today, Rolando! I greatly appreciate it. I honestly think your comment is a fine tribute in and of itself to Martin’s poetry. It does indeed possess “beauty, diversity, and scope.”
It wasn't my intention to say anything regarding the three poems featured in this post, but I have already received two messages asking me to do so, so I'll just say a few brief words about each of them.
'A Christmas Card for Mum' is, of course, a poem for my mother, who is sadly no longer with us. I miss her very much. And I did, in fact, send a Christmas card to the graveyard where she is buried, because I knew she'd like that, if she is still there somewhere disguised as a robin - the great symbol of renewal and rebirth.
'Priorities' is a poem I wrote during the Covid outbreak, outlining the importance of family members in our lives, especially children - and how we should cherish them above wealth and power and material things - which pale into insignificance in comparison.
'Stardust' is a poem dedicated to my friend, Bob Zisk, who perpetually endeavours to write poems of the highest quality imaginable. So my poem, rather inevitably, becomes a discussion of what that quality is. In other words, what differentiates a great poem from a mediocre one? If anybody has any thoughts regarding this, or anything else, please share them.
I thank you immensely for sharing this with us, Martin! I greatly enjoyed reading about the background of these poems and what your thoughts are concerning them. I was particularly touched by what you wrote about your mother and how you really did send a Christmas card to the graveyard where she is buried. I think that’s very sweet.
I am actually going to visit the graveyard in the new year. It's only about 80 miles from here, so I'll be able to check on that card. It will no doubt be 'compounded with clay ' by then (to quote Shakespeare) But that's nice also - something natural about it, in this age of machines and gadgetry.
These are beautiful, Martin! I especially like the reference to poetry having a touch of stardust since stardust is one of my favorite mediums. Happy Christmas, Martin!
I'm an artist, writer, gardener and sometimes dabble in making music, these are my mediums, but the one I prefer and the one I go back to most is poetry. To me poetry comes from the stars, from some far place in our fantasies where we can touch other worlds and for a few brief moments be a part of something bigger than our small lives on this planet in these mortal bodies. Poetry, for me, is a medium that consists of stardust. Like paint is a medium for making pictures, stardust is a medium for making poetry. I 'paint' it across a piece of paper and it turns into magic that changes my life and, hopefully, the lives of those who read it. And, just like poetry, stardust is a fleeting substance known only by the heart, the soul and that part of us that is eternal.
You are definitely right about poetry. Poetry links us to something greater than ourselves. So, in that sense, it's a proper medium. We are, in essence, stardust. And it brings us right back to our essence. Thank you for commenting, Carrie.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, Carrie! I greatly appreciate it, especially on a day like this. I know what a busy time of year the holiday season is for many people.
I envy and am gratified ny Martin's relationship with his mother. My recollections are much more ambivalent.
Martin's poetry is. In its limpid clarity, a lesson in what Dionysius of Halicarnassus called the smooth or middle style, the style of acknowledged masters like Sappho, Anacreon, and Simonides, a style from which I, in moments when my spring is sufficiently unwound, have much to learn. Dionysius remarks concerning this middle way:
"...its words should be properly dove-tailed and fitted together, but also that the clauses should be carefully inwoven with one another and all issue in a period. It limits the length of a clause so that it is neither shorter nor longer than the right mean, and the compass of the period so that a man’s full breath will be able to cover it." This is the balance and attention to harmony of sound and sense which I have found in the poems printed in the New Stylus. This is a grace of composition which seems deceptively straightforward, but which, in its seeming simplicity, holds the reader captive with its directness and attention to seemingly unadorned beauty. The spell which such poetry weaves reflects a modest delight in poetic nakedness, a restraint which never borders on the lurid.Lucid.
I can't close these remarks without some mention of Martin's final New Stylus selection, which caught me by surprise.
As I have gotten older I have yielded in my understanding to free association as distinct from argument and deduction. Martin's poem, in its generosity, elicited a memory of a romantic moment from childhood. I was enamored of an older girl, a first cousin. After much back and forth in my mind, I had decided to declare my feelings.
Seated in the outhouse which I had forgotten to latch, I was putting together my declaration, when the little chamber was suddenly flooded with light: the door to the outhouse was flung open, and there, for one brief moment of illumination, caught in the nakedness of love, my eyes met those of my dear cousin, and we were both speechless. The door slammed shut and I was unable to seize opportunity by the forelock. My cousin and I never spoke of that moment or the sudden meeting of our eyes, those eyes reputed to be the entry point of love.
Martin's poem, sudden and generous, leaves me similarly mute, and only able to respond with my embarrassing recollection.
Hello, Bob. How are you? And how are you holding up at the moment? I was so glad to be given the opportunity by Shannon to provide poems for the Christmas special, and especially glad to be in a position to dedicate a poem to you after all the truly fine poetry you've written throughout the years.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such an interesting comment on this post. I genuinely enjoyed reading it. I am very glad Martin dedicated “Star Dust” to you. It is a well-deserved honor. Merry Christmas!
That is some poem, Bob! And it really is the one I was thinking of. I won't have to go far now to find it. I can simply come here. There are so many good lines in it. Looking at it right now, I am particularly drawn to these:
"And I, who've walked in the glow of their far flung light,
This poem is phenomenal, Bob! From start to finish, it is nothing short of remarkable! I personally think this is one of your absolute best poems, which is saying a lot, given the huge amount of truly amazing poems that you have written. You really have given so much to the poetry world. Thank you so much for sharing this fine poem with us. I truly believe it enriches the conversation here.
This poem, in my opinion, adds a little touch of stardust to everything being said here. It is the very poem I had in mind when I dedicated 'Stardust' to our friend Bob.
Thanks for subscribing and for taking the time to comment, Jonathan! I greatly appreciate it, especially on a day like this. I know how busy the Christmas season is for many people.
You bring the stardust, Martin. Not surprised that my mind is drawn to the star-dusty work, and your poems are full of it.
Just spent Christmas Eve with Lisa's mom, who at 92 well, I cannot honestly say she is easy but she was a treasure last night. A warm old-time table with Balvenie single malt shared among brothers and sisters. That is no country for young men, and after a round or two, you could almost hear the back row of the dead in the not far distance.
Thank you for your inspiration to me as a poet. Please keep writing and sharing. Cheers my brother. 🥃
Good morning, Jed, and thank you for taking the time to write this. You bring the world you're in (is it Connecticut?) over Christmas vividly to life. As I was just saying to Shannon, in an earlier reply, I'm planning to visit my my mum's grave very soon, so I'll be able to check the back row of the dead to see how my card is doing. Talk to you soon, my friend.
Good morning, Maureen, and Happy Christmas to you. I really appreciate your comments and the effort you made to write them. They are so lovely!
I have since written a note to go with the poems because some readers may find it interesting and helpful. In it I say that I did in fact send a Christmas card to the graveyard, and it was delivered (because I know the postman).
This a very fine comment, Maureen, and I thank you for taking the time to read this post and comment on it. I agree with everything you have written here. Martin possesses a rare gift for writing intensely moving poetry. I personally find that so much of the academically acclaimed “poetry” of today is devoid of any genuine feeling and emotive power. We desperately need more poetry like Martin’s.
You’re very welcome! I am glad that we agree. Seasons greetings to you also!
These are fine poems by Martin Mc Carthy and show his range as a poet. It bears noting that Martin doesn't slight the Muses himself. Take, for instance, his poems written for and about Sappho, the Tenth Muse.
Thank you, Mike, for your kind comment on the three poems included here, and for noting my range as a poet. I do indeed love Sappho's work (and perhaps Sappho herself) and have written the best poems I could write in her voice an style as a tribute to her. Happy Christmas to you and yours.
I think the Tenth Muse herself would approve of your Sapphics.
I think I may have another Sappho poem in me. I may return to it in the new year.
I will look forward to it.
Merry Christmas!
Really? That’s unbelievable! I can hardly wait tor read it! Your collection of Sappho poems may never be truly completed.
It may happen sometime in the next year. I'm leaving that possibility distinctly open. But already a lot of other ideas, and possible poems are in my head. It depends on how the Muse or spirit moves me. As Mike said in his opening comment, I have a wide range.
Yes, you most certainly do have a wide range. I greatly look forward to eventually seeing what you come up with, whatever that may be.
I couldn’t agree more, Mike! Martin has a very impressive poetic range, and his Sappho poems are nothing short of phenomenal. Thank you for taking the time to comment today.
I have enjoyed each issue of The New Stylus so far, please keep up the good work!
Thank you very much! I’m glad you’ve enjoyed each issue so far. That means a lot to me.
It's a great honour and privilege for me to have three poems of mine featured in the Christmas special edition of The New Stylus, and I wish to sincerely thank its editor, Shannon Winestone, for doing this for me. All three poems are relatable and totally appropriate for the day and week that's in it - which, for most of us, is a time when we remember a loved one who is no longer with us, and also treasure those who are. Happy Christmas to all Substack readers - especially those who have taken the time on this busy day to read this. All comments are most welcome.
You’re most welcome, my friend! I was happy to do it, and the honor is all mine. I agree that all three of the poems are extremely relatable and appropriate for the season. Your poems in general are very relatable to say the least.
I join you in wishing Substack readers a merry Christmas. I greatly appreciate people taking time to read this post today, and I also welcome any and all comments.
I just want to wish you personally a very Happy Christmas after the busy year you had. Your achievement in publishing the first breathtaking issue of The New Stylus (all 19 instalments of it) is nothing less than extraordinary. It would make quite an anthology of poetry.
Thank you so very much, Martin! I’m glad you think so, and your good opinion means a great deal to me. Merry Christmas to you as well, my friend!
You're most welcome. I just had my morning tea - I really love tea - and I'm about to boil the ham. So it will be a day of preparing things for tomorrow and reading Substack at the same time. Not a bad day at all.
Enjoy your tea, my friend! I hope your preparations for Christmas go well. I know I said I was going to bed before, but I mean it this time. 😂
Believe it or not, a friend gave me a present of some tea for Christmas. It's called Barry's Earl Grey, and it's described as 'A classical blend of black tea infused with aromatic bergamot.' It's fantastic! I must send you a few bags.
"Earlier this year you died,
and there was a robin in the graveyard
when they buried you …
then the days flew by."
Martin's poetry surprises me with its beauty, diversity and scope. If poetry has a touch of stardust, i.e. the constituent matter of everything that exists, beauty and sensitivity must be present in poetry, just as when we look at the stars in the sky and realize that we are nothing but a bit of stardust, i.e. we are all poetry, but only a few can write it.
Thank you Martin for brightening up our days.
'We are all poetry, but only a few can write it.' What an extraordinary thing to say! So poetic in itself. Thank you so much, Rolando. You've brightened up my day
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment today, Rolando! I greatly appreciate it. I honestly think your comment is a fine tribute in and of itself to Martin’s poetry. It does indeed possess “beauty, diversity, and scope.”
hi Shannon. I am glad you appreciate it
It wasn't my intention to say anything regarding the three poems featured in this post, but I have already received two messages asking me to do so, so I'll just say a few brief words about each of them.
'A Christmas Card for Mum' is, of course, a poem for my mother, who is sadly no longer with us. I miss her very much. And I did, in fact, send a Christmas card to the graveyard where she is buried, because I knew she'd like that, if she is still there somewhere disguised as a robin - the great symbol of renewal and rebirth.
'Priorities' is a poem I wrote during the Covid outbreak, outlining the importance of family members in our lives, especially children - and how we should cherish them above wealth and power and material things - which pale into insignificance in comparison.
'Stardust' is a poem dedicated to my friend, Bob Zisk, who perpetually endeavours to write poems of the highest quality imaginable. So my poem, rather inevitably, becomes a discussion of what that quality is. In other words, what differentiates a great poem from a mediocre one? If anybody has any thoughts regarding this, or anything else, please share them.
Happy Christmas, my friends!
I thank you immensely for sharing this with us, Martin! I greatly enjoyed reading about the background of these poems and what your thoughts are concerning them. I was particularly touched by what you wrote about your mother and how you really did send a Christmas card to the graveyard where she is buried. I think that’s very sweet.
I am actually going to visit the graveyard in the new year. It's only about 80 miles from here, so I'll be able to check on that card. It will no doubt be 'compounded with clay ' by then (to quote Shakespeare) But that's nice also - something natural about it, in this age of machines and gadgetry.
These are beautiful, Martin! I especially like the reference to poetry having a touch of stardust since stardust is one of my favorite mediums. Happy Christmas, Martin!
What do you mean by mediums, Carrie? I am very intrigued by that comment.
I'm an artist, writer, gardener and sometimes dabble in making music, these are my mediums, but the one I prefer and the one I go back to most is poetry. To me poetry comes from the stars, from some far place in our fantasies where we can touch other worlds and for a few brief moments be a part of something bigger than our small lives on this planet in these mortal bodies. Poetry, for me, is a medium that consists of stardust. Like paint is a medium for making pictures, stardust is a medium for making poetry. I 'paint' it across a piece of paper and it turns into magic that changes my life and, hopefully, the lives of those who read it. And, just like poetry, stardust is a fleeting substance known only by the heart, the soul and that part of us that is eternal.
You are definitely right about poetry. Poetry links us to something greater than ourselves. So, in that sense, it's a proper medium. We are, in essence, stardust. And it brings us right back to our essence. Thank you for commenting, Carrie.
Perfectly said, Martin.
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, Carrie! I greatly appreciate it, especially on a day like this. I know what a busy time of year the holiday season is for many people.
I envy and am gratified ny Martin's relationship with his mother. My recollections are much more ambivalent.
Martin's poetry is. In its limpid clarity, a lesson in what Dionysius of Halicarnassus called the smooth or middle style, the style of acknowledged masters like Sappho, Anacreon, and Simonides, a style from which I, in moments when my spring is sufficiently unwound, have much to learn. Dionysius remarks concerning this middle way:
"...its words should be properly dove-tailed and fitted together, but also that the clauses should be carefully inwoven with one another and all issue in a period. It limits the length of a clause so that it is neither shorter nor longer than the right mean, and the compass of the period so that a man’s full breath will be able to cover it." This is the balance and attention to harmony of sound and sense which I have found in the poems printed in the New Stylus. This is a grace of composition which seems deceptively straightforward, but which, in its seeming simplicity, holds the reader captive with its directness and attention to seemingly unadorned beauty. The spell which such poetry weaves reflects a modest delight in poetic nakedness, a restraint which never borders on the lurid.Lucid.
I can't close these remarks without some mention of Martin's final New Stylus selection, which caught me by surprise.
As I have gotten older I have yielded in my understanding to free association as distinct from argument and deduction. Martin's poem, in its generosity, elicited a memory of a romantic moment from childhood. I was enamored of an older girl, a first cousin. After much back and forth in my mind, I had decided to declare my feelings.
Seated in the outhouse which I had forgotten to latch, I was putting together my declaration, when the little chamber was suddenly flooded with light: the door to the outhouse was flung open, and there, for one brief moment of illumination, caught in the nakedness of love, my eyes met those of my dear cousin, and we were both speechless. The door slammed shut and I was unable to seize opportunity by the forelock. My cousin and I never spoke of that moment or the sudden meeting of our eyes, those eyes reputed to be the entry point of love.
Martin's poem, sudden and generous, leaves me similarly mute, and only able to respond with my embarrassing recollection.
Hello, Bob. How are you? And how are you holding up at the moment? I was so glad to be given the opportunity by Shannon to provide poems for the Christmas special, and especially glad to be in a position to dedicate a poem to you after all the truly fine poetry you've written throughout the years.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write such an interesting comment on this post. I genuinely enjoyed reading it. I am very glad Martin dedicated “Star Dust” to you. It is a well-deserved honor. Merry Christmas!
Martin, Merry Christmas! I think this may be the poem to which you referred. I hope it still pleases:
Seneca by Moonlight
Clouds dispersed. The evening air grew still.
Crickets were silent. Coyotes did not howl,
And the crowns of the dark trees stood mute and tall,
Unswayed by the low piping of an owl.
October held her court among the stars,
And all the night paid homage. And I stood
Alone, as overhead the circling Bears
Ran in the plain of the Milky Way's flood.
Lords and ladies in tales already old
When old Mycenae was but a string around
A plot of dirt, traced their way through the cold
Autumn night, and a meandering wind
Murmured names and tales as vast as time
Itself. The Queen sat stately in her chair,
The Moon, cream white, ascended through her climb,
As pure as death and birth in the cold air.
And I, who've walked in the glow of their far flung light,
Exhaled a silver fog of spirit and dreams
That spiraled, curled, and wound into this night,
Drawn by tethers of stardust and moonbeams.
There is a place for me, perhaps, out there
Among the speckled swales of indigo,
And someday, when my smoke is blown through the clear
Breadth of night, I will draw the Archer's bow
And shoot an arrow across this galaxy,
And when it sinks in the wide ocean of space,
I'll walk the Dogs across the jeweled sky,
And in startrails and moonshine find my place.
That is some poem, Bob! And it really is the one I was thinking of. I won't have to go far now to find it. I can simply come here. There are so many good lines in it. Looking at it right now, I am particularly drawn to these:
"And I, who've walked in the glow of their far flung light,
Exhaled a silver fog of spirit and dreams
That spiraled, curled, and wound into this night,
Drawn by tethers of stardust and moonbeams."
This poem is phenomenal, Bob! From start to finish, it is nothing short of remarkable! I personally think this is one of your absolute best poems, which is saying a lot, given the huge amount of truly amazing poems that you have written. You really have given so much to the poetry world. Thank you so much for sharing this fine poem with us. I truly believe it enriches the conversation here.
This poem, in my opinion, adds a little touch of stardust to everything being said here. It is the very poem I had in mind when I dedicated 'Stardust' to our friend Bob.
These are marvelous, Martin, happy Christmas to you and yours ...
Thanks for subscribing and for taking the time to comment, Jonathan! I greatly appreciate it, especially on a day like this. I know how busy the Christmas season is for many people.
Hi Jonathan. Thank you so much for commenting on my poems, and for restacking also. I really appreciate it.
You bring the stardust, Martin. Not surprised that my mind is drawn to the star-dusty work, and your poems are full of it.
Just spent Christmas Eve with Lisa's mom, who at 92 well, I cannot honestly say she is easy but she was a treasure last night. A warm old-time table with Balvenie single malt shared among brothers and sisters. That is no country for young men, and after a round or two, you could almost hear the back row of the dead in the not far distance.
Thank you for your inspiration to me as a poet. Please keep writing and sharing. Cheers my brother. 🥃
Good morning, Jed, and thank you for taking the time to write this. You bring the world you're in (is it Connecticut?) over Christmas vividly to life. As I was just saying to Shannon, in an earlier reply, I'm planning to visit my my mum's grave very soon, so I'll be able to check the back row of the dead to see how my card is doing. Talk to you soon, my friend.