Erratum p,23, l.3, w.5 for 'hr' read 'her'

There are few things more depressing than finding a printing error in a freshly produced edition of books the proofs for which you had previously checked.  Thoroughly.  He said in the middle of a pandemic.  OK, I will admit that there are, in fact, lots of things worse than finding a printing error in your latest book.  But it does still hurt.

     The printing history of my latest book, The eloquence of broken things, has been a little bumpy.  I sent off a ‘perfect’ pdf of the book (with, as it turns out the bloody printing error) and the batch that I got back was woefully inadequate.  In a truly bizarre way I discovered two or three different sequences of errors in the printing.  The key to the version was to look at the logo on the title page: if the top part of it was missing you had what we might call, ‘Error sequence A’; if the bottom part was missing, it was ‘Error sequence B’.  That, sort of made sense, depending on how the pages were positioned when being printed out.  But I soon discovered that there was a third variant, which made no sense at all.

     Anyway, the printer and I regarded the first tranche of books as a sort of ‘proof’ printing and the second attempt was perfect – except for the bloody miss-print – and that was entirely my fault.

     The mistake occurs in the second poem in the collection and it is in a sonnet as well, so it is all the more glaring as the poem is so short.  In my own defence, the poem was a reprint from an earlier collection and, as I couldn’t find the original copy, I typed it out again and so the mistake crept in.  I cannot pretend that I didn’t read the ‘new’ version a few times and, attentive reader as I am, I still failed to spot the missing ‘e’ in ‘hr’ or ‘her’ as it should have been.  By the time I noticed the mistake it was too late and the erratum slip would have to be deployed.

     It was at that point that I determined to make the best of a bad job and write a poem about the mistake to be included as a signed (well, initialled) insert for each of the new books.

     My starting point is the Turkish rug, whose intricate pattern has an intentional ‘mistake’ so that man’s attempt at perfection does not mock god.  I have always found this concept interesting and once heard I decided that it was far too useful an idea to exploit in all sorts of circumstances to be dependent on the absolute truth of it all.  I suppose that there are inferior sorts of rugs that actually try to be ‘perfect’ but I am talking about the highest quality and most painstakingly worked examples of the rug makers’ craft.  So there. 

     In the poem I take the concept of built-in imperfection a step further and turn the conceit in on itself.

     This is a poem that has to be read, it cannot be recited as two of the points that I make will not be at all clear, and I end with a twist that gives me scope to accommodate any further mistakes that I may have missed!

Erratum
p.14, l.2, w.6
for hr read her

Within a Turkish rug’s
expensive symmetry
is woven an intentional false note –
because perfection’s the preserve of god,
and not of stumbling, imperfect Man.

But, isn’t there an arrogance
in saying, “Yes, of course there’s that –
but all the rest . . . !” As if
parading of a self-made fault
limits additional faux pas?

It’s Baldrick’s bullet.[1]
Logic? False!

Yet it’s a way of life we all adopt
because we live inelegant reality
not textbook-sharp, black-outlined clarity.

Mistakes and errors? That’s who we are!
Come with the territory.
Flaws are the marbling of life.
We have to say.
Because it’s inescapable.
  

I’d read and read again
the poem that contains the fault,
and yet not seen the missing ‘e’
until the final print was done
and it was then too late to change.

The sticking-plaster-sized
erratum slip is grudgingly applied
accepting and bewailing
my falling short.

But, what are vowels in the scheme of things?
Thngs tht cn b thghtlssly gnrd –
and still the consonantal frame
allows a certain fluency.

If there had only been a gap
the reader could have,
would have, filled it in
without a thought.

But these are cavils
trying hard to justify
imperfect sight.

I should regard the ‘humbling by slip’
as something more akin to public sacrifice:
(expiation, celebration,
for inexact humanity)

than hoping that,
in spite of all the odds,
the misprint, all alone,
is by itslf.

[1] 1 Private S. Baldrick, Captain Blackadder’s idiot batman is caught inscribing his name on a bullet when in the trenches in 1917, his explanation is, “I thought if I owned the bullet with my name on it, I’d never get hit by it.” Blackadder Goes Forth Series 4, Episode 1. First broadcast 28th September 1989, 9.30 pm on BBC1, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton.

---

This poem is a product of my notebook, where I jotted down the phrase “fairy tale of memory’ and then thought about the way in which we remember events, and just how far what we remember is real.  That last is one of my favourite words, mainly because it is such a tricky concept.  We are all story tellers, and I am aware that even that innocuous phrase ‘story tellers’ is capable of being taken in a number of ways to include a plain statement of the facts and also a completely fantastic rewriting of reality, in short a lie.  So the simple act of story telling can be either truth or untruth and is usually both.

     We are natural editors, no, instinctive editors because we can (and must) do it consciously and unconsciously.  Since it is impossible to give all the facts of an experience (time, place, direction, temperature, air pressure, light intensity and on and on and on for ‘real’ truth) we must edit, and each edit makes the retelling more of an approximation rather than the truth.  And we have faulty memories and I am sure that we smooth out inartistic incongruities (or the normal bumpiness of life) to make our narratives more pleasing.

     We have a category of ‘Fantasy’ in literature, but we do not assume that our narratives of truthfulness are part of that genre, but they are, they must be.

     The every day examples of the fantastic are fairy tales.  They are told to children and they feed the imagination, but they are presented as other.  The great fairy stories have lasted because, in spite of their fantastic and unreal basis, they seem to say something to the reader or listener; they comment in an unreal way on the realities of life.  Perhaps the early acquaintanceship with the fantastic is preparation for the fantasy that is an essential part of our reality: the making of everything into a coherent narrative.

     The poem opens with a rhymed section using elements of fairy stories in a jumbled recollection of essential elements of a variety of stories from the bland to the deeply disturbing.  So many fairy stories are vicious and bloody and it is only the aura of magic and unreality that make them acceptable to young minds – though given the every day horror that young eyes can access at the touch of a computer key (in spite of parental limits) fairy stories can actually seem quite mild!

     The jumbled nature of the first verses and their jolly rhyme is how I see our memories: we fit bits together to make something that works for us, while, at the same time asserting that what we remember is some sort of absolute truth – because it is part of our remembered personal experience.  It’s true.  Even a cursory study of evidence, be it forensic, historical, archaeological, judicial, personal or whatever indicates that reality based on ‘evidence’ is fluid pretend we ne’er so absolute!

     This poem has been a difficult one to write.  It started with something that I responded to quickly and felt that there was a poem waiting to be written and then descended into a welter of note making and a lack of direction – or rather too many directions.  I have started and re-started this poem and its eventual (draft) form is much shorter than I expected it to be.  It does encapsulate what I was thinking, but I suspect that this is one poem than will go through a number of drafts more before I am satisfied.

I remember

Ogres, princes, golden tresses,

hearts of ice and poisoned fruit,

genies’ lamps and just three guesses,

living dead and talking lute.

Moving statues, mystic jewels,

feet on swords, flesh torn by thorns,

truthful mirrors, magic duels,

golden circlets, rune carved horns.

Time is fluid, place elastic.

Who can tell just where you are?

Logic now is the fantastic,

in a land that is so far – far – far . . .

The page is turned, the volume’s shut.

And so the story’s at an end

A hand rests gently on the book,

then fingers press against the spine

to slide it firmly into place

among the other items shelved

within the library of Self,

where every time the book’s withdrawn,

the text and illustrations change,

while comforting, calm voices ask,

“and are you sitting comfortably?

Then we’ll begin.”

This is how it’s always been:

every time your tale’s retold,

lodged inside the Fairy Tale

that is ‘authentic’ memory.   

Pest?

The first wasp of the season is something to note; it is a flying indication that summer or something spring-like is near.  OK, the wasp may have been lured into the wide open though a freakishly summery day, but it is a harbinger of warmer days ahead.

     I suppose it was my observation of the creature rather than a frantic flapping as it approached my cup of tea and baguette after my customary swim than started my jottings.  Although I suppose it is tempting fate to say it, I have never been stung by a wasp.  Indeed, now I come to consider it, I don’t know anyone who has been stung by a wasp either.  I have been stung by a bee; but that was because I topped a passing weed when walking the dog and a bee happened to be on the plant head.  I can hardly blame the poor creature for having an instinctive reaction to being swept up in a giant hand!  And I can remember looking at the tiny, still pulsating sting lodged in the fleshy part of my hand at the base of my thumb and realizing that the ‘offending’ bee was now one of the flying dead.

     The reaction of people to wasps is one that goes beyond the pain of the sting; for some people the fear of these creatures is visceral and reduces them to gibbering wrecks.  Mind you, I have seen the same reaction to the appearance of a daddy-long-legs – and when has one of those ever managed to pierce the skin of a human!

     My aunt had an allergic reaction to wasp stings.  She was told that if she was stung she should not panic, but go to a hospital immediately – but she was not as neurotic about wasps than those who only had to endure a little local pain if they managed to get it to attack.  Fear of wasps is not logical: yes, there is the possibility of a sting, but you have to work fairly hard to get a wasp to attack.

     The post-swim wasp did come exploring me and had an expeditionary crawl along my hand, and then it flew away.  That has always been my experience; wasps do not really want to expend energy and valuable venom on a creature that is not (usually) going to drop down dead in response.  However, I do not go out of my way to commune with wasps as my experience with the bee shows that even the most placid ‘live and let live’ attitude can be compromised by accident.

     And the last section of the poem asks the question of definition as we usually find that approximation is enough for action.

 

 

 

Pest?

I don’t kill wasps.

Don’t panic-swat with flailing hand,

infuriate with futile squeals.

I let them be.

And watch.

As they traverse the contours of my hands;

short, darting tongues through hairs to flesh

to drink in what I smell of: meat.

The gaudy abdomen, sting tipped

in sunshine’s gleam, is threat,

but why should they, whose prey

is ants and spiders, flies and Coke

take on a landscape smeared with taste?

For me the wasps are visitors:

they stay; they eat; they leave.

And no attack, no pain, just tickle-foraging

through hirsute undergrowth. 

And flight. 

Away.

An aunt of mine

did not kill wasps,

though they could easily

have finished her:

anaphylactic shock

could follow sting –

and death, of course.

But she did not

regard the summer months

as buzzing with mortality.

Discarded ice cream wrappers

and the overflowing bin

were Scylla and Charybdis

on an August stroll, for her,

but she pressed on as if the

sighted, noted, danger was not there;

walked though, and passed unscathed.

Our fear becomes attack:

provokes and redefines.

The wasp has a bad press

(and there’s resentment

at no ‘bee-death’ after sting)

but it’s entitled to defend when it’s ‘attacked’

It’s feared, though adder’s feared more,

and adders do not lurk for human strike,

but they will bite if stepped upon.

And bite and sting are real,

though more in thought

than in lived life.

Pain is always possible,

but weapon’s definition

not offence.

Flight, not fight, the coloured patterns urge,

and gaudiness is warning: go or stay,

your choice,

and was the ‘wasp’ that started

all of this a hoverfly?

It is easy to think of the current pandemic as an enemy, and much of the rhetoric of our leaders has centred on words like “invasion”, “fight”, “struggle”, “foreign” and the like, with Trump (of course) being the most naturally xenophobic, racist and unreasonable in his characterization of the virus.  He is the most belligerent and bellicose, missing (of course) the irony inherent in his being someone who ducked military service in Viet Nam though the fictional ‘bone spurs’ – when he had the opportunity to demonstrate his ‘real’ militarism, he chickened out.  It is characteristic of the coward that he is, that his previous ‘war’ was on undocumented immigrants, and of course the Mexican ‘rapists’, ‘murderers’ and ‘drug dealers’.  A war conducted, as all his ‘wars’ are from the safety of the White House and the golf course.

     In my case Conscription ended in 1960, when I was ten, and Harold Wilson did not take the UK into the Viet Nam War.  All other wars and skirmishes were dealt with by the regular army-  I could, as a charmed Baby Boomer, go through life with social silver spoon in my ever open mouth!  Or at least, given the circumstances of a person growing up in the UK nowadays, it certainly seems that the metaphor is not too far-fetched.

     The preparations and reactions to the virus by the governments around the world certainly put one in mind of armed conflict, indeed the Coward Trump has directly compared the (eventual) state of preparedness that his contemptable administration has been forced to accept is tantamount to War.

     As pronouncements are broadcast and ever more stringent positions are adopted to cope with the virus, it is difficult not to think in terms of General Mobilization.  

     The inspiration for this poem is directly stated in the opening stanza: it did cross my mind. And then the rest followed.

     I write from the point of view of a Baby Boomer born in 1950, five years after the end of World War II, and a being who began to take note of his surrounding and more importantly remember what he saw in about 1953/4.  When I was growing up in a suburb of Cardiff there were still ruins from the war in parts of the city; the war figured large in television and film; the war and its aftermath still defined who we thought that we were.  It took the Suez Crisis (that I do remember in my own child-centred way) to put us firmly in our ‘second-rank-and-falling’ state that has possibly culminated in the collective idiocy of Brexit.

     From the point of view of the generation now coming up to school leaving age (without doing their final exams?) my generation had a charmed way through life in Britain.

     My father was sporty (he captained the school rugby team when he was in the third form) and clever (he came top in his class in his grammar school – though that achievement was noted by his form teacher as, “Top out of a mediocre lot.  Reflects nothing of his ability, he’s slapdash, erratic and easy-going” to which my grandfather response after reading this assessment was, “That man know you!”) and when he should have gone to St Luke’s College to become a PE teacher he went into the RAF instead and eventually spent his war in Africa.  When he came back to this country he was in his twenties, his ‘college years’ gone.  He was one-year emergency trained as a teacher and he found himself a job.

     The differences between my father’s generation and my own are instructive.  My father’s brother was a Bren gun carrier who was ‘mopping up’ through Germany towards the end of the war: he didn’t talk much about his horrific experiences; my mother’s brother was deeply scarred by his experiences of being evacuated from France after Dunkirk, though towards the end of his life he was a witty raconteur about his absurd times in the army.  What did we Baby Boomers have to put beside this?  And what real threats had we had to contend with?

     I use an echo of the phrasing from a character in the BBC television series ‘Dad’s Army’ as the title for this poem because I wanted to bring in the sense of muddling unreality yet ultimate success that the series seemed to encapsulate, and I think that that attitude is now being applied to the virus: excitement tinged with pleasurable cinematic disaster-movie fear.

     The end of the poem asks a question.  To which I have no answer.

“Covid-19, Mr. Mainwaring, Sir!”

It crossed my mind

this virus is the war

we baby boomers

never had.

We missed conscription,

so, The War was second-hand

with scraps passed on

from first-hand sources in our homes.

Music, names and words and thoughts:

spivs, blackout, Vera Lynne, Dunkirk,

Black Market, Blitz, and rationing,

and mind my bike, put out the light!

No, that’s Othello, not a warden’s words.

And, that’s the point.

I went to college

at the age my dad went to the RAF.

Free milk before,

fees paid for then,

and job ahead

for we, we happy few –

and pension too.

But now, malign, omnivorous

(and our specific age group in its sights)

this virus comes to spoil the tale.

I once asked mum

if she had ever thought        

in darkest days of war

that we could face defeat?

“Not once!” she said.

Not once, in spite of all that

sleek, repulsive, Nazi chic

that seemed to ooze efficiency

against inept Dad’s Armoury!

Not once. 

A phrase of confidence and faith,

or blind delusion based on hope?

Or all of the above, and more?

And do I have to choose?