[Clive Watkins]

On Tom’s interesting thread "Explosions v. Slowly Growing Appreciations", Timothy Murphy refers to Edward Thomas. I am not sure how well known Edward Thomas is outside the UK. That he and Robert Frost established what was to prove for both of them, though in different ways, an influential friendship, one which for Frost survived Thomas’s battlefield death in 1917, is familiar, I suppose.

Thomas himself is a fine poet. He came to poetry in his middle years after a career as a writer of reviews, and of books about the English countryside, in considerable part as a result of meeting Frost. His output was necessarily small; his range is perhaps narrow; but his verse has subtleties and a quiet expressiveness.

I particularly like a quality I have never satisfactorily isolated, at least to my own satisfaction, something to do with the shape of his sentences and the relationship of these to his lines. In this particular respect, I know of only one other poet who seems to have caught something of the same "tune", E. J. Scovell, (Edith Joy), who was born in 1907 and died in 1999.

Here is a sample of Thomas, one of my favourite poems, "Old Man":

Old Man

Old Man, or Lad's-love,-in the name there's no- thing
To one that knows not Lad's-love, or Old Man,
The hoar-green feathery herb, almost a tree,
Growing with rosemary and lavender.
Even to one that knows it well, the names
Half decorate, half perplex, the thing it is:
At least, what that is clings not to the names
In spite of time. And yet I like the names.

The herb itself I like not, but for certain
I love it, as some day the child will love it
Who plucks a feather from the door-side bush
Whenever she goes in or out of the house.
Often she waits there, snipping the tips and shrivelling
The shreds at last on to the path, perhaps
Thinking, perhaps of nothing, till she sniffs
Her fingers and runs off. The bush is still
But half as tall as she, though it is as old;
So well she clips it. Not a word she says;
And I can only wonder how much hereafter
She will remember, with that bitter scent,
Of garden rows, and ancient damson trees
Topping a hedge, a bent path to a door,
A low thick bush beside the door, and me
Forbidding her to pick.

BANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTBANNED POSTAs for myself,
Where first I met the bitter scent is lost.
I, too, often shrivel the grey shreds,
Sniff them and think and sniff again and try
Once more to think what it is I am remembering,
Always in vain. I cannot like the scent,
Yet I would rather give up others more sweet,
With no meaning, than this bitter one.

I have mislaid the key. I sniff the spray
And think of nothing; I see and I hear nothing;
Yet seem, too, to be listening, lying in wait
For what I should, yet never can, remember:
No garden appears, no path, no hoar-green bush
Of Lad's-love, or Old Man, no child beside,
Neither father nor mother, nor any playmate;
Only an avenue, dark, nameless, without end.

Edward Thomas (1878 - 1917)

Clive Watkins

[Harry Potter]

I'm not too familiar with Edward Thomas, Clive, but the way that he arranges words actually reminds me a bit of Frost. I think Thomas' style is more or less, as you say, in the sentence structure itself. It seems to me his lines are feeding off of each other (as most good writing will I suppose), but in this case it seems to be a very methodical, conscious effort on the part of the author. This does not take away from the simplicity and easy feeling of the poem, but seems to add to it in my opinion.

One particular poem of Frost's that comes to mind is "The Red Wheelbarrow." Frost's placement of certain words in this piece, a very short one I might add, seems to make the poem what it is and gives it a sense of "liveliness" or "existence" that another author might not be able to pull off.

Here in Thomas' poem I see a lot of word placement that appears to make certain images stand out, and his "thought process" seems to be present as the syntax moves along. In other words, he stops one thought then starts another, and draws the reader in during the process, at least this reader anyway.

Harry

[This message has been edited by Harry Potter (edited March 28, 2002).]

[Tim Murphy]

Oh for chrissake Harry. The Red Wheelbarrow is by Williams. I cringe for you. And Frost is spinning in his grave. Clive, how about posting Addlestop, or whatever it's called. Thomas doesn't quite make it for me, for whom Watkins is a much finer, deeper poet. But something went on between him and Frost which was essential to Modern Poetry, and God knows Frost wouldn't have amounted to much if he'd died at 30. Here is a poem for the only great friend Frost ever had, composed what? two years after E.T.'s death.

To E.T.

I slumbered with your poems on my breast,
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove-wings on a figure on a tomb,
To see if in a dream they brought of you

I might not have the chance I missed in life
Through some delay, and call you to your face
First soldier, and then poet, and then both,
Who died a soldier-poet of your race.

I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
And one thing more that was not then to say:
The Victory for what it lost and gained.

You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way.

How over, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not to speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with word of mine?

This was published in 1920 in the Yale Review, when Frost must still have been shattered by ET's death.

[Caleb Murdock]

so much depends
upon

knowing what
you're

talking about
when

Tim Murphy's
around.

[Harry Potter]

You caught me, Tim, it was Williams. Don't know why I connected the two, but it's been awhile since I read "The Red Wheel Barrow." Worse things than that have happened to me though, and I'm sure Frost would be happy to add another poem to his resume after he stopped spinning.

The majority of Frost's work that I have read (and I'm not going to name titles because then you'll think I'm going out of my way to prove that I actually know what the man has written) was similar in style to the above poem by Thomas, as was the Carlos Williams poem. I do not think that Williams' style is similar to Frost's, however, but his "This is Just to Say" and "Poem" could help me further the case that I was trying to make, as far as Thomas' style goes.

My apologies to all for the memory lapse. Clive, I'm still stickin with my analogy of Thomas' poem, just put any other Frost poem in there ("The Oven Bird" perhaps) instead of the Williams' one.

Harry



[This message has been edited by Harry Potter (edited March 28, 2002).]

[Tim Murphy]

No, Harry, Frost loathed Williams, and Williams, Frost. And Thomas would have been squarely on Frost's side of that divide. I'm sure though that Frost would have found this intensely funny, especially Caleb's memorable contribution to our discourse.

[nyctom]

Yeah Caleb, but what happened to the chickens? LOL

[A. E. Stallings]

OK--this thread is now CRYING OUT (or maybe just I am crying out) for a treatment of the Red Wheelbarrow a la Robert Frost.

(Thanks for being a good sport, Harry.)

[A. E. Stallings]

And Clive--very much enjoyed the poem. I love that the herb that triggers the memory is not sweet smelling, but bitter, and that the common names of the plant cannot help but make it a metaphor. And it is interesting that he makes the child a she... Am of two minds about the last line, which almost seems to reveal too much. But perhaps that too will grow on me.

[Harry Potter]

If Frost is still loathing Williams in the grave, Tim, the man has an ego problem. And as far as him finding any of this funny, I hope he's laughing his head off right now, and Williams for that matter. If they know the actual reason why I associated the barrow with Frost, then they're probably laughing even harder than you think.

As far as what Caleb has contributed to this intense discussion, what's so memorable about it? Not only did it have nothing to do with the poem that Clive has posted, it was a needless romp about nothing that seemed to have no purpose other than to boost Caleb's own ego, and in that case I think Frost would have found it very laughable indeed.

Harry