Hidden Paris - a three church walk

Not exactly hidden,  more hiding in plain sight. Here's a suggested walk to three of Paris' outstanding churches.

Start a Saint Chapelle, the private chapel for the French royal family, located in the confusing complex of court buildings that is the Palais de Justice. Astonishingly beautiful stained glass awaits you in the King's chapel. The peasants worshipped in the lower chapel. Two tier church building at it's Gothic finest. I challenge you to find the carving of Eve being born from Adam's rib.

It will be crowded with tourists and is steep at 10 Euros for a look see. There is even known to be quite a queue on the street and you have to submit to X-raying your bags and walking through a metal detector, but that's a small price to pay for all this sumptuousness.

Next, make you way back to the river via Saint Severin. A huge church often overlooked, but don't miss it. The stained glass at the back of the church is well worth your while.

Finally cross the road to Saint Julien le Pauvre, one of Paris' oldest places of worship,complete with an icon screen. It's small and you might be lucky enough to avoid a tour group with no manners. Take a break in the adjacent park and then go book browsing at Shakespeare and Company.

Allow about two to three hours and enjoy things many people miss. Religious affiliation not required.

Paris Lit Up Writing Workshops - January 2014 - News

My next making workshop is on Sunday 5 January in the library at Shakespeare and Company as usual at 12h30h.

and NEW for 2014 starting on Saturday 11 January at the Cafe Apparement at 16h is a two hour weekly feedback workshop hosted by either Jason Francis Mc Gimsey, Paul Stephenson or me.

Do think about coming to one or other or both of these to kick start your writing year.

Ekphrasis with Sylvia Plath

This month's close read takes on Plath's poem The Disquieting Muses*. If you are interested in making art from art, as Plath does here, come to my next Paris Lit Up writing workshop on 7 April at 12h30 in the library at Shakespeare and Company. If you can't wait until then, there is a writing prompt for you to try at the end of this post.

Plath uses the idea of and rewrites the Sleeping Beauty fairytale in this poem addressed to her mother. Instead of asking why the wicked fairy was not invited to her christening she wants to know which family member was not invited and chose to send 'three ladies in her stead/with heads like darning needles'. The second stanza expands this imagery into other children's stories and fairytales with its reference to Hanzel and Gretel, to ask whether her mother's words from these sources dispelled the ladies 'nodding at night around my bed'.

The ladies represent the ultimate childhood nightmare for Plath. As she says idiomatically in the third stanza, they even broke her father's study window panes where a hurricane did not and in the fourth and fifth stanza prevented her from enjoying the delights of childhood like dancing, 'singing the glowworm song' and playing the piano. The nightmare continues into adulthood as the muses are the travelling companions she must face as they 'stand their vigil in gowns of stone/Faces as blank as the day I was born/Their shadows long in the setting sun'.

Plath continues to lay the finger of blame for her state of mind, and here we might read-in some biography and her depressive episodes, on her mother. The repetition of the words mother, mother lays emphasis on this at the opening of the poem, in the final stanza and at several places in between.

The poem ends with a puzzle that she will not betray the company of the muses. What does this mean? That they are far from nightmare and by now familiar comfort, artistic guides even, or that to oppose her mother she must alley herself with what terrifies herself most? Perhaps both. This poem is often read as the young woman wrestling older female figures who are trying to smother her**, but I think this is a simplifcation.

Of course, all of this is without even knowing that Plath had in mind a particular painting, executed during World War I by Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio di Chirico, when she wrote this. Once you see the painting (left), the description of the figures and their precise position around the crib is apparent, and somehow for me less nightmarish. Unfortunately, now you know this, you can never read the poem in isolation, as you are almost bound to want to navigate between the two to see which elements Plath used and which she ignored.

That is an added dimension to the game of ekphrasis and specifically what is crucial for the writer, I now think, is to be skilled enough to make a completely self-contained poem that does not need to be informed by knowledge of its source. Often I find it tedious to have such imposed on me as reader, as it requires work on my part to go elsewhere (and I am inherently lazy), instead of just enjoying the poem, although guilty as charged on previous occasions!

And now for the writing...Find yourself a scary painting. There are plenty to choose from (Bosch, Fuseli, Munch come readily to mind). Use its images as description for something scary from your childhood. It does not have to be a gothic nightmare, just something that frightened you (and perhaps still does). Just remember to cut it loose from its moorings and don't make the piece dependent on knowing the painting, avoid references to the actual artist, although you might want to throw the reader a clue, as Plath does, in the title or in one of the lines. Have fun. Boo!

 * The poem can be found in the Faber Collected Plath (1982) pg. 74
** See Cambridge Introduction to Sylvia Plath (2008) pg.42 and further cites. 

Saying Goodbye to George Whitman

Family, friends and the writers of Paris turned out today to say goodbye to George Whitman, founder of the world famous Shakespeare and Company, who died last week at the grand age of 98. 

He was buried at Pere Lachaise this afternoon following a beautiful service with eulogies from Jeanette Winterson and his daughter Sylvia and readings of Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas, So Long by Walt Whitman, George Himself by Lawrence Ferlinghetti and George's open letter The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart.

Without George's unfailing generosity there would be no Other Writers group for me to go to and I would never have met all my Parisian friends.

My happy life here is largely thanks to him.

Spoken Word, Paris

Not only are there bookshops - there is an open mic - hurrray for that - run by David Barnes, who also leads the Saturday writers' workshop at Shakespeare and Company. It's every Monday night from 8 ish - remember we are on Paris time now - till late. Check the website for the location as it keeps changing at present.

Last night was a Hallowe'en fest of spooky stuff - The Raven, a retelling of Red Riding Hood - as well as other poems, stories and songs in English and Italian. My favourite performance was Yeats read from under a sheet. Excellent and free.

http://spokenwordparis.blogspot.com/

English Language Bookshops in Paris - 1

As my French is, well, fairly rudimentary and my need for the spoken word is huge, it is a great surprise to find that Paris has so many English language bookshops. I suppose the most famous of these is Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank (just opposite Notre Dame). http://shakespeareandcompany.com/

Not only is it packed floor to ceiling with an excellent stock of new and some quality second hand books, at not too bad a mark up on UK prices, but it also holds author readings almost every Monday and a writers' workshop on Saturdays in the late afternoon/early evening.

In the last few days I have heard Edward St Aubyn reading from his latest novel - the finale to a five book series (At Last) that I was not familiar with, and attended the writer's workshop where we are a rather strange tourist attraction. I have never been part of a group where work-shopping is a random spectator sport for book browsers before! I imagine I will get used to it.