To watch the video with subtitles / translation, please click the subtitles icon on the YouTube video.
Artists
Jonathan Edwards‘s first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People’s Choice Award, and in 2019 his poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales.
Eeva-Maria Mutka is a Finnish performer, maker and community dance artist. She trained initially at LAMDA 1989-92, and has since continued her professional development in dance, somatic movement and mindfulness based practices. Since the 1990’s she has been performing internationally in dance theatre & film, site specific and cross art form works, cinema and TV. In 2020 E-M had the opportunity to develop her own Movement Art, supported by Groundwork Pro and ACW. Current performance work: Pneuma by Miranda Tufnell, Sylvia Hallett and David Ward, North-Hidden Behind Darkness with Gaby Agis and Lady of the Lake with Michael Harvey. Together with Andy Paget she created the rural creative retreat p e n p y n f a r c h and ‘this is somatic’ workshop programme. www.eevamariamutka.com
Poem
Paper roll
Homage to Jack Kerouac
Fingers on paper
The tip-tap of fingers
The crackle of paper
The muzak of birdsong
Day coming in through the world, through the window,
sparks flying in through a hole in the morning
Once, in a room,
a man ran his fingers over the letters
The paper that stretched from here to next Thursday,
full with the sounds that he hadn’t made up yet
The man in training to become a hero,
wiping his brow and flinging an arm out,
smashing an s down to make of this moment
something
Roll up the past, roll up the future
till one’s small enough to fit into this cupboard
and carry the other out in your knapsack
and smuggle it somewhere, over a border
Once, in a room, a man at a table
in the same time as the world through the window
and all of his past was stretched out before him
He tip-taps the words on the sides of his thinking
What do you hide when you hide behind paper?
What do you step on when you step on something?
This is the crinkle-crackle of paper,
sparks coming in through an eye or a lughole
Once, in a room,
a man just going, when where’s a direction
This is the sound of his tip-tapping thinking
This is the sound of his hand-me-down breathing
It megaphones here
and out in the world there’s a hole in the morning
and out in the world there’s a backfiring now
Jonathan Edwards
//
Rholyn papur
Teyrnged i Jack Kerouac
Bysedd ar bapur
Tip-tap y bysedd
Clindarddach y papur
Muzak cân yr adar
Daw’r dydd i mewn drwy’r byd, drwy’r ffenest,
gwreichion yn hedfan drwy dwll yn y bore
Unwaith, mewn ’stafell,
byseddai dyn lythrennau
A’r papur yn ymestyn o fan hyn i ddydd Iau nesa,
â’i lond o’r seiniau roedd heb eto’u creu
Dyn dan hyfforddiant i fod yn arwr,
yn sychu’i dalcen, yn sythu’i fraich yn wyllt,
yn pwnio’r ‘r’ i wneud rhywbeth
o’r ennyd hwn
Rholiwch y gorffennol, rholiwch y dyfodol
nes bod y naill yn gallu ffitio i’r cwpwrdd hwn
a bod modd cario’r llall yn dy sgrepan
a’i smyglo dros y ffin i rywle
Un tro, mewn ’stafell, bu dyn wrth fwrdd
yn gyfamserol â’r byd drwy’r ffenest
a’i orffennol i gyd yn gynfas o’i flaen
Dyma fo’n tipian geiriau ar ymylon y meddwl
Beth ŷch chi’n celu wrth guddio mewn papur?
Beth ŷch chi’n sathru wrth droedio unrhywbeth?
Dyma glindarddach papur yn crychu,
gwreichion yn dod mewn drwy’r lygad neu’r glust
Un tro, mewn ’stafell,
dyn ar gychwyn, a ble? yn nod iddo
Dyma sŵn tipian ei feddwl yn troi
Dyma sŵn ei anadlu ail-law
Mae’n diasbedain yma
a draw’n y byd mawr, mae ’na dwll yn y bore
draw’n y byd mawr, mae’na rwan sy’n tanio ar dri