Chauvet –Pont - d’ Arc

[Hawkman]

Described with fingertips,
charred sticks or antler picks,
the free-form poetry of flowing lines
encapsulates the movement
of the vanished herds,

depicts a vision of the world,
with stencilled, palmate punctuation
separating words from a
language lost in time;
though still they speak a tongue
that we can understand.

By sickly torchlight,
underground,
spit and ochre
gave that vision
shape and depth.

Amid the bones
of long departed bears,
a poet’s footprints,
have endured a night
of thirty thousand years.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Notwithstanding


the free-form poetry of flowing lines

this read as if written with an impeccable, innate sense of the form that lies within even the most seemingly haphazard - not that this is in the least haphazard.

I hope you sat back and sighed with deep satisfaction after you completed this. Bravo!

[_Shannon_]

Really, really like this one!

[Hawkman]

Prince & Shannon. Well thank you both very much but Prince I'm afraid I'm not at all happy with it. The first two strophes were originally written as one but divided to give the arrangement a more consistant appearance. While I'm fairly happy with both, except,

"though still they speak a tongue
that we can understand."

which says what I want it to say, I feel it does not do so in the right way to flow properly from the preceding lines.

I like what the two subsequent strophes say but again they don't flow properly from what went before or into each other. They stand alone, like isolated thoughts. In fact, when I logged on I was going to remove the poem for rewriting, but since both you and Shannon have taken the trouble to read and comment, I will leave it here but I'm going to continue to work on it until I feel I have done the subject justice :D

Thank you both again for looking it over.

Live long and Prosper. H

[Delta40]

I like the third stanza because it reminds me of native art here in Australia.

[AuntShecky]

Nice depiction of what was discovered in the caves in France. Is this one the same as "Lausaux caves" or is that a different archeological (paleontological) find?

I'm not sure about "encapsulate" -- although it certainly says what you want it to say, I wonder if you can come up with a shorter, simpler term so that more closely aligns itself with the elegance of this piece.

This line also gave me pause:

though still they speak a tongue
that we can understand.

The anonymous artists of these cave paintings as well as Early Man are long gone, and if they did indeed have a language, it has been lost to the ages. Still, even an old dummy such as I can see that this conceit is metaphorical: an ancient picture is even now worth a thousand words, the timelessness of the artist's sensibility resonates several millennia later and so on. Yet this otiose reader wouldn't have been confused, albeit temporarily so, had there been a different motif.

Or, what if you moved "still" and put it between "we can" and "understand"?


On the other hand -- ambiguity and momentarily confusion are pluses, not minuses --in the aesthetic experience. A poet is supposed to shake his readers out of their doldrums. (None of this makes sense, I know.)

The two concluding sections are brilliant. Whether one is writing metered or free verse, the form of the poem should attempt to mirror the subject matter in some way. This piece has that aspect down quite well, as the two concluding stanzas beautifully show the elegance and simplicity of the ancient cave paintings.

One of the many admirable aspects of your work is its respect for the traditions and culture of antiquity--rare these days!--yet your writings allude to the distant past is with a new, postmodern sensibility. This piece is another example of your unique ability and techniques.

[Hawkman]

Hi Delta,

Where the stencilled hand prints and geometric patterns seem to be fairly universal human signatures in primative art there are significant differences in Northern European, and I beleive North American, pre historic representational art. My understanding of Australian aborigianal art is that it is actually more sophisticated in that it conforms more to traditional abstractions representing concepts than the figurative realism of the prehistoric forms. There are also differences in the nature of the scenes, in that Northern Europe had large felines, deer, Mammoth and Rhinocerous, but definately no Boomers :D Still, I'm glad you felt the connection.

Hi Auntie, thanks for dropping by. In answer to your query, Lascaux is definately a separate site. Chauvet was only discovered in 1995. There is a very good website which allows you to take a virtual tour of the system.

One has to admire the draftmanship in some of the deptictions. Their simplicity and exquisitely observed realism is breathtaking. I'm going to keep working on the poem to make the discrete strophes more contiguous and titdy up an expression here and there and i will post a revision in due course.

Thank you both for reading and commenting. Live and be Well. H

[hack]

It is wonderful Hawk.
You cannot look at those
figures and not be amazed.
I like how you captured the
idea that their language and,
indeed their culture, including
their art is our legacy.
Good stuff, in my humble opinion.
...peace...

[Hawkman]

Thanks hack. The images our distant ancestors left us are the ultimate message from the past, snapshots which say a little of who they were and where they lived and their relationship to their environment. Even in the crudest of the images (there is one of an owl, incised with a finger in a soft mineral deposit on the cave wall) there is captured a physiological characteristic which enables zoological identification of species. These prehistoric artists had an intimate knowledge of their environment and its fauna. We may not have any idea what they called the animal but the pictures tell us what they saw.

Anyway, I'm happy that you liked the poem. I have made a couple of changes and the revision is below.

Chauvet – Pont - d’ Arc

Described with fingertips,
charred sticks or antler picks,
the free-form poetry of flowing lines
encapsulates the movement
of the vanished herds,

depicts a vision of the world,
with stencilled, palmate punctuation
separating words from a
language lost in time;
though still they speak a tongue
we understand.

By sickly torchlight,
underground,
spit and ochre
gave that vision
shape and depth.
Preserved within the earth,
amid the bones
of long departed bears,
a poet’s footprint,
has endured a night
of thirty thousand years.

[PrinceMyshkin]

The changes I can see are minimal? I approve of the removal of "can" in the last line of s 2, rather regret the combination of the former last two verses into one, the addition of the line


Preserved within the earth,

and preferred the plural "footprints" over the new singular: more overtly metaphorical than was the more visceral, more seemingly literal original.

But the overall strength and intellectual passion of it still comes through strongly.

[Hawkman]

Hi Prince, to be honest I'm in two minds about the plurality of footprints :D I always wanted the image of the footprints to be both literal and metaphorical, so I don't think I would object to the footprint's return to multiplication. The last two verses definately needed a transitional element though. The leap was too abrupt and made the last one look like an afterthought. Combining them this way I feel is the least damaging solution.

Live and be well, H

[hillwalker]

Coming so late to this I think the revision was probably worth the wait.

It's very evocative of the primal forces that drove our forebears to believe the life forces in the beasts they killed, and in the power that could be transmitted from their remains and their depiction on cave walls.

And there's almost a primitive simplicity in some of the line structures. I loved it.

H

[Jerrybaldy]

I enjoyed it Hawk, I can see the talent in the writing. I feel unqualified to say much else.
best wishes
jerry

[Delta40]

I feel pretty uneducated when I read your work Hawk. In my mind you're starting to develop that silver beard and halo as you stand atop your mountain, quill in hand

[Hawkman]

Coming so late to this I think the revision was probably worth the wait.

It's very evocative of the primal forces that drove our forebears to believe the life forces in the beasts they killed, and in the power that could be transmitted from their remains and their depiction on cave walls.

And there's almost a primitive simplicity in some of the line structures. I loved it.

H

http://www.culture.gouv.fr/culture/arcnat/chauvet/en/index.html

Thanks hill. Can I take it from your comment that you approve my modifications? Of course, we can only speculate on the cultural significance of cave art, but the aesthetic impact of it is quite palpable. If anyone would care to visit the website above they will have the opportunity to see how impressive it can be.


I enjoyed it Hawk, I can see the talent in the writing. I feel unqualified to say much else.
best wishes
jerry

Thanks JB. Your enjoyment is enough.


I feel pretty uneducated when I read your work Hawk. In my mind you're starting to develop that silver beard and halo as you stand atop your mountain, quill in hand

Delta, I don’t believe for a minute that you are uneducated. As for me, the beard is more dirty grey than silver while the halo is merely a backlit cloud of insects that gathered to buzz around my head in hopes of being able to feast upon my corpse. Mountain tops can be pretty lonely places :D As for quill in hand, well, when I was experimenting with calligraphy I made a few, but these days I use a keyboard.

Live long and prosper, H

[hillwalker]

Thanks hill. Can I take it from your comment that you approve my modifications?

Most definitely. It reminded me of the bone caves near Inchnadamph actually.

H

[Hawkman]

Hi hill and thanks. I'm not familiar with this particular site and although a quick web search unearthed some info on it I couldn't find any picks of the insides of the caves.

Anyway, glad you liked the poem. H

[hillwalker]

The access to the interior is pretty limited -although it is possible to stand within 2 or 3 openings.

There are certainly signs of them being used as temporary shelters by man and beast - reindeer, lynxes, bears (probably polar) and wolves to name a few based on bone fragments discovered within.

H

[JMJ]

I wonder if you've ever read Concerning the Art in Spirituality.. This poem could almost be taken as a poetic statement of what Kandinsky calls the artist's "inner need" and proof of the existence of the universal artistic language he's so very concerned with. I enjoyed both versions and highly recommend the book if you haven't read it. It places primitive artwork in a fascinating context.

[Hawkman]

Hi JMJ, I'm certainly conversant with the expression "kunst wille" so it definitely rings a bell. We touched upon the subject when I was studying art history. I certainly had, 'the will to art' in my mind when I wrote the poem. It's not a book that I have in my library though, and I will keep an eye out for it. I'm glad you enjoyed the poem and thanks for stopping by to tell me so :)

Hi hill, we have some interesting cave sites this end of the country too, though of course, they are a bit touristy. Kent's Cavern in Torbay and cheddar being the ones I am familiar with. I do remember visiting the stunning cave system in Gibraltar too. I can't remember if any of them had examples of cave art though, they were all used by early man.

Live long and prosper - H