Full Description
that moment / when nothing happens, you want it all to come / back to get you, even the hard stuff —
Our increasingly nihilistic age is marked by profound sorrow. We are grieving institutions, art forms, the natural world, our communities - even our very humanity. We are overwhelmed by lives lost to war, violence, genocide, poverty, natural disasters, and disease. We live with the knowledge that a random occurrence could bring an absurd end to any life at any time.
In At Beckett's Grave Robin Durnford gazes at the granite slab marking the resting place of the Irish playwright. In the middle of the ornate tombstones of an overgrown cemetery in Paris, Durnford finds a powerful metaphor in Samuel Beckett - the artist, the exile, the anti-fascist who joined the French resistance. Beckett's work - and the stark memory of his life - cuts through grandiose self-regard with a razor-sharp message: there is no final meaning. Yet we move forward, regardless.
It turns out that the pause — the stage direction central to so many of Beckett's plays — may be the answer. Grief for an absent loved one never truly ends. Grief itself will never end. Yet, the poetic pause creates space for grief to breathe. During that lingering breath, abiding sorrow carves a path toward hope, one word, one poem, at a time.
Contents
ACT I
Newborn as Abstract Art 3
Lament 5
Existentialist 7
Whale Watching 8
Dag Gadol 9
Self-Musings 10
Break-Through 12
Fascist Literature 14
Slug 16
Squatters 18
Arctic Still Life 20
April Frieze 21
An End 22
Auberge du Mont 24
Fields of Blue 25
Quiet Muse 27
Another Anniversary 29
The Hole 31
Spook 34
Reflection 36
Watercolour 37
My Nature 40
Map of Islands 41
Claw 42
ACT II
Literature Is Like a Foreign Country 45
What the Sea Means 46
Ghost Town 47
Reading Jane Eyre as a Ghost 49
Lured 51
Sour Apples 53
The Rain 55
Firsts 56
By the Fire 57
Wave 59
The Meanest Flower 61
Clay 63
Siren Song 65
The Waves 66
Urn 67
Against Seasons 68
Against Mermaids 70
Skating at Parc La Fontaine 72
Old Girlfriends 73
Jackknife 74
Under the Milk 76
Sea Monster 78
Crab 80
Sparrow 83
Bell-cot 84
Split 85
Sardine 87
In the Metro at a Station 89
The Living On 91
End Game 93
Notes 97
Acknowledgments 101
