I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t realise – at least I really can’t remember being aware, which exacerbates that embarrassment – the great English poet Peter Reading had died, passing two years ago on the 17th November, 2011. Seamus Heaney’s recent death received quite rightly considerable media attention, and whilst Reading’s was referenced in, for example, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The TLS at the time [which I clearly hadn’t seen], it definitely didn’t make the TV news. Not surprising on the one hand as he certainly wasn’t a ‘popular’ poet, being complex and really often quite miserable, but it is sad as he was original, utterly candid, consistent, complex [again!], and if you bothered to listen, also often hilarious.
His death has come to my attention as a result of a comment recently
left on my review of Reading’s superb pamphlet Shitheads, a comment it was rewarding to receive for a review of
poetry on a music blog, but also because the person writing had gone on to also
enjoy Reading’s work. In being prompted by this to read some more of his
poetry, and to research online, I became aware of Reading’s death.
As a belated tribute to that fact and of course the man
himself, I am going to post a few of his poems from the appropriately titled Ob. from 1999 – a title typically and
darkly humorous by a writer who documented general and specific decline in our
world with his characteristic candour – sometimes caustic, sometimes comic –
and the challenging complexity of love for esoteric language and metrical
forms.
I am presenting the following poems because they are
accessible, funny and biting. They are about writing and about others writing,
and I suspect refer to a writing tour in America and reading to and working
with aspiring poets. They are indignant as well as rude: a potent mix.
Workshop
You say you love words?
Hmmm, let me see: ‘Sweet zephyr...’;
keep up the good
work.
Flyer
...poetry reading...rare opportunity...
one of the leading...whose reputation is...
recent collections:
Foibles, Frog’s Breath...
gained
international...lyric beauty...
At the Reading
The sham-coy simper,
the complacency,
the frisson
titters,
the sycophancy.
In the SCR
The puerile academic quips,
the smugly learned repartee
withstanding little scrutiny.
Catullan
Possibly I may find some time to peruse your
puerile
outpourings
(I don’t
remember your name);
more likely,
though, I shall not.
[Untitled]
Unfortunately
an A in Histrionics
doesn’t count for
much.
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