Tambimuttu: Re-Inventing the Art of Poetry Illustration
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Tambimuttu: Re-Inventing the Art of Poetry Illustration Sandra Boselli In 1939, Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu, a young poet from Ceylon1 who had recently arrived in London, founded the journal Poetry London, which quickly became ‘the most important poetry publication’2 of the war years. Four years later, in 1943, with the financial backing of the publishers Nicholson & Watson, he launched his book imprint Editions Poetry London (PL). A characteristic feature of both his magazine and poetry books was their inclusion of bespoke illustrations – commissioned from established or emerging artists of the day – that went beyond mere decoration. In the most successful pairings of poet and artist, the combination of word and image achieved a unified purpose despite the apparent mismatch between poems and illustrations, consonant with his credo that ‘it is contrast that teaches us the nature of truth’.3 Tambimuttu’s thought-provoking choice of poems and visual works combined with his belief ‘in the unity of the various arts’,4 enabled the editor to offer his readers first-rate poetry set within aesthetically pleasing books and a periodical in complete contrast to the prosaic-looking literary magazines of the 1930s. Yet, little has been written on this prominent wartime editor who gave so much pleasure to his readers and who was, undoubtedly, an inspiration to other contemporary editors.5 The objective of this article, therefore, is to examine the innovations introduced by Tambimuttu in his publications and to address influences that would have shaped his editorial policy. Much has been written about the controversies that arose in the wake of his departure from Britain in 1949, but little on the nature and scope of his achievements during the ten years spent in London as a successful editor. Since the 1950s, unfortunately, Tambimuttu’s legacy has been belittled, where Fig. 1. Tambimuttu. Photograph taken during WW2. 1 Throughout this essay Ceylon will be used in place of Sri Lanka. 2 Chris Beckett, ‘Tambimuttu and the Poetry London Papers at the British Library: Reputation and Evidence’, eBLJ (2009), art. 9, p. 21 <www.bl.uk/eblj/2009articles/article9.html>. 3 Tambimuttu, Poetry, ed. Anthony Dickins (London, 1939), First Letter. 4 Mount Allison University, Mary Mellish Archibald Memorial Library, MS. Prof. R. C. Archibald, batch 4, 5501-5/7/8. 5 For example, Sheila Shannon and W. J. Turner, who started editing New Excursions into English Poetry in 1944. 1 eBLJ 2016, Article 10 Tambimuttu: Re-Inventing the Art of Poetry Illustration it has been discussed at all, and his reputation as editor distorted, tarnished by those who failed to understand his way of working. Hopefully, this dismal appreciation will gradually give way to a more scholarly and therefore more qualified approach to his merits as editor. In the eyes of many of his contemporaries, however, he was a foreigner from an exotic country who could not be taken seriously, when, in fact, he was devoted to the quest of poets and artists, each one contributing in his own unique way to universal truth. On the face of it he appeared to be the most improbable person to carry forth the banner of British poetry and art throughout the Second World War; particularly, when one considers that he had left Ceylon for London towards the end of 1937, apparently intent on joining Miriam Peiris, a dancer; his mind, at that point, oblivious to the fate of English poetry magazines. And yet the 23-year-old youth – a Catholic who had received an English education at a Jesuit-run school in his country – felt passionate about poetry. One of his earliest volumes of verse, the surrealist Tone Patterns,6 was dedicated to Peiris, the first woman to study Ceylonese traditional dancing. By then, he also had composed songs – one of which was recorded and sold at Woolworth’s7 – and one jazz musical comedy, Tea Time in Ceylon, part of which had been played at the Regal Theatre in Colombo,8 possibly with the help of Peiris, whose family was extremely well connected in the world of arts. Tambimuttu never explained explicitly the reasons for leaving Ceylon but one can safely assume from his descriptions of life there that he felt stifled by its traditions, his literary ambitions hampered by parochialism and clannishness; in other words he was at odds with the colonial mentalities of family and friends. He was also at odds with his own cultural heritage based on oral history which, as far as he was concerned, paled into insignificance beside British culture. It was a necessity for the young man to break free from his milieu if he were to fulfil himself intellectually; to become part of the cultural and literary world of London he believed would offer him ‘unity of spirit and atmosphere’.9 His imagination would have been fired by the International Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936 which surely inspired some of his own surrealist poems in Tone Patterns published the same year. Miriam Peiris, when she sailed to England to take part in a film,10 would have given him the perfect excuse he was seeking to leave his country. If in truth it had been Tambimuttu’s intention to join Miriam Peiris on reaching England, the young man certainly would not have let himself be sidetracked by his first encounter with an eccentric Englishman in a nightclub, who within days introduced him to London’s bohemian life.11 When he first met Redvers Grey he probably had no specific goal in mind; however, exalted by his new environment, the young foreigner would have come to realize that their fortuitous encounter coincided with the opportunity he was seeking of meeting the poets whose names were familiar to him from the literary periodicals available in Ceylon. Within three months, Tambimuttu’s keen sense of observation led him to the conclusion that English poets were in search of a new forum that would allow imagination to break free from politics. His youthful enthusiasm and intelligence meant that he quickly made friends among people who mattered such as T. S. Eliot or Herbert Read, two of the most respected figures in the world of letters and art, both of whom were included as potential contributors in Tambimuttu’s first manifesto: printed mid-1938, it announced the creation of Poetry London as a platform for poets. It is intriguing to think that Herbert Read befriended the young foreigner, for here was a man who had 6 (Colombo: Slave Island Printing Works, 1936). 7 R. C. Archibald, ‘The Ceylon Poet Thurairajah Tambimuttu’, Mount Allison University Bulletin, vol. v, no. 5 (April 1955), p. 1. 8 Ibid. p. 2. 9 Tambimuttu, ‘Fitzrovia’, in Jane Williams (ed.), Tambimuttu – Bridge Between Two Worlds (London, 1989), p. 223. 10 The Drum, directed by Zoltan Korda, released in April 1938. 11 Tambimuttu, ‘Fitzrovia’, Harpers & Queen (February 1975), p. 88. 2 eBLJ 2016, Article 10 Tambimuttu: Re-Inventing the Art of Poetry Illustration made his mark since the end of the First World War both as poet and critic of the arts. What was it about Tambimuttu that attracted people of such renown? It can be suggested that in the case of Herbert Read, who divided people into ‘characters’ and ‘personalities’,12 the young editor from the East fitted into his ‘personality’ slot: experimental combined with an aesthetic approach, both attributions consistent with Tambimuttu’s poetry project. When Read’s poem ‘Emblem’ appeared in Poetry’s first number, he was still the editor of The Burlington Magazine. His decision to publish in Tambimuttu’s new journal was perhaps a sign that the latter no longer coincided with what Read was seeking; maybe like his friend, Peggy Guggenheim, he found The Burlington ‘stuffy’,13 since he resigned in 1939. His proximity to artists such as Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson or Naum Gabo during the thirties would have brought to a head his predilection for poetic imagination, for what was intrinsically indestructible in human beings. Almost certainly Read would have wholeheartedly sympathized with Tambimuttu’s cri de coeur that poetry would be killed by pure ‘intellectualization’,14 although, conversely, as a thinker, Read believed that one’s life could not be ruled only by feeling. Neither, however, could exist without the other, if poetic creativity was to survive. The first issue ofPoetry London (February 1939) demonstrated the editor’s commitment to its aesthetic presentation with its thick paper, uncluttered pages, and attractive tail pieces by Diana Gardner. Hector Whistler’s drawing of Tambimuttu’s dark bouncy hair for the cover surely conveyed – by omitting the young man’s physiognomy – the editor’s belief that the individual poet should remain anonymous, subordinated to the common cause of Poetry in true Surrealist fashion. The first number, furthermore, demonstrated that the young editor possessed an in- depth knowledge of English poetry. It was conveyed by the carefully organized sequencing of the poems: the first section included Walter de la Mare, John Cawsworth and Lawrence Whistler among others, the second section, the imagists like Herbert Read and George Reavey; then followed the Auden group – Spender and MacNeice –, the Transition group, Durrell, Nicholas Moore and lastly the Dylan Thomas group.15 Despite his limited resources, the editor forged ahead with a definite plan for his magazine which he described as ‘An Enquiry into Modern Verse’.16 Whether young or mature, poets found a resonance in his message that ‘the intellect should not override […] Poetry’.17 Such a tenet to many of his early contributors, including Herbert Read, David Gascoyne or Henry Moore – all three involved with the organization of London’s first English International Surrealist Exhibition held in 1936 – would have met with their full support.