What's odd and enjoyable about this is that Shaun is himself an academic, Salt tell us, though naturally he'd rather you imagined him as a farmer, because who wants to buy poetry that just regurgitates the dryasdust sterile debates of the common room?
His forthcoming book for Salt (http://www.saltpublishing.com/pamphlets/smv/9781844718016.htm) contains poetry like this, which forms a curious and I think revealing contrast to his blog manner, each supplying an instructive commentary on the other.
Following The Map
Seven with a toy tractor I bulldozed
twisting tracks through the cabbage plants
that linked, double-backed, serpentine
were added to that summer by a neighbour’s son.
A sunburnt face through the leaves, a single mole
hanging on his left cheek like a coin or planet.
All winter we’d wait for the warmer weather.
Wait for the muddy ground to peel and crack
so that we could start fingers shifting mountains.
Dry dirt would blow off trowels, crumble under palms,
grit teeth and hair and find its way into every fold
of skin and dust the school regulation wool and cotton.
We’d jostle and race Corgi, Matchbox and Dinky
through those hot July afternoons until light faded
from the downs and flickered on vapour trails.
The same sky, twenty years later, rain-heavy
threatens the seed-tunnel in this garden.
It rattles like a broken engine, flaps like suits in cars.
Our neighbour’s son now sells Porsches in Sweden
with handshakes and brochures pushed into the palms
of businessmen whilst I sit here, stalled again.
The question then is whether Shaun's polemic is really to be interpreted as anti-academic or anti-Cobbing. For my money it's clearly the latter, and no wonder because Cobbing's challenge to - well, to that - is still apparent and urgent.
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