Tintinnabulum by Judith Beveridge
Tintinnabulum was launched by poet Audrey Molloy at Gleebooks on a delightful warm winters Sunday afternoon. 25th August 2024.
It was done in a conversational mode. Audrey’s questions helped Judith to open up about her writing .
Firstly the title. Judith explained, it is always difficult to come up with an interesting title.
Tintinnabulum means ‘little bell’ in Medieval Latin . As a verb it refers to a ring or sound like a small bell, peal, ring, sound sonorously . eg the tintinnabulation of wind chimes blowing in the breeze. or I always look forward to the joyous tintinnabulation at church during the christmas season.
Judith makes a list of possible names for a title and slowly narrows it down. In this book she explores what poetry can uncover through musicality and analogy and how these elements can open up sacred space . The title Tintinnabulum is an onamatopeia word ( the naming of a thing or action by imitation of natural sounds as buzz or hiss ) and that title became the final choice as one or two poems include that word . Robert Frost says, ‘sound is the gold in the ore of poetry’
“I chose the title meaning ringing of little bells to suggest celebration and to indicate that many poems in the collection, engage in almost ritualised observance of precise aspects of the physical world .
Judith would like to be called an imagist poet.
In this book she looks specially at animals, landscape and at people in certain environments.”
Sacred space comes into being with the idea of relationships and the idea of apprehending the interconnections with them especially through the use of metaphor.
Walking with the poet captures this. A poem in memory of Dorothy Porter. She often uses water landscape . Rilke says ‘praising is what matters ‘
Judith is interested in the ways which simile and metaphors can create relations that previously might have been unnoticed.
“My poetry centres around this core aspect of poetic language. ‘
She has been influenced by Seamus Heaney , Robert Frost, Hopkins, Amie Clapton , Walcott, Plath .
Sound
Sound affects the reader – when it hits our gut our feeling centre. For a poet human emotions are full of potential.
Love the sound of Plath “A bird flits nimble-winged in thickets” Sound is a great tool to get feelings rippling through the poem.
Using poetic devices to give surprise and visceral response
Peppertree Bay is pure adventure using metaphor, simile and imagination. They are tools to connect – dissolve boundaries to connect things in our gut – healing, restoring, and helping to open up sacred spaces .Pictures in your head she wants them to curl into your imagination and stay. eg Breakwall octopus and ballet shoe,
a kite letting down . . .
A writer needs to balance imagination and reality.
“You can have an imaginative garden but you need real toads in it”
The poem The Light on Marine Bay began with something real. Light on water at North Parramatta Park !
James Dickey says it is alright to lie in poetry . It is a literary strategy to delve deeper into deeper truth .
Empathy
is an important quality. eg Cruelty of animals is appalling
However sentimentality can undermine the real feeling of a poem . and sentimentality can be caused by a lack of attention. Read The Dancing Elephant There is an iron bell resonance between the animal and reader.
Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul.
Assonance
She loves Wallace Stevens and works with his poetry in one section.
His poems Snowman and 13 Ways to look at a Black Birds.
“One must resist the intellect almost obsessively . Forget the context, get the music . Failed poetry is when the content takes over.
JUDITH SIGNING MY BOOK > I BELIEVE SHE IS ONE OF OUR GREAT LIVING AUSTRALIAN POETS .
Judith Beveridge: a note on Tintinnabulum
The renowned Australian poet Judith Beveridge reflects on her much-anticipated new collection of poems Tintinnabulum (1 July 2024), the first since her prize-winning Sun Music in 2018. Read an extract from the book here.
Tintinnabulum explores what poetry can uncover through musicality and analogy, how these elements can open up sacred spaces. I have chosen Tintinnabulum as the title (which means the ringing of little bells) to suggest celebration and to indicate that many poems in the collection engage in an almost ritualised observance of precise aspects of the physical world. I look specifically at animals, landscapes, and at people in certain environments.
Sacred spaces, I believe, come into being when we perceive relationships and apprehend interconnections. I have always been interested in the ways in which similes and metaphors can create relations that formerly might have been unnoticed. My poetry has centred around this core aspect of poetic language and Tintinnabulum continues this with perhaps more urgency and power, but also with humour and surprise.
I also love to use language that is distinctly focussed on sound as a way of enhancing meaning and providing pleasure for the reader. My animal poems, which make up the book’s first section, delve into how we often interact with cruelty and insensitivity to non-human animals, but I also look at ways in which encounters with animals throw their ‘otherness’ into stark relief such as the distinctly alien lives of cicadas, leeches, bluebottles.
The second section focusses on the human world and brings to bear a sense of compassion for the difficulties that people encounter: surfers on a high sea, a waitress unhappy in her job, two brothers suffering racist cruelty, as well as elegiac poems about friends and family members.
The third section consists of imaginative/hallucinogenic scenarios, and is my most poetry at its most weirdly inventive. This section culminates in a joyous romp through sonic repetitions and is a homage to the poetry of Wallace Stevens.
The poet Edward Hirsch has said that ‘Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul.’ I believe the final section of the book attempts this level of worshipful attention evoking the beauty and awe to be found in landscapes. It is my aim that readers, after reading Tintinnabulum, will find the world less fragmented and more interconnected, that language can be felt as an activating mechanism for wonder, joy and revelation.
— Judith Beveridge, May 2024