91Èȱ¬

The Luminaries starts at 21:00 on Sunday 21 June on 91Èȱ¬ One and will then be available on the iPlayer.

Image: Anna Wetherell (EVE HEWSON), Lydia Wells (EVA GREEN), Emery Staines (HIMESH PATEL)

Credit: 91Èȱ¬/The Luminaries Production Ltd 2018/Kirsty Griffin

The Museums Unlocked PoemsÌý

Alison Brackenbury, Poet in Residence at Front Row this week, reflects on how she came to write her Museum Unlocked poems, one of which she has introduced and read each evening.

Which small thing do you miss, in lockdown? Most trivially, I miss the coffee shop, my sunlit space before I board a long-distance coach...

Each life has its seasons. Mine had its own mid-life lockdown. I worked in our small metal finishing business, which seldom shut. I had commitments to three generations. My life was awash with loved but demanding animals. I rarely travelled.

Seven years ago, in changed times, I retired. Excited and apprehensive, I crossed Britain to poetry events.

On each trip, I was drawn to museums, In London, I saw the narrow house where Handel composed. Next door is the attic flat, where Jimi Hendrix met Handel’s ghost. It is hard not to hear echoes in such buildings. The echoes became a poem.

In another early home, the Charles Dickens Museum in Doughty Street, I was moved by the intimacy of what I saw: Dickens’ clothes, a copy of his wife’s one book... I thought about youth, and hope. I wrote.

Travel surprises. I knew something of Mary Queen of Scots. But I had read little of her great adversary, John Knox. In Edinburgh, I read his plea for the poor: ‘Their living has been dolorous and bitter’. Then I stood in the claustrophobic chambers where he confronted Mary. I was still working on their poem when lockdown began.

At home, I saw news from museums I had visited and loved. The Museum of Somerset, where I saw a national masterpiece, is collecting contributions for a community archive. Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, where I gazed at the Pre-Raphaelites, is running a competition for lockdown art. Others, including the Charles Dickens Museum, are appealing for funds to survive.

So I hunted out my museum poems, revised and added to them. In lockdown, I realise how important their spaces have been to me. The past lives on in our lives, often without us realising it. It is good to have a place where history is vivid, yet we have time to reflect upon it.

I am glad to have a chance to pay tribute to Britain’s museums, national and local. We need them to survive. I look forward to returning to them. And I hope Radio 4’s serious listeners will forgive me if I mention that museums, too, have coffee shops. Some are sumptuous. One of my many hopes, after this crisis, is to visit Birmingham Museum’s famous ‘Edwardian Tea Rooms’. Perhaps there will be a poem...

Ìý

Monday, 15th June:Ìý in LondonÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

Purple HazeÌý

When Jimi glanced into his small attic mirror

while parting his lips, unteasing his hair,

in a candle-like glint he saw George Frideric Handel

alarmingly wigless, alarmingly there.

Ìý

‘What have you been taking?’ said Handel to Hendrix.

‘Only the usual,’ Jimi replied.

‘I adore your high notes,’ Handel whispered. ‘But listen!

You cannot cheat sleep. I went blind when I tried.

Ìý

Make friends with your sound man. Then fix the fuzz pedal.

But discipline, boy! Cut your endless tracks short.’

Jimi shook his fine head. With no more breaths to meddle

George sank to roast chicken, his cellars of port.

Ìý

Tuesday, 16th June:

The horse's mouth

Her blistered muzzle skims dry ground.

Tongue lolls past bit.Ìý Cracked hooves have found

the baked path to the fort.

The rider’s leather palms grip round

his pommel.Ìý He has dropped the reins.

Scarlet sash swings, silk’s battered skeins.

One red eye rolls, his dead pile plains.

One man, not caught.

Ìý

The men who clatter through the gate

are also mounted, smart and straight.

The General’s grey, in fear,

or puzzlement, lets fine head tilt.

The rider in the red skull cap,

rough Afghan sheepskin on his back,

does not part lips.Ìý Though his voice cracks

they will not hear.

Ìý

To shaded rooms, on a tape’s loop

a young voice from the present troop

speaks level, calm, on course:

‘For me, it’s Queen and Country!’Ìý Scoop

the sagging man.Ìý How, in such heat,

can Queen or country beat retreat?

Ask Generals.Ìý Ask recruits’ torn feet.

Now ask the horse.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

Wednesday, 17th June:

Ìý

I heave in crosses first,

the old blood gods last best.

Garnets still warm my hand,

round as her breast.

Ìý

Fine filigree fell ripped from hilts,

heaped ransom for their King.

This was my share, for laboured hours,

for sorrowing.

Ìý

I smell them, rain on wind.

Stiffly I climb the track.

I leave my son’s toys, Roman glass,

I keep the useful sack.

Bury your treasures deep.

Never come back.

Ìý

Thursday, 18th June:

The Queen's apartments in the Palace of Holyroodhouse

Should Scotland’s towers rise lordly,

the young Queen’s skirts sweep wide?

Steps dip and twist so meanly

a child must duck inside.

How close they press, our life’s rooms,

like sweat, which lines fine clothing,

as intimate as locks.

Upright, with careful bearing,

no thread of red hem trailing,

the Queen waits for John Knox.

Ìý

She will flee her baby, let

her twisted husband die,

her soft musician butchered,

a second thug to try.

How straight she stands in freedom,

dances lilt her veins like rage.

Bloomed candles light her eyes,

while Knox’s wife, a daughter’s age,

slowly turns her Bible page.

He climbs with heavy thighs.

Ìý

He speaks for the tired poor.

Her petticoats sigh silk.

Careless, he will thump the floor

while her breasts ache with milk.

While righteous dark rules his night,

must her light-voiced pleas still lose?

How boldly she declares:

crooked steps slip from your shoes,

quick time gutters, you must choose,

John Knox stamps up the stairs.

Ìý

Friday, 19th June:

Charles Dickens at home

Bombs, cranes made his grand houses

mere rubble under feet

but not their narrow first door,

48 Doughty Street.

Ìý

Kind Catherine clasped the baby

Dickens set up his desk.

He rattled sherry bottles.

She counted out the eggs.

Ìý

The basement stairs could break knees.

Her belly twitched, stretched sore.

Charles frowned across the garden

Oliver asked for more.

Ìý

Slowly, Kate shuffled menus,

sweet salvage of her life.

‘What Shall We Have for Dinner?’

He wrote ‘Is She his Wife?’

Ìý

Spring Soup, then Vermicelli.

The hospital fund. Grey curls.

Oxtail, Mock Turtle. Hare Soup.

The house for fallen girls.

Ìý

His favourite child was Katey,

who painted, laughed, dared turnÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

to snatch the frail reading desk

her father chose to burn.

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý

Behind his tallest, last house,

with Catherine packed away

he lit his bundled letters.

‘I have no more to say.’

Ìý

The profile of his actress

shows tension, sharp-lipped grace,

not Catherine’s muddled ringlets

not unlike Katey’s face.

Ìý

‘We live in all our houses.’

ash whispers to the sleet.

Lime buds tap bedroom windows,

upstairs, in Doughty Street.

Ìý

Image: 48 and 49 Doughty Street Charles Dickens Museum

Credit: Lewis Bush / Charles Dickens Museum