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Collected Film Poetry
This work "Arctic Paradise" (previously unpublished); "Loving Memory" ("The Muffled Bells", "Mimmo Perrella Non e Piu", "Cheating the Void", and "Letters in the Rock"); "The Blasphemers' Banquet"; "The Gaze of the Gorgon"; "Black Daisies for the Bride"; "A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan"; "The Shadow of Hiroshima"; "Prometheus"; "Metamorpheus" (previously unpublished); "Crossings" (previously unpublished).
Paperback
First published April 5, 2007
13 people want to read
About the author
Tony Harrison
112 books36 followersSee http://www.contemporarywriters.com/au...
He has written for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera and for the BBC and Channel 4 television. He was born in Leeds, England in 1937 and was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics.
He became the first Northern Arts Literary Fellow (1967-8), a post that he held again in 1976-7, and he was resident dramatist at the National Theatre (1977-8). His work there included adaptations of Molière's The Misanthrope and Racine's Phaedra Britannica.
His first collection of poems, The Loiners (1970), was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1972, and his acclaimed version of Aeschylus's The Oresteia (1981) won him the first European Poetry Translation Prize in 1983. The The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992) won the Whitbread Poetry Award.
His adaptation of the English Medieval Mystery Plays cycle was first performed at the National Theatre in 1985. Many of his plays have been staged away from conventional auditoria: The Trackers of Oxyrhyncus was premièred at the ancient stadium at Delphi in 1988; Poetry or Bust was first performed at Salts Mill, Saltaire in Yorkshire in 1993; The Kaisers of Carnuntum premiered at the ancient Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum in Austria; and The Labours of Herakles was performed on the site of the new theatre at Delphi in Greece in 1995. His translation of Victor Hugo's The Prince's Play was performed at the National Theatre in 1996.
His films using verse narrative include v, about vandalism, broadcast by Channel 4 television in 1987 and winner of a Royal Television Society Award; Black Daisies for the Bride, winner of the Prix Italia in 1994; and The Blasphemers' Banquet, screened by the BBC in 1989, an attack on censorship inspired by the Salman Rushdie affair. He co-directed A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan for Channel 4 in 1994 and directed, wrote and narrated The Shadow of Hiroshima, screened by Channel 4 in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the first atom bomb. The published text, The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film/Poems (1995), won the Heinemann Award in 1996. He wrote and directed his first feature film Prometheus in 1998. In 1995 he was commissioned by The Guardian newspaper to visit Bosnia and write poems about the war.
His most recent collection of poetry is Under the Clock (2005), and his Collected Poems, and Collected Film Poetry, were published in 2007.
He has written for the National Theatre in London, the New York Metropolitan Opera and for the BBC and Channel 4 television. He was born in Leeds, England in 1937 and was educated at Leeds Grammar School and Leeds University, where he read Classics and took a diploma in Linguistics.
He became the first Northern Arts Literary Fellow (1967-8), a post that he held again in 1976-7, and he was resident dramatist at the National Theatre (1977-8). His work there included adaptations of Molière's The Misanthrope and Racine's Phaedra Britannica.
His first collection of poems, The Loiners (1970), was awarded the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 1972, and his acclaimed version of Aeschylus's The Oresteia (1981) won him the first European Poetry Translation Prize in 1983. The The Gaze of the Gorgon (1992) won the Whitbread Poetry Award.
His adaptation of the English Medieval Mystery Plays cycle was first performed at the National Theatre in 1985. Many of his plays have been staged away from conventional auditoria: The Trackers of Oxyrhyncus was premièred at the ancient stadium at Delphi in 1988; Poetry or Bust was first performed at Salts Mill, Saltaire in Yorkshire in 1993; The Kaisers of Carnuntum premiered at the ancient Roman amphitheatre at Carnuntum in Austria; and The Labours of Herakles was performed on the site of the new theatre at Delphi in Greece in 1995. His translation of Victor Hugo's The Prince's Play was performed at the National Theatre in 1996.
His films using verse narrative include v, about vandalism, broadcast by Channel 4 television in 1987 and winner of a Royal Television Society Award; Black Daisies for the Bride, winner of the Prix Italia in 1994; and The Blasphemers' Banquet, screened by the BBC in 1989, an attack on censorship inspired by the Salman Rushdie affair. He co-directed A Maybe Day in Kazakhstan for Channel 4 in 1994 and directed, wrote and narrated The Shadow of Hiroshima, screened by Channel 4 in 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the first atom bomb. The published text, The Shadow of Hiroshima and Other Film/Poems (1995), won the Heinemann Award in 1996. He wrote and directed his first feature film Prometheus in 1998. In 1995 he was commissioned by The Guardian newspaper to visit Bosnia and write poems about the war.
His most recent collection of poetry is Under the Clock (2005), and his Collected Poems, and Collected Film Poetry, were published in 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 1, 2020
Harrison's Collected Poems confused me on first encountering them and when I discovered this collection of his film poetry I was initially unable to get past my dislike of his rhyming couplets and often facetious, self-subverting style. Even on the page, some of these film scripts were indeed pretty moving, but for most of them I found the effort of reading them laborious and dutiful until I discovered that his films are largely accessible on YouTube and these are stunning. What is simplistic on the page is highly effective when spoken aloud on film, what is facetious on the page is naturalistic and colloquial in the mouths of actors. Having already read the scripts in this collection, I was able to follow the films with greater appreciation, enjoying the way actors and images illuminated Harrison's material and set it aflame. Having appreciated the films I was all the more keen to refer back to the text and examine more closely the words and the poetry.
Included in the text is a prose introduction by Harrison and another by Peter Symes, as well as a further prose essay introducing Prometheus, where Harrison sets out some of his theories about the scope and possible direction for poetry in theatre or film and the obstacles he had to overcome in order to be allowed to make his films. Not every poet who tried has been successful with poetic drama and he explains some of the measures he took to learn about and take control of all aspects of film making in order to achieve what he has done.
Writing my naive and impressionistic review of Harrison's poems I regretted that he had not followed the xample of Shelley. Today I have to thump my own forehead, finding that he has explicitly emulated and acknowledged Shelley with Prometheus , and that he has done so with huge impact. Or maybe I can let myself off, and say that I thought Harrison had the potential to do this and that I now find Harrison has, after all, surpassed my expectations. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Dictators, deities, they're all the same
forbidding men fags, fruit or flame,
First Zeus wi' fire then t'God of t'Chapel's
obsession wi' forbidding apples.
One crunch into that contraband
gave men t'knowledge God had banned.
We've got t'knowledge, we've got t'fire,
we've raised ussens up out of t'mire,
Diso-bloody-bedience got us over
t'barbed wire fences of Jehovah.
But men thesens bring back t'barbed wire
round t'Bramleys and round t'bakehouse fire.
There's not one joy but what some berk'll
want it ringed wi a red circle.
Gods or men who're summat similar,
'ermes or some Town Hall ''immler,
those in power'd like t'red ring
round almost bloody everything.
...
....
Fire and poetry, two great powers
that mek the s-called gods' world OURS!
(Prometheus)
This is the film of Prometheus, two hours in length.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgQ5v...
Included in the text is a prose introduction by Harrison and another by Peter Symes, as well as a further prose essay introducing Prometheus, where Harrison sets out some of his theories about the scope and possible direction for poetry in theatre or film and the obstacles he had to overcome in order to be allowed to make his films. Not every poet who tried has been successful with poetic drama and he explains some of the measures he took to learn about and take control of all aspects of film making in order to achieve what he has done.
Writing my naive and impressionistic review of Harrison's poems I regretted that he had not followed the xample of Shelley. Today I have to thump my own forehead, finding that he has explicitly emulated and acknowledged Shelley with Prometheus , and that he has done so with huge impact. Or maybe I can let myself off, and say that I thought Harrison had the potential to do this and that I now find Harrison has, after all, surpassed my expectations. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Dictators, deities, they're all the same
forbidding men fags, fruit or flame,
First Zeus wi' fire then t'God of t'Chapel's
obsession wi' forbidding apples.
One crunch into that contraband
gave men t'knowledge God had banned.
We've got t'knowledge, we've got t'fire,
we've raised ussens up out of t'mire,
Diso-bloody-bedience got us over
t'barbed wire fences of Jehovah.
But men thesens bring back t'barbed wire
round t'Bramleys and round t'bakehouse fire.
There's not one joy but what some berk'll
want it ringed wi a red circle.
Gods or men who're summat similar,
'ermes or some Town Hall ''immler,
those in power'd like t'red ring
round almost bloody everything.
...
....
Fire and poetry, two great powers
that mek the s-called gods' world OURS!
(Prometheus)
This is the film of Prometheus, two hours in length.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgQ5v...
August 26, 2021
read for *uni* (yes, the return of this again) for cl4468 (classics and the left)
i originally was only going to read prometheus, so the first part of my review is about that.
the use of prometheus as a bastion of the mining working class is astounding - and particularly the metatheatre / metacinema and conversation between the young boy and the old man. i also particularly liked the quote: 'it'd be a struggle to exist / in t'world and not be socialist'
overall, in this collection, i particularly liked 'the big h', 'black daisies for the bride' and 'metamorpheus'. 'the big h' is a big old tour-de-force on classism and issues with accents, and how this comes into essentially identity-culling, while 'black daisies for the bride' paints a deeply moving picture of people affected by alzheimer's / dementia. in deep contrast, 'metamorpheus' is essentially a pisstake documentary harrison made in collusion with oliver taplin - although i enjoy it particularly for the fact that it made me aware of the existence of phanocles.
am interested to see where my lecturer takes this, and definitely interested to see the film 'prometheus', if we can get a screening of it!
i originally was only going to read prometheus, so the first part of my review is about that.
the use of prometheus as a bastion of the mining working class is astounding - and particularly the metatheatre / metacinema and conversation between the young boy and the old man. i also particularly liked the quote: 'it'd be a struggle to exist / in t'world and not be socialist'
overall, in this collection, i particularly liked 'the big h', 'black daisies for the bride' and 'metamorpheus'. 'the big h' is a big old tour-de-force on classism and issues with accents, and how this comes into essentially identity-culling, while 'black daisies for the bride' paints a deeply moving picture of people affected by alzheimer's / dementia. in deep contrast, 'metamorpheus' is essentially a pisstake documentary harrison made in collusion with oliver taplin - although i enjoy it particularly for the fact that it made me aware of the existence of phanocles.
am interested to see where my lecturer takes this, and definitely interested to see the film 'prometheus', if we can get a screening of it!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews