Poems for Shakespeare 4

HAROLD B. LEE LIBRARY BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSln PROVO, UTAH

POEMS for SHAKESPEARE POEMS FOR SHAKESPEARE 4

Edited and with an Introduction by ANTHONY RUDOLF

Introduction 7

KEITH BOSLEY 13 Incidental Words (The Tempest, V. i.)

ERNEST BRYLL 18 Shakespeare stands guilty

A limited, numbered edition of 100 copies, signed by the poets and specially bound, has been printed (hors SYDNEY CARTER 21 commerce) in advance of the first edition. These are The Name that I forgot (Cymbeline, IV. ii.) available from,' 40 Bankside, The Liberty of the Clink, Southwark, London S.B.I. VERONICA FORREST-THOMSON 24 Richard II (Richard II, V. v.)

ERICH FRIED 27 .. " Advice to Some Players (Hamlet III. i.)

JOHN HEATH-STUBBS 30 Winter in Illyria (Twelfth Night, II. iv.)

JON SILKIN 32 Tolstoy's Brother Plants a Green Stick (The Tempest, I. ii.)

KEN SMITH 34 Winter Occasions (Winter's Tale, V. iii.)

The publishers wish to acknowledge the generous VAL WARNER 8 assistance of The Arts Council of Great Britain. 3 Marriage Stakes (The Taming of the Shrew, III. ii.)

AUGUSTUS YOUNG 40 This Mortal Coil (Julius Caesar, III. iii.)

i I I POSTSCRIPT 42 Printed by Skelton's Press, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire I Veronica Forrest-Thompson I , I Introduction by Anthony Rudolf

'0 divin Shakespeare, oui, thou art the greatest Bard in world' - STENDHAL (his English and italics)

To the memory of We say of an interpretation that it is a 'close reading' of the original when what we mean is a 'writing based VERONICA FORREST-THOMSON on a close reading', in short a 'close writing' ... of the 1947-1975 original text, of -let us say - Shakespeare. The elliptical, surface structure of the syntax suggests - what is indeed the case - that reading and writing are a palimpsest or a continuum rather than two separate acts. The ex plication is that Shakespeare himself has 'had a hand' (that's not all it's done, Madame) in the later writing. Undoubtedly he wrote The Tempest in order that Jon Silkin and Keith Bosley would produce, centuries later, poems out of his play, words on his play and play on his words. William Shakespeare supplied the pre-text for their text, which in turn ... what you are reading now, etc. Just so, Lichtenberg tells us, the cat has two holes in her coat just where her eyes are. Reading/writing is an act of translation. Obviously, the transference from one text to another is more dramatic, more vivid when you move, through trans lation, from one language to another, where an original poem is demantibulated only to be rebuilt, albeit 'with such words that are but roted in/Your tongue, though but bastards and syllables/Of no allowance to your bosom's truth' (Coriolanus). Transference, translation, is well-found in the poems in this book. Civilisation

7 itself, that glorious summer of our discontents, is a II manifold circle of synchronic and diachronic translations - re-readings, re-evaluations of the past in the light (or The public reading of Poems for Shakespeare (part of the shadow) of new developments. Ken Smith 'draws' an Shakespeare birthday celebrations presented by Mr analogy between Hermione in The Winter's Tale and Samuel Wanamaker assisted by Ms Maggie Southam) Mrs Shakespeare, and has Shakespeare writing haiku. took place on April 26, I975 in the retrochoir of Exit Smith, pursued by Maud Bodkin (come into the Southwark Cathedral. The evening began and ended bear garden) and by A. L. Rowse (Raus! Raus I). But with Shakespeare settings by Robert Johnson, Sibelius, Smith and the other poets have imagined and bodied Thomas Morley, and Rodney Greenberg (the world forth fables for our time, for 'the incarnate ... soul of premiere of his 'Helen's Blues' with words from All's generation', to quote Isaac Rosenberg, dead at 28. Well . ..), all sung by Helen Sava accompanied on the The best tribute to the greatest poet in our language lute by Michael Hunt and on the guitar by Kevin Peake. will always be a poem written in the fullness of a poet's This was the fourth annual Poems for Shakespeare. It is own energy and spirit. If it is not true to itself and to a matter for rejoicing that such an event is thinkable at himself, it will not be true to Shakespeare. What is more, this time - that it takes place is a tribute to poetry, to in the words of Professor G. Steiner (Geneva) 'Out of Shakespeare's genius and to Sam Wanamaker's vision the tension of resistance and affinity ... grows the and seriousness of purpose. elucidative strangeness of the . . . translation' and, I The 'commission of thy years and art' (to quote would add, of' that genre of translation which is the Romeo and Juliet) had involved (and I quote one variant commissioned poem, occasioned by - in this case - of the letters I wrote to the poets) re-reading 'a Shakespeare. The baggage every English-language poet Shakespeare play of your choice' and writing 'a poem carries with him contains a Shakespeare of his own out of that experience' (or in Sydney Carter's case a writing: 'it is not as though nothing else were but all song). 'Naturally I am not asking for a direct response else lives in his light', in the words of Martin Buber, (unless you want that) but a poem of any kind that the taken out of con-text. Awareness of Shakespeare's re-reading inspires or suggests.' In addition to a poem, absence is most poignant in those literatures that enjoy the poets were requested to select and read a passage remarkable translations (visiting moons) - for example from their chosen play - possibly a passage which con the German literature of Erich Fried. Fried's 'Sein oder nected in some way with the poem. Nichtsein dann' is included in this book. An English I received poems from ten of the twelve poets who translation may be found in any edition of Hamlet. were listed in the programme. Two - in the end - were You read the poems, therefore they are. Or, you read not able to come up with poems. One of the ten poets the poems, therefore you are. 'So distribution should did not turn up on the evening of the 26th. After the undo excess/And each man have enough' (King Lear). interval, when her turn came to read, I asked if she was True to my projection, I'm into Holinshed and North. present. Not receiving an answer, I asked two members And reading, says Tel Quel, is a science or a war. of the audience (whom I had primed during the interval), the actress Elaine I ves Cameron, and the poet

8 9 Christopher Hampton, to read Veronica Forrest Thomson's poem and Shakespeare extract respectively. I was worried and at the same time irritated, and I expected some explanation or reason, within a day or two, for her absence. The next day a friend and colleague of hers and mine telephoned to ask if I knew where she was: her parents had been in the audience he told me, and now, twenty-four hours later, still didn't know her whereabouts. Three days later he wrote to me to say that Veronica had died the day before the reading. She was 28. POEMS for SHAKESPEARE

April 1975

ANTHONY RUDOLF

Born 1942 in London. Has edited and guest-edited several magazines. Translated poetry and drama from and after several languages (recent book: The War is Over, selected poems of Evgeni Vinokurov, Carcanet 1976). Runs the Menard Press. A book of his own poems is forthcoming from Carcanet. -

I' , Keith Bosley

INCIDENTAL WORDS

I. ARIEL

In our steel grove on a hill we twitter and whine. Our syllables boom in the earth's belly where ears coil and tremble making a song that ripples through the dark to us: our silent strings are tuned to it and now they play bearing the strain but lightly out to where the air stirs through our grove though not with us. Who would hear us must take the strain of our taut strings though not of our twitter and whine upon his voice and sing (trembling uncoiling) us. We are legion.

13 2. PETITION TO MIRANDA His white friend Comme je ne suis pas ton bichon embarbe needs him as a gentle other, apes the open Princess upon this island of dry grass vowels of a body you set and clear the family table, shake whose tongue is already darkness out of the curtains, smile and make unmanned: to love him all trim and tidy in your father's house. as a brother comes later You point dry rot out to me as we pass and the world comes between. under old beams you grew up to: why take your leave of them or him, you say, why break 4. PROSE FOR PROSPERO with one whose whole thought is your happiness? Lie here, my art: let this place this bank below the castle And yet you say Please tell me what to do. grey towers seen through trees, this grass You too weave charms: am I, not knowing you these flowerbeds, this outer wall to toil for knowledge while you smash and grab? be island enough. Being man Appoint me poet only - of your park I am nobly born, have come visible from all sides, your girlish web into the rarest fortune your huge white dog that howls but cannot bark. of five stones and a warm palm to fling them, to make a fair 3. CALIBAN'S LIMBO reckoning: they are called stars He shifts from one foot when they glitter in the air to the other and is but mine are their only fires a dancer: behold and they fall as flung stones must the child who comes round not from void to void I live before breakfast because between but towards the dust his mother has thrown him I am and rejoicing move out but in ten years he will be a child among, counters bearing my still, his eyes melting stamp which their voyage has made to vacancy as words shower heavier. Landed they lie over him but answering as many as my skill could with light foot turned on the back of my writing on edge, with soft palm hand which I have learned to hold closed against the old steady, ready to be flung wrong. afresh once they are recalled

14 15 stones, their value realised THE TEMPEST, V. i. 33-57 only by the hand opened Prospera. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves; after writing. I have sized And ye that on the sands with printless foot so much, seek to understand Do chase the ebbing Neptune and do fly him When he comes back; you demi-puppets that some of the world thus, have sent By moonshine do the green sour ringlets make, argosies to the pursed lips Whereof the ewe not bites; and you whose pastime of the wind, an investment Is to make midnight mushrooms, that rejoice against the barrel whose hoops To hear the solemn curfew; by whose aid - Weak masters though ye be - I have bedimm'd would spin me upon myself: The noontide sun, call'd forth the mutinous winds, but where might their haven be And 'twixt the green sea and the azur'd vault Set roaring war. To the dread rattling thunder where, after the bitter gulf Have I given fire, and rifted Jove's stout oak might this self find sanctuary? With his own bolt; the strong-bas'd promontory Have I made shake, and by the spurs pluck'd up Where I am is where I was The pine and cedar. Graves at my command wrecked, by accident of birth Have wak'd their sleepers, op'd, and let 'em forth, or by plot of men - it is By my so potent art. But this rough magic all the same: I test the worth I here abjure; and, when I have requir'd Some heavenly music - which even now I do - of my works on those I wrought - To work mine end upon their senses that This airy charm is for, I'll break my staff, my creatures whom I have raised Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, around but beneath me, taught And deeper than did ever plummet sound to speak, whom my pride has used I'll drown my book. [Solemn music. swollen further with the waves roused to bear another prince my usurper who arrives my wrecked equal. I renounce KEITH BOSLEY power for power, from exile turn to prison, to break my stones Born 1937. Studied at Reading and Caen Universities; works for BBC. Married with two children. Publications: Tales (see my stars fall, my boats burn) from the Long Lakes (Finnish legends, 1966), Russia's Other in the castle of my bones. Poets (1968), An Idiom of Night (trs. of Jouve, 1968), The Possibility of Angels (poems 1969), The War Wife The world is with us - not too (Vietnamese poetry, 1972), And I Dance (poems for children, much, nor too little: who stands 1972), The Song of Aino (Finnish ballad 1973). Forthcoming between two worlds counts on you translations: Mallarme (Penguin), The Song of Songs, Finnish with the help of your good·hands. Folk Poetry.

16 17 Ernest Bryll To Szekspir winien, to Sofokles sprawit:: wm6wili wladcom teatr. Odt!!d zbrodnie Shakespeare stands guilty, Sophocles accused nie s~ jak sztylet czyste-z krwi otarty of talking lords into the theatre. Crimes rna zn6w niewinnosc krzyza . . . are no more clean as bloody daggers wiped Ile wody back to their blameless crosses ... poszlo na umywanie rllk, na pot, co karki How much water ugi~te nad mapami juz ogladza w marmur has gone in washing hands, in sweat that bows chlupot manierek. Prezeciez oni zwykle necks over maps by now polished in marble smakuj~ kaw

18 19 Sydney Carter

THE NAME THAT I FORGOT (a song)

A poem is a pretty thing, You'll find it in a book It isn't meant to listen to, It's better if you look.

Though dirty songs and doggerel Go well upon the stage The proper place for poetry Is on the printed page.

A poem that is really good Is hard to understand. You cannot do it in a pub With liquor in your hand

For whether it's a fake or not Is very hard to tell Until you've read it upside down And back to front as well.

I've got a television set At which I rarely look, But if I see a poet there I write him in a book: ERNEST BRYLL John Betjeman or Adrian Born 1935 in Warsaw. In London for a stint as director of (Whichever one it be) the Polish Cultural Institute. Has been a journalist and film If they were broke they'd never get critic, and literary director ofthe Polish Theatre in Warsaw. A subsidy from me. Author of many widely-read volumes of poetry, drama, novels; and has written song lyrics. His work is presented in But what of William Shakespeare, sir? C. Milosz's Postwar Polish Poetry (Penguin). I heard a pupil say.

20 21 If he can break the rules you make, CYMBELINE, IV. ii. Why shouldn't we today? Song

Fear no more the heat 0' th' sun You shake that mighty name at me Nor the furious winter's rages; (That name I quite forgot!) Thou thy worldly task hast done, Will Shakespeare is a genius Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages. And you, I think are not! Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

Well, that should put: him in his place: Fear no more the frown 0' th' great; But hark, I hear the bell! Thou art past the tyrant's stroke. The English lesson's over now - Care no more to clothe and eat; I think it's just as well. To thee the reed is as the oak. The sceptre, learning, physic, must So shut your Golden Treasury All follow this and come to dust. And mind you make it quick Fear no more the lightening flash, I never cared for Shakespeare much Nor th' all-dreaded thunder-stone; Fear not slander, censure rash; And now, Arithmetic! Thou hast finish'd joy and moan. All lovers young, all lovers must Consign to thee and come to dust. No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have, And renowned be thy grave!

SYDNEY CARTER

Born in Camden Town. Written many BBC scripts. Very involved with Greece. His songs are widely performed and recorded by himself and others (who include Pete Seeger and Donald Swan). His records include Lord of the Dance (Elektra) and Galliard has published several books by him.

23 22 Veronica Forrest- Thomson The step to and the step back from the still glass in the long wall Flung the glance wide from the old field and the brown scene. RICHARD II And the glance broke at the pale horse on the glass turf While the door swung where the window should have The wiring appears to be five years old been. and is in satisfactory condition. With the ghosts gone and the wall flat as the clock tick The insulation resistance is zero. With a blood stopped and a bone still I squeezed glue This reading would be accounted for by the very damp from my cold glove condition of the building. And I turned back to my smashed self and the few looks If you come up the stairs on the left side you will see pieced my own doll A band of dense cumulus massed on the banister. From the back-lash of the time brick and the last wall of Whatever you do, do not touch the clouds. an old love. Forever again before after and always In the joinery timbers there is new infestation In the light of the quiet night and the dark of the quiet And a damp-proof course is urgently needed. noon Say a few prayers to the copper wire, I awoke by a day side and I walked in time's room. Technicians are placing flowers in the guttering To the end of the long wall and the back of the straight They are welding the roof to a patch of sky floor Whatever you do, do not climb on the roof. I stepped with my years' clutch and the dark of my days' Before forever after again and always. doom. For the sight of the deep sad and the swell of the short limpid eyelid bright Bid me flee waste of the time web and the long hand On a life's weft and the grey warp in the year's cloak For a long shade laps a short stand.

The terms left right front and rear are used as if one is standing outside the building facing the front elevation. Specialists are carrying mirrors to the bedroom. They are stacked beneath the window three foot deep. Whatever you do, do not look in the mirror. Again before forever after and always

24 25 KING RICHARD THE SECOND, V. v. Erich Fried King Richard. Ha, ha! keep time. How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. And here have I the daintiness of ear ADVICE TO SOME PLAYERS To check time broke in a disorder'd string; But, for the concord of my state and time, Do you want to take no part Had not an ear to hear my true time broke. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; apart from the part For now hath time made me his numb'ring clock: that was given to you My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar so your play will be preferred Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, and your betters Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, can laugh Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is every time you move Are clamorous groans which strike upon my heart, or open your mouth. Which is the bell. So sighs, and tears, and groans, Should the gentlemen want to be gentle Show minutes, times, and hours; but my time they will beg their followers to bear with you Runs posting on in Bolingbroke's proud joy, 'For never anything can be amiss' they say While I stand fooling here, his Jack of the clock. This music mads me. Let it sound no more; 'When simpleness and duty tender it'. For though it have holp madmen to their wits, In me it seems it will make wise men mad. Or do you plan your play to be the thing Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me! wherein to catch the conscience of a king? For 'tis a sign of love; and love to Richard He will not stay to the end of your plot Is a strange brooch in this all-hating world. but runs away to plot your death.

Unless you turn round your play and make it real making all the world your actual stage one knows already at the start how it will end. Therefore play it as you like it thank no thankings and never excuse VERONICA FORREST-THOMPSON for when the players are all dead Born Malaya, 1947. Died in Birmingham, April 25, 1975. there need none to be blamed. Brought up in Glasgow, studied at Liverpool and Cambridge Universities. Lecturer in English at University of Translated from the German by Augustus Young Birmingham. Author of Language-Games.' poems (Leeds School of English Press, 1971); Cordelia.' poems (Omens poetry pamphlet 1974) and Poetic A.rtifice.' A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry (Blackwell, 1975).

26 27 HAMLET, III. i. Translated into German by Erich Fried Hamlet: Sein oder Nichtsein dann, das ist die Frage: Hamlet. To be, or not to be - that is the question; Was ist das Edlere, im Geist zu dulden Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer Schleuder und Pfeil des rasenden Geschicks, - The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Oder sich waffnen, einem Meer von Plagen Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, Trotzen und so sie enden? Sterben, schlafen, And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep - Nicht mehr; wir sagen Schlaf, urn so zu enden No more; and by a sleep to say we end Das Herzweh und des Lebens taus end StoBe, The heartache and the thousand natural shocks Die Fleisches Erbteil sind. Eine Vollendung, That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Aufs innigste zu wiinschen. Sterben, schlafen Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; Schlafen, vielleicht auch traumen: Ah, da hakt sichs ! - To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub; Denn was im Todesschlaf an Traumen kame, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, Wenn wir dem sterblichen Wirrwarr entschliipft sind, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Das muB uns anhalten. Da steekt die Riicksicht, Must give us pause. There's the respect Die hilft dem Dngliick zu so langem Leben; That makes calamity of so long life; Denn wer ertriig GeiBeln und Spott der Zeit, For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, Des Dnterdriickers Tat, des Stolzen Hochmut, Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, Die Qual verschmahter Lieb', des Rechtes Aufschub, The pangs of despis'd love, the law's delay, Die Willkiir hoher Stellung und die Tritte, The insolence of office, and the spurns Die duldsames Verdienst vom Dnwert hinnimmt, That patient merit of th' unworthy takes, Wenn er sich selbst ad acta legen konnte When he himself might his quietus make Mit einem bloBen Stich? Wer triig' die Last With a bare bodkin? Who would these fardels bear, Dnd stohnt' und schwitzt' unter der Miih des Lebens, To grunt and sweat under a weary life, Wenn nicht das Graun vor etwas nach dem Tod, But that the dread of something after death - Dem unentdeckten Land, aus dem kein Wandrer The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn Zuriickkommt, unsern Willen ratios machte, No traveller returns - puzzles the will, So daB wir Heber unsre Ubel tragen And makes us rather bear those ills we have Als fliehn zu anderen, die wir nicht kennen? Than fly to others that we know not of? So macht Bedenken jeden von uns feige, Thus conscience does make cowards of us all; Dnd des Entschlusses angeborne Farbe And thus the native hue of resolution Krankt, iibertiincht von der Gedanken Blasse; Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, Dnd mancher hohe, folgenschwere Vorsatz And enterprises of great pitch and moment, Gerat aus diesem Grunde aus der Bahn With this regard, their currents turn awry Dnd biiBt den Namen Tat ein. - He, du; leise! And lose the name of action. - Soft you now! Ophelia? Schone Nymphe, schlieB in deine The fair Ophelia. - Nymph, in thy orisons Gebete aIle meine Siinden! Be all my sins rememb'red. ERICH FRIED Born in 1921 in Vienna. Arrived in England August 1938. Lives in London. Author of many books of poetry; recipient of Austrian State Prize, Vienna, 1973. Has translated twenty Shakespeare plays into German. Also translated Auden, Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Wesker, Whiting, Sylvia Plath.

28 29 John H eath-Stubbs TWELFTH NIGHT, II. iv. Come away, come away, death; And in sad cypress let me be laid; Flyaway, flyaway, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. WINTER IN ILLYRIA My shroud of white, stuck all with yew, 0, prepare it! The fountain is choked, yellow leaves My part of death no one so true Drift on the broken pavement. Did share it. (' And the rain it raineth' ) Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strown; A white peacock Not a friend, not a friend greet Screams from a wind raked arbour. My poor corpse where my bones shall be thrown; (' Come away, Death.') A thousand thousand sighs to save, Lay me, 0, where Sad true lover never find my grave, Remembered echoes - echoes of lute-strings, To weep there! Echoes of drunken singing. (' By swaggering could I never thrive.')

Cries of a tormented man, shamed In a darkened room. (' Carry his water to the wise woman /' )

He left feckless Illyria, changed His name, enlisted in the army ('l' II be revenged on the whole pack of you' )

In the neighbouring state of Venice, rose to the rank of Ancient Personal assistant to the General. ('Put money in thy purse.') JOHN HEATH-STUBBS Born 1918. Studied at The Queen's College, Oxford. Worked in publishing and teaching. Visiting Professor of English, University of Alexandria 1955-58. Author of many books of poetry, drama, criticism; also anthologies, editions, translations (of Leopardi, Hafiz etc; Omar Khayyam forth coming). Most recent book of poems: the epic Artorius, Enitharmon 1973.

1 30 3 Jon Silkin its leap to the peaceable kingdom, that, that and no other thing, where is it?

The greening of a cut, wordless Tolstoy's brother plants a green stick in their estate at Australasian stick. Wind lifts Yasnaya Polyana. It has happened before. like a huge leaf. Lovely questions foliate the Pacific. The woods at Yasnaya Polyana.

Eyeless leaves THE TEMPEST, 1. ii. rustle their neighbours' faces. Sough. Prospero. We'll visit Caliban, my slave, who never Sough. The wind. Tolstoy's brother Yields us kind answer. plants his green stick. Miranda. 'Tis a villain sir, I do not love to look on. 'If ever you find Prospero. But as 'tis this carved secret, Earth We cannot miss him. He does make our fire, Fetch in our wood, and serves in offices will have greened a Paradise.' That profit us ... Caliban. I must eat my dinner. Green, green. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother, Which thou tak'st from me. When thou earnest first Black men, abiding their wilderness, Thou strok'dst me, and made much of me ... scorch the defoliated, wriggling grub. And then I loved thee, And showed thee all the qualities 0' the isle, Whitely the ferry chunters us The fresh springs, brine pits, barren place and fertile; Cursed be I that did so ... between bays. In oiled dispersions For I am all the subjects that you have, of wateriness we sprinkle to our rest. Which first was mine own king. The cut religious stick fades among first plantations. Wind h~aves. JON SILKIN Wordlessly, it vanished, bearing Born in London 1930. Lives in Newcastle. Has held several what the hand gave, of brief warmth. posts: journalist, manual labourer, etc. Gregory Fellow and BA of Leeds University and visiting lecturer at several o supple Paradise. Integument American Universities. Has edited Stand since he founded it prime as our mother's breasts in 1952. Author of many books of poems, most recently: The folding milk. Principle of Water, Carcanet 1974; also a critical book: Out of Battle (on First World War poets) OUP 1972; and an The pouched marsupial intelligence, anthology of poems from Stand published by Penguin and its care, its teeth, stained with'grass, Gollancz in 1973: Poetry of the Committed Individual.

32 33 Ken Smith and a fool for him when he comes in stomping his feet with a comment I've wrinkled and thickened some, WINTER OCCASIONS but it's years since I missed him. Years, years, clanking of buckets, I was snuffling in ditches, shearings, content and will be again glimpsing pig killings, our life in the town, through trees the river's loop, the owl in the thatch still blinking, poppy's glare, harebell weighed the fireback blackening. I was on the wind's stir. Celandine bleaches, a girl, the sun flamed in a sky the field is bleating winter of thistles and hemlock shaken above me, but in age there's fire I lay down close to the water. says he, surprised again, Winter in, winter out and again stares down at his table the wind nags me. He's back, and taking his pen starts up his boots at the scraper, squire's with some tale of a woman been off walking the parish muttering sixteen years a statue hoofbeats on roads I've not travelled. In his sleep because of her husband's jealousy, knives clatter on stones, armies wheel, and him wrong in the first place. storms rake the moor, a girl walks singing some love songs over the water meads - or he's crying so then I've lost you, in the old river the moon is still glittering. I'd been all these years a stone to him, a whisper in an infinity of shouting, or a light he snuffed and would light again, saying he's sorry and such, head in a sling, dragging his deaths like a whale round with him. So he's amazed there's life in me, blood's thumped breath and tongue to tell him he's mocked with his art. He cares what everyone thinks, and he'd thank my waiting so long to greet him, my hand on the latch, glad

34 35 THE WINTER'S TALE, V. iii. 21-68 Pauline. Indeed, my lord, If I had thought the sight of my poor image Pauline. I like your silence; it the more shows off Would thus have wrought you - for the stone is mine Your wonder; but yet speak. First you, my liege. I'd not have show'd it. Comes it not something near? Leontes. Do not draw the curtain. Leontes. Her natural posture! Pauline. No longer shall you gaze on't, lest your fancy Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed May think anon it moves. Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she Leontes. Let be, let be. In thy not chiding; for she was as tender Would I were dead, but that methinks already As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina, What was he that did make it? See, my lord, Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing Would you not deem it breath'd, and that those veins So aged as this seems. Did verily bear blood? Polixenes. 0, not by much! Polixenes. Masterly done! Pauline. So much the more our carver's excellence, The very life seems warm upon her lip. Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her Leontes. The fixture of her eye has motion in't, As she liv'd now. As we are mock'd with art. Leontes. As now she might have done, Pauline. I'll draw the curtain. So much to my good comfort as it is Now piercing to my soul. 0, thus she stood, Even with such life of majesty - warm life, As now it coldly stands - when first I woo'd her! I am asham'd. Does not the stone rebuke me For being more stone than it? ° royal piece, There's magic in thy majesty, which has My evils conjur'd to remembrance, and From thy admiring daughter took the spirits, Standing like stone with thee! Perdita. And give me leave, And do not say 'tis superstition that I kneel, and then implore her blessing. Lady, Dear queen, that ended when I but began, Give me that hand of yours to kiss. Pauline. 0, patience! The statue is but newly fix'd, the colour's Not dry. Camillo. My lord, your sorrow was too sore laid on, Which sixteen winters cannot blow away, KEN SMITH So many summers dry. Scarce any joy Born East Yorkshire, 1938. Lives in Devon with wife and Did ever so long live; no sorrow three children. Published The Pity (Jonathan Cape), Work, But kill'd itself much sooner. Distances (Swallow, Chicago), The Wild Rose (Stinktree, Polixenes. Dear my brother, Let him that was the cause ofthis have pow'r Memphis), Frontwards in a Backwards Movie (Arc), Anus To take off so much grief from you as he Mundi (Four Zoas, Atlanta). Forthcoming: Heavy Traffic, a Will piece up in himself. novel. Spent several years teaching in US. 37 Val Warner THE TAMING OF THE SHREW, III. ii. 8-20 Katherine. No shame but mine; I must, forsooth, be forc'd To give my hand, oppos'd against my heart, MARRIAGE STAKES Unto a mad-brain rudesby, full of spleen, Who woo'd in haste and means to wed at leisure. New woman, framed in gilt. Dangling sugar I told you, I, he was a frantic fool, Plums for the lap-dog, all things in due course: Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour; And, to be noted for a merry man, Old world rescinds, another fate lies low. He'll woo a thousand, 'point the day of marriage, Make friends invited, and proclaim the banns; Glass houses of cards mirror, mirror us Yet never means to wed where he hath woo'd. Seven-year itch, distorting glass. Who cracks? Now must the world point at poor Katherine, The glass of fashion tilts another way. And say 'Lo, there is mad Petruchio's wife, Men pose again in gay cravats, have rings If it would please him come and marry her!' And things to scuff the bonnet under foot. Nuclear groupings fallen about the scene, The crises of identity blow up Flaming false colours, star-crossed fustian: A thoroughly modern Katharine, passing by. Or, mewed up by the sink poor pussy sulks Conformable, as other household goods.

* Dance into sacrament, computer date! Gathering peascods unto danse macabre, The image advances marriage a La mode, Heading a partner off, commodious rite. Gold finger hustles in to set his mark Touching his own, to wive it wealthily. Why did he try to tame the shrew, beshrew! If love a scold, her worth mellifluous As his name's mewling and untainted heir VAL WARNER The which he ditto contracts for, express. Born at Harrow, 1946. Studied at Somerville College, Gold ring lies fairer on a porker's snout Oxford. Publications include Under the Penthouse (1973), Than girdling Eve, out-Circed for a spell. poems; and a volume of translations: The Centenary Corbiere Dowry to mortgage medieval gloss (1974), both published by Carcanet. She now lives in Asking her hand, out of which he' will feed. London.

39 I Pleb. What is your name? Augustus Young 2 Pleb. Whither are you going? 3 Pleb. Where do you dwell? 4 Pleb. Are you a married man or a bachelor? THIS MORTAL COIL 2 Pleb. Answer every man directly. Hamlet, Act 3, Scene I, line 67 I Pleb. Ay, and briefly. 4 Pleb. Ay, and wisely. With a snip of my scissors, blister-skjn, 3 Pleb. Ay, and truly, you were best. disappear down the sink without a trace, Gin. What is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am scab-relick of occasional digging I a married man or a bachelor? Then to answer every man directly and in the back garden, gone to seed and waste. briefly, wisely and truly: wisely, I say I am a bachelor. 2 Pleb. That's as much as to say they are fools that marry. You'll Although no daisy, dandelion still stands, bear me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed directly. Gin. Directly, I am going to Caesar's funeral. these levelled weeds will spring back from the dead I Pleb. As a friend or an enemy? from roots not drawn by an earthquaking hand Gin. As a friend. for my hoe hacked only their flowering heads. 2 Pleb. That matter is answered directly. 4 Pleb. For your dwelling - briefly. With the hair that moults to daily combings, , Gin. Briefly, I dwell by the Capitol. and fingernails cut weekly, be it known, r, 3 Pleb. Your name, s\r, truly. Gin. Truly, my name is Cinna. perennial blotch, with second comings I Pleb. Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator! do not come back to haunt my doomsday bones. Gin. I am Cinna the poet, I am Cinna the poet. 4 Pleb. Tear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses! I have no proper use for surplusage - Gin. I am not Cinna the conspirator. extremities cast off and overgrowths . 4 Pleb. It is no matter, his name's Cinna; pluck but his name out of grown out of. The willing plus of age is his heart, and turn him going. 3 Pleb. Tear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho! fire-brands! To to lose loose flesh to spirit up the ghost. Brutus', to Cassius'! Burn all! Some to Decius' house, and some to Casca's; some to Ligarius'. Away, go! We are reproached sufficient as it is ~ .' [Exeunt all the Plebeians with Ginna. by mortal coils: the flesh is frail and flecks to woddy wear and tear. Recoiled I live AUGUSTUS YOUNG in hope there's thorough gardeners in the next. Born Cork, 1943. Publications: Survival (NWP Dublin 1969), On Loaning Hill (Zosimus Books, Dublin 1972), JULIUS CAESAR, III. iii. Danta Gradha, love poems adapted from the Middle Irish SCENE III. Rome. A street. (15)75), A Tapestry of Animals (forthcoming). Plays: Invoices Enter CINNA the Poet, and after him the Plebeians. (Radio Eireann 1970), The Bone in the Heart (Delphic Gin. I dreamt to-night that I did feast with Caesar. Players, Belfast 1975), Go Show Yourself to the Priest (work And things unluckily charge my fantasy. in progress). Poems included in recent anthologies of Irish I have no will to wander forth of doors, poetry edited by David Marcus (Pan), John Montague Yet something leads me forth. (Faber). I 40 41 I " Postscript (in the rare instances where it is true) that someone is a loss to literature. That is the truth about Veronica. Furthermore, a loss to literature is, ipso facto, a loss to VERONICA FORREST-THOMSON life, to the ',life of the spirit' which, to continue Hegel's dictum, 'is not that 'life which shrinks from death and It was Veronica Forrest-Thomson's prize-winning seeks to keep itself clear of all corruption, but rather the collection of poems, Language-Games, that brought her life which endures the presence of death within itself and work to my attention for the first time. Ever since reading preserves itself alive within death'. Veronica's travail in that book, and her later texts, I - and others - have been the house of language was the ultimate play on words, fascinated by her writing, her discourse. At one private the translator's revenge on all tongues but the mother's. gathering of poets in London, and on other occasions; Veronica, like all true poets, translated roots into routes. Veronica - a slightly-built, intense and nervously A.R. articulate woman - dominated' the proceedings. Her words carried weight (a song with a double burden), for her theory and practice, her poetics and her poems (as well as her translations of the French poets who, like her, thought and wrote about poetry, though she had to operate in a philistine environment hostile to theory) sanctioned each other, inhabitated and named ea<;:h other. There are other scholars of her generation who have written a book as fine as her forthcoming Poetic Artifice; a theory of 20th century poetry. There are other poets of her generation who have produced a body of work to match her published and unpublished texts, but I have no doubt that she is unique - at any rate in this country -inhavingdone both. The stage was set for a Mallarmeen poeme-critique of the future, a discourse where a certain metaphysicality and radical empiricism would dare to merge. Her poems have been described as 'cerebral' ... but only by addlepates, folk who do not live ideas physically, who are blind to a dialectically articulated presence of lived abstractions. I t is always banal, but always right, to state that some one who has died is an irreplaceable loss to relatives and friends. It is equally banal, but equally proper, to say

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