Suzie Hanna, ‘The Blue from Heaven’

It’s been over two years since Professor Suzie Hanna and I recorded Glenda Jackson reciting ‘The Blue from Heaven’ in a little Woolwich studio. Since then, the track has been waiting patiently in the wings as Suzie experimented with ways to animate Stevie Smith’s extraordinary poem.

Suzie tested out filmed footage, symbolic imagery, collage (all juggled with running a busy Masters course at NUA) but nothing seemed quite right for this strange, resistant little text. Describing Arthur riding through a blue world – coloured by mysterious gigantic cornflowers, which tower above his head – the poem challenges us to separate the literal from the symbolic, the metaphorical from the nonsensical.

So it was very special to be able to watch a whole rough cut of the film, for the first time, on 10^th August 2018, at a session of the ReLit Summer School run by Dr Sally Bayley.

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Lear, Smith and Feet-off-the-ground

But first, Reader, I will give you a word of warning.  This is a foot-off-the-ground novel that came by the left hand…. And if you are a foot-on-the-ground person, this book will be for you a desert of weariness and exasperation.  So put it down.  Leave it alone.  It was a mistake that you made to get this book.  You could not know. (Stevie Smith, Novel on Yellow Paper)

Today I’ve been thinking about feet in Edward Lear‘s illustrations.

Edward Lear, ‘There was an old man of Whitehaven/Who danced a quadrille with a raven…’

Stevie Smith’s Reveries

Stevie Smith once claimed not to read any modern poetry. Whether or not that’s true, she certainly got most of her echoes from older writers: Tennyson, Euripides and the (now perhaps largely forgotten) contents of the Palgrave Treasury.

I think she was also deeply influenced by the Romantics.

‘Something Else Remaining’: The Trinity Archives

Most of the letters by Stevie Smith I’ve seen, so far, have been written in the 50s and 60s. My research has turned up a lot of back-and-forth about publication rights, translation, performances at festivals – and very little about her actual writing.

Which is why yesterday’s visit to Trinity College, Oxford, was so exciting.

Trinity has three letters from Smith, all addressed to Robert Nichols. All are dated 1936, immediately after the publication of Novel on Yellow Paper. Smith is thanking Nichols for his interest in the book – and sharing insights into her work, at the same time.

Review: Novel on Yellow Paper, Virago reissue

This is my copy of Novel on Yellow Paper, Smith’s 1936 debut.