"Bleeding Heart Yard" by William Scammell

Last night I listened to a brilliant radio programme 'The Stationery Cupboard' written and presented by Lucy Mangan based around a visit to her old primary school to explore the attitudes of today's children to pens, pencils, paper, crayons, paints - all things locked away in that cupboard. 

 One of my favourite tasks at school was being ink monitor - being entrusted with a tiny funnel and the pint bottle to fill the porcelain inkwell at the top right hand corner of the school desk. I've always been randy for all the other paraphernalia too: I can't walk past a stationers without going in to cast a critical eye on what they have to offer. Of course it has always been something to do with the archetypal need simply to make ones mark and the satisfaction - never complete- that accrues from that.

 By association I think of this favourite poem by William Scammell who has a grasp of the situation and puts it very well....


BLEEDING HEART YARD

Is where you go to buy the finest paper
gathered under an English sky.
The wiring looped up in the corner
is the scribbled ghost of Hokusai,
the rafters Durer's signature.

They are keeping one eye on the rag trade
and one on the clientele,
nails pointilliste in blue and red,
clothes flaring round them like a sail
let out to catch the lightest mood.

Nothing is lost either on the old Ralph
Roister Doister who mans the shop,
monkeying up to the topmost shelf
or naming the name of a fellowship
that's shy of people. 'Help yourself'

He says to the punters. They do and must,
Stroking the paper as if it were
all the first things and the last,
a favourite daughter's that of hair
thin flake of the moon, a creamy dust.

Their right hand itches, and the juice works
in their mouths. What invitations
to spill the beans, take lines for walks,
or post a statement to the nation,
blind Homer's eyes for a watermark,

Rough as justice, age old, sore:
tablets for all shapes and sizes
of wishes and wants edging round the door,
the artist's hunt, the model's poses,
the face that never lifts from the floor.

All four winds sough in the paper. Welcome
to their rich lauds and distresses
Welcome to Tracy and Mnemosyne,
Hokusai's numberless addresses
sown like grain from a careless palm.

That girl will be forever flying her kite
over the rooftop of youth
While some old duffer falls for art
and the standing committee on God's truth
stumbles into the failing light.






The best paper there is? Arches have made paper since 1492 and this is currently their top of the range, heaviest watercolour paper they do, made from 100% cotton.
I think it is really over-rated: my lines are still wonky, legs come out different lengths; wrong number of eyes.... rubbish really.


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