Low Stakes – and High

One could not find in a year’s reading poems more different than those contained in these two books. They illustrate a principle too easily forgotten: that the value of a poet’s work depends far more on his grappling with (for him) central life issues than on his technical achievement. Out of thepage 395 grappling the technique will come. James Harrison aims for low stakes, plays his cards well, and generally wins:

By the afternoon the pools of shadow were dry
In David’s square; nakedness stripped to the stone
Split, with the brutal whiteness of its virility,
The quiet of our sun-averted glance.
We were not sorry to reach the nearby gallery,
And sense the sheltering depth between its walls . . .

I quote from the guidebook poem ‘Firenze’. It is a sincere, moderate statement, in the low conversational tone favoured by most of the new English poets – as if to say, ‘This is my world, not a very interesting one, I grant you, but the kind we both have to put up with.’ But is sincerity enough? John Berryman’s work, in unfair comparison, is violent, contorted, obscure, uneven, the real speech of a man on a real rack –

. . . I fear Hell’s hammer-wind. But fear does wane.
Death’s blossoms grain my hair; I cannot live.
A black joy clashes, joy in twilight. The Devil said
‘I will deal toward her softly, and her enchanting cries
will fool the horns of Adam.’ Father of lies,
a male great pestle smashes
small women swarming towards the mortar’s rim in vain . . .

It is Mistress Bradstreet born 1612 talking; and thanks to John Berryman she is unmistakably alive. Perhaps she is the true ghost of America, under the chromium surfaces, a Puritan pioneer, a woman spiritually fertile yet hung on the hooks of Calvin’s dialectic. Mr Berryman is all too conversant with demons; but I like him nonetheless for it. One cannot summarise the workings of genius, but one can read and read again.

1959 (199)