Browsed by
Category: Card

300 • Postcard (4)

300 • Postcard (4)

Comments 4 Comments

My postcard to Wole Soyinka
Said ‘How d’you like Rodin’s “The Thinker”?’
‘Not as good as “The Dunce”,’
He responded at once
(I got the same answer from Glinka).

It’s encouraging, of course, to receive fresh evidence of empathy-across-time between writers and musicians, but it’s unsettling to discover that both spurn a sculptural masterpiece in favour of a work so definitively substandard that not a single art historian bothers even to mention it. Yet it sounds like a statue for our time, when so many forcibly-emptied plinths stand ready to accommodate images of some contemptible thick-head, should such a person come to public attention.

191 • Postcard (3)

191 • Postcard (3)

Comments 0 Comment

The postcard I sent Seamus Heaney
Asked ‘Have you been watching The Sweeney?’
‘Good luck, and get lost,’
Was his simple riposte
(The same as I got from Puccini).

Here we find a further instance of post-life coincidence, where two masters of different arts, from different countries, and from different times, are united in a single opinion which – though manifestly dismissive – is expressed with endearingly musical alliteration, and a paradoxical wit. [See also here and here]

177 • Postcard (2)

177 • Postcard (2)

Comments 0 Comment

My card to the poet John Dryden
Asked, ‘What of the sea-god, Poseidon?’
‘A bit of a nonce,’
Was his simple response
(I got the same answer from Haydn).

Dryden, ‘Glorious John’, died some 320 years ago, yet this does not preclude his responding, in dreams, to a postcard from a fan. More remarkable, perhaps, is that Haydn – whose earthly life did not overlap at all with Dryden’s – should turn out to echo the latter’s downbeat assessment of a celebrity nymph-molester. [See also here]

013 • Postcard

013 • Postcard

Comments 0 Comment

My postcard to Cardinal Newman
Asked, ‘What does it mean to be human?’
‘It means “Knowing You’ll Die”’
Was his simple reply
(I got the same answer from Schumann).

This kind of thoughtful feedback from historical figures is somehow heartening, even if their message is occasionally rather bleak.