53. One for Ted
...being a birthday celebration, to which Ted Hughes and Ray Bradbury are both invited.
This post marks the first anniversary of Sixty Odd Poems. My fifty third weekly essay written to accompany a piece of poetry that I was previously wondering what on Earth I could do with. I am now only seven weeks off number sixty, and the completion of what I set out to do - to share sixty odd poems with a wider audience.
It has been quite a journey - quickly spawning a sister site - Sixty Odd Poets, which started by featuring a weekly collection of pieces from a poet who had inspired or accompanied me on my journey through the world of poetry. It has now gained a life of its own, having me contending with a flood of submissions, often from people who I have never met, or read before, but who still manage to inspire me with their inventiveness, creativity, and love of words.
The Sixty Odd Poets site has in turn spawned a series of slim volumes of poetry, each featuring a handful of pieces by six poets who have been featured online and thus inducted into the Fellowship of the Sixty Odd. Each of the three volumes so far have been launched at wonderful evenings at the Fox Gallery in Mexborough, in the building that was once Mexborough Grammar School, alma mater of former poet Laureate Ted Hughes
Last week, I mentioned that some years ago, I had done some compering at the old Grammar School in a festival which celebrated the relationship of Hughes to Mexborough and the surrounding countryside. A big feature of the weekend’s programme was a walk which followed the path of Ted’s childhood newspaper delivery round. It started from his home, which was also his Dad’s tobacconist and newsagent shop on Main Street in the town, and followed the river don, crossing at the site of the old ferry (he would have paid a penny to cross the few yards of flowing water on a boat hauled over by a rope and a winch) and ending up at the Manor farm, where he was allowed to hang around, experiencing farm life and the interplay between man and nature, seeing at close range, foxes, otters, hawks, crows and all manner of the English birds and animals which populated his poetry.
I studied Ted’s children’s novel The Iron Man when I was a kid in Middle School. It must have been quite a modern book at the time, having come out in 1968. I remember the teacher reading it to us at the end of every day for a week or so, and that we had to draw pictures of the huge mechanical giant who had re-assembled itself from the smashed parts which had resulted from him falling off a high cliff. To this day I can still remember the opening lines.
“The Iron Man came to the top of the cliff. How far had he walked? Nobody knows. Where did he come from? Nobody knows. How was he made? Nobody knows.”
It was a decent read, in a “book that you have to ‘do’ at school” sort of way. Nowadays, as a teacher I often reflect that being forced to listen to, read and discuss, then create responses in art and writing to can easily suck the life out of any creative work. Even now, I can’t think about The Iron Man without a tinge of schoolroom boredom creeping into my mind. The Space Bat Angel Dragon, who was the Iron man’s adversary towards the end of the story was an interesting creation, but, to me, it hardly compared to the villains in the Mighty World of Marvel. School gave the book too much of a wholesome sheen and, precisely because I knew that the same teachers who praised the work of Ted Hughes would dismiss the Fantastic Four and the Incredible Hulk as comic book trash, I much preferred to read about them than some old farm machinery eating behemoth with a headlamp in the middle of his face.
I understand that Hughes wrote a sequel some quarter of a century later - The Iron Woman. Where The Iron Man had spoken of the foolishness of violent conflict and war, the female incarnation was more about the foolishness of destroying our natural environment. I really ought to read it, especially now there is no teacher forcing me to do so, I might actually enjoy it.
There was one piece of science fiction that I remember from school that I really enjoyed. I was a few years older at that point, and at the comprehensive. As I recall, the teacher played it to us, probably from an old cassette player, or even a pre-cassette reel to reel. If he had been given any supporting educational materials to go with it, he wisely decided not to pass them on to us. It was a radio version of a Ray Bradbury story - There Will Come Soft Rains. I think that I have found the original version on the Internet Archive1 Listening to it now, it does seem a bit flat, but I can recall listening with my head resting on the desk, warmed by some September afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. Undisturbed by the teacher, we all instinctively knew not to mess about, it would have spoiled the respite from proper lessons.
I already knew about Ray Bradbury through my Dad, who was a keen reader of science fiction and passed his enthusiasm on to me. Bradbury, Asimov and Arthur C Clarke were his favourites. Hearing a Bradbury story at school was a treat to me. It was almost as though the teacher had got us to study the Fantastic Four, (although even my Dad dismissed them as trash).
There Will Come Soft Rains describes a house still standing after a massive nuclear explosion (in the radio version, the year is 2026). It is an automated house, where the daily lives of the family have all been made easier by electronic devices. The devices continue to attempt to serve the family even though they have been annihilated in the blast The most memorable part shows the images of them marked onto one side of the house...
...Etched onto the wall in one titanic instant A small boy, hands flung up into the air. Higher up, the image of a thrown ball and opposite him, a girl hands raised to catch a ball which never came down
I was probably thinking (albeit subconsciously) of the atmosphere of that Bradbury story when I wrote “One For Ted”. I wrote it specifically to submit to a publication being prepared to celebrate the work of Ted Hughes by the organisation that were also responsible for the festival. They rejected it. A few years later when they booked me to be a compere I took great pleasure in reading it before them all. Not that I am tiny minded at all. They were probably right to pass it over. It has lain unused on my hard drive until today. I am fond of it though.
I imagined the animals that Ted wrote about so well, getting along without people. Probably not because of nuclear armageddon, but some other misfortune that had wiped us all out without really harming any other species.
One for Ted
The cats are around, In perfect surround sound Howling and bawling, Hissing, caterwauling Amplified yelling and magnified yawls Echoing off of the silent brick walls Distant dogs wake, From their sleep in dismay Disappointedly discovering masters away Belching barks to the sky More barks in reply Yodelling and yowling Dog-coughing and growling Wailing and weeping Losing interest and sleeping Then the blackbird, the robin, the thrush and the wren Breaking the silence once again Singing and laughing Chirping and chaffing And insects arise Wasps, bees, crickets and flies Buzzing and clicking And droning and ticking And larger things disturbing leaves and the grass, Belch and rustle, rummage, snuffle and snort as they pass Sniffing here, sniffing there sniffing every which way Sniffing flesh, sniffing bone, sniffing damp and decay And under the water, and under the soil Creatures bristle. Beware! Creatures trouble and toil The splash and the slither, the creak and the croak The dart, grab and swallow, the rattle, the choke Now the cars rust and rot. Beetles crawl with cockroaches Roads buckle and crack, vegetation encroaches Livestock runs wild, structures crumble and fall And no-one to pass comment. There’s no-one at all.
You can also find an audio version of the tale read by Leonard Nimoy (Mr Spock!) on Youtube, along with a weird 1980s animated video version from Uzbekistan.
Love the poem Mike - that's all.....
Happy birthday, 60 Odd. Well celebrated. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall be brief. Also a liar. One of the chief idioms of having got further back into verse via Mexborough (read to Write, 60 Odd), is how it is not only an education. I am also lucky enough to feel a very personal effect. I'll spare readers from the tale of my enrolling at Mexborough Grammar, suffice to say it was an excuse to get a bedsit away from home (thank you Doug and Freda). So as an ex-mex, I feel tickled by the Hughes element. As an Ex MGS, how tickled I am, as Doddy would say.
The point perhaps being that through this essay, I feel an approach to Hughes that is more accessible. Even if I have to The Beano down. Previously I'd staggered into him (a second time) via Sylvia. (I'd met him at MGS but had no idea who he was). In that vacuum were the feminists, and other detractors - odd for a laureate; the grapes gone off? I firmly believe until things went awry for Sylvia (let's not apportion anything) Hughes like anyone would be a regular, if educated, bloke. We can lose site of people when they're labelled, be it perjorative or gandiose.
Anyway, I used to approach the same fields via Kilnhurst. In fact my big brother and cousin went poaching down there - it was dad's childhood haunt. So here is this personal level - we could be writing (or shooting) about the same wildlife (generations apart obviously). To round this out, I had been trying to put a band together since schooldays - finally in Mex, Kenneth Chadwick (guitar/vocs) and Ted Grayson (bass) and a drummer whose name I forget but he used to run along house roofs for a laugh) invited me to join them - at Manor Farm. There have been some grand jam sessions there. But to know that once again I was tripping over Ted (the other one's) tracks... It doesn't make me anything; but I'm trying to say how things that come into our lives through serendipity can mean so much more.