A Tale of A Couple of Poets.

Once upon a time there was a movement called the Modernists and there was a certain knight in shinning armor/ poet called W.B Yeats. This man forged a middle road between modern verse incorporating meter and sophisticated ideas for modern times, it has been this road which has dominated English verse since the war. However despite all this progress the idea of free verse was smote asunder it would seem. The work of Eliot seems to have been swept aside, which is a heinous mistake. It is with this in mind that we turn to the latest collections of Motion, Muldoon and Cope.

Andrew Motion who for the last decade was our Poet Laureate, stepping into the shoes that had been vacated by one of the greatest poet of the last century- Ted Hughes. Motion got this post more through what he wasn't that what he was. Firstly, he hadn't  voiced publicly any opinion about Ulster (which Heaney had and felt he couldn't be the PL therefore), secondly, he hadn't any great greivance about our colonial past, (which Walcott had and therefore couldn't be PL therefore), thirdly he hadn't slept with somebody of his own sex (which Duffy had and so Blair, in his infinite wisdom, decreed that she couldn't be PL therefore) finally he didn't write in free verse so he could become a 'people's poet'. Thus Motion ascended to the PL- and promptly wrote very little, and ten years later he gave up the post to be filled by Duffy. From this lost decade has arisen -not quiet phoenix like- 'The Cinder Path'.
As has been said he is a formal poet, indeed there is some interesting stuff in here, the eponymous poem is a simple little puff about the mortality of existence, and his pursuit for the Grave of Rupert Brooke seemed to capture all that it aimed to. This aside I rather felt a little bored with it and beyond this that his control of the meter was not all encompassing. That he had allowed his pursuit of the form to interfere with his pursuit for the content- style over substance.

This could again be said of Muldoon's 'Maggot'. Muldoon, like Heaney, doesn't support the union and so couldn't be the PL, however he's had a very distinguished career which seems to have been right-fully earned.  There is almost an extravagance in this work, with poetic sequences forming the back bone of this book. The eponymous sequence links the imagery of decay with that of love, which is a consistent theme in this work. There are some stand alone poems, which provide startling imagery- children disemboweling mothers, albatrosses feasting on plastic- but in the context of the text seem to be flashes in the pan, but I rather think that they add an excitement which is wanted in the scheme of things. The sequences however, climax not in the final narrative of road side shrines, but in the poets lament upon a dying poem drawing comparisons with the decay of nature and the loss of a loved one. His poetry is more exciting, formally skilled and fluid than Motion.

Yet Cope stands as the doyenne of the formal post war poets. The only other poets who have an equal control over their meter which immediately come to mind are Larkin and Hughes. Her first book 'Making Coco for Kingsley Amis' is a stunningly witty and often poignant waltz of a collection. 'Familliy Values' is her latest is an often darker book, with poems dealing with her strained relationship with her mother, the BBC and getting older, Cope still provides us with what we have come to expect in her 'Villanelle for Hugo Williams'. This is a pithy, witty and touches upon the English Condition-much like the collection itself. This is the best of the formal poets on offer at the moment, without a hesitation or a doubt.

Family Values; 94/100

Maggot; 78/100

The Cinder Path; 54/100

The Club Of Queer Trades

Chesterton wrote my favourite book (The Man Who Was Thursday), and I felt rather duty bound to read more of his literary works. By all accounts Chesterton was a remarkable man; a Catholic theologian, a philosopher, a noted wit -equal to Wilde-, a biographer, a novelist and general man of letters, he is credited with reintroducing Dickens to literary study and hobnobbed with the likes of Bertrand Russell, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and Hillaire Belloc. This considered means I more lightly to view his work very kindly indeed.
 This book is formally in the vein of the Sherlock Holmes saga, following the pattern of a collection of short stories with similar themes and characters which can stand alone but lead to a denouement- in Doyle's case is generally more harrowing, in Chesterton's more jovial. Which is probably the best word to sum up the book.
There are no murders in this book, barely any crimes, it seems to be frankly like a series of really drunk people, getting really drunk and doing really drunk things with opium fumes thrown in there for good measure. Briefly the 'plot' concerns death threats in pansies, mad doctors, mad judges, mad majors, mad businessmen, odd (I wrote queer and thought better of it) vicars and social faux pas involving a mad viscount. The characters could be seen as a little shallow, but I think they're rather likable, the narrative is easy flowing and the wit is sublime.
It makes a nice change and I recommend it to be read as a nice breath of fresh air.

78/100 (Fiction)

The Millstone

Margaret Drabble's book is the relatively short narrative of an illegitimate pregnancy. We are led through the conception, the pregnancy, those evidently tortuous visits to the doctor, the birth and eventually to a kind of ending. The protagonist (Rosamund Stacey) is very much of her time and class; she is a grammar school girl in the early 60's and behaves as such. Those virtues of independence, intelligence, courage in the face of adversity etc. et. al. are all there as well as a Victorian self-loathing and non-conformist guilt about her sins. We do however get introduced to other characters along the way which brighten the road up a little. One is Lydia, the protagonists lodger, who whilst I found myself wanting to drown her does provide at least a few  ironic laughs. Another point of alleviation are the repeated anecodtes. They hinder the progression of plot endlessly and infact became infuriating but nonetheless were alleviation. (One must remember that since I ahve little desire-or ability- to give birth to an illegitamte baby and could thus little empathise Rosamund's plight)
The book has been described as a portrait of  London before it really began swinging. Indeed it is exactly this. The expectant mother's experience of the National Health could not be imagined now-a-days and her self restraint too, it must be said. For whilst her pregnancy is illegitimate it is not born of repeated one night stands but more of an accidental breach of protocol. The conclusion however is to be expected, after a hundred and fifty odd pages one is repeatedly told about the nature of our narrator and whilst the conception was a breach in protocol, the final few actions are completly in her nature. This does not mean to say that one is left feeling content.
Recently there has been a renewed interest in this period of our shared history, seen noticeably in Madmen. This has manifested itself now in fashion much to the horror of several parties involved. Reading this novel one gets the idea that we have moved on so very far, that things for all concerned have improved and that we should stop looking at the past with tinted glasses and with drinking clouding our judgement.
I don't feel this is a badly written book, I think it is a little dawdy styistically but the narrative would hardly be suited to anything more exotic Yet, as I've already said, I am in a position wherein I cannot physically become pregnant, nor do I have certain hormones or suffer certain emotions etc. such that I could not really empathise as much as the author probably intended for her reader to.  Ultimately I just feel that it was not a bad book, just a bit dull.

68/100 (Fiction)

Much Depends on Dinner: The Extraordinary History and Mythology, Allure and Obsessions, Perils and Taboos, of an Ordinary Meal

Margaret Visser before she began writing about culinary concerns, concerned herself primarily with the classics. She is then firstly a classicist, secondly a scholar and thirdly-it would follow- very knowledgeable. All this shines through in this book. Visser has created a simple four course meal of Corn with Butter and Salt, Roast Chicken and Rice, a Lettuce Salad dressed with Lemon Juice and Olive Oil followed by Ice Cream.
The book is perhaps a little dated-seen in particular in the chapter concerning Lettuce, nowadays its all hydroponically grown- it still however remains a formidable tome exploring each component to its very roots and  its very branches. The exploration of these components I found fascinating; the butter chapter I particularly enjoyed, Visser's clever argument upon margarine was certainly magnificent. (Her argument briefly is if Margarine is so bloody good why does it try imitate butter?).
 However I have a keen interest in such things and found myself lagging occasionally, just pushing through with a stubbornness which you've all come to love and admire. 

68/100 (Non-Fiction Chart)  85/100 (Culinary Chart)

Elizabeth

It might have been a nostalgic desire to revisit the tortuous pains of the last year or so, or merely a desire to read something which didn't involve fiction which made this book seem a good choice to read. Starkey has written something which is very readable. It is scholarly yet approachable.
Starkey who has a cruel sense of humour and an even crueler wit is a noticeable force in this work, a vivid example being his description of Bloody Mary as a "bit of a goer". One can feel his hand writing the words, hear his soothing voice reading the text and see him nodding when some point is revealed with a flourish. It is usual for historians to try appear as little as possible in their work a mere emince gris- Starkey is no shrieking violet. We get in this book a highly personal yet professional narrative of Elizabeth's life.
Or at least some of it. The book's preface states that this biography is not a complete sweep of the life of the Virgin Queen, but instead it is a narrative of her early years; the formative years that shaped Gloriana and the fate of the nation. We don't then get to see the imperial majesty of Good Queen Bess, but what we do get is an insight into one of the great Britons and the story behind the mask.

78/100 (Non-Fiction Chart)

Thr Monkey Wrench Gang

I cheered when I finished this book. "The story of a mad doctor, a Nigella-esque revolutionary, a Mormon polygamist outdoorsman and a crazed Green Beret 'Nam Veteran and their battle for the world they hold so dear against all odds." The book lived up to the blurb and doesn't that plot just sound fantastic. 'The Great Gatsby', for all its beautiful prose and delights, doesn't have the most intriguing of blurbs. Abbey, who wrote 'The Monkey Wrench Gang', has written here something which is readable, accessible, enjoyable and certainly worth reading. Their is wit but it tends to be a bit crude as an example "The fuckin' fucker's fucked.". But let's be honest who can't fall in love with that line? Indeed who can't but fall in love with all the characters? They're all magnificent caricatures, beyond the realms of reality and thank god for that. It is just joyful to encounter characters which are not whiny, or self-obsessed or indulging the author's sense of vanity, but instead to meet with characters who the author has obviously enjoyed creating and who have been created to be fun.
However, the prose can be a bit heavy and the writing is not as glorious as Heller's -who seems to me to be a direct influence. The long descriptive passages can be a little heavy going but they constantly reinforce the author's message that this landscape is in danger.
Nonetheless it was great fun, I enjoyed it as a romp through the American landscape and read it at great speed. I do feel that this book could have the tendency to drag if it was allowed, but if you read it quickly then you wouldn't be bothered by it.

76/100

Ferlinghetti. A Coney Island of the Mind

Simply, I love that title. Ferlinghetti just seems to be able to get titles just right. His first book 'Pictures of the Gone World' was exactly that. His poem number 40, ' On Upper Fifth Avenue' stands in my mind as one of the great works of the twentieth century, succinctly capturing the double standards of our time and the legacy that has been left to us by the second world war. Also within that collection, which I highly recommend, is the poem number 26, 'Reading Yeats I do not think', which is re printed here in 'A Coney Island of the Mind'.
It is easy to see the influence that Yeats has had on Ferlinghetti, his famous poem 'Junkman's Obligato' the line "Let's go", a truly colloquial if I may say American saying expression gains gravitas as Ferlinghetti develops it into the Yeats' line and -variations of it- "Let us arise and go now". Beyond merely referencing the Irish Free State Senator, Ferlinghetti has obviously been touched by the observational and symbolic qualities of Yeats' verse which is particularly evident in poem 19 'In woods where many rivers run' with the mythical symbols of rainbows.
Yet one does not read American poetry of the fifties for the symbolism. The beats, which Ferlinghetti is involved with (but when one says Beat Generation Kerouac, Ginsberg, Kesey and Burroughs are the immediate associations that and early deaths.), were deeply political and this is the main thematic strand running through the collection. The first four poems are laced with the poets socio-political views with the idea  that the consumer society which the USA had begun upon would "devour America" framing the rest of the poetry in the book. There is also a deeply anti-religious strand which is less dark and more comic. The poem concerning St. Francis of Assisi and "birds" is a clever word play and a brilliant image of the beat generation.
It would be impossible to review Ferlinghetti without mentioning his poetic form. Milton shocked people by writing beyond rhyme, Ferlinghetti has completely broken all ties with the formal tradition. His verse is the freest of any poet, yet it still maintains a fluidity of nature which makes it a delight to read. Indeed it lends itself easily to being read aloud and the beauty of the words is really best released thus. Beyond that the way in which he is able to draw the reader's attention to a certain point is truly admirable and enjoyable.

I throughly enjoyed this collection and cannot give praise enough.

The Power and The Glory

Yay, I've got followers. Which means amongst many things that this blog moves from being a published internal monologue to an-in theory-  external dialogue. So if we began with the classics of Ancient Rome, let us move forward to the work of someone from the century we were born in. The Power and The Glory by Graeme Greene is frankly sublime. Speaking generally as somebody to whom religion and faith are of little concern, this allegory of the life of Christ went far deeper than was expected.
Many have recently come to Greene because of a certain film and frankly were disillusioned- because of course reading a book for a film is a brilliant idea which has no pitfalls etc.-, well that's more their loss. His style is very easy to read and is more conversational than anything else. Yet there is an underlying guilt to his writing. His heroes are never pure white, the villains never black. They are engaging, or at least I found them engaging. The flaws in the protagonist are mirrored not only in his antagonist and the other characters but in the reader. The indecision of the priest whether to stay or go, how to best protect his flock are mirroring the reader's own internal battles. Greene's slight of hand leaves the Christian allegory tactile. The vultures, the drink, the peasantry, the prisoners, the priest and the police are not only literary devices but ways of drawing the reader in making them not only emphasise with the story. Yet the characters are too close to our own selves to be ignored as literary creations, we see their story acted out in front of us and it makes us question the -oh so cliched- human condition and it is this which is what Greene's book is so very good at doing.

I don't really know where to start, but I suppose I'm really only going to be the sole person who ever reads this; so who cares, -crawling self pity over with, (accompanied by ironic statement trying to mask the deep pit of self consciousness which I've now burrowed into). That miserable Caulfield-esque greeting established where better to begin than with the Ancients.  Iupiter solam scit (Jupiter alone knows) when I started reading the real classics- I am loathe to this idea that anything written post the fall of Rome, i.e. post Classical civilization, can be a classic, so we'll create an alternative when we get to that point. A little Thucydides, Herodotus, the Labours of Heracles and this and that, but in more recent times I've been indulged by Cicero. Now most people has heard of the Catiline speeches, and very good they are, such lines as "What need we fear his guards? Ay, a veritable Praetorian Guard of rent boys!" and "Oh the times! Oh the customs!" give a canape of Cicero's abilities, but I much preferred the Philippics which are essentially libel and which ensured that Cicero had to be assassinated. In the age of the clipped sound-bite and the spineless spin-doctored politician, these orations are refreshing and brilliant. Moreover his defense of the liberties of the people of Rome has become increasingly apt in these revolutionary times.

Also writing at this time was the great poet Catullus. The sex scandals and what-not of the detestable pages of Hello! etc. are not new. Nothing is ever really new, it must be said. Catullus is best known for his love poetry (I should like to point out that those words were typed amidst eye-rolling), certainly his words have been used to lure many lambs to slaughter, but really his 'love' poetry charts the ups and downs of his stormy relationship with Lesbia, perhaps summed up in  "Odi et amo" (I hate and I love);

I hate and I love,
Why do I do this,
You might ask?

I do no know,
But I feel it and
It is agony.

And Love poetry is all well and good but cynical git as I am, I rather more preferred the raw emotional torment that is expressed in "Ave atque Vale".

Having travelled through many
Nations and over many
Seas, I come my Brother to
These sad funeral rites to
Give you the last gift of the
Dead and to in vain address
Your silent ashes since ill-
Fortune has taken away
You from me, alas, my poor
Poor brother, unworthily.
Now, meanwhile take from me these
Offerings which in the long
Ancient customs of our fore-
Fathers have been bound by and
Fixed so that by way of a
Sad gift to the dead made wet
By the tears of a brother
Forever and ever.
Hail and Goodbye.

Editions of Catullus' poetry are easily procured and frankly worth reading. Yet his work can be a little grave and emotionally over-charged or occasionally just bitchy as in the infamous Catullus 16. But my favourite Latin poet (if we are dealing with the Romans it seems apt to have a grouping of three) is Martial. Pope, Wilde, Thribb are really much the inferior to these most stinging and simple of epigrams. There is no arguing with the likes of ;

You Beg me Quintus,
To give you my books,
But Tryphone the book
Seller has them. You ask
"Am I to pay money
For these Little trifles?"
And "Am I to buy
Your poems if I am
sane? I shan't act
So stupidly!" You say.
Nor will I.
 
And as such I really do find myself enjoying his bile concerning his fellow Romans. His poems are easily accessible and thoroughly enjoyable. I recommend them highly as an anecdote to the self-absorbed and corrupt society we inhabit.