Oh, Babe, What Would You Say

 Some time ago a discursive ramble on miscellaneous themes here would be called Oh, Babe, What Would You Say, as per the Hurricane Smith masterpiece that is certainly on the Playlist for the Sounds of the 70's show. Let's do it again.

The Dr. Johnson Collection is as replete as it needs to be for a while by now. The Cambridge Companion is as good a survey as one could wish for and the chapters on Shakespeare and his Christian thought provide enough on those areas to be going on with. One or two essays, like Philip Smallwood on Shakespeare: Johnson's poet of nature, might seem a bit fussy in places but overall it is a tremendous guide and only a bit less fun than reading the man himself.

Nobody's perfect, of course, and one is alarmed by the news that,

'Religion', said Johnson, 'is the Highest Exercise of Reason'.

For the most part, Johnson is a paragon of reason but, as he says elsewhere himself, people are much more inclined to have what they thought supported than change their mind. Even in the face of 'reason' which is one of the more reliable aids to thinking that we have. 

Never mind those who have their own weird reasons for supporting Trump, Boris Johnson or Liz Truss, precious few wanted to listen to reason about Brexit, or ever will about god, or poetry or sport. They'd much prefer to stick to what they think despite the evidence rather than surrender their faith in what they think.

Dr. Johnson, though, saves himself time and again with highly enlightened attitudes on such things as colonialism,

On what occasion, or for what purpose, cannons and muskets were discharged among a people harmless and secure, by strangers who without right visited their coast, it is not thought necessary to inform us.

Perhaps only to see how many a volley could destroy, he suggests, and we might extend such gratuitous massacre that shows no signs of stopping yet, to blood sports and the significance of August 12th on which our new king would uphold the tradition of senseless killing for fun. For Dr. Johnson, there's a fine line between his adherence to the institutions of religion, monarchy and authority and the routine violence that comes with them. It's a bit too fine.

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But those of us so comfortable and rarified in our safe lives, not even bothered yet by looming austerity and such financial deprivation that we might not be able to afford all the luxuries to which we've become accustomed, can still find fractious issues on which to differ.

You might think that poetry was such a backwater in the life of the nation these days that it would be nice and quiet, like living in a cul-de-sac in a genteel neighbourhood. But, no, those involved in it care about it, and their view of it, as much as rival football supporters who fight each other, purport to do. One is tempted to think that it's not the poetry or the football that is their real motivation but some innate need to have a rival and take them on.

Quite innocently at poetry club this week, one reader said that the poem they read had come quite easily to them. I said wasn't it great when that happens. You get something seemingly for nothing, the poem writes itself. I much prefer it like that. If a poem needs to be worked on too much, it shows. Maybe it wasn't good enough in the first place.

Oh, no, came the response from one who's actually got a diploma in Creative Writing, so they'd know. You have to work on them or else they're just 'outpourings'. Having a while ago baldly refuted that 'free verse' was 'chopped-up prose', that poet went on to explain that they wrote their poems out as prose first before....well, chopping them up. !!!!

Well, I never.

The next meeting of poetry club is on responses to Sonnet 29,

Sonnet 29 

That's an exercise, it's not a poem I'd write, but let's have a go anyway.

On the back of an old envelope, using the same rhymes as Shakespeare used, it's no more than half an hour's work. It's no great thing and it won't see print but it's job done. Piece of cake, walk in the park. I changed line 2 when typing it out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reply to Sonnet 29

Sir, I am not worth your idolatry

Which I am reluctant to contemplate.

In that well-known phrase, it’s not you, it’s me,  

And I have been perfidious of late.

It sounds as if you thought we might elope

And everything would turn out for the best
But I would not have been able to cope 

Living as one, at each other’s behest.

I don’t go in for such analysing
But if I did I’d have to hesitate 

(I’m sorry if you find that surprising). 

I’m no good for you. I’m a reprobate. 

And, as for your morose imaginings, 

That’s all they are. We all think such things. 

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That'll do. I could spend hours on that trying to improve it and only make it worse. We're not all Seamus Heaney, we weren't all George Best but we do what we do.