Tag: poetry

New Season of Creation

Dear readers,

It has been a year since my article “Doing Academia Differently” was published. Writing the article had been a transformative experience. It inspired me to design my workshops Creative Writing for Academics, and it pushed me to start working as a creative entrepreneur, staying in touch with academia, but from a different position.

While the article was finding its audience, and after I had had the chance to experience the power of making space for researchers to explore their writings in new ways, I experienced one of the most severe winters of my life and had to shut down for a couple of months.

Reading Katherine May’s Wintering helped me make sense of that experience. I loved the way she pays attention to nature’s capacity to adapt to extreme colds. From afar, it then may look as if nothing happens. But when we look closely, we see all kinds of activities going on: burgeons have formed on bare branches, still closed, but ready to burst open when spring comes. Hibernating animals breathe differently, lower their body temperature, change their chemical balance.

Nature doesn’t stop when winter comes. It adapts; it transforms.

So did I, breathing through extreme nauseas, dizziness, and complete exhaustion that came with pregnancy. I entered a subterranean kingdom, a kingdom where time and space function differently. A kingdom of silence. A kingdom of untold stories.

The extremes of being in a woman body is full of silences and is such an untold story. An untold story that I may start writing, bit by bit, as I resurface into the world. Revisiting what it means to be a mother; revisiting what I do for work; finding new patterns in search of equilibriums.

What’s coming up:

And so, we are now a year later, as I gear towards a new season of creation.

These are a sample of activities I look forward to, and I hope to meeting you along the way:

New workshop for grant applicants:

  • Thanks to a request from Université Saint Louis Brussels, I’ve developed a new writing workshop for grant applicants. The workshop provides tools to uncover the research proposal’s narrative, one of those tricks that tilt a proposal on top.

Sounds like something for you or for your institute? Contact me!

Creative Writing for Academics:

  • I’ll continue providing series of workshop Creative Writing for Academics, with sessions already book for various institutes at the University of Amsterdam, Nijmegen University, and Queen Mary University of London.

These workshops make space for researchers to explore a diverse and creative pallet of writing styles in their academic writing practice. They are open to all disciplines, and welcome researchers from PhD students to full professors.

Sounds like something you need? Contact me!

New concept emerging: The Writing Lab:

  • I’m brooding on a new concept: The Writing Lab, a space of regular meetings for researchers to explore their writing in new, creative ways.

Sounds like something you want? Contact me!

Social Dreaming and Poetry:

  • Following on previous projects on Social Dreaming, I’ll contribute some of my poems to an artistic exhibition on Social Dreaming held at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London. Details will follow, but I already know that the opening is on November 17, 2022.

Stay in touch!

Regards,

Marie

Shit is such a wondrous waste!

  after the “shit bird” and Dunya Mikhail

No-one gives shit a word of praise, as if shit wasn’t precious. As if shit wouldn’t relieve bodies from toxins and skeletons, brown cores, white bones, orange beaks, and blue feathers. As if shit wouldn’t teach children that stickiness is best when avoided with a sidestep, a jump, a stop. As if shit wouldn’t stage equality between shepherds and wolves, queens and beggars, tyrants and peasants. As if shit wouldn’t seed green trees in grey cities, bringing oxygen to the streets. As if shit wouldn’t release amber smells of other times, feeding silvery flies while flirting with the gods, bringing flowers the strength to burst with pink, lilac, and lavender. As if shit wouldn’t invite life into decay, drawing poets to look at a blank page with the nuances of the nothing that illuminates the day. As if shit wouldn’t bring in patience there where speed was in focus, requesting attention there where habits stiffened. Shit is a wonderous waste, but no-one gives it a word of praise.

Marie Beauchamps

Amsterdam, June 2021

It’s spring! Perfect time to listen to my poem “Ode to the Eggs”

Find the text of the poem below.
 Ode to the eggs
             after Pablo Neruda
  
 Fields,
 beaches,
 ponds,
 and trees
 sing
 as you
 fall
 on twigs
 and bridles,
 feathers,
 moss,
 sludge,
 and sandbanks.
 You hug
 in groups
 of seven,
 thirteen,
 or fifty-three.
 Fragile
 and immobile,
 you lie
 side by side,
 defying
 your
 hungry
 predators.
 Brown
 patches
 or turquoise
 patterns
 become
 a soft
 embrace,
 an act
 of camouflage
 that protects
 your
 burgeons
 of life
 from
 our greedy
 hands
 and
 growling
 stomachs—
 nothing
 can stop
 our appetite
 for
 the
 vital
 protein
 running
 inside
 the elliptical
 shape
 of your chalky
 beige
 shells.
 In the protected
 space
 of your
 nesting
 nature,
 your viscous
 substance
 creates—
 a
 beating
 heart,
 followed
 by
 blood
 vessels,
 a tail bud,
 wings and legs,
 eyes,
 brains,
 beaks and claws,
 feathers and scales.
 After days
 or weeks
 or months,
 you crack—
 in the fields,
 and in the trees,
 on beaches
 and in the reeds,
 creatures
 crawl,
 squawk
 and walk
 tasting
 the air
 and the
 nourishing
 juice
 of
 food.
 Now
 rack
 and ruin
 you stay
 behind
 as little
 dirty
 white dots,
 composing
 compost,
 sand
 and soil.
 Carried
 along by
 flowing
 water,
 you become
 fertile
 ground,
 sediments,
 and the source
 of a new
 cycle
 of
 life.

La terre d’automne est noire, mais nos os sont blancs. Je les entends chanter quand je cours dans le vent

 Nos os se mirent à chanter par un samedi matin embrumé.
 Nous étions sur la route, portant notre poids au-delà de la rivière, tombant sur les pierres. 
  
 Leur chant se mit à gonfler comme une éponge absorbant le sol, aspirant
 le flot, transportant 
 les airs, transformant 
 le vent qui tombait
 sur les branches
 de notre trachée.
  
 Nos os, invisibles à nos yeux, jusqu’à ce que
  
 nous tombions
  
 brisés.
  
 Nos os libérés, nous ne savons plus
 où mettre nos pieds, à qui tenir la main, où poser notre dos
 où se reposer. 
  
 Mais il nous reste l’eau. Elle s’écoule sous notre peau,
 transportant le sel alluvion de tristesse,
 elle vient toucher le rebord sculpté de nos yeux. 
  
 Une larme
 coule. 
  
 Une larme
 sèche.
  
 Trace blanche sédimentaire 
 se souvenant du sol, nos os se mettent à bouger, lentement,
 plus      lent       que      le      soleil       qui    se     lève     à           l’horizon. 
  
 Personne ne les vit bouger, pourtant ils portaient notre image, 
 émergeant dans la brume, ils frappèrent aux carreaux.
  
 Aucun son
  
 n’apparut.  
  
 Nos os se mettent à chanter observant l’intérieur,
 alors que nous dormons, ils suivent les courbes et les lignes
 réconciliant les parts de notre corps brisé.
  
 Nous posons nos pieds nus sur le sol dur et froid,
 et frottons notre dos avec la palme de nos mains.
  
 La fenêtre était ouverte au réveil ce matin.
  
  
 Marie Beauchamps ©2020

Requiem for old souls

While I stand on the hill, the sky grows clear
Above the village the milky way shines
The trees are pitch black against the bright lines
The mountain softens, shadows walking near.
In the distance I see a cat approaching
Wild like a tiger, an enormous monster
It roars and it runs; it is my sister      
Free like a river, untamed and flowing.
 
Against the cold rock, I feel my limbs and heart
The blood rushing deep, moving through my spine
My bones connected to earlier times
Where ancestors rest, rest their souls and art
Autumn soils are black, and their bones were white
I hear them singing walking through the night.


                                   London, November 2020. 
                                   Marie Beauchamps ©

Photograph: Bart Koetsier ©

I left my self at the door

Photograph by Bart Koetsier ©
I left my self at the door this morning    
Slammed the door and walked away      
It is just a regular day, working  
 
The walls are cold and people are yelling             
Didn’t they eat their breakfast on the tray? 
I left my self at the door this morning
 
Twenty-five men enter, crawling
Twenty-five men are washed away
It is just a regular day, working
 
Did I hear the child calling
When her mother started to pray?
I left my self at the door this morning
 
My sister came, dad is moaning
The sky is low, the clouds ash-grey
It is just a regular day, working
 
My neck itches and my legs are falling
On its surface, the skin betrays
I found no-one at the door this evening
Though it was just a regular day, working
 
                                                 
              London, October 2020. Marie Beauchamps ©

Ode to the Eggs

Fields,
beaches,
ponds,
and trees
sing
as you
fall
on twigs
and bridles,
feathers,
moss,
sludge,
and sandbanks.
You hug
in groups
of seven,
thirteen,
or fifty-three.
Fragile
and immobile,
you lie
side by side,
defying
your
hungry
predators.
Brown
patches
or turquoise
patterns
become
a soft
embrace,
an act
of camouflage
that protects
your
burgeons
of life
from
our greedy
hands
and
growling
stomachs—
nothing
can stop
our appetite
for
the
vital
protein
running
inside
the elliptical
shape
of your chalky
beige
shells.
In the protected
space
of your
nesting
nature,
your viscous
substance
creates—
a
beating
heart,
followed
by
blood
vessels,
a tail bud,
wings and legs,
eyes,
brains,
beaks and claws,
feathers and scales.
After days
or weeks
or months,
you crack—
in the fields,
and in the trees,
on beaches
and in the reeds,
creatures
crawl,
squawk
and walk
tasting
the air
and the
nourishing
juice
of
food.
Now
rack
and ruin
you stay
behind
as little
dirty
white dots,
composing
compost,
sand
and soil.
Carried
along by
flowing
water,
you become
fertile
ground,
sediments,
and the source
of a new
cycle
of
life.

London. September 2020. 
Inpired by Pablo Neruda’s Ode to the Tomato and Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market.

Medea

I wrote this poem looking 
at Eugène Delacroix’s painting 
of Medea (see below), and then 
I saw women who had left their 
homes to join ISIS taking their 
children with them, and Medea 
became uncannily modern… 


 
 Medea
  
 look!
 how tender the touch
 how in full light
 i hold my children tight
 naked
 my breasts engorged with milk
  
 the cave was our refuge
 on this sunny day
 the wind blowing softly
  
 they were taking a bath
 look!
 those chubby legs 
 bare-bottomed
 little creatures
 naked innocence
  
       —i heard nothing
  
 look!
 how tender
  
 i hold my children 
 tight
  
       —the sword is gold
  
 furious and fierce
 i held them in my flight
Medea, by Eugène Delacroix

Meditation on the Archive

Photo credits Marie Beauchamps
 You take in
 the tables
 the light 
 damped atmosphere 
 no voices 
 but whispers
 the boxes
 rust and dust 
 the smell of 
 old paper
 ancient times 
 coming back 
 after long years of
 just staying 
 un-allowed to 
 speak.
  
 Most people come  
 to find traces 
 of family members,
 genealogy of blood 
 ties is a popular 
 activity, spicing the
 banality of
 existence with 
 ancient roots, hoping to 
 find traces of
 nobility, salvaging 
 a life almost 
 passed with the 
 graciousness 
 of a name 
 to be added to 
 the tree of relatives 
 that no one 
 has known
 —loneliness 
 has many ways to 
 make us move.
  
 You are here 
 to uncover
 but all you feel 
 is burden
 the piles of 
 history
 do not ease
 they confuse
 it’s a fuss
 your hands moist 
 at the beginning
 dry and itchy 
 when you leave.
  
 A train passes 
 outside and you look 
 at traces
 of someone
 who made
 the ministry of justice 
 become 
 the ministry of fools
 Bureau du Sceau
 changed into
 —Bureau des Sots 
 the sounds stay
 but the orthography 
 becomes 
 critique.
  
 You take notes 
 your pencil 
 sharpened
 and you think of 
 the language 
 making up 
 the people —Albert 
 leaving again 
 and again, walking 
 into fugues 
 his urge 
 to travel 
 and come back 
 trapped in 
 the language 
 of medical 
 science, labels of
 multiple 
 personality
 disorder in 
 the order of 
 things. 
  
 And you start 
 to understand why
 genealogy 
 does not lead to
 graciousness 
 but to the existential 
 quest 
 to reconnect 
 what has been 
 disconnected. 

                                        Amsterdam | London, Autumn 2019