This morning I had a browse through the latest issue of “Arcadia: A Journal of Newish Verse” which arrived a few days ago and which I usually ignore because it’s guaranteed to be jam-packed full of the poetry equivalent of sleeping pills, but this issue has some work by a chap I know vaguely, so I thought I would have a gander. Some of the people in there really know how to dampen one’s spirits before you’ve even started:
“This collaborative sequence of short prose or prose poems was written using the
paintings of Jānis del Aqotaaņs (as reproduced in a 1997 catalogue) as visual prompts.
The writing process used interpretation, ekphrasis and disjunction to construct
a non-linear narrative which attempts to create momentary experiences and
reflective interiority through characterisation.”
Now you know why I usually ignore magazines like this, with their “reflective interiority” and suchlike – and of course it’s not a magazine, it’s a “journal”. Instead of reading that kind of guff I prefer to spend my time with dead people like Montaigne. It would have never crossed Montaigne’s mind to try and impress you with how clever he is. Quiet the contrary, in fact. And those dead people almost always write better and more interestingly than today’s nincompoops. I don’t recall subscribing to this rag. Perhaps they just like me, and send me issues gratis, though their liking me is pretty doubtful. The work by the chap I know vaguely is not at all interesting. I quote: “I am an adjectival mess, a topographical disgrace.” I remember him once falling flat on his face in a bar in, I think, Sheffield. He had drunk too much anti-freeze. It was in the good old days, when it was alright to be a simple and straightforward disgrace. Topography did not come into it.
Speaking of Montaigne, as I did a moment ago, and apropos something someone said to me a few days back about how I have become a bit of a recluse, I give you this, which I copied from somewhere. I forget where:
“Montaigne himself had withdrawn in solitude to his estates, as many an ancient
philosopher and statesman had done, with leisure to seek after wisdom, goodness and
tranquillity of mind. His advice that we should set aside for ourselves a ‘room at the
back of the shop’ is a reminder that true solitude is a spiritual withdrawal from the
world. Living in solitude did not mean living as a hermit but living with detachment –
if possible away from courts and the bustle of the world.”
I am not quite sure what my point is, except that I do go out, occasionally, although I have to admit I am increasingly going off the bustle of the world and off people in general.
All of this sounds a little grumpy, but I am not grumpy, because Spring is springing, Easter is nigh, and the sun has been shining, snowdrops have been followed by bluebells and crocuses, and the grass in the pastures and meadows is looking nice and green. It means there is work to do around the estate, but that’s where Jethro comes in, with his laughter and unrestrained gaiety. (I am being sarcastic and ironic all at the same time.) Yesterday he raised some questions about the condition of the stables. He pointed out areas where repairs were required, and suggested that some modernisation might be a good idea, along the lines of installing electric lighting and heating. I pointed out that they are stables, which is where the horses live, and it is not a rural annexe to the Savoy Hotel. But I am not a skinflint, and will consider the matter. I suspect part of Jethro’s motivation is as much his own welfare as that of the horses. He does, after all, also live in the stables, in a rather cosy corner of the hayloft.
Cook is also getting into the swing of seasonal things, and has set about the annual Spring Clean, which comes with capital letters because it is poorly organised Turmoil, also with a capital letter. I am reminded of a poem, which if I remember correctly includes the lines:
What the fuck is all this dust?
Must I tolerate this? Do I must?
I think it is from a poem by the Poet Laureate, but I may be mistaken. I am not an expert on that particular media celebrity’s ”verse”.
But let us turn to real poetry. I have been thinking about my “Collected Poems”, and how to set about gathering them. I reminded myself that a “Collected Poems” is not exactly the same as a “Complete Poems”, which renders the task of compilation a little easier, albeit not by much. But it means I can, should I so choose, leave some things out. On the other hand, everything is pretty brilliant, so nothing really deserves to be omitted. I am, as they say, perched on the horns of a quandary. Plus, I’ve been at this genius lark for a long time: this afternoon, after much delving in dark corners, I dug out a copy of my debut ‘slim volume’. I published it myself. I was just enjoying the first delights of puberty at the time, and at that age I knew nothing of how to approach famous publishing houses or the like, although I had been led to understand by my House Master – Mr. Probyn (“Paddy” as he was known to us boys, I have no idea why) – that few of them would be prepared to consider a handwritten submission from a schoolboy. Be that as it may, looking at it now I cannot but feel a tingle of satisfaction and pride at the little homemade book. I can remember how my arm and hand ached from writing out the poems so many times, and then there was all the folding of the paper, and the trouble I had of finding some coloured cardboard for the cover . . . It was a labour of love! I may only have produced a dozen or so copies for family and friends – there were, by the way, limited numbers in each category – but I can see that “Juice Cult: Verses of Desire” was both precocious and, aesthetically, simultaneously behind the times and ahead of its time. That is no easy feat:
Juice on lips, I yearn for thee, Princess of Flame! From near or far
Burn my heart! That I may slake my thirst on thy blessèd love nectar
As it seeps from thy untouchable and most perfect and precious faucet
My desire bursts from deep within me, I do not have to force it
I seem to recall Father smiled knowingly when he read my poems, but Mother did not seem at all thrilled. She was always saying I should get out more, and play a bit of rugby, or take up boxing. She was like that. She did not have an artistic bone in her body. Nor did Father, come to that, but I forgave him because I knew he was making loads of money and that one day, if Dame Fortune looked favourably upon me, it would be mine, all mine. And it is.
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James Henderson
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