This piece, with following notes by Ira Maine, Poetry Editor, first appeared in this blog on 25 August, 2013

The song of wandering Aengus.  by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS.

I went out to the hazel wood
Because a fire was in my head.
And cut and peeled a hazel wand
And hooked a berry to a thread.

And when white moths were on the wing
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
And went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor
And someone called me by my name.

It had become a glimmering girl,
With apple blossoms in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran,
And faded in the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and take her hands,

And walk among long dappled grass
And pluck til time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Comments by Ira Maine, Poetry Editor
Here is Yeats, up to his armpits in Celtic Mythology. Yeats, a young product of that late 19th century Romanticism which included Beardsley and Moore and Wilde, the Cafe Royal aesthetes and the rediscovery of that same mythology as a vehicle for artistic expression.

Sometimes we have “peak experiences’.  Split seconds of astonishing clarity where everything there is to know is known to you and where you need absolutely nothing more to feel complete.  Unfortunately these blinding revelations are gone just as quickly and we long desperately to experience them again, to be reminded of that mind-blowing ‘Otherworld’.  Perhaps for Yeats the girl, the fish represent that ‘peak experience’ and Aengus (Yeats) spends his life trying to recapture it.

Aengus is the Celtic Eros, the god of love, eternally young and handsome and is the possessor of a harp whose music no one can resist.  Though Yeats is the central figure in the poem, in pursuit of the unattainable, the peak experience perhaps, he is, at the same time, Aengus, the god of love, forever moving and restless, because, for life to have meaning, love is paramount and seeks continually to recreate itself.

It’s not all about making the two backed beast, you know…
IRA MAINE, Poetry Editor.

This Dispatch was originally distributed 17 October 2012.  (The first half only is reprinted here.)

Buenas amigos y compañeros,

Not sure if a previous Dispatch bore the label ‘Spin’. No matter, ‘spin’ is such a recurring occurrence in Aboriginal Affairs, that it deserves a re-run.

My late mother spent eight decades on earth being an avid reader of anything. She passed this affliction on to me. I don’t read Mills & Boons (as she did) but am an avid reader of food labels.

When in Canada, this habit afforded me much pleasure in that the labels were bi-lingual. I learned that the enjoyment of a certain breakfast cereal would be much enhanced if slices of a certain rodent were added to it- a pampel mouse.

I also learned that it took twice as many letters to expound the virtues of a certain brand of peanut butter in French as it did to do so in English. This in turn reinforced my developing belief that every language is valuable and none better than another.

If you want to quickly and without fuss describe a brand of peanut butter, best do it in English; if on the other hand you want to wax lyrical about the peanut butter, French is better!

And who in their right mind hasn’t sometime felt an intense urge to wax lyrical about peanut butter?

Thus I came across the following: “Crusta’s great tasting apple juice is lovingly crafted in the lush riverland of South Australia from quality imported ingredients”

Thank goodness they chose a lush location to lovingly practise their craft, otherwise it would have tasted like crap.

When Sir Walter Scott wrote “Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive” in 1808, he could hardly have imagined the imaginative, varied and complex webs of deception that would be spun around the world the next couple of centuries.

A book I’ve read lately is José Hernández’ ‘Martín Fierro’ a 19^th Century Argentine classic. It is written in an anachronistic rural Spanish, rather difficult to read, but mercifully my copy has a vocabulary in the back. A bit like Australian Government reports dealing with ‘matters Aboriginal’ that are difficult to read but mercifully have a list of acronyms in the back. Unlike the Australian Indigenous reports however, ‘Martín Fierro’ is full of wisdom. A sample.

La ley es tela de araña
en mi inorancia lo explico
no la tema el hombre rico
nunca la tema el que mande
pues la rompe el bicho grande
y solo enrieda  a los chicos

http://youtu.be/s9CC1bsGDAA

The law is like a spider’s web,
In all humility I explain:
the rich man fears it not
neither he that is in command.
The large beetles break free
and only the small insects are ensnared

A spider is said to ‘spin’ its web. The Dutch word for spider is ‘spin’. I’ve heard people referred to as ‘een spin’, sort of meaning deceitful or conniving. The Warlpiri word for spider is Yinarrki.

ITEC employment entered Yuendumu on the coat-tails of the Intervention. They’re still here. Legislation makes it compulsory for recipients of unemployment benefits to attend interviews with ITEC to “discuss pathways to employment”

From ITEC’s website I repeat an example of classic spin:

“ITEC Employment provide support to the lives of people in over 70 locations across Australia through the delivery of high-quality employment and related services to those most disadvantaged by their remoteness, their labour market or their personal circumstances.

Much of our current work is conducted working alongside of Indigenous communities across Northern and Central Australia assisting to provide pathways towards employment through community capacity building, greater access to opportunities for education and program development specific to the needs of local people…”

A colloquial Australian word for spin is ‘bullshit’.

Lest some of you respond with “give it a rest”, I shall refrain from quoting Australia’s Queen of Spin Jenny Macklin in this dispatch. She is bound to come out with some doozies, so watch this space.

Meanwhile listen to the Spin Doctors http://youtu.be/GrQCro68sRU , surely you agree that it’s much more pleasant to do so.

TO BE CONTINUED