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No my Caps Lock was not accidentally on; jUBILANT
THICKET is the title of a new collection
of 'poetry' by Jonathan Williams... em, yes, the lower-case 'j' is as-is... there
mUST be a reason but I am still working on that.
This collection is somewhat intimidating; over 300 pages and larger than the
standard A5 size and so before even opening the book I played with the title,
something I discovered later that Mr Williams would undoubtedly approve of.
An anagram surfaced thus: jUNK, A BITCH TITLE..., then I chuckled and muttered
to myself; 'like the contents maybe; junk'. And I was, initially, correct
because when you wade through the good bits, and there were a few that leapt
out even at this brief first reading, what is left over is a miscellany of
words and phrases that probably have some meaning to the 'poet' but have no
meaning whatsoever to me, or I suspect, to most readers. 'Junk predominates'
was my initial reaction, junk which includes 'Selected Listings from the
Western Carolina Telephone Company's Directory' and a series of 'found poems'
which include one found under the M-56 Bridge, Preston Brook which reads;
'Mrs Lot / has a salty twot' and another quote from a Victoria Wood sketch;
'I always thought / coq au vin /
was / love in a lorry'! Ho ho ho; you can bet that by this time I was rolling
on the floor with laughter and thanking Rupert Loydell at Stride for sending
me this huge collection of gems to review. (American readers should note that
the last sentence contains an ironic element.)
So junk then; throw it in the bin? Well; yes and no, you see I once found a
1905 half crown in a junk shop, paid ten shillings for it and later sold for
£120.00, and there was the time I found a Wedgwood plate which was so beautiful... I still have it, years later it still
gives me immense pleasure. My best find however was in a junk shop in the
Isle of Man and consisted of a cardboard box with the complete works of
Gustav Mahler therein, cost me about a quid, and these old scratchy 78 rpm
records taught me to love Mahler... so when I discovered in Mr Williams poetry
collection a section on Mahler's ten symphonies I rubbed my eyes in disbelief
and began to read the words with some trepidation.
I began with 'Symphony No 10 in F sharp Minor' which is not my favourite
Mahler symphony but I knew it to be unfinished, open to interpretation and
debate. In the opening Andante - Adagio section Williams unfurls, with quotes
and a letter, a poignant story which is so like Hemingway in its stark
brevity and intimate perception as to be bordering on parody; the story of a
German soldier whose last words as he died were 'es ist aus'. ('it is out' or
'it is over') The man who shot this German soldier dead, Raymond N. Bell,
regretted the killing all of his life and when drunk he would often say; 'I
wish I hadn't killed that man.' We are informed that Bell died an alcoholic.
I have not the skill to be able to tell you how this poignantly constructed anecdote
sets the scene for Mahler's musical composition with its haunting themes of
death and futility; I am not sure either if this stuff which Mr Williams
writes in 'Symphony No 10 in F sharp Minor' is technically what we would
readily label 'poetry', but it is
literature and in parts it moves me very deeply.
Perhaps I can explain it better by telling you about 'Symphony No 4 in G
Major' which is probably Mahler's best known work. Williams' selected words
balance, reflect and amplify the restrained and almost classical first
movement:
1. Serene
- wary, not hurried
"Happiness
have wings and heels
miseries are
leaden legged,
and their
whole employment is to clip
the wings and
take off the wheels
of our
chariots.
We determine,
therefore, to be happy
and do all
that we can, tho' not
all that we
would,"
said William
Blake in Felpham, Sussex.
Of course these are not Williams' words; he merely quotes Blake, and yet so
aptly... and then he continues to lend Blake's words (This time from 'Mad
Song') to the second movement which opens (in Williams' version) with; '
"like a fiend in a cloud" / Death calls the tune'. 'Death' is Williams'
equivalent of the solo violin which haunts the second movement... and so it
goes on and on throughout the whole symphony, matching, commenting, expanding
and
reflecting on the music with choice text, sometimes using his own words and
at other times quoting others, Williams skilfully and lovingly adds frames,
light and fresh insight. With the other symphonies too he perceptively
highlights facets and phrases to the extent that his words have altered the
ten symphonies for me for all time. Williams has taught me to listen with a
new ear to works I thought that I knew fully.
With a greater respect I began to read more of the poetry, skipping rapidly
past some poems written in very large upper case one of which runs; 'I WAS
/HITLER'S / ASSHOLE!!!' (Yep that is it; in its entirety) and alighting here
and there on gems amidst the dust and cobwebs of Williams' peculiar but
highly individual mind. I discovered beautiful words that most certainly were poetry, poetry like this:
Enthusiast
literature - the way we ripen
ourselves
by
conversation, said
Edward
Dahlberg...
we flower in
talk, we slake
our thirsts
in a brandy of heated speech, song
sweats
through the pores,
trickles a swarm
into the
sounding keyboard,
pollen falls
across the
blackened paper...
always idle -
before and
after
the act:
making meat
of vowels
in cells
with sticky
feet
Oh Yes! Mr Williams! Yes yes yes! 'we slake / our thirsts in a brandy of
heated speech'; say it out loud, let it roll off the tongue like honey-coated
cream. Oh Mr Williams I might even forgive you for 'The Western Carolina
Telephone Company Directory' and the rest of the self-indulgent junk... BUT,
hold on a minute; what's wrong with self indulgent junk? Jonathan Williams is
a poet who has been word-smithing for most of his 70 odd years; clearly he
enjoys words, he smiles at discovered graffito, he loves the sound of
dialects, vernacular and the patterns of speech which individualise each of
us, he juggles sounds when he feels like it because... well; just because he is
over 70 years old and he f***ing well can if he wants to. And so what if I do
not understand all the poems herein? I fail because I am unaware of the
nuances or the references which may well be private, internal and so personal
that only JW himself understands them and I suspect that he wont lose any
sleep over my ignorance... in fact I would almost take a bet that when he reads
this review he will smile the smile of someone who is kind of pleased that
sometimes he is totally obscure and private. And dammit! I am reading his
very large collection over and over and the more I read it the more I like
it! There is still junk therein, lots of it, but it is never pretentious junk
and it frequently leaves me smiling and with a real liking for the very human
being behind the words, the human being who is revealed in this rather
touching poem, written in Cumbrian dialect, that I am going to leave you
with:
A.L.B (1917-1978)
he was
oald as the
fells
street as an
arske's arse
sharp as
whins
whick as a lop
wild as
winter thunner
nice as an
otter
and his
throat war middlen slippy
and he is
deed as a steann
but not gone
but not gone
Yes folks, overall jUBILANT THICKET is actually a very
stimulating and provocative read; it contains some poetry that borders on the
unutterably beautiful, but more than that it is the man behind the words that
will intrigue and maybe inspire the reader to re-evaluate the horizons of
literature and poetry in the same way that Jonathan Williams does; with a
knowing smile.
© Alan Corkish 2005
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