Tony Harrison (1) (1937–)

The one thing everyone remembers about Tony Harrison ("everyone" in this case being a not-so-random sample of half-a-dozen of my friends...) is that he's the poet who got into trouble for making a film full of "four-letter words" in the early days of Channel Four. The film version of his long poem "v.", broadcast in 1987, led to fulminations in the tabloid press and questions in the House of Commons, so it's no surprise that Penguin rushed out a new version of the Selected Poems including "v." and with a still from the film on the front cover...

Harrison is a provocative poet, who's always felt it important to speak out on issues he cares about and to challenge his audience. Since this book came out he's been in trouble for his outspoken work on Bosnia and Iraq as a war-poet, and been attacked by the Archbishop of Canterbury over another television film, The blasphemers' banquet. So he doesn't show any sign of settling down to a quiet life.

Outside the arena of scandal, Harrison is probably known as much for his work in the theatre as for his lyric poetry. He has a string of successful adaptations of Greek and Latin works to his credit (his original subject at Leeds University was classics), he made the famous 1985 adaptation of the Yorkshire Mystery Plays for the National Theatre, and he's written and translated numerous opera libretti (amongst many other things, he's a noted translator from Czech...).

What struck me in this collection, in particular, were the poems from From the School of eloquence (1978) and Continuous (1981) where Harrison digs into his own working-class family background in Leeds to explore - mostly in a classical sonnet form with slight variations - the way powerlessness in society is linked to inarticulateness. He has gone on beyond the limited scope his parents had to live their lives through the freedom he has as a poet to express himself in the world, but he has never been able to discuss that with his parents because they simply don't have the tools for it. Obviously it's in the light of those poems that we have to read his more famous lyrics about the Sikh bearer on the coffee label ("Old soldiers") and about the paperhanger who left one "perfect" line of verse hidden on the wall of Wordsworth's cottage ("Remains").

But "v.", in which he tries to get into the mind of the skinheads who have sprayed obscene graffiti on his parents' tombstone,is quite something, too...! And so are the poems from his time in Nigeria where he digs, via the characters of the "White Queen" and the "PWD man", into the not-merely-metaphorical connection between colonialism and sexual exploitation. And so is "Skywriting", where the poet's glass desktop turns into the surface of a Hockney swimming-pool...… (meer)

I arrive here at Tony Harrison's selected poems via the TV film for which he wrote the screenplay in 1993, Black Daisies for the Bride. It's such a coruscant film that Harrison's work has been on my radar ever since.

The poems in this collection did not disappoint me. Both in range and depth they are quite exceptional. They are also hard-going for the casual reader, for whom the subject matter is not served up on a plate. Rather, the reader has to work at understanding the meaning and significance of many of the titles and the references used (for example: Schwiegermutterlieder, Durham and Lines to my Grandfathers I, II).

Reading aloud helps. This is when the full metre and measure of Harrison's words echo round the body and its environment. The now-notorious poem called "v" about the desecration of his parents' graves is one such example.

I'd say that Harrison's poems are challenging, but that careful reading (even declaiming) helps. Not a word, a pause or a change of pace is wasted, so the reader is rewarded well for this effort.… (meer)

Chemistry and poetry? Strange bedfellows. The evolution of modern weaponry, from TNT to nerve gas, is explored in rhyme and dance, with magicians and strange surreal effects to complete the picture. Another play in the terrified of science genre, which spawned many good plays, but I've been reading so many in a row lately that it's difficult to be objective, since they are presenting a decidedly biased and one-sided view of science. However, I will insist on reviewing this play based on its merits and not on the unfortunate juxtaposition with other anti-science plays, and I will say that it is a very well written and interesting work.… (meer)

This play has a lot in it -- Nansen's bid for the north pole, his humanitarian work, questions of translation of Greek drama, migration and climate change. The central theme holding much if this together is the effectiveness of language versus image in conveying extremes of human endeavour and suffering. (There is an irony here in my reading the book rather than seeing the play on stage!).

There is a danger in including too much, I'm uncertain whether I would have found it too much had I not already an interest in Nansen. Certainly the details and cross-associations are very enjoyable, even if the hanging- togetherness of the whole may not suit some.

I was unaware of this play until I saw it at the bookshop of the Fram Museum, and I feel it is deserving of wider readership than the two LibraryThing members who currently own it!… (meer)