Time to write: Conundrum

 A friend and I were chatting about poetry recently and I was asked who my favourite poets were of the last seventy years, more or less my life span so far. I was stumped initially because I don't generally think about poets in that way. There are poets whose work I like more than others, but, though content and context are important, I'm usually far more interested in knowing how they achieve what they do in a particular poem or in a sequence or as constant themes through the years.

After some thought, I came up with three - Tony Harrison, Derek Mahon and Geoffrey Hill, all very different poets. There are reasons for choosing those, but I won't go into them now. On thinking about these three later, I wondered what else might connect them to me. It turns out that they all had working-class childhoods and had made it through educational opportunities opened out after WW2 - like me. I'd known about Harrison's background, of course, but was less familiar with those of Mahon and Hill.

What was my unconscious doing?

Harrison I could account for; he's made the split between a working-class birth and later middle-class accretions his poetic/dramatic life's work. Mahon was far more subtle in expression, but has written, often elliptically, about his roots, his education and the Irish Troubles. Hill didn't as such, but, in his early poetry, involved himself in the mythology and historical impact on the area into which he was born, locating his poetry regionally. He did, though, admit in an interview in later life how unhappy his childhood was at home.

That split is probably the core; I'd experienced it, too. It would have affected all three poets in different ways. Harrison's weathered it reasonably well, possibly because he's always been so openly interested in his roots and went public about the splits it caused for the educated him. Mahon turned into a toper in middle years and Hill suffered from severe depression for most of his life. Who really knows what's at the root of those issues for those two; to date, only conjecture is possible. More might be revealed when the biographies are written.

My way through it was to lean on my father's pride in working-class life and anger at the necessity of its struggles. "You're as good as they are," he'd say, "provided you turn out to be useful." He meant, useful to people who'd need help, laconic language being much employed in my family. Always provisos from my Dad, even unspoken ones! There could have been, though, worse advice to take on board.

Forget It

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

nothing depends
upon

a silvered
flautist

cursed with cold
dripping

onto the wet
tissue

Joined Up Jingo Lingo

 

 

 

 

 

Dulce et decorum, etc...
 

Come, all you makers, listen to me
if you value your lives and want to be free
of this poetry lark. It’s like catching a cold;
snot running and leaking, thick-headed, you're sold
on the sense that what’s in should in some way be out
and congealing on paper. You haven’t a doubt
you’ll sleep sounder without it, but imperatives win;
there’re masses to write and not writing’s a sin.

Oh, really? Take fights between free verse and formal.
Who says they’re important? They’re pretty abnormal,
though a sign of your times, when war’s for an outing.
While cities are bombed, will you sit around spouting?

    Why not off-chair your arses, get out there and die
    for glory and honour? The poesy will lie.

To the Epigram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What use are you, you short-arsed whine?
Some say you’re full of wit.
My couple of dozen down the line,
I say you’re full of shit.

Regimen for Growth

 

 

 

 

 

 

In full-sweat columns driven grumbling over sand,
they’ll find a hull-down place to launch solutions. Tonight,
Kaus is a must where Spring’s offensive burdens the land
near Babylon: men fall riddled with techno-blight
drummed up the reddened road. Kaus, veil that sight
where death grows fat on rutted tracks. Scour eye, score hand,
scourge face. Where metals grind, make misery to spite
their oilward motion, clog every gear, leave tanks unmanned.

Look how they shunt aside our God to crush His fruit;
it rots on this torn ground. Though now that might’s unmet,
beyond the whirl, their force, we’ll sow each field afresh.
Bearer of blood and dun, cast in their way this flesh,
my shot son. Quicken those shrivelled lips and let
them drop, “Where I am shattered, ten thousand more will shoot.”

Kaus – Spring sandstorm in the Syrian Desert.