Uģis Prauliņš: poetry & song

 

                                                                                            (c) Ainars Paukšēns

I remember the first time we met– possibly it was on the bus from Central London to Ealing, where I resided with my friends Len and Agnese. Len introduced us. Mahmud was working at the BBC then. He was a man in a grey/beige coat, with intelligent, educated man's language, immediately interesting, non-biased, with an unspoken appreciation of everything's beauty around him. He had a light and unforced sense of humour.

The occasional such meetings (we lived a couple of houses apart in the same small street) turned into friendship. He invited me to his BBC parlours, and to his house for afternoon tea, where I saw the place of an educated man with interests– about poetry, music. There was nothing to be associated with the 'normal <advertisement-generated>' culture in his space. Pari, such a sweet-- and if one reads the internet-- creative, educated friend of life. I felt how far they were from their birthplace, how the warm/hot days are missing for them. There always was this wordless message (non - intrusive!), yearning for the complete Paradise they had to flee in the 1970s.

The Oriental world was such an impression— like a chest full of gold and gems, precious metals— the huge spiritual and intellectual heritage of the East, immense capacity of knowledge, hundreds and thousands of years ago, before European science was born. That was my feeling– the Colossus, but in the form of a humble and sincere man. A poet.

His poetry is immediately attracting, with aforementioned deep world of real, rooted fantasy. And immediately eluding fast reading: I had to catch his phrases, strophes, force myself to read and understand— as in Sufi practice— to be patient, not simply to break the ice. Thus I started now and then to lift the weight of Mahmud's lines – and in most cases, I stopped after a couple of them.

The only time I was brave enough [to compose music for his lyric] was – 2014. Mahmud's “Not All Words Are Birds“ was so direct (and merciful for the composer).  I could identify and resonate with Mahmud's thoughts. Even now I see the birds - the storks, cranes - flying above in the skies of Ermanu muiza / Ermani manor - where Inga and I are living, mostly in summertime. The birds—the messengers, the thoughts have no borders, they are following to their thousands and more the year's seasonal migrations, traveling routes.

Overall to justify myself, I must acknowledge— the best poetry is not guaranteed to fit into music, sometimes do not need music at all to colour, illustrate the words.

Yes, I remember— I planted some years after the first performance of “Not All Words Are Birds,” an elm tree— Ulmus minor “Umbraculifera”– a Persian cultivar, introduced to Europe only in 1878— in honour of my friend, the writer Mahmud Kianush.

Meeting with Eastern values continued when we— Inga and I— visited from Riga. Len and Agnese were now residing in the other end of London. Our important stop was to see Mahmud and Pari. I remember Katy was quite surprised about the two strange foreigners sitting in the hall like old family friends. We were invited together to see their Afghan friends in nearby Camden Town's market. It was my first experience, like a journey in such a behaviour, attitude, may say human responsibility, friendliness and— as the foreigners— like sisters and brothers.

Now, not anticipating Mahmud's ways, I have already started to finish one of earlier ideas (for male chorus) of his poem “Of Life.“ I hope to finish it by the end of this year.

Our last telephone conversation was a couple of years ago, it was my small whim to congratulate him with the Nowruz (as I understood, the ancient Latvians also started the year on the same date of Equinox).

These are my basic memories about this precious, noble-minded friend, writer.

I would like to send my regards for Mahmud, in celebrating his life: he was special, he was a talent, he was truly a rare partner in conversation. Maybe, because both of us were foreigners: no complaints, but, we were different, and free from uniformed communication. Inga also is sending her gratitude and best thoughts to our friend Mahmud Kianush.

Yesterday we raised a glass of cava in memory of Mahmud. His radiance I have received will be permanent in me, this is a real treasure, rays of Enlightening.

Deepest condolences to the family and friends.
It is not an easy time for any of us.

Ugis.

 

OF LIFE

 

Let your words be like a wild flower,

A smile of azure

With a tiny mouth of gold,

In the naked sunshine of a desert,

As blissful as the kiss of a mother

On the forehead of a smiling child.


When you talk of life,

It seems as if on the road

We are confronted with a rock,

Unsightly and huge,

Happened to be there

For no known reason,

Unyielding to all solutions.


Let your words fly

Lightly in the sun

Like butterflies.


Mahmud Kianush

London, 1 April 2004

Sources:

Top photo (c) Ainars Paukšēns, from Uģis Prauliņš blog ~Not all Words are Birds

reminiscence by Uģis Prauliņš 2021

poem by Mahmud Kianush 2004

Pitshanger Lane

Mahmud

 

Friend, neighbour, fellow poet. We both lived close to Pitshanger Lane, a village-like area of Ealing, West London, quiet save for the Heathrow flightpath noise pollution. People tend to move here when they have small children due to the quality of the local parks and schools, and then they often stay on after their children have grown up. I first met him before I knew him: 15 years ago, in my 40s, I suddenly decided I needed to get fit. Fatherhood and a desk job had wrapped me into a body I did not want to have. One of my regimes involved exercising in Pitshanger Park by jumping on and off a stone bench. A well dressed man in his 70s with a walking stick and a camera stopped to watch me, and as he passed, said I wish I could do that.  I was to learn this was typical of the interactions he had with the people around him. A kind word usually, but also ready to challenge any behaviour he felt was illogical or flawed.

A year or two later I was browsing the poetry section of Pitshanger Library.  I was struck by how many books in the poetry section were by the same author, unusual since the only other writers were Hughes, Plath, and recent laureates. I started reading them, and was struck by the unusual (for British poetry) themes of the poem: metaphysical, spiritual, taking time to unfold, written clearly with a knowledge of poets such as Blake and Wordsworth, but with also a broad knowledge of texts from other traditions. The books were all published by Rockingham, a small UK press, so I contacted the editor, suspecting Mahmud must be a local.

Within a couple of days I was sitting with him in Café 786 on Pitshanger Lane, and here started our regular meetings. He was a conversationalist of the kind that I had read about but seldom encountered before: a Coleridgean breadth and breeziness, flitting easily between the big ideas (religion, death, politics) to some local and evanescent detail from the street outside. Within a few days I was his ‘son in poetry’, and he soon linked me to Joanne, his daughter in poetry.  I looked forward to our meetings and always wished that they were longer.

Over the years we met regularly, but looking back, not as regularly as either of us would have liked. I had a family, a job, a commute, he had a sick wife and was notably weakening over the years. He replaced his walking stick with a Zimmer frame. One of the pleasures of cycling and walking in the Ealing area was the chance of seeing him and having a chat. On one occasion he told me that he thought Jesus had not suffered enough. I asked why, and he replied that a few days on the cross were nothing on the pains and indignity of old age.  Increasingly if I saw him outside, he would be going to a hospital appointment or medical check-up.

Once the lockdown came, in spring 2020, despite living a few streets away, I could not see him. However, we phoned and emailed, and he told me that he wanted to publish his next and final book, The editor of Rockingham had retired, and he needed help in finding a new publisher and getting the book into print. I sent the manuscript around and rapidly received a positive response from the editor of Knives, Forks and Spoons. There followed a busy period of three-way editing and messages as we formatted and changed the manuscript to fit the requirements of book publishing. By this time, in the summer, Mahmud had suffered the terrible loss of his wife, Pari, from Covid, and he was himself no longer fit enough to proofread.

The book The Journey came out towards the end of the year, with one of his own photos on the cover. I wish I could have sat with him and looked through it together, perhaps reading out some of the poems.  A few days after he received it, he told me he was unhappy about one of the words in the author description. It was not his latest book, he said, it was his last book.

Now that he has gone, his book remains, a monument to his sensitivities and perceptions as one of the few poets in Britain who followed in Blake’s shows, who demonstrated not just as an idea, but as an active being, that all deities reside in the human breast.

photo & text by Giles Goodland