Will Eaves on William Letford's 'Sunday, with the television off.'

Sunday, with the television off. by William Letford

I think of the future. My death bed. I imagine the man I will be. Then I pay that
man a visit. Ask him, what would you do?

So I leave the car and walk across town. Knock on my father's door to say hello
and listen to his stories, the ones I've heard before.

It's like I've travelled in time. Now he knows that someone is listening. On the
way home, the sun falls behind the buildings, and I walk into a supermarket.

from New Poetries V © William Letford

The poet thinks of the future, of his death and of his father; he makes me think about them, too, and about the way in which listening is so subtle a part of human attachment – a sensory connection that is the precondition for love, which matters whether or not we feel or can express love -- and of how not listening amounts to a cancellation of others' lives, and often informs our deepest regrets.

I think, too, of Henry James, when he said that 'to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement'. James's observation comes from the preface to his novel, What Maisie Knew. He is pondering more than prosaic clarity: he is speaking about what people like Maisie know whether or not they can express it, what they know regardless of what they are told they know, and therefore what they instinctively perceive, beyond the trap of language. It's a good way of thinking about poetry as well, and particularly William Letford's sort of poetry, which builds up
statements and rhythms like a run of bricks, so that you can see the wall clearly, but also sense, equally clearly, how real the rubble of life is – the state of 'muddlement' that is itself one of life's 'sharpest realities'.

I think this is a wonderful little poem. The muddle of going back in time, as one thinks about absent people, or mourns them, perhaps; the way one feels their absence as a kind of missed opportunity to right wrongs; the secondary loss (or is it a gain?) as the poet is brought back to himself and 'the sun falls behind buildings'; the artificially lit supermarket – all are present to me, and essentially mysterious.

Will Eaves

Our readers write

Fairfield Porter, Frank O'Hara (1957), oil on canvas

Welcome to 'Our readers write', where we throw out a question related to poetry and ask readers to jump up and catch it. Got a question you'd like answered? Drop it in the comments section for use in the near future.

William Letford's Frank O'Hara quote earlier this week brought to mind that poet's relationship with painters and the many portraits that exist of O'Hara. Are there any portraits of poets -- photographic, painterly, sculptural, conceptual, etc. -- you have hanging or you would like to hang on your wall?

William Letford on Rory Waterman's 'Family Business'

Family Business by Rory Waterman

The boatman stares through million-pock-marked waters,
tapping a cigarette, shying from the rain
in mac and wellies, beneath a London plane
that rustles and drips. He turns and tells his daughter
to bolt the hut. Tonight the summer’s over.
He heaves the skiff to the boatshed, ties the lines
and double-locks the door. She fits a sign:
CLOSED FOR SEESON. They load a battered Land-Rover
with cash-tin, radio, stools, as fast as they can,
for it’s raining harder. Lightning blanks the dark,
and then they’re away, the wiper thwacking its arc.
She glances at this ordinary man
then shuts her eyes: she’s damp and tired and bored.
He drives more gently. Neither says a word.

from New Poetries V © Rory Waterman

When commenting on form, measure, and other technical apparatus, Frank O’Hara put it down to common sense, ‘If you’re going to buy a pair of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will go to bed with you.’ This sonnet needn’t worry about the lonely nights.

For me the poem kicks on the eighth line, CLOSED FOR SEESON. Why the spelling mistake? Is it to highlight ignorance, to degrade the father and daughter, both of whom, it seems, have spent a summer passing the sign without correcting the error? Is it humour at the expense of simple people? Obviously this is not the case. There is, however, something simplistic about the father and daughter’s lifestyle. When closing up, ‘They load a battered Land-Rover / with cash tin, radio, stools, as fast as they can’. Few businesses could close for the year and transport what’s necessary in two hands. ‘He turns and tells his daughter / to bolt the hut. Tonight the summer's over,’ a wonderful proclamation, almost biblical. They’re moving with the seasons, in step with nature. This, paired with the impending storm, gives the poem tension, an otherworldly feel.

Having kicked on the eighth line, the poem pivots on the eleventh, ‘Lightning blanks the dark, / and then they’re away, the wiper thwacking its arc’, strong use of sound and imagery, and a succinct, powerful way to move the action from beneath the storm to the safety of the car.

The final three lines reveal the heart of the poem. ‘She glances at this ordinary man / then shuts her eyes: She’s damp and tired and bored. / He drives more gently. Neither says a word.’ Like the misspelling of season the word ‘ordinary’ leaps at the reader (me). An ordinary man, is that an insult? The word is softened when the father intuitively responds, by driving more gently, to his daughter’s tiredness. Something has been captured here. How many times has this scenario played out over the years, over the centuries, the word ‘ordinary’ is the daughter’s. It’s how she views her father, her stifled life. We know she’s loved by the way her father responds to her mood / glance. How old is this girl? Is summer over for the business, the daughter, or the father? Perhaps for all three. And so the sense of the poem continues beyond the last line.

This isn’t about business, how much money is in their cash tin, whether or not they’re maximising profits, whether or not the sign has been spelled correctly. It’s about family, the business of the family. Real business.

William Letford

Lucy Tunstall on William Letford's 'Taking a headbut'

Taking a headbut by William Letford

your pal ruffled ma hat
i said, what? made the mistake of leaning forward
and that was that

blood-metal darkness and the taste of brass
the bell was rung
i know i went somewhere
because i had to come back

from New Poetries V © William Letford

Well, it’s funny, but it’s also brilliantly achieved in formal terms. The heavy use of rhyme in the first stanza -- ‘that’ (twice),‘hat’; ‘what’, ‘forward’ -- eases off in stanza two until the very last word -- ‘back’ -- does indeed call the ear back to where we began, only slightly adjusted by the experience.

Line two leans dangerously forward, awkwardly (foolishly) proud of the rest of the poem, inviting attack; and the detached and understated tone allows itself a flourish with ‘blood-metal darkness’. There is some really fabulous imagery here for the moment of impact, or of ebbing consciousness, where the sound of the knockout bell, the taste of blood and metal, and encroaching blackness, collide and reverberate, giving both resonance, and a very appropriate sensory confusion. And there is another subtle use of rhyme: after the ‘taste’ of ‘blood-metal’, ‘rung’ cannot help but invoke it’s absent rhyme-mate, ‘tongue’. The journey of the poem is into the body, and out of this world.

The last two lines are epigrammatic, bathetic, zen-like and cartoonish all at the same time. ‘Come back’ expresses the gravity of the situation, the sense that things might have been touch-and-go there for a moment, that there was ground to be covered to regain consciousness, and even the suggestion of a near-death experience. But they also call to mind the soul of Tom wafting gently to the ceiling as Jerry smashes his skull with a mallet. It’s all held together by a voice which, while scrupulously objective and devoid of self-pity, has a profound interest in the mysterious process of receiving a headbutt. This is awe as well as shock.

Lucy Tunstall