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It's been about ten years since Norman Jope's last
poetry collection was published so this new book has been keenly anticipated
for some time. Although many of the author's preoccupations are evident in The
Book of Bells and Candles, it's a bit of a one-off in that the overall
collection has a theme, based around Jope's interpretation of the golem myth
- here brought into the 21st century, although the old-world tone
of the book is intriguingly at odds with its crisp verse-style - and is
written entirely in three-line stanzas, each poem being eighteen lines in
length. The setting is that of Central and East-Central Europe, a
geographical area which the author is personally well-acquainted with, and
the ambitious nature of its form and subject seems to suggest a host of
literary, and indeed, visual influences. Jope cites Georg Trakl as the main
'leading light' or 'ghostly presence' (this collection is filled with ghostly
presence and allusions to the dead) and there is certainly an air of
melancholy longing which pervades the book and which those in the know might
certainly associate with the tragic Austrian poet. Other reference points would
be the Hungarian poet Attila Jozsef - also cited in the notes to chapter
headings - another tragic 'Romantic', one might say, Coleridge, Aidan Dun
(with particular reference to the verse-form) and the painters Caspar David
Friedrich and Marc Chagall. Although Jope distances himself from any
'autobiographical element' in the after-word, he is certainly the author of
this book and I see in his version of the golem a sort of fictionalised
alter-ego at work. The book is dedicated to one Gabriella - 'my fellow-traveller,
hostess and mistress in these parts', and the device of the muse is certainly
another central aspect of this group of poems.
As is usually the case with Norman Jope's poetry - his output is prodigious
and we can expect a larger retrospective collection in due course - the
writing is clear and functional in its expression of a narrative, yet
suffused with lyrical imagery and beautiful moments. If there's a fairy tale
element of enchantment within these pages - and there certainly is - then
it's a charm where the warmth of a summer afternoon is periodically broken by
the foreboding presence of dark forests. Bram Stoker, though not
acknowledged, is another writer whose work has influenced Jope's writing, as
I think is Edgar Alan Poe:
A lizard flashes.
He is stunned by its speed.
September sun
makes sparkling patterns.
How good to
stretch, absorb the birdsong.
('Waldweben')
as mountains
close before him
and
realisation dawns, that grace
is only a
campfire or a watch-tower,
that fear of
the forest is the secret of Europe
and that all
the walls of monasteries and castles
were built
against the howling of wolves.
('Bastions')
In the poem 'Reunion', we are in the Vienna of a sweetly cloying, decaying
society, as indicated by the references to Klimt and the more disturbing Egon
Schiele, a place where - 'The light is gold, the shadows mauve.' - and where
- 'Silence cools around them, like cream-clogged coffee'. Even here among the
idling pleasures of civilisation, Jope evokes an other-worldly atmosphere
which is intoxicating and almost
timeless, sensual and with a just a hint of chill. It's easy while reading
these poems to drift into a sort of dreamy reverie, a languor which is broken
by the 'presence' of wolves or by the possibility of an actual seduction:
She can wear
a halo or hold a tower -
she can also
cross her legs on the metro
and impale a
man on the thorn of her eye.
('Maze')
It's the shift between the oldie-worldie feel of much of the description:
where there are castles and forests and open spaces, where ghostly figures
are evoked and dark histories suggested; and the sometimes abrupt
interjections of modern society, that make for what tensions exist in this
work. Otherwise, the pace is slow and ethereal, dreamy and elsewhere:
Then, on the
other side, it's night
and neon
goldfish flounder in the streets
as the rain's
vice tightens, at the entrance to the Metro
where drivers
argue, inspecting damage,
flattened by
water as crowds ooze past
to
restaurant, theatre and bar.
('Neon')
Norman Jope is the European flaneur par-excellence, shifting from medieval
landscapes to modern cities with a journalistic sweep, punctuated by a poet's
eye and pen. I doubt there's another British poet producing work like this at
the moment and in that sense some would no doubt call his work old-fashioned
and anachronistic. The breadth of his ambition is impressive and filmic in its
quality - I'm sure The Seventh Seal must be a favourite of his
- and this sequence of poems is a new departure for him. Where this leads him
to next is anyone's guess but I doubt that you'll read another book of
contemporary poetry from an English writer that is anything like this.
Waterloo Books are looking good these days, with clear, functional layout and
nicely designed covers. The cover artwork, in this case, is by Lynda Stevens,
an intriguing balance of texture, shape, line and colour.
© Steve Spence 2009
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