‘I thought he was in bad spirits and felt
dreadfully de trop, but it was
obviously just the practicalities dismaying him– as the others got up to go he
said (obviously having heard I was interested in poetry) “Wait, I wanted to
speak with Oliver” and asked me to sit
quite close beside him as he is not only blind but deaf now in one ear.’
‘His manner changed instantly to a sort of
quizzical charm, a scholarly meandering warmth, as soon as we touched on his
reality: poetry, words, music. The subjects he ranged over seem like Keats’
description of Coleridge’s rambling conversation on Hampstead Heath: his own
composition, done on tape recorder then transcribed and redrafted; emendations
of manuscripts of English poets, best examples being Milton and Keats - problem more complex in Shakespeare, what
with quartos, folios and ambiguities of Elizabethan handwriting eg. “O that
this too too solid flesh” could also be “sallied flesh” or “sullied flesh” ;
then Peter Russell (prompted by my rather nervously-random question, seeing a
book of PR’s on the shelf), John had known him a little after the war when he
was editor of ‘Nine’, too close an adherent of Pound’s views, maybe his
anti-semitism as well; Pound an important poet, despite his disgraceful later
politics; foolish to disregard his earlier poetry because of them eg. ‘Sestina:
At Altaforte’ does not extol violence but
is a dramatic monologue about a violent man; had not met Pound but knew friends
who had, John Wain had visited him at St Elizabeth’s and found him “not all
there”, disjointed and inconsequent; a great translator, though, esp. his
Chinese poems; comparing ‘Cathay’
with Arthur Waley, one says “Blue, blue is the grass” the other “green, green”,
in fact blue is the more correct; analysis of colour-terms in different
poetries, more ancient verse uses words more for the effects of light than the
colour or pigment itself eg. Anglo-Saxon poetry has very few colour-words; one
poet who was very disappointed in Pound was Montale, whom John met in Italy
– why hadn’t Pound come over to the Hermeticists?
But Pound not really
interested in contemporary Italian poetry, too besotted with romanticised view
of the past etc. etc.’
The entry trails
off, no doubt unable to reconstruct any further involutions of John’s
extraordinary conversational flow. Even these few inadequate jottings, however,
may serve to give a flavour of what an audience with him could be like: the
vast range of reference, drawing on a profound erudition not just within
literature but also across a diversity of other disciplines; the breadth of
notable contacts and collaborators stretching back to the Forties, always
mentioned casually and never in a name-dropping way; the startling
connective-leaps and yokings of heterogeneous elements John’s memory would
habitually encompass. What’s missing from this account, however, is the affable
humour that was also an integral component of John’s conversation – the
anecdotes, asides and quiet laughter he would use to deflate his more earnest
pronouncements.
After being introduced
to John by Guthrie McKie - John’s tirelessly loyal and helpful friend, long-term
advisor and Watts-Dunton-like organiser - and living as I did only five minutes
away from the flat in Artesian Road, I became a fairly regular visitor over the
next five years, frequently reading to John in the evenings and later
transcribing some of his taped poems, as well as typing drafts into fair-copies
on my computer. If Guthrie was away, more practical assistance was sometimes
required: opening and reading out mail; shopping for books or stationery;
unearthing something John had mislaid in the cluttered flat.
John was well-known as a supporter and
encourager of younger writers (recent poets who have benefitted from his
guidance include Jeremy Reed, Matthew Sweeney and Christopher Hope), and it was
not long after our initial meeting that he asked to hear some of my own poems.
I remember sitting outside the pub almost opposite his door, The Cock and Bottle, apprehensively
downing a few pints and scanning my paltry stanzas, wondering how I had the
temerity to be reading my work to a genuinely famous poet, someone who had known
TS Eliot and been friends with Dylan Thomas and Geoffrey Hill. Beer-emboldened,
I eventually went through with the reading, rendered somewhat bathetic by
John’s inability to hear my nerve-wracked voice properly – he kept saying “I’m
sorry, I can’t hear you, you’ll have to come closer”, until it seemed I was
practically shouting my lines only feet away from his good ear, hammering out
any subtlety or melopeia I fancied
they might have possessed. Although John nodded his assent and made a few
helpful suggestions about language and form, I went away feeling my poems had
been damned with faint praise. The next time I saw Guthrie, however, he said
that John had in fact liked them, thereby (it felt to me) conferring a sort of
implicit acceptance.
My subsequent visits invariably followed a
set pattern of events. I always phoned in advance, to avoid clashing with the
numerous other friends and carers who would call on him – evidently he had
another acquaintance with the same name, as he would always ask “Which Oliver
is this?” John never mastered his building’s intercom system – if you buzzed
his flat, he would usually have to navigate his way out into the landing to
open the front-door for you, which could take some considerable time and no
small effort on his part (attested to by the repeated sighs of “Oh God! Oh
dear!” you could hear through the door). When, towards the end of his life,
John was obliged to use a frame to move around with, this became even more
impractical, and it was much easier to borrow Guthrie’s key and let oneself in.
You would often
enter the flat to find John in darkness, hunched forward listening to the radio
turned up loud; either classical music or a documentary programme. You would have
to switch the lights on for your own benefit and call out clearly “Hello John!”
before he would look up and emerge from his reverie. Moments like this forced
one to reflect on the condition of blindness – the shadowy isolation it
imposes, the abstraction from physical reality, but in turn the compensatory
sensitisation to auditory and verbal signals it seems to allow, obviously a
decided advantage for the writer or musician. Despite the hardships entailed in
such an impairment, traditions of blind musicians, bards and soothsayers seem
to demonstrate a status of cultural respect that is all too often withheld in
society from those with other disabilities. (It should be added, however, that
John – like Borges - only became completely blind later in life; prior to this
he would have been classed as partially-sighted or visually-impaired.)
After greetings,
there was usually the question “Would you like a drink?” Even after many
visits, John would always describe the particular cupboard (“down the hallway,
on your left”) where his booze was stored, seemingly implying there might be a
fair amount to choose from. In my experience, there was invariably very little
left – perhaps a half-bottle of red or a little sherry – small wonder, no
doubt, in a flat often frequented by poets and with a host largely unable to
keep tabs on how much was being consumed! Unfortunately, by this stage, John’s
health prevented him from drinking much alcohol (unlike his bohemian Fitzrovia
days), but he would always ask for a small tipple as I poured my drink – largely
symbolic, I think, as it usually went untouched.
John’s choice of
reading-matter was remarkably eclectic, and reflected the diversity of his
intellectual interests and the compendiousness of his knowledge. Although he
was obviously concerned to keep up to date with the poetry scene, and would
like to hear readings from magazines he subscribed to such as PN Review, Agenda
and Poetry Review, he was just as likely to select one of the other periodicals
he received, concerning subjects such as folklore, Christianity, history or
ornithology. One book I recall reading through to John was an abstruse study of
Japanese shamanism written by a friend of his; another was an analysis of
symbolism in Sufi poetry. (There were, however, occasional gaps in John’s reading
– apart from Joyce, whom we shared an enthusiasm for, he seemed to know little
about the modern novel, and avowed that his favourite work in this field had
always been Clarissa.)
John continued to
compose poetry right up until his final illness, producing two full-length volumes
(The Return of the Cranes and Pigs Might Fly) in his eighties. While
even his most enthusiastic admirer would concede that these contain little that
matches up to his best work, the characteristic amalgam of learned wit and
reflective stoicism is still apparent, leavened by a fair quantity of
occasional and light-ish verse. Yet John’s ear for poetic form remained
punctilious and he would often ask for a piece to be read through a good many
times – with often very subtle alterations of diction or cadence being insisted
upon – before he was satisfied with it. One recalls what an accomplished and
sought-after reader of his own work John had been at poetry events in the past,
partly due no doubt to this sensitivity to the acoustic properties of English
speech-rhythms, and his ability to match these to the measured tones of his
sonorous delivery.
During his last
years John became noticeably frailer and, largely immobile, was confined to his
flat. Although his memory for Latin and obscure lines of poetry remained
undimmed, he seemed increasingly confused and forgetful about everyday matters.
I saw less of him at this time. On my last visit, when he had been moved into a
hospice near Harrow Road, John no longer recognised my voice. He passed away
shortly afterwards, on Boxing Day 2006.
Lengthy obituaries
spoke of a rich and energetic career as a well-known author, translator, critic,
editor and teacher always wedded to what he called (to the Queen, when
collecting her Gold Medal for Poetry) “the ingrained habit” of writing poems.
Since his death, however, there seems to have been no attempt to assess John’s significant
contribution to our cultural life, and the gap his absence leaves. His poetic
roots were in that generation – numbering Dylan Thomas, George Barker, WS
Graham, David Gascoigne and Thomas Blackburn among his closest associates– who
were in many ways “the last Romantics”, the last to hold on (precariously enough,
given their historical milieu) to the notion of poet as vatic seer – a full-time,
perhaps life-threatening commitment to the Muse, not just an academic’s hobby.
John’s later development saw him look beyond the late Romantics he had written of
so originally in The Darkling Plain to Augustan models like Pope, consolidating a
style of wryly elegant neo-classicism which – like that of Robert Graves –
strives to counter the debased currency of modernity with a hard-won,
highly-wrought personal mythology. This finds its fullest expression in Artorius (1972), perhaps the only fully-formed
epic any contemporary poet has essayed, and a memorable testament to his
ambitiousness, linguistic range and imaginative scope. In a contemporary scene notably
lacking in these qualities – and indeed in deeply-read, generous-minded, Coleridgean
figures like John, devoted to his craft and its lore but always prepared to
share knowledge, pass on traditions and foster less experienced poets - a careful
revaluation of his reputation and achievements is due.
First published in PN Review, 2009
