James Em Rowlands

On Opening The Spring Dream James Em Rowlands

The year is 2020 and most of the world is coming to terms with lockdown or confinement due to the Covid-19 pandemic. I had spent the Autumn and Winter digging and building, planning and planting in the hope of transforming my football-pitch size garden of grass and gorse into an oasis of colour and life. However, as the season changed and the sun came out, it soon became apparent that perhaps no one would be able to visit or see the work I had so put my heart into. I took to singing in my car and recording videos to entertain friends on social media, and between classes given by zoom, began writing this long poem. Then, around mid-May - and in need of something new to listen to - I came across a 1985 Bernstein recording of Mozart's symphony no. 41. I had heard it as a young man but had never appreciated its chaos and rebellion. It obsessed me as I wrote, to position longer and shorter passages and different rhyming schemes together, and to recreate the same vertiginous experience but with words.