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Owen Lowery Phd 1 June 2016 Pdf Version View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Bolton Institutional Repository (UBIR) A critical and creative examination of the ‘extrospective’ poetry of Keith Douglas Owen William Lowery Student Number: 0507724 A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Bolton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2016 Contents Acknowledgements p. vi Abstract p. vii Project aims and approaches p. 1 A collection of my extrospective poetry p. 4 Inert p. 4 Divested p. 5 Out of it p. 6 Hospital slide-show p. 7 A frieze depicting four centaurs* p. 8 In conversation with Chiron* p. 9 IVP - intravenous pyelogram* p. 10 Latest meeting with the consultant p. 11 Woman who looks like Sophia Loren* p. 12 Jospice visiting day* p. 13 Bruise from my Baclofen pump re-fill p. 15 The Promenade Hospital at Southport p. 16 Tony McCoy at the Cheltenham Festival p. 18 New admission, Southport, ICU p. 19 Time by Clifton Marina* p. 20 From Lochaline to Isle of Mull* p. 22 Stalking one of Sunart’s otters* p. 23 Meanwhile, back at the chop-house* p. 24 Man walking* p. 25 A buzzard from Rose Cottage* p. 26 i Leopard in the sugar-cane p. 27 Jayne’s leopard p. 28 Jayne’s barn owl* p. 29 Hen Harrier p. 30 Half-lit on a return journey* p. 31 Bill Shankly on a T-shirt* p. 32 Hillsborough remembered p. 34 May 2005, Champions League Parade p. 35 Burnden Park and the dogs p. 36 Salvation Army clothes bin* p. 37 Picturing you as a girl* p. 38 Picture of you at a party p. 39 Pictured riding p. 40 Picturing us p. 41 Jayne’s holiday aubade* p. 42 Pte George Ellison, killed 11-11-1918 p. 43 Domodedovo airport, 24-1-2011* p. 45 Albert Richards, war artist, 1919-1945* p. 46 On deck with the secret sleeper* p. 47 Losing Alun Lewis in the Americas p. 48 Shalimar Gardens, Lahore, 1943* p. 50 Jasmine tea at a pavement café* p. 51 Keith Douglas painting dancers* p. 52 Keith Douglas returning Masha p. 53 Syrian road-trip 1941 p. 55 ii Treblinka’s trees* p. 56 Memories of the women, Grabow p. 57 Simon Srebnik outside the church in Chelmno p. 58 Song of Simon Srebnik p. 60 Remember Steinlauf* p. 62 Lilith of Camp Buna, Auschwitz, 1944* p. 63 Canto waiting for soup* p. 64 The night before the train comes p. 68 Primo Levi and the barber Ashkenazi p. 69 Returning, Romanian border p. 70 Division of bread p. 72 Henri and the Pole wait for a train p. 73 Shock p. 75 Exit Leon* p. 76 Ghetto morning p. 77 Boris and prisoners at the Jewish Cemetery p. 78 Boris metamorphoses p. 80 View from the Lieutenant’s hut II p. 82 Boris taken out for questioning p. 84 Chapter One – What did Keith Douglas mean when he referred p. 85 to ‘extrospective’ poetry? i Keith Douglas's definition of extrospection p. 86 ii Douglas, Auden, and the New Apocalypse p. 87 iii Personal Landscape and co-existing opposites in p. 91 Douglas’s poetry iv Douglas as a man of action: the soldier’s view p. 96 iii v Extrospection and ‘visual’ poetry: thinking in pictures p. 101 vi Extrospection and the threat of death in battle p. 103 vii Douglas and Rosenberg: influence and effect p. 106 viii Extrospection, total war, and obsolescence p. 108 ix Early signs: Douglas as an extrospective child p. 110 x Extrospection and personal rejection p. 111 xi Acceptance, fatalism, and detachment p. 113 Chapter Two – Extrospection after Douglas p. 122 i The possible extrospection of the Movement poets p. 123 ii A significant difference: the Movement’s reticence p. 134 iii The extrospective spirit of Ted Hughes p. 138 iv The sensitivity of Geoffrey Hill: Hill as an extrospective p. 146 poet v Dannie Abse, Anthony Rudolf, and Jon Silkin: p. 150 extrospection and personal impact vi Private pain; extrospection in Simon Armitage, Elizabeth p. 154 Jennings, and Sylvia Plath vii Extrospection and the body: Seamus Heaney p. 161 and Thom Gunn Chapter Three – Personal reactions to the concept of p. 173 extrospective poetry i Hospital, extrospection, extremis, and paralysis p. 173 ii Extrospection in relation to poetic form and structure p. 186 iii The flexibility of extrospection and its application to p. 202 non-hospital-related poetry iv My poems and Jayne: developing bifocal or 'double' p. 206 extrospection v Extrospection and the poetry of nature p. 210 vi Extrospection at home: in pursuit of the ordinary p. 214 iv vii Extrospection at war: writing with and without p. 221 experience viii The need to address the unspeakable: extrospection p. 229 and Holocaust ix Douglas and beyond: learning and further development p. 238 Conclusions p. 251 Bibliography p. 253 * Denotes all poems included in my first collection, Otherwise Unchanged. v Acknowledgements For Jayne I would like to thank, Professor Jon Glover, Michael Schmidt, and Anthony Rudolf for their invaluable advice and support throughout this project, Desmond Graham for his excellent and extensive work on Keith Douglas, my mother, Sybil, for secretarial help and proof-reading, and my wife, Jayne, for her energy, love, patience, and for getting me through it all the way only she knows how. vi Abstract This is a creative response to the poetry of Keith Douglas (1920-44), focusing particularly on what he described as his ‘extrospective (if the word exists) poetry’.1 My work takes the form of sixty-four of my original poems, plus a thesis of 40,000 words. In my poems Douglas’s extrospective approach is re- interpreted and re-applied to my life, interests, and experiences, including that of being paralysed from the shoulders down and left dependent on a ventilator to breathe, following a spinal injury in 1987. The poems are selected from over 1,000 written during my six years of research and they look at different aspects of what Douglas was doing in his poetry, as well as his ideas about poetry. My 40,000 word thesis was written alongside my selection of poems and it includes three chapters. The first constitutes an examination of Douglas’s use of the term ‘extrospective’ and what his poetry reveals about this definition. Chapter Two explores a selection of poems and publications written since Douglas’s death in order to shed more light on aspects of extrospection. Finally, Chapter Three builds on the previous two chapters to provide an account of my own extrospective poems, on the understanding that these poems are the main focus of the thesis. My work is important because although Douglas’s life and poetry has attracted the attention of poets and critics such as Ted Hughes, Geoffrey Hill, Desmond Graham, William Scammell, Roger Bowen, Jonathan Bolton, Adam Piette, Neil Corcoran, and Jon Glover, extrospection has not previously been considered in its own right in great depth. 1 Keith Douglas, The Letters, edited by Desmond Graham, (Manchester: Carcanet Press Ltd., 2000), p. 287. vii Project aims and approaches Without wishing to repeat too much of the information provided by my abstract, it is worth re-affirming that this project constitutes a creative response to Keith Douglas’s extrospective poetry. The aim was to produce a body of my own original poems based on Douglas’s ideas about extrospection, and to write a thesis of 40,000 words, in the hope of shedding light on the importance of Douglas’s extrospective poetry from a practical, as well as an academic view-point. Over the course of my research I have sought to come to terms with what writing extrospective poetry involves, and how it affects what a poet does, how he or she reacts to experience, and what happens when extrospection is applied to subjects that were beyond Douglas’s range. The sixty-four poems selected from those I have written over the course of my research address topics that feature only rarely in Douglas’s poetry, as well as those which can be considered to be his more regular themes. All of these poems have been written from a point of view that can be regarded as extrospective and they have emerged alongside my critical investigation, often leading to further discoveries, as reflected in my third chapter. This, in turn, has influenced the evolution of the poems, ensuring that the two strands of my thesis have remained mutually dependent throughout. While my thesis began as a series of several long chapters, for the sake of clarity and ease of reference, I eventually decided to employ sub- headings within the chapters, an approach that is especially valuable in the final chapter. Thus, the consideration of extrospection in my own writing is now organised into nine distinct sections, the first of which, ‘Hospital, 1 extrospection, extremis, and paralysis’, discusses the common ground between Douglas’s experience of extremis, as exemplified in his battlefield poems, and my poems relating to injury, trauma, and hospitalisation. Sub- section ii, ‘Extrospection in relation to poetic form and structure’, focuses on how far writing extrospectively depends on a clear understanding of poetic form, and explains the differences between how this works in my poetry, and that of Douglas. In iii, ‘The flexibility of extrospection and its application to non-hospital-related poetry’, it is the adaptability of extrospection that is addressed, while under sub-heading iv, ‘My poems and Jayne: developing bifocal or “double” extrospection’, the latter becomes a shared experience that cements my relationship with my wife, Jayne.
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