Hi grasshopper,
I've been thinking about this poem quite a few times since I first read it.
(But, when I first came across the first line, I initially thought of David
Hume! - but that's probably because I read him before I came across the
poet!). And I've been letting your poem's images work at how I think about
Hume. I write "think about Hume" and not "of Hume." Cos...
I've sometimes thought about the guy, thought about his knuckle-duster and
wondered who he had big arguements with, how he got on with his mates, if
Ezra Pound liked him (or was scared of him), and goodness knows how much
else. I sense he was a very complex character (far more complex than the
famer/moon-faced poem that, to me, seems rather insipid and not tanked up
with the usual Imagist energy).
Each time I've read you're poem, therefore, I've thought "tell me more...
about who he was, what he did, said, wrote, or something." The
grain-to-bread metaphor says, it seems to my hungry mind, not enough. Should
I be thinking about the person, with all his complexities and aspirations,
his agressions and the puzzle that he seemed so quiet in the war, or should
I just be thinking about his (poetic) theories...
I know I would never have liked to travel on a long train journey with TS
Eliot (just occasional small sips of spa water), but how would I have got
on, with a few cans of lager piled up on on the table, with Hume... (would
the almost sacramental notion of his ideas being "distributed like bread" be
enough to say about a real person, with a real voice, in the real world,
talking about things that mattered enough for him to occasionally get
violent).
Bob
(Oh, PS, did he die at Flanders? Or is the phrase intended to mean 'while
serving in the trenches'?)
>From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Sub: Grain
>Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 18:38:24 -0000
>
> Grain
>
>I think of Hulme
>who fell in Flanders field
>like a bloody cliche
>
>and left a small legacy
>his testament
>to be distributed like bread
>
>his grain fed many tongues
>seeded many minds
>engendered subtle songs
>
>he hated the facile
>despised metre
>sought the fresh connection
>
>I wrote this poem
>because I want you
>to think of Hulme
>
> grasshopper
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