The year's total for items posted here is roughly up to the usual. I honestly don't know where it all comes from, I dare say much of its the same but thanks for coming anyway. It is gratifying to hear from anybody whose work I've mentioned and they generally come in peace. So, all that remains really are two more Saturday Naps with the Professor suddenly in a rich vein of form and looking like he might outperform me which, quite honestly, this year might not prove to be difficult.
Until taking delivery of some Christmas books, I've plenty going on with Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise, a history of C20th classical music that was recommended a long time ago now. I tend to purloin the best recommendations and make them enthusiasms of my own, like Patrick Hamilton and The Magnetic Fields, and this book belongs in the same category.
Oh, I see, it wasn't so much The Rite of Spring that caused the most consternation when Modernism came, like The Sex Pistols in 1976, to sweep aside a lot of overblown, out-of-control self indulgence. Apparently Schenberg caused the first and most alarming stir. But the book is aimed at a very accessible and useful level, not full of extracts from scores or too much technical musician talk but anecdotal and dealing with personalities. It is a big book but will fly by all too quickly. Thanks for the tip, sir, I should have got on with it sooner.
Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe & the Juke-Box, edited by Alice Quinn, is a captivating read and a wonderful thing to have. 'Uncollected Poems, Drafts and Fragments' by, yes, Elizabeth Bishop, it is very much a poet's poet's book about a poet's poetry. Perhaps not for the 'general reader' but a sine qua non for Bishopfreaks.
The pages of drafts of One Art show a masterpiece gradually coming into being from quite prosaic and unpromising beginnings. We are all grateful when a poem seems to arrive fully-formed and just needs writing down, like a gift from beyond and I'm never sure that poems that need to be worked on too much are ever as good. Sometimes you can spot them and the hard graft and polish almost diminishes them. These drafts, though, show that the finished article is not only worth the effort but comes a long way from where it started. Maybe that's what they mean by 'craft'.
The book also has lots of examples of discarded or unfinished work and is evidence enough of how a top, top poet becomes so by a fine discriminatory instinct, knowing when something isn't going to make the grade. Many are still worth having and many of us would be happy enough to have them but for the best - and Larkin is an obvious other example- the oeuvre might not be very big but there's little difference between the Selected Poems and the Collected. The rest is out-takes.
It is re-assuring, too, to see how she constructs a villanelle, putting the rhyme words in at the end of each line ahead of filling in the rest. No, I don't suppose anybody who believes themselves to be in possession of 'inspiration' or a Romantic gift for profound meaning would approve of the idea but for some of us it can be more like filling in a crossword, like Larkin, knocking out An Arundel Tomb one evening, glass of red to hand, Monica sitting opposite.
Him - Two syllable word, heraldic term.
Monica - Blazon?
Him - Yep, that'll do. Thank you very much.
The Jess Davies Band will be playing the Aurora Cafe Bar in Albert Road, Southsea on Fri 22nd so even if I won't actually be there in person, I'll be there is spirit, or a few of the words, do go and ask her when the record is coming out and place a pre-release order for it.
So, Happy Christmas.
Apologies for everything.
Keep the Faith.
The rest is horse racing.