Dawn poetry chorus
by Elen Lewis
Elen Lewis writes on summer solstice, when a pre-dawn poetry reading feels like some kind of magic after the strangest kind of spring.
Four a.m. on summer solstice morning. It's dark outside. Pigeons thump on the roof and a few brave blackbirds tchook-tchook-tchook at the half moon. It's not night, it's not day but an in-between blue hour. Writer Joan Didion talked about the quality of light in summer twilights — those blue nights — and there's something similar about the glow of the pre-dawn sky.
There are twenty of us. All part of a writing community called Dark Angels. We used to gather for writing workshops in the Scottish Highlands and Loughcrew Estate in Co. Meath, Ireland. Today, in the midst of a global pandemic, we come together for a Zoom poetry reading to welcome in the longest day of the year. Time to reflect after suspended animation in the strangest kind of spring.
Poetry matters during a pandemic. Over the last few months people have read and shared more poems than ever, and perhaps even written some of their own. Poet Laureate Simon Armitage says that poetry is “by definition consoling” because “it often asks us just to focus and think and be contemplative”.
Back in pre-dawn, I'm beginning to realise that four a.m. is less early morning, more middle of the night. I didn't expect anyone to turn up. Neil, my colleague at Dark Angels, who had the big idea in the first place, is reassuring. He writes: "Maybe none of them will turn up. But that’s fine. Think of it as the Sex Pistols gig at Manchester Free Trade Hall; in years to come, thousands of people will claim to have been there."
The poem I'm reading is called 'Tithonus, 46 minutes in the life of the dawn', by Alice Oswald, a British poet who lives near the Dart river in Devon. In the notes it tells us that, "What you are about to hear is the sound of Tithonus meeting the dawn at midsummer. His voice starts at 4:17, when the sun is six degrees below the horizon, and stops 46 minutes later, at sunrise."
I light the candle at my table. Separate the dog and cat scraping at my feet and check the time. Martin, my husband, sets the stopwatch. I read Oswald's first line. "As soon as dawn appears..." Then silence. "As soon as dawn appears." Then silence.. "4:17 dressed only in her clouds..." The more I read, the less I think about reading. The more I read, the more I look at the sky and trace the shape of the words on the page with my finger.
Oswald's poem is notable for its pauses and silences. And reading aloud on the right day at the right hour they make perfect sense. The silence gives space to let the dawn creep and crackle in — the first orange blaze of sunlight through the trees, the crescendo of chirruping and crooning from the dawn chorus, a lifting and spooling of lightness like some kind of miracle.
"Here come cascades of earliness in / which everything is asked is it light / is it light is it light.."
Oswald's poetry is often performed. She writes, "I like the idea of poems being these melting ice shapes that vanish and are only there in the moment.”
So as the night melts away and the dawn skulks in, the poem feels like some kind of magic and that's all we can ask for. I'm hoping for the dawn of a new dawn on just about everything. We wait it out together as the sun hauls itself higher and higher into the June sky.
About Elen Lewis: Elen is a writer, poet, author and ghostwriter, associate partner of Dark Angels and one of 26, to inspire a love of words. She ghostwrites books that she can’t talk about. She writes novels about lightning, robots and foundlings, books about brands (IKEA and eBay) and babies (on a budget). She writes poetry for The Story Museum, V&A, Museum of Childhood, The Foundling Museum and Welsh National Eisteddford.
Follow Elen on Twitter @elenlewis
Tithonus, 46 minutes in the life of the dawn appears in Falling Awake by Alice Oswald, published by Cape Poetry, 2016.
Dark Angels runs creative writing workshops (online and offline) for people in business.
Follow Dark Angels on Twitter @darkangelswrite