Yes a long reply. I think I did indicate that I felt the abrupt style was
deliberate Bob and suited to the subject. I may be boorish but your offered
reading of the poem is still not available to me even though I am now privy
to the dense( as in profuse) allusions of the piece. I can see it but it
does not come easily or readily. You will know that I too like to hear the
vernacular and dialectics of language so it is not that that tells me there
is no music. I have read this out loud and no music comes. Regards Arthur.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Cooper" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 24, 2002 10:56 AM
Subject: Re: Before The Last Bus For Alston


> Wow! I never expected all of this... But I don't mind the points being
made!
> I guess this might end up being a long, long, reply. (So, put the kettle
on,
> get out the biscuits...)
> I'll try and answer the questions and points raised.
> Arthur writes. Is it true? Sorry, no it isn't. It's fiction - and like all
> good poets I wanna be a liar that tells the truth! I guess I'm trying to
> draw on things I connect with W.H. Auden. There's quite a few of them.
That
> I remember seeing a picture of him dressed as Santa Claus (It's taken from
a
> film called A Calendar Of A Year - made by the guy who also filmed Night
> Mail). Franco is also an Audenesque reference - because I was trying to
> allude to another poem, Spain 1937. (I guess I could have chosen Chiang
Kai
> Sheck) but I found myself remembering the famous poem Auden wrote about
the
> Spanish Civil War. The speech is a thuggish contradiction of Auden's
famous
> statement "poetry doesn't change anything."
> But I don't mind if all these things are hidden from someone not familiar
> (at the time of reading) with any of these points about Auden. I'm more
> interested in if it works as it's read, and how it works as it's initially
> read. I could, for instance, tell lots of stories of Auden and Alston
(where
> many people think In Praise Of Limestone finds its sense of place) and the
> mention of the Tyneside Roman may be a hint at Roman Wall Blues (and I may
> also be remembering his mood when some Tyneside people took him round some
> of the sites on Hadrian's Wall one wet Sunday - and him, as usual, still
in
> his carpet slippers! He wasn't good company that day - that's an
> understatement!). And I know I remember hearing that he was mugged just
> before he left England for the last time (and then vowed he'd never
return!
> He never did.). But all these allusions, I sense, aren't necessary -
> although interesting (?) - and I'm hoping the knowledge isn't as essential
> to the significance of the poem as the handing over of the "gift."
> And what is Auden's gift that's thrust upon the hesitant narrator who
leaves
> the scene (on the bus that's going to Auden's destination?). That's what
> intrigues me!
> The idea of poem as Presentation is also intriguing (I sense I'm moving
onto
> what you wrote now, Barbara). I guess I do see poetry as a gift, a
> present... Something that's valued badly, if at all - but something that's
> also valued in unexpected places (among prisoners who may be serving time
> for beating someone up!). Poetry - it's what we've been given and what we
> give. And I've had friends who're poets who're now dead (and part of the
> reason why they're dead is to do with their art). But I treasure their
poems
> as much as my memories of them. I (also) know their poetry belongs as much
> in Auden's "great, good place" on the moors beyond Alston as in a Bus
> Station late at night.
> But that's not what you're asking... It seems you want to know why I think
> of this as a poem... What poetic structure it embodies. Well, in a rough
> kind of way, it's playing with being a sonnet: it's got three bits (the
> beating up, what was in the sack (the gift), & what happens when the bus
> arrives), it's got 14 lines. Then it's (hopefully) readable as a poem
> because it's an attempt to use sound patterns (where most lines have two
or
> three phrases with almost-cesura's  dividing one phrase from another - the
> rhythm, however, of the line "but the large one wouldn't fit under
anyone's
> coat." is a problem! This line seems more complex, to me it still feels
> rather cumbersome.). Auden was a gifted sonnet writer - but I'm not trying
> to emulate that! Auden was also, I feel, a guy who wanted to link poetry
and
> speech (he once defined poetry as "memorable speech") and I guess my
> vernacular approach to words in this poem owes something to how I see the
> words appear in the poems of his I enjoy - but it's not a homage in any
way
> (it's probably the opposite!). Structure and rhythm are both constituents
of
> what makes for a poem. The structure's subtle (or crude, or both - take yr
> pick) and the rhythm's in the words and the pauses... (& I've been
thinking
> about the rhythmical glitches since I read yr comments, Sue, Christina,
> where the words ain't hitting right, I'm working on them...)
> And, Arthur, the words I'm using are an attempt at narrative style: the
poet
> as witness, but not an invisible, unaffected witness. Using a "Then" to
show
> that things have happened before this. Using the word "Then" as people
would
> use it when telling what happened is deliberate (tho, I know, not good
> written style). I may try to reintroduce sentences beginning with "And."
(Or
> I could reintroduce a "So" or a "While" or an "As" and leave just one
> "Then.") I'll sweat over this one Arthur! It's a problem I haven't yet
been
> able to solve. But, because I'm not using iambic pentameter (which Auden
> often did), I guess I'll have to keep trying with the speech patterns I'm
> using. And, Sue, I guess I'm making a political choice to use the words I
> use. I'll go with Wordsworth's comments about poetic diction, Wallace
> Stevens advocation of antipoetic language, and how many others who advise
> using language that's appropriate to where the poem, and the poet, feels
it
> belongs. So (as Christina responds) I too hope the poem's got its own
mouth
> music. But it ain't Monteverdi (a possible pal of Petrarch) or Motzart,
and
> neither is it Noel Coward or Cole Porter (who, I think, both knew Auden!).
> Visually the poem's more Glam Rock, but it feels more like the anger of
> Punk.
> And a last comment? Well, I guess, I disagree with his notion that poetry
> doesn't change anything... He survives the beating up, and I've got the
> parcel. He's handed something on. In a cruel way his gifts end up in other
> people's hands and pockets (that's where poems end up, I guess). He's been
> changed by what's happened (Oh, how many times do we bruise a poet when we
> get hold of their poems?) and in an uneasy way I've been changed too.
> But I also frequently find myself thinking that if an explanation's too
> complex the poem's not disclosing its mysteries well enough, it's not yet
> working too well (and this is a long explanation!).
> Bob
>
> Oh, PS. Sally, "The Last Train To Alston." Yeh. Sounds like a fine title
to
> an elegy, a poem about the things Auden thought were deep underground.
(From
> being a child to going to the USA, he always went there by train)
>
>
>
> >From: Bob Cooper <[log in to unmask]>
> >Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
> >To: [log in to unmask]
> >Subject: Before The Last Bus For Alston
> >Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 20:04:45 +0000
> >
> >For some C & C...
> >(& the words between asterics,*the words...*, are to be read as if in
> >italics)
> >
> >
> >Before The Last Bus For Alston
> >
> >After watching the shoving we heard the first punch.
> >Then his hood came down, the beard came off,
> >and his red coat ripped when one, a Tyneside Roman,
> >grabbed him, head-butted him twice.  Then he slumped,
> >just lay there as the kicking began.  It was Auden.
> >*Nowt changes for ye, does it?  Now be telled.*
> >Then his sack was up-ended and they crouched down,
> >shook then pocketed some parcels, swapped others,
> >but the large one wouldn't fit under anyone's coat.
> >Laughter, until the smallest, dressed as Franco, looked up
> >and, grinning, came over to me.  *Take it,* he hissed.
> >It was thick gold paper with a red ribbon, and heavy.
> >He waits.  I smell his beer.  The bus doors swish open.
> >I don't refuse.  How can I.  It's Christmas.
> >
> >Bob Cooper
> >
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