Umbra Sumus » poetry

A (late) Christmas post

stuartfreedman — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:12:38 +0000

As I slowly melt into the armchair under the weight and fug of too much food, alcohol and bad television I wondered what I could post that had some flavour of Christmas, image-wise… Seeing as I’ve never shot a Christmas story or stock at this time of year, I’m struggling a bit. I have come up with an old story I made in Northern Lebanon in 1998 about the work of Khalil Gibran, author of the Prophet. I travelled to B’sharre, then under the de facto control of the Syrian army of occupation and worked on a piece that illustrated the themes of Gibran’s poetry. Here are some pictures.

Lebanon - B'charre - A effigy of Christ in a coffin in a Maronite church in Khalil Gibran's birthplace in Northern Lebanon

Lebanon - B'charre - A crucifix painted on a wall in the snow in Khalil Gibran's birthplace, B'charre, Northern Lebanon. The area is occupied by Syrian troops and so the indigenous population paint crucifixes as a symbol of opposition

Lebanon - B'charre - A mysteriously empty coffin in a graveyard in Khalil Gibran's birthplace, B'charre, Northern Lebanon.."... do not grieve for me... I am gone from this place...". Gibran

Lebanon - B'charre - An elderly Maronite Christian couple leave church in Khalil Gibran's birthplace, B'charre, Northern Lebanon

Lebanon - B'charre - Dying flowers on a tomb in Khalil Gibran's birthplace, B'charre, Northern Lebanon

Lebanon - B'charre - A shepherd and his flock of sheep and goats near Khalil Gibran's birthplace, B'charre, Northern Lebanon.. ..." And He put His hand upon my shoulder and said, "From this day you shall love this sheep more than any other in your flock, for she was lost and now she is found"...Gibran

Lebanon - B'charre - A cross stands on a hillside in the Quadisha Valley near Khalil Gibran's birthplace, B'charre, Northern Lebanon. The Valley was the last refuge of the Maronire Christian hermits after the Islamic (Arab) invasions.

Dulce — No — Decorum — No — Pro patria mori

stuartfreedman — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:47:58 +0000

It’s been some weeks since the lives of two of the world’s oldest men came to a close. I’ve been out of the country a good deal recently and missed the chance to comment on Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, both veterans of ‘the war to end all wars‘. However, this morning, I noticed that the Hackney Gazette carried a story that Hackney Council is going to name a street after Allingham as he was born, like me, in Clapton.

I never met Allingham but I photographed Patch years ago for a Swiss Magazine whose name I’m afraid escapes me. Without criticism, it was Patch, buried without the military pomp that intrigued me more.

What stuck me about him was that he was a very, very ordinary man that by dint of a genetic fluke had lived on to become, very reluctantly, a living symbol of the Great War. An everyman. The Last Tommy. He seemed to me almost guilty about surviving and I suppose that isn’t uncommon for veterans who have seen their comrades fall. What was extraordinary was that he never spoke about the war until he was 100. When he did speak about it, it was to condemn utterly the futility and cruelty of what he had seen. I remember him, rasping in a soft, slow West country burr, how when he and his comrades were forced to open up on advancing Germans, they’d made a pact to try and shoot for their legs in order to avoid killing them. That to me seemed absurdly brave. His criticism of war (recently enshrined in a tribute by the band Radiohead) was no less telling. ‘Give your leaders each a gun and let them fight it out themselves…”.

UK - Somerset - Harry Patch, WW1 veteran

nb. The title refers to a line from Carol Anne Duffy‘s poem, ‘The Last Post‘ and is a reference to Wilfred Owen‘s quoting of Horace‘s words, “Dolce et Decorum est pro paria mori” (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country”).

The leaf, the rain and the poet

stuartfreedman — Fri, 29 May 2009 08:20:39 +0000

Yesterday, I managed to put my back out . I just bent over to pick up a file of papers and it gave way. Some of you will remember a more serious occasion in Delhi two years ago and me laying on the floor for weeks on end, moaning… but that’s another story. Anyway, as I lay there in a completely dignified manner with an ice-pack glued to my lower spine, I was distracted by the rain pelting down on my windows; it is almost summer in London after all. Then something odd happened. A leaf landed against the pane. A single, solitary leaf, not extraordinary, a leaf from a neighbour’s tree. It just sat there. Stuck. It’s still there despite the sunshine and the best efforts of the evening winds to dislodge it. It got me thinking. Firstly, how dirty the windows actually are and then, looking at it more closely, I thought I’d photograph the little chap. Over the last few years, I seem to have been looking more and more at plants and less and less at people. For the last couple of years, I’ve been making work in Delhi about space and gardens as a way to view the city and, strangely enough, I think my favourite frame that I made last year was of a tree and its fallen blossom in Hue on assignment in Vietnam. I don’t think my leaf is in that league but it did bring to mind the poetry of Ryokan whose work I always have with me when I travel and when I am down:

The plants and flowers
I raised about my hut
I now surrender
To the will
Of the wind

My particular favourite when it’s raining in London and when I have hurt my back:

You must rise above
The gloomy clouds
Covering the mountaintop
Otherwise, how will you
Ever see the brightness?

Here are the photographs that I mentioned. I hope that you like them. One day, I will go back to Japan and make some work on Ryokan…

UK - London - A leaf on a window pane blown there in a storm

Vietnam - Hue - Fallen blossoms under a tree