Caloundra

As we strolled towards Bulcock Beach early on Sunday morning in search of coffee and breky, I was reminded of one of my favourite poets, Emily Bulcock. Her poetry is so visually stumulating, she was prolific, her love of the region easily recognisable in so many of her poems. What a wonderful woman too..kind and generous of spirit and very helpful on a practical level to young writers and children.. Below is an excerpt of one of my favourites of hers entitled simply 'Caloundra', it makes me see the place through new eyes..

She has dawns of wonder, and flaming sunsets!
When soft strange lights on the waters lie.
I have no words to paint the marvel
Of opal colours of sea and sky,
When the ocean chants to the day "Good-bye,"
'Ere back of Beerwah the last rays die!
The weird Glasshouses catch the glow,
Then dark with mantling purples grow!

If a painter stood at the gates of Heaven,
And caught the gleam of the streets of pearl,
Then, as they opened, glimpsed the vision
In the radiant eyes of some ransomed girl,
Watching the banners of beauty unfurl:-
He then might picture with artist hand
These rare rich colours on sea and land!

Bright Star

My favourite film director of all time is Jane Campion, and combined with my love of poetry, I was completely blown away by her new film Bright Star about the poet John Keats (played by Ben Whishaw) and his intense relationship with neighbour Fanny Brawne (played by the brilliant and talented Abbie Cornish). As the Guardian newspaper in the UK so aptly states: 'it is a subtle yet measured film'. Campion's strength is her ability to allow femininity and sensitivity permeate the film without sentimentality - not unlike her film The Piano in that respect, in my opinion.

The film is truly about romantic love, on so many different levels entwined in the restrictions of that era when one of our greatest Romantic Poets of all time dies at age 25 thinking he is a failure, unable to marry his One True Love, due to lack of income, ill health and other insurmountable challenges. One of my favourite scenes in the film is the trapped butterflies scene.

Campion has a fantastic website of production notes and photographs (including those I have added to this Blog today) www.brightstarthemovie.com
I especially love Ben Whishaw's notes (pictured above) from the film set.

How beautiful is this poem after which the film is named:

BRIGHT STAR


Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

John Keats

...and apparently Fanny Brawne was known to wander Hampstead Heath for years after Keats' death hours at a time well into the night and she never took off his engagement ring. True unfulfilled romantic love...tragic and beautiful.