Published Poems 1971-79

An annotated checklist

No sooner had I started writing than I began publishing. The two things went together. The earliest surviving poem that I like at all was written at eighteen. It's a poem about memories of my paternal grandfather - and 'World's Apart', about the same subject, is the first poem in my Selected Poems (2003). I can happily reprint it here in a text only mildly editorially corrected. This cannot be said, I'm afraid, for quite a large number of the uncollected poems from that first decade. Though a certain portion of the manuscript poems I wrote while an undergraduate have been lost, I started to keep copies of all the publications, and, as a result, this record of published poems is probably complete. There are, though, a number of points that should be admitted. The dating of poems before the 1990s is only broadly accurate. The years given are likely to be correct, but the exact dates have only very rarely been preserved. The same is true for the places of composition, where I have had to rely on the vagaries of memory. The fact is that before moving to Japan I only occasionally dated a draft in notebooks, and then only when it seemed somehow significant. However, as can be seen from the text of Anaglypta (1985), I did once note the years of all those poems, and the typescript of This Other Life (1988) submitted to Carcanet Press included the years of composition for each poem. I was advised by the editor to omit these in the book itself. Though the dating of completed drafts is a habit I got into over the last dozen years or so, the exact extents of work is difficult to give with a few dates, and even now the dating of the poems should be treated as an indication, not an unequivocal fact. To this it might be added that revisions have been made on occasions over many years, and not always at the time of publications, so the work represented by a final printed text may well not have been definitively completed by the date give for the poem - which will represent the occasion of the poem's drafting into what is, more or less, its defining shape. I undertook this review of the record while choosing a selected poems made up of pieces that I like and that sit well together in a book. A collected poems requires rather more candour in taking stock of exactly what you have produced over the years. A collected volume is not a complete one, though, and this checklist was a way of coming to terms with the record and beginning to think about what should be collected, and what left in limbo. These published poems represent only a fraction of the pieces in notebooks or left in typescript. At the moment, my feeling is that all such work should remain where it is - as part of a private archive.

Early Uncollected Poems 1971-1974

A Little Thin Man

A little thin man with an old brown case
that's what they said
for myself I only remember
the eyeball sockets like saucepans
and hugish nose I have myself

A moonlight flitter he was
that's what they said
for myself I only remember
he was a Canadian Pacific Railway waiter
went to escape my grandmother
and a cardboard box of postcards

He suffered from a lung complaint for years
that's what they said
for myself I only remember
that dad was away for a day or two
and he was dead

It was December when they buried him
that's what they said
for myself I only remember
an old grey wall and railings
they said

A little thin man he was
and clutched an old brown suitcase

Written in Goodricke College, Heslington, York, autumn 1971. Published in A Slim Volume with poems by Hugh Macpherson and R. F. Laxton (York, 1972). Uncollected. I have corrected 'Union Pacific' to 'Canadian Pacific', deleted some incoherent punctuation, and standardized usage for this publication.

A Day Out

Written in Horrocks Avenue, Garston, winter 1971. Published in A Slim Volume (York, 1972). Uncollected.

I walked in the dead leaves...

Written in Horrocks Avenue, Garston, winter 1971. Published in A Slim Volume (York, 1972). Uncollected.

This evening I walked the length of the prom...

Written in Horrocks Avenue, Garston, winter 1971. Published in A Slim Volume (York, 1972) with its epigraph, four lines from James Joyce's Chamber Music XI, mistakenly printed on a separate page. Uncollected.

Leah

Written in Goodricke College, York, spring 1972. Published in A Slim Volume (York, 1972). Uncollected.

The Conscripted

Written in Goodricke College, York, spring 1972. Published in A Slim Volume (York, 1972). Uncollected.

A Guitarist

Published in The Soft Cell with poems by Hugh Macpherson and R.F. Laxton (York, 1972). Uncollected.

I did not sleep...

Published in The Soft Cell (York, 1972). Uncollected.

The attempts at seduction...

Published in The Soft Cell (York, 1972). Uncollected.

When she first stayed...

Published in The Soft Cell (York, 1972). Uncollected.

Mother-in-Law

Published in The Soft Cell (York, 1972). Uncollected.

British Atrocities and Questions of the West

A response to the breaking up by police of a York radical student march protesting about the Bloody Sunday shootings in Londonderry. Written in Goodricke College, York. Published in Eboracum no.13, summer 1972. Uncollected.

Two Young Ladies

Published in Eboracum no. 14, autumn 1972. Uncollected.

An Uncle's Death

Published in Eboracum no. 14, autumn 1972. Uncollected.

Beatrice

Published in Nouslit no. 1, spring 1973. Uncollected.

Afterwards

Marooned in self,
the glistening distress
of Ben Gunn
in his tired eyes, loneliness,

for this grieved man
from the long disease
came a stoical, dignified
final release —

at Venice, died,
in his own mind, sure
the life's work
was botched, a stupid failure.

I would, in emulation,
perhaps see
his confessions of error
as a gesture to humility.

A response to the death of Ezra Pound on 1 November 1972. Published in Nouslit no. 2, summer 1973. Uncollected. I’ve added a capital letter at the beginning of stanza one, a dash at the end of two, and amended the last word of the penultimate line.

A First Grandson

Published in Nouslit no. 2, summer 1973. Uncollected.

A Stanzaic Section from a Long Poem

Dated 23 Nov 1973-16 Feb 1974. Published in Sandwich no. 1, spring 1974. A verse quoted in 'Liverpool...of All Places', Liverpool Accents: Seven Poets and a City ed. P. Robinson (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 1996). Uncollected.

Minimal Portrait/Frame 2

Written in Hampden Street, Bradford, in the autumn of 1974. Published in Krax no. 10, 1977. Uncollected.

Generosity of thighs...

Written in Hampden Street, Bradford, in the autumn of 1974. Published in Grope no.5, spring 1976. Uncollected.

Language's Condition

Donald Davie
in a poem
likens language
to wallpaper,
strips peeling
off a wall.
In that house,
my grandma's,
the feel of it
was fragile
as biscuit
might well
crumble under packaging.
Lacking a subject to share
inarticulable despair will do,
as behind the rhyme scheme
plaster cracks,
brick and mortar start to go.

Written in Hampden Street, Bradford, in the autumn of 1974. Published in The Little Word Machine nos. 8-9, 1978. Quoted in '"As wallpaper peels from a wall": Words and Things for Donald Davie', Donald Davie at 70: A Celebration, PN Review 88, vol. 19 no. 2, 1992. Uncollected. The above text corrects a printing error, improves one word, and substitutes 'Donald' for 'Professor'. The poem alluded to is his 'Essex' from The Shires (1974).

Wallpaper

Written in Hampden Street, Bradford, in the autumn of 1974. Published in The Little Word Machine nos. 8-9, 1978. Uncollected.

Poems Collected and Uncollected 1974-1979

Worlds Apart

Begun using fragments from an earlier poem of 1973 in Hampden Street, Bradford, autumn 1974 and completed in Beauchamp Lodge, Little Venice, spring 1976. Published in Perfect Bound no. 1, summer 1976; then, with revisions, in Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Included in Selected Poems.

The Benefit Forms

Begun in Hampden Street, Bradford, autumn 1974, then added to and extensively rewritten in Alexandra Grove, Finsbury Park; Beauchamp Lodge, Little Venice; Angel Court, Trinity College, Great Eastern Street, and Herschel Road, Cambridge, 1975-6. Published in Perfect Bound no. 2, winter 1976-7 [nos. 1, 6, 7]; Great Works no. 6, autumn 1976 [nos. 4, 5]; Blueprint no. 3, June 1977 [nos. 2, 3, 8, 9]; Stand vol. 19 no. 3, 1978 [no.1]; then, revised, in The Benefit Forms (Cambridge: Lobby Press, 1978) and Overdrawn Account(London: Many Press, 1980). Parts 1, 2, 7, 8, 10 included in Selected Poems.

This Dark Void

Written in Alexandra Grove, Finsbury Park, during the spring or early summer of 1975. Published in Contac Arts Magazine nos. 9 and 10, 1975. Uncollected.

After Rochdale...

Written in Alexandra Grove, Finsbury Park, during the spring or early summer of 1975. Published in Green Lines no. 1, 1975. Uncollected.

The Loom's Net

Written in Alexandra Grove, Finsbury Park, during the spring or early summer of 1975. Published as a privately-printed poem card in autumn 1975 with a pen and ink sketch made in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. Uncollected.

How He Changes

First part drafted in the Outpatients Department of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, by trying to translated from memory 'Comme on change' by Pierre Reverdy, in July or August 1975; second part written in Angel Court, Trinity College, in autumn 1975. Published in Blueprint no. 2, 1976 and, with minor changes, in Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Reprinted as part one only in Liverpool Accents: Seven Poets and a City ed. P. Robinson (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 1996). This one-part form included in Selected Poems.

Some Hope

Written in 1975-6 in Bradford, London, and Cambridge. An unpublished second part written in Beauchamp Lodge, Little Venice, during 1976. Published in Palantir no. 6, 1977; reprinted in The Benefit Forms (Cambridge: Lobby Press, 1978) and Overdrawn Account (London: Many Press, 1980). Included, with revisions and in the three-part version, in Selected Poems.

A Homage

Written in Angel Court, Trinity College, Cambridge, November 1975. Published as 'A Symbiosis' in Almer Parkes no. 2, 1976; then, with revisions and the epigraph as 'A Homage', in Autumn Anthology: A Biographical Anthology of One Hundred Poets ed. S. T. Gardiner (London: Poet's Yearbook Publications, 1977) and in Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Included in Selected Poems.

A Closed Form of Love

Written in Angel Court, Trinity College, autumn 1975. Published in Almer Parkes no. 2, 1976. Uncollected.

The Interrupted Views

Written over New Year 1975-6 in Port Isaac, Cornwall, Beauchamp Lodge, Little Venice, and Great Eastern Street, Cambridge. Published in Granta no. 75, June 1976, with artwork by Will Hill; in Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980); and, with definitive revisions, in Liverpool Accents: Seven Poets and a City ed. P. Robinson (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 1996). Included in Selected Poems.

Overdrawn Account

Written in Beauchamp Lodge, Little Venice, one evening (the first 7 lines) and the next morning (the remaining 21) in late September 1976. Published in the Trinity Review 1977; Rock Drill no. 1, 1980; and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Included in Selected Poems.

Waking, St Paul's Square

Across the park, outside,
if it's autumn the leaves
are dingy. Cornflakes
are strewn on the floor.

A bell tent of light
that's only the sunshine
clots in the room's air,
a milky suspension.

Effect of the curtains,
they're hardly less white
than the sphere of their chinese
lampshade, and as still.

The sheets are turned
open to the ceiling's
emulsion that lends
warmth to the inmates.

Parallel, two consoled people,
as a fly on the plaster
or sunlight discerns them,
in their vellum envelope.

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, autumn 1976. Published in New Poetry 3 ed. Alan Brownjohn and Maureen Duffy (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1977). Uncollected.

Ear to the Night, Mouth to the Morning

Written in Herschel Road, autumn 1976. Published in Spectacular Diseases no. 3, 1977; Blueprint, summer 1978; Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980).

Autobiography

Written in the English Faculty Library, West Road, Cambridge, 1977. Published in Vanessa nos. 5 and 6, 1978 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Included in Selected Poems.

The Yellow Room

Our yellow room
feels warm.
No windows.
There's only one irritant.
Sleet on the skylight,
a long day of bickering.

In all my life with her
I hardly understand her more, he said.
An enigma
closing the door,
I love you whoever you are.
That gap in the speaker?s
misunderstanding,
fill it with sky,
the clouds standing.

Night before last,
I switched off the light.
Shiny greys flickering.

When the white dot disappears,
the silence is a vacuum
and draws you into it.

Icy air provides a tonic
where, alone on the avenue,
footsteps clack
another reply.

Silence,
not nervy as in between tap drips,
is large and populous.

Figures speck the table cloth.
She reads a letter from her mother.

What sweet coffee will signify,
our eating breakfast together.

Written in Herschel Road, autumn 1976. Published in Vanessa nos. 5 and 6, Autumn 1978. Passages from it are echoed in 'Writing on the Quiet' and 'In Our Own Time'. Uncollected.

Not a Thing to Write Home About

Written in Venice, Italy, March 1977. Perfect Bound no. 3, summer 1977; then in A Part of Rosemary Laxton(Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979).

In Herschel Road

Perfect Bound no. 3, summer 1977. Uncollected.

Indoor Antennae

Perfect Bound no. 3, summer 1977; then in A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979).

After the End

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, sometime in spring 1977. Published in Perfect Bound no. 3, summer 1977, and Argo vol. 1 no. 2, 1979. Uncollected.

Two to Make an Argument

Published in Perfect Bound no. 4, 1977. Uncollected.

The Lists

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, spring 1977. Published in Perfect Bound no. 4, 1977, and A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979).

Things to See

Published in Palantir no. 7, 1979. Uncollected.

A Thing to Live With

Published in Palantir no. 7, 1979 and A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979).

A Map of Unvisitable Places

Published in Vanessa no. 4, 1978. Uncollected.

Dirty Language

Written in Thompson’s Lane, Cambridge, spring 1978. Published in Lettera no. 17, 1979; Stand vol. 20 no. 3, 1979; New Poetry 5 ed. Peter Redgrove and Jon Silkin (Hutchinson: London, 1979); broadcast on Poetry Now, BBC Radio 3; reprinted in Green River Review vol. 11 no. 2-3, 1980; Anaglypta (Many Press: London, 1985), This Other Life (Carcanet Press: Manchester, 1988). Included in Selected Poems.

In the Background

Written in Thompson’s Lane, Cambridge, spring 1978. Presented to the Cambridge Poetry Society Workshop as 'The Winter Gardens' with additional epigraph 'The band is leaving the Winter Gardens by an emergency exist.' - W. H. Auden, The Orators; published as 'The Uncertainty of the Poet' with additions in Alembic no. 8, 1979; then, revised, as 'In the Background Details', Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980); reprinted as 'In the Background', with definitive revisions, in Liverpool Accents: Seven Poets and a City ed. P. Robinson (Liverpool University Press: Liverpool, 1996). Included in Selected Poems.

If I Hold the Words

Published in Blueprint 1978. Uncollected. Scheduled for Isolated Pieces.

Take Care of Things

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, spring 1977. Published in Blueprint 1978 and A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Cambridge: Privately printed, 1979).

Cold Table

Written in Thompson's Lane, Cambridge, January or February 1978. Published in Blueprint 1978. Uncollected.

Furniture Music, Musical Chairs

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, spring 1977. Published in Ochre Magazine no. 5. 1978 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980).

Self-Portrait by Himself

Published in Ochre Magazine no. 5, 1978. Uncollected.

To the Stars

Published in Ochre Magazine no. 5, 1978. Uncollected.

Summer Weather Variations

Published in Ochre Magazine no. 5, 1978. Uncollected.

Pressure Cooker Noise

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, in spring 1977. Published in Ochre Magazine no. 5, 1978, Granta no. 77, June 1978 and A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Cambridge: Privately printed, 1979). Reprinted in Jacket no. 20, December 2002. Included in Selected Poems.

Tokens of Affection

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, in early autumn1978. Published as 'The Woman is Mobile, The Furniture is Bolted Down' in Ochre Magazine no. 5, 1978, Granta no. 77, June 1978, and in A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Cambridge: Privately printed, 1979). Included in Selected Poems.

A Woman a Picture and a Poem

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, during the early summer of 1977 when its dedicatee, the painter David Inshaw, was a creative arts fellow at Trinity College. Published in Vanessa nos. 5 and 6, 1978 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Scheduled for Isolated Pieces.

Autobiography

Written in the English Faculty Library, West Road, Cambridge, 1977. Published in Vanessa nos. 5 and 6, 1978 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Included in Selected Poems.

Nondescript

Written in Thompson's Lane, Cambridge, spring 1978. Based on a photograph of a housing estate taken by Peter Laxton. Published in Perfect Bound no. 5, 1978 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980). Not to be reprinted.

Their Inventory

Written, parodying Robert Herrick:s 'His Grange, or private wealth' in Thompson's Lane, Cambridge, spring 1978. Published in A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979). Included in Selected Poems.

Living in the Workroom

Written in Thompson's Lane, Cambridge, on or near 12 November 1977. Published in A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Cambridge: Privately printed, 1979). Reprinted, with revisions, in Jacket no. 20, December 2002. Included in Selected Poems.

Looking Up

Written sometime after May Week, June 1978, in Thompson's Lane, Cambridge. The question mark had been hung above the roof of St. John's College as a student prank. Published in Perfect Bound no. 6, 1978; A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979); This Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988); reprinted in Jacket no. 20, December 2002. Included in Selected Poems.

Finding the Range

Published in Green Lines no. 2, 1978 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980).

Going Out to Vote

Written in Herschel Road, Cambridge, in May 1977. Published as Many Press Broadsheet no. 10 (London: Many Press, 1978). Uncollected.

Writing on the Quiet

Published in Perfect Bound no. 7, 1979; reprinted in Green River Review vol. 11 no. 2-3, 1980; A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979); his Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988).

The Sky is Difficult

Published in Perfect Bound no. 7, 1979; A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Privately printed: Cambridge, 1979); This Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988).

Old Notes

Weighted with paper,
money handles like skin
and today's evening meal
burns into my fingers.
Put one foot in front of the other
as the toe-caps appear,
watching an idea
distend, then die.

Potatoes, fish, the cabbage
I had not forgotten
and the plans made to give you
all my money as a promise.
We'd meet in so many days' time.
And that was what compelled us -
how to be faithful
after a fashion.

Words have collected,
convictions written down
or up, exhorbitant.
I'll bear in mind to cite
the sources as some fill in diaries.
Days thought of as my own
go easily, my pockets
and head growing light.

Written in Trumpington Road, Cambridge, during the spring of 1979 while working to complete a version of my PhD. Published in Perfect Bound no. 7, 1979. Uncollected.

Touching You

Written in Trumpington Road, Cambridge, during the spring of 1979 while working to complete a version of my PhD. Published in Perfect Bound no. 7, 1979; A Part of Rosemary Laxton (Cambridge: Privately printed, 1979) and This Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988).

Against the Loss You Make Provision

Written in Trumpington Road, Cambridge, during the spring of 1979 while working to complete a version of my PhD. Published in PN Review 30 vol. 9 no. 4, 1982 and This Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988).

Building Society

Home Improvements

On the Ground

Written in Trumpington Road, Cambridge, late winter 1979. Published in Rock Drill no. 1, 1980 and Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980).

Application

Written in Trumpington Road, Cambridge, during the spring of 1979 while working towards the 1979 Cambridge Poetry Festival. Alison Rimmer was the Society's treasurer, and the application is for a grant from the Eastern Arts Association.Published in Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980).

The Frozen Cemetery

Written in Trumpington Road, Cambridge, late winter 1979. Published in Overdrawn Account (Many Press: London, 1980).

Seasonal Employment

Published in Overdrawn Account& (Many Press: London, 1980).

From a Memory

Begun in Via Sabbotino, Verona, July 1979, revised in Roxana Waterson's house, off Mill Road, Cambridge during early 1980. Published as 'From Memory' in Granta new series, no. 2, 1980; as 'From a Memory', with further revision, This Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988). Included, in a slightly revised form, in Selected Poems.

A September Night

Written in Searle Street, Cambridge, late summer 1979, employing some fragments from draft poems of summer 1978. Published as 'The Counterpane' in Granta new series, no. 2, 1980; reprinted in Green River Review vol. 11 no. 2-3, 1980; and, revised, as 'A September Night' in This Other Life (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1988). Included in Selected Poems.