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UnConscious Words – Sad Music for the Perfect Soul

And I said, with rapture, Here is something I can study all my life, and never understand. – Finnegans Wake
 
You may have heard of Bloomsday – June 16th, the single day covered in detail in the 643-page novel by James Joyce, Ulysses. Fans of the novel show up bright and early June 16th  at the James Joyce Center to start their day visiting each site in Dublin mentioned in the novel.
 
Maybe you’ve read Ulysses, maybe you’ve been avoiding it all your life.  I finally read the book as a COVID project.  It turned out to be worth the effort.  So much so, I was quite keen to visit Dublin on June 16th. My husband and I traveled with dear friends, who are both professional photographers.  He was along for the ride, she was working on a Dublin project for  The Little Museum of Dublin and wanted photographs of Bloomsday.
 
For me, the author armed with little more than an iPhone, I wanted something fun, so I brought along a  James Joyce Finger puppet.  I can’t remember WHY I own a James Joyce finger puppet, likely a gift from a friend who knew I’d recognize the puppet as a famous author.
Both my husband and our friends were mortified by this undignified approach to a famous novel, except that as the day wore on, every one of them participated in holding the puppet while I cataloged Joyce’s rove around Dublin.  
 
Inspired by my week in Dublin, and armed with my copy of the Cambridge Centenary Ulysses (a facsimile of the original novel published by Sylvia Beach),  I dove deeply into Ulysses and created poems based on the collected words culled from each of the 18 episodes.  The short poems give space, consideration, and a different, yet insightful interpretation of this important book, simply by re-purposing the words.
 
It is a bold project, but filled with the rapture of sharing a collection of poetry I don’t fully understand.
 
 
Words by James Joyce, Ulysses Circe Episode – 3
 
Hear world beauty
First pulp women
Royal jobs watched glowingly
Perfect soul is thought sad music
 
Shoot trouble, a reform example lost
Not lucky, after a moment, forgotten
The end is round and open
Summer grieves its hot choices
 
Her scream weak like fool’s delights
This event howled, a cruel secret
Darts from half to bachelor arms.
 

CatharineBramkamp

Catharine Bramkamp is a successful writing coach and author. She has published over 300 newspaper and magazine articles in publications like Modern Maturity (AARP), SF Chronicle and Santa Rosa Magazine. She was a contributor to two Chicken Soup Books and has published anthologies of her work, non-fiction works and novels. Her work has also appeared in a number of poetry and fiction anthologies. She has experimented with the self-publishing world since 2001. She has published and self-published seven books through companies like Author House, author assist companies like 3L Publishing and through traditional publishers like Write Life. Her poetry collection, Ammonia Sunrise, will be released in August 2011 by Finishing Line Press and her mystery novel, In Good Faith will be released by Write Life in 2011. Catharine holds a BA in English from UCSB and a MA in English from Sonoma State University. She is a 25 year member of California Writer’s Club. She is an adjunct professor for the University of Phoenix. She works with authors of both fiction and non-fiction to make their dream of producing a book come true. For more information on that, visit her at www.YourBookStartsHere.com Catharine has lived in Sonoma County for 25 years and considers wine a food group. She is married to an adorable and very patient man who complains he’s never featured in any of her books. Her grown children who are featured in a few of her books have fled the county.

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