I want to mention apparent allusions that have struck me in two recent poems.<\/p>\n
One is in A Bird Called Elaeus<\/em>, David Constantine\u2019s brilliant book of versions from The Greek Anthology<\/em>. The first quatrain in his Coda of Anthology<\/em>-inspired original poems is called \u2018Laws of War\u2019:<\/p>\n We too had laws of war: don\u2019t poison wells There are actually two apparent allusions here \u2013 one to Wren\u2019s epitaph in St Paul\u2019s Cathedral, the other to W B Yeats\u2019 \u2018Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen\u2019, where he writes<\/p>\n We too had many pretty toys when young; Though Constantine\u2019s last line, recalling Wren\u2019s epitaph, is the most powerful and haunting in itself, it\u2019s the reference to Yeats that seems to me most telling as an allusion. Minds will go in different directions, of course. To me, it implies a fierce indictment of the blatant double standards great powers bring to international affairs, the hollowly rhetorical way in which concepts like \u2018rule-based order\u2019 are applied, the way the objective application of international law is hamstrung by security council veto. In a larger way, Yeats\u2019 despair at how the Black and Tans\u2019 violence dissolves illusions about human nature resounds through the poem. And though Constantine speaks in a quieter voice than Yeats, I think it\u2019s fair to say that if the destruction of olive trees, schools and hospitals is actually a systematic policy, as it seems to be, what\u2019s being done in Gaza and the West Bank is a much more powerful cue to such despair than the atrocities of \u2018a drunken soldiery\u2019.<\/p>\n I also wanted to mention the echo of Robert Lowell\u2019s \u2018A Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket\u2019 at the beginning of Sarah Holland-Batt\u2019s hauntingly mysterious \u2018Athenian Jar\u2019. \u2018Night strangles the island, cousin, \/ Yet we play on and on\u2019 reminded me of the beginning of the third section of Lowell\u2019s poem: \u2018All you recovered from Poseidon died \/ With you, my cousin, and the harrowed brine \/ Is fruitless on the blue beard of the god\u2019. On a verbal level the echo may seem slight, and perhaps Holland-Batt didn\u2019t consciously intend it. However, though Achilles and Ajax were cousins in myth I can\u2019t remember much being made of the fact in the Iliad<\/em>, and it\u2019s hard to see why Ajax makes a point of calling Achilles ‘cousin’ in the poem except<\/em> in order to evoke Lowell\u2019s lament. More to the point, the reference to fruitlessness in the lines I\u2019ve quoted and the unforgettable image of illusory vitality in death in the first section of \u2018A Quaker Graveyard\u2019 seems almost startlingly appropriate to imagery and ideas of strangulation, helplessness and futility not only in \u2018Athenian Jar\u2019 but scattered through the poems of Holland-Batt\u2019s The Jaguar<\/em>. Here\u2019s Lowell\u2019s opening:<\/p>\n A brackish reach of shoal off Madaket \u2013 Here\u2019s \u2018Athenian Jar\u2019, memorable line after line whose energy that to challenge the hopelessness it describes:<\/p>\n Night strangles the island, cousin, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I want to mention apparent allusions that have struck me in two recent poems. One is in A Bird Called Elaeus, David Constantine\u2019s brilliant book of versions from The Greek Anthology. The first quatrain in his Coda of Anthology-inspired original poems is called \u2018Laws of War\u2019: We too had laws of war: don\u2019t poison wells […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-constantine","category-sarah-holland-batt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2838"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2840,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2838\/revisions\/2840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/edmundprestwich.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nDon\u2019t fell the olive trees (they take so long to grow)
\nDon\u2019t bomb the schools, don\u2019t bomb the hospitals \u2026
\nStranger seeking our monument, look around you.<\/p>\n
\nA law indifferent to blame or praise,
\nTo bribe or threat; habits that made old wrong
\nMelt down, as it were wax in the sun\u2019s rays \u2026<\/p>\n
\nThe sea was still breaking violently and night
\nHad steamed into our North Atlantic Fleet,
\nWhen the drowned sailor clutched the drag-net. Light
\nFlashed from his matted head and marble feet,
\nHe grappled at the net
\nWith the coiled hurdling muscles of his thighs:
\nThe corpse was bloodless, a botch of reds and whites,
\nIts open staring eyes
\nWere lustreless dead-lights
\nOr cabin windows on a stranded hulk
\nHeavy with sand.<\/p>\n
\nyet we play on and on. Absence thickens
\nmy throat. In its hollow your spear
\nclinks on marble, moonlit
\nrats scatter like obols, and a ring
\nof mesh gleams at your neck.
\nThe house rocks its tusks in silence
\nas our hands fall and fall. Funeral games \u2013
\nnow all we fought for is dead.
\nThrow the dice again, Achilles,
\nfeel the years tumble
\nfrom your fingertips
\nlike bones.<\/p>\n