Welcome back to New and selected, where I aim to publish a poem every Tuesday, selected from my back catalogue or newly written.
On hearing organ music is the poem that should probably have been the thematic poem for my 2018 collection Jizz, but it didn’t make the cut that time. However, I’ve pulled out all the stops and continued editing the poem off and on over the last few years.
It will also feature as my next poem in Poems talking, the series of discussions about poetry with Ciaran O’Driscoll.
As a title Jizz generated some interesting responses which I’ll explore in another post sometime…
I took the cover photo for this post at the Abbazia di Montecassino in Lazio, Italy.
On hearing organ music by Andreas Burkmann Where I grew up, organ music accompanied the suburb, not just on Sunday lunchtimes, as the benedictions faded with the smells of lamb and mint, and the traffic on the main road trickled to a snooze – but all the time, in all weathers, just beneath the audible, I could hear the sound of organs played full throttle, of stops pulled firmly out, of feet pedalling hard, hands stretching to couplers and families. It could have been Scarlatti or Bach, Widor or Saint-Saëns, but I remember something far more modern, of organs liberated from the score of history. No wonder toccatas escape chapels, churches, cathedrals. At every spurt of growth, I began to orchestrate my own organ music, at home or away. Sometimes, soft solos in the pitch of night, or less practised, anxious recitals in the middle of the day. Now, the organ music reverberates deep within me, almost all the time. My fingers have learnt to play duets with a certain grace. I’ve even tried a three-hander, once in a while. I wouldn’t say I’m expert, but I do my best. It’s sad to see old organs with dry pipes, knobs mildewed from lack of use. It’s wonderful when people play their organs as frequently as possible, resonant, vigorous, deep-throated, full of life.
