Chard Whitlow -- Henry Reed

(Poem #468) Chard Whitlow (Mr. Eliot's Sunday Evening Postscript) As we get older we do not get any younger. Seasons return, and to-day I am fifty-five, And this time last year I was fifty-four And this time next year I shall be sixty-two. And I cannot say I should like (to speak for myself) To see my time over again - if you can call it time: Fidgeting uneasily under a draughty stair, Or counting sleepless nights in the crowded tube. There are certain precautions - though none of them very reliable - Against the blast from bombs and the flying splinter, But not against the blast from heaven, vento dei venti, The wind within a wind unable to speak for wind; And the frigid burnings of purgatory will not be touched By any emollient. I think you will find this put, Better than I could ever hope to express it, In the words of Kharma: 'It is, we believe, Idle to hope that the simple stirrup-pump Will extinguish hell.' Oh, listeners, And you especially who have turned off the wireless, And sit in Stoke or Basingstoke listening appreciatively to the silence, (Which is also the silence of hell) pray, not for your skins, but for your souls. And pray for me also under the draughty stair. As we get older we do not get any younger. And pray for Kharma under the holy mountain. -- Henry Reed

Reed doesn't parody any particular poem, but he 'cleverly manages
to summon echoes from almost all Eliot's work' [1]. Some
examples:

 - from 'Little Gidding':
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from...

 - from 'Gerontion'
                Vacant shuttles
Weave the wind. I have no ghosts,
An old man in a droughty house
Under a windy knob...

 - from 'Ash Wednesday'
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;

 - from 'Choruses from 'The Rock''
I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:
We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor
To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.
If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.

In addition there are little touches like the title (reminiscent of
Eliot's fondness for proper nouns in _his_ titles) and the subtitle (a
take on 'Mr Eliot's Sunday Morning Service', a rather impenetrable
early poem whose main claim to fame is that it starts with the word
'poliphyloprogenitive' - I kid you not). Not to mention the Latin and
(pseudo-)Sanskrit words, the rather abstruse religious concerns,
the philosophical speculations...

... indeed, every single line recalls one or the other of Eliot's
original verses; Reed captures the tone of voice to perfection. And
this is _precisely_ what makes the poem so sidesplittingly funny:
phrases like 'the simple stirrup-pump' deflate the whole with
enviable finesse and utter ruthlessness. Beautiful.

thomas.

[1] Kenneth Baker, in his footnote to this poem, in 'Unauthorized
Versions' - which, as has been mentioned several times before in
this forum, is an utterly _brilliant_ anthology (Faber and Faber,
1990). The rest of his footnote follows:

"[this poem] won a competition in the New Statesman. Eliot
himself commented: "In fact one is apt to think one could parody
oneself much better [than most]. As a matter of fact some critics
have said that I have [already] done so. But there is one [parody]
which deserves the success it has had, Henry Reed's 'Chard
Whitlow'.""

[Moreover]

Henry Reed is, of course, a celebrated poet in his own right - this
poem by him thus merrily contradicts my comments (made a long
time ago on the Minstrels, but I don't remember exactly when) that
parodists and poets were a non-intersecting set. Oh well.

Naming of Parts -- Henry Reed

(Poem #395) Naming of Parts "Vixi duellis nuper idoneus Et militavi non sine glori" Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday, We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning, We shall have what to do after firing. But today, Today we have naming of parts. Japonica Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens, And today we have naming of parts. This is the lower sling swivel. And this Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got. The branches Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures, Which in our case we have not got. This is the safety-catch, which is always released With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easily If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see Any of them using their finger. And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers: They call it easing the Spring. They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt, And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance, Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards, For today we have naming of parts. -- Henry Reed

 From 'Lessons of the War'
 Dedicated to Alan Mitchell.

I remember reading a not terribly distinguished parody of this poem when I was
in school; many years later, when I discovered the original, I was surprised to
see how very good it was. Indeed, it's one of the more celebrated poems of the
last half-century (though the years have not been particularly kind to Henry
Reed: these days we see him more as a failed Modernist than as a revolutionary
Romantic), and it's not hard to see why: the tone of voice, the choice of phrase
and the repetitive patterning are all instantly recognizable.

That said, though, it _is_ a poem that simply cries out for a parody, isn't it?

thomas.

[Links]

Here's a link to an essay on 'The Imagery of Genesis in Henry Reed's 'The Naming
of Parts'': [broken link] http://barney.gonzaga.edu/~mquieto/papers/naming.html . It's an
interesting enough piece, though it suffers somewhat from an overly pretentious
and (imho) juvenile style. An extract should suffice to show what I mean:

"Guns and gardens, soldiers and bees: the poem relates the unrelated in order to
draw a clear dichotomy between the forces of life and the forces of death.
However, the poem goes further than merely contrasting opposites. The  structure
and language of the poem combine to demonstrate how one should become the other.
The eschatological hope expressed by the harmonious image of this Eden begs and
demands a transformation or conversion into communion with the natural order.
The poem demonstrates that war is contrary to nature."