W.B.Yeats' 'The Fisherman'

W.B.Yeats (1865-1939)

Who are you writing for? For anyone writing poetry the question seems essential.

At some point in his career Yeats had wanted to be a national poet, writing for and on behalf of his country. But in this poem he renounces that ambition, having, he says, discovered that the people he thought we was writing for and about are not worthy. He renounces them for an imaginary figure, a solitary fisherman. And in the poem’s most memorable image, Yeats hopes that before he’s old, he will have written him one poem ‘as cold/and passionate as the dawn’.

You can spend some time admiring those two adjectives, and the effect they create.

Hugh Kenner suggested the difference between Yeats and Pound, or Yeats and most poets, was that Pound, once he’d left London, could sit in relative isolation at his typewriter in Rapallo telling himself he was a genius and dismissing any rumours of negative response to his work as the sniping of lesser interigences. Yeats, standing in the wings at the abbey theatre was forced to confront an often baffled, sometimes hostile audience. It might be one of the reasons Yeats’ poems got better as he got older.

Two Epitaphs for an Army of Mercenaries

The second of these two poems was written in direct response to the first.

A.E.Houseman (1859-1936) was one of the leading classical scholars of his day. Today he’s remembered as the author of ‘The Shropshire Lad’, one of the most well known collections of poems from the first quarter of the last century. I suspect his mercenary army owes a lot to Xenophon’s classic account of how ten thousand Greek soldiers marched to the sea after their Persian paymaster was killed in battle.
Hugh MacDairmid (1892-1978), one of the significant Scottish poets of the twentieth century, had a less romantic view of Mercenaries. which i suspect might be shared by those unlucky enough to have encountered them.

from 'Watt' by Samuel Beckett

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989)

Technically this isn’t a poem, but an extract from Beckett’s novel Watt, where it’s set out as continuous prose. But it’s too much fun to read to leave out on the grounds that it’s not ‘a poem’.

If you want to tie your head in knots you can try to define ‘poetry’ and ‘poem’. Whatever your definition there will always be a liminal case that challenges the definition. Beckett’s prose is also often a lot funnier than the stern photos of Beckett would lead you to expect. So go along for the ride. And enjoy.

Jeremy Hooker's '1st of July 2016

Jeremy Hooker. (Born 1941)

I’m assuming this poem was written to commemorate the Hundredth Anniversary of the First Day of the Somme offensive in 1916. When i was at school we learnt the statistics; 60,00 casualties, 20, 00 of them dead. In one morning, between 7.30am and “lunch time”. By the end of the battle, which got them nowhere, when the snows closed it down in November, British, Empire and allied troops had suffered over half a million casualties.
While historians might debate the significance of the battle and the actual casuality figures, (57,470 of which 19,240 died). The image of men lined up in rows and ordered to advance into machine gun fire was a dark shadow on the collective imagination, made more terrible by the fact they were fighting in a ‘war to end wars’.

Hooker shows how effective a poem can be without the poet having to resort to distorted syntax, complex rhyme schemes or obscure allusions. The tragedy is summed up …’the old men/that we knew and the young men/we did not.’ The poem also deftly suggests a difference between then and now in its play on ‘divisions.’

The poem is taken from Hooker’s excellent ‘Word and Stone’ (Sheearsman 2019).

Anna Akhmatova's 'Requiem'

Akhmatova’s statue opposite the prison in St. Petersburg.

Anna Akhmatova 1869-1966

‘Requiem’ is Akhmatova’s memorial for those who waited with her outside the prison in Saint Petersburg in the 1930s, hoping for news of their loved ones during ‘the terrible years of the Yezhov Terror’.

The context of the poem is explained properly in the second section, a prose ‘By way of a preface’. Some sections have titles, others numbers.

This translation, by Stanley Kunitz with Max Hayward is taken from ‘Twentieth century Russian Poetry; Silver and steel, An anthology’. Selected and Introduced by Yevgeny Yevthushenko, edited by Albert. C. Todd and Max Hayward. ( Doubleday 1993)

Alun Lewis' 'The Swan's way'

Alun Lewis (1915-1944)

Considered by some one of the few great poets to serve and write during the second world war.

This is his take on the myth of Leda and the Swan. Zeus turns himself into a swan to rape leda, and Helen of Troy is born. It’s been a subject in art since Classical times.

Yeats wrote a fine poem on the same subject. But in Lewis’ version the God disguised as Swan is stricken by an understanding of what he’s done. Such remorse rarely figures in either the pictures or the stories.

Miroslav Holub's ''A History lesson'

Miroslav Holub, (1923 –1998)

Holub lived in Prague, and worked as an immunologist. He wrote a paper called ‘The Immunology of Nude Mice’. His obituary appeared in the New York Times.

He also wrote wonderful poems. His ‘Napoleon’ is also on the Poetry Voice, and as with that poem, versions of history collide, and the wit and the critical point will make themselves apparent if you let them.

This translation is taken from Heaney and Hughes’ ‘The Rattle Bag’ and the translation is by George Theiner.

R.S. Thomas' 'Mice'

R. S. Thomas (1913-2000)

R.S. Thomas outside his cottage

Over the course of a long life R.S.Thomas produced one of the most interesting bodies of work in the twentieth century. He wrote a lot, and most of what he wrote was short poems like this one, which work like a pebble dropped into the pond.

The speaker is listening to mice.

For a priest like Thomas, nagging away at his relationship to his God, how much doubt is healthy? At what point do the questions bring down the building?

Think of it another way.

If the unexamined life is not worth living, then the over examined life might well be unliveable. An informed, grounded skepticism might be healthy, but too much skepticism is simply destructive.

A bad poem would preach an answer. This one doesn’t.

Miroslav Holub's 'Napoleon'.

Miroslav Holub (1923-1998)

Holub lived in Prague, and worked as an immunologist. He wrote a paper called ‘The Immunology of Nude Mice’. His obituary appeared in the New York Times.

He also wrote wonderful poems. This one works like a pebble dropped into a still pool. If you let it, both the wit and the critical point will make themselves apparent.

This translation is taken from ‘The Poetry of Survival; Post-War Poets of Central and Eastern Europe’, edited by Daniel Weissbort. (Anvil 1991)

If you think your interest in 20th century poetry is serious, especially if you’re an English speaker, i cannot reccomend this book too highly. It is worth whatever it costs. As an introduction to a wealth of great poets and poems it is priceless.