Celebrating & Sharing Poems as Friends
Friend and dear friend and a planet’s encouragement.
95. The World as Meditation by Wallace Stevens
A Friend to David Lewsey - in conversation with Fiona Bennett and Michael Shaeffer
Dearest friends
We are so sorry to have to share the hardest news with you - something we could never imagine having to say...
Our beautiful friend and the founder, co-host and guiding light of The Poetry Exchange, Fiona Bennett, has died after a short illness.
We are so sorry this will come as a huge shock to you all.
It is hard to begin to express the enormous sense of loss, grief and endless love we are feeling for our beloved Fiona. We know so many of you will be feeling this with us. Fiona touched so many people's lives in such a profound way....whether you listened in to her voice every month on the podcast, or had the pleasure of Fiona's company and friendship in person.
Michael offers a beautiful account of Fiona and their friendship in the introduction to this episode. As he puts it: "Fiona was a real one off. She really was one of the very best."
This episode is a converastion Fiona really wanted us to share. It is an exchange with the wondrous David Lewsey about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'The World as Meditation' by Wallace Stevens. We recorded the conversation just a few months ago, and it is wonderful to hear David share all his passion for this poem and for poetry with Fiona and Michael.
We would love to hear from you with any messages, feelings and reflections about Fiona, and you can get in touch with us on hello@thepoetryexchange.co.uk. We are going to be taking some time to process and face the loss of our beautiful friend, and to think about ways of lifting up and honouring her extraordinary life and legacy.
We are incredibly grateful to you all for all your support and friendship.
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With deep love and sorrow,
Michael, John and The Poetry Exchange xx
The World as Meditation
by Wallace Stevenage
J’ai passé trop de temps à travailler mon violon, à voyager. Mais l’exercice essentiel du compositeur—la méditation—rien ne l’a jamais suspendu en moi … Je vis un rêve permanent, qui ne s’arrête ni nuit ni jour. - Georges Enesco
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Is it Ulysses that approaches from the east,
The interminable adventurer? The trees are mended.
That winter is washed away. Someone is moving
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On the horizon and lifting himself up above it.
A form of fire approaches the cretonnes of Penelope,
Whose mere savage presence awakens the world in which she dwells.
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She has composed, so long, a self with which to welcome him,
Companion to his self for her, which she imagined,
Two in a deep-founded sheltering, friend and dear friend.
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The trees had been mended, as an essential exercise
In an inhuman meditation, larger than her own.
No winds like dogs watched over her at night.
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She wanted nothing he could not bring her by coming alone.
She wanted no fetchings. His arms would be her necklace
And her belt, the final fortune of their desire.
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But was it Ulysses? Or was it only the warmth of the sun
On her pillow? The thought kept beating in her like her heart.
The two kept beating together. It was only day.
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It was Ulysses and it was not. Yet they had met,
Friend and dear friend and a planet’s encouragement.
The barbarous strength within her would never fail.
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She would talk a little to herself as she combed her hair,
Repeating his name with its patient syllables,
Never forgetting him that kept coming constantly so near.
"The World as Meditation" from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WALLACE STEVENS by Wallace Stevens, copyright © 1954 by Wallace Stevens and copyright renewed 1982 by Holly Stevens. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.