Viva Lewes Issue #147 December 2018

COLUMN
David Jarman
Among the adverts
‘Few people read poetry any more.’ That’s
Clive James, writing in his latest poem The
River in the Sky. A bit ungracious, perhaps,
considering the sales of his many recent poetry
books. But, maybe buying poetry is the easy
part. Reading the damn stuff is the problem.
And yet, poetry readings are flourishing, and
I’m sure that’s not because people are so lazy
that they prefer to pay to have the poet read
aloud to them, rather than endure the fatigue
of turning the pages themselves. I’m told that
sales of the books of the poets reading at these
events can, often, disappoint. It’s as though the
audience, having paid for their tickets, feel that
no further financial outlay is required. Still, I’m
sure that sales don’t plumb the depths of a piece
by DJ Enright from his collection, Under the
Circumstances:
‘The poet is to give a reading from his new
book… the dutiful publisher carries a dozen
copies of the poet’s new book to sell at the
reading… Now it is over, and the publisher
gathers up the unsold books, counting them
glumly… he trudges home, weary and puzzled
– How can thirteen copies be left over from
a dozen?’
Sometimes, I fear that poets are now only
read by other poets. And sometimes, not even
that. Here’s Enright again, in his Poem on the
Underground:
‘only the elderly person / observes the request
that the seat be offered to an elderly person…
only the poet / peruses his poem among the
adverts.’
Inevitably, perhaps, the poem was then chosen
as an addition to Poems on the Underground.
Maybe we’re just all too busy. After all, frankly,
how many of us can spare the time to read the
whole of even a haiku in one go?
Does poetry form any part of the everyday
commerce of life anymore? I’m thinking of
Muriel Spark’s novel The Mandelbaum Gate,
recently reissued as part of her centenary
edition, with a thoughtful introduction by
Gabriel Josipovici, subject of this month’s ‘My
Lewes’. The novel begins:
‘Sometimes, instead of a letter to thank his
hostess, Freddy Hamilton would compose a
set of formal verses – rondeaux, redoubles,
villanelles, rondels or Sicilian octaves – to
express his thanks neatly.’
It’s a charming idea. In his poem Vers de Société,
Philip Larkin takes a more mordant view of the
social round. A drinks invitation has arrived.
His initial reaction? ‘In a pig’s
arse, friend.’ So his reply begins:
‘Dear Warlock-Williams, I’m
afraid –’ Then he reflects.
For various reasons (read the
bloody poem!) he finds himself:
‘whispering Dear Warlock-
Williams: Why, of course –’
And yet, these invitations are so
numerous that he could spend
‘half my evenings if I wanted /
canted over to catch the drivel
of some bitch / who’s read
nothing but Which.’
The poem was written in 1971.
In the 1990s, when the new
editor of Viva Lewes was at
the helm of Which? magazine
as managing editor, Larkin
would doubtless have chosen
a different example to typify
philistine reading.
Illustration by Charlotte Gann
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