Recently we attended a memorial service for Prof. John Carey,
a very touching occasion; the following morning this arrived
in my mental inbox, trying to capture him and what he'd achieved.
A long-time and combative reviewer for the Sunday Times,
as a teacher he had really helped his students, and overall was a foe
of obscurity and elitism in literature. The 'mighty battle' had been
his epic analysis of the modernist artists and writers who had,
he argued, tried to differentiate themselves from the plebs
by producing stuff that was essentially incomprehensible!
The 'chieftains hailing from afar' were people
from journalism and the media, testifying to how
he'd inhabited worlds beyond the academic.
A very Oxford occasion, but I couldn't help help
comparing him to a Viking warrior, who had
sallied forth and battled in 'outside lands'.
And a good neighbour to me. RIP.
JUST LIKE A MIGHTY WARRIOR
Just like a mighty warrior, who had adventured far,
In outside lands, and made a change where'er his foot did fall,
And in one mighty battle, had vanquishėd the foe,
So where its writ had run so long, no longer could it go.
Like in a Viking forest, where a champion was lain,
And with fire and songs and rituals deep his feats were felt again,
And chieftains hailing from afar had come to honour show,
And ancient words were spoke and sung that touched the very soul.
But old stained glass enfolded us, we sat on wooden pews
The choir in laundered linen fine, the priest with words that soothed,
And ancient words were spoke and sung that touched the very soul,
And his feats were there remembered as the ceremony flowed.
Unlike the Viking warrior his deeds were of the mind
Remembered for his gentleness, perceptive too and kind;
The care he took to aid the young, to help them on their ways
And they were there to honour him, now lengthened in their days.
We heard George Herbert, Philip Larkin, Ecclesiastes, Keats
John Donne, Shelley, Richard Dawkins, Shakespeare, Melville, Yeats,
Reading is like the sea he'd said, refreshes when you swim
Releases, frees, makes bright the worlds that previously were dim.
Our carousals were more decorous than the Vikings' long before,
The roof was beauteous hammerbeam, while theirs had been the stars;
Yet we were somehow there at one, both sad, uplifted too,
With the fundamental sensed and our purposes renewed.
And below a link ...
'Poetry is to language,
as music is to noise....'
BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH
For Benjamin
There was no one quite like Benjamin,
No one who can fill his shoes;
Which by the way were leather-free,
In keeping with his views.
I heard that in the playground,
By schoolmates left alone,
He talked to cats, he talked to bees
To join with Nature’s flow.
It was the age of ignorance,
By countless actions shown,
But he finessed the bitterness
Which could from that have grown.
So when from school returning,
‘Go home’ cried out some fool,
‘That’s what I’m doing’ he replied,
Disarmed him with his cool.
And when his young man’s world went wrong,
He found a way to go,
Which left those lesser ways behind,
Through verse new worlds he’d know.
The quick wit and the energy,
The Caribbean cool,
His ceaseless work and social grace,
The rhymes that he renewed
Would bring him to the media world,
To radio, book and film,
He’d have to get a hotel suite,
To pack the journos in.
Then when he met with Lady Di,
And didn’t want to fart,
In poetry he told the tale,
Which made the country laugh.
A national treasure he became,
Except ‘The Sun’ was cross,
But in his rhyme ‘The Blinding Sun’
He showed them who was boss.
He lent me his celebrity,
For the poet Shelley’s sake,
Who he loved, in awe of how
He’d tried so hard to wake
The country from its slumber deep,
And tell the skylark’s song;
Invoke in words the Wild West Wind,
His inner fire lifelong.
And the first time he arrived,
He’d just wowed them at Hay,
The second time a hospital ward
Had been honoured with his name.
Then at Brookes when recognized
For making poetry real,
He asked me and my son along
To the celebration meal.
And in old Maxwell’s dining room,
Vegan vichyssoise there served,
He just was so engaged with all
While I the guest observed.
I got him on his mobile phone,
The message left was cool:
‘I’m probably in the local nick,
In prison or in school’.
Then, I was working, with my mind
So many miles away,
Far off I heard an anguished cry
And next heard my wife say:
That Benjamin had died they’d said,
And nothing to be done;
A brain tumour, a brain tumour,
‘Oh no, oh no’, so young.
Like so many we were stunned
This source of courage lost;
Those unstraightforward takes on life
That put new twists across.
I looked next day and in ‘The Sun’
The tributes all flowed fast;
The times had changed, his deeds had left
Their battles in the past.
Hail to thee, blithe Benjamin!
Hail to your mercury mind;
Thanks for the way you worked for us
And always sought to find
A way to navigate dead ends,
See injustices transformed;
Hail to thee, blithe Benjamin!
May your spirit long go on.
(Included in 'The Rough, the Smooth and the Quirky:
Poems for a Complicated World')
More details here
