Reflection and surrender
Eunice Theaker
describes her enduring admiration for the poems of John Cowper
Powys.
Two letters from JCP from 1955, answering hers about his books
of poetry, are in the Powys Collection.
I came across a book by Louis Wilkinson over fifty years ago in
which he mentioned Mr. Cowper Powys the poet. Not being able to
trace the poems I enquired of Macdonald his Publisher, who sent
me his address. Mr Powy's enthusiastic reply took me no further,
and it was not until ten years later that the poems were
published and I obtained a copy. The following is what I might
have written to him to round off our correspondence. Not having
a literary reputation to lose I can safely say that I love the
poems. I have not mentioned the love poems here but I have noted
that he did not include in his philosophy "In Spite Of a Broken
Heart".
Dear Mr. Powys
Alas! why did the Muse of Poesy
Touch me with fleeting fingers and pass by…
At last your poems are in my possession and this letter is to
tell you how I responded to them. The volume was published and
edited ten years after our correspondence and during that time I
had become acquainted with some of your prose. When I finally
opened the pages I had in mind the vigour and optimism of your
philosophical essays and the deep seriousness of your novels,
and I was surprised and fascinated to discover a contemplative
and wistful poet.
Critics have pointed out from time to time that your poems bear
the hand of others, but the same applies to many poets finding a
voice near the end of the Romantic period and the beginning of
modern free verse. How interesting your conversations with Ezra
Pound would have been; how many poets wasted their voluptuous
talents by being influenced by Pound, just as composers turned
away from melody.
I have read the volume many times and the poems are indisputably
yours. Your editor Kenneth Hopkins said "that there were
doubtless a number of poems which the reader will be content to
read but once" and it is at this stage that the critic and
scholar might abandon them, but I recalled the eagerness in your
letters to convince me that you were a poet, and how much, when
you were young, you wished to be remembered as a poet, and I
kept faith with that over the years.
Working, as I did, for engineers in Electronic Research and
Development, with all its necessary precision, how pleasurable
it was to take a book at random from my shelves, perhaps yours,
to meander in Montacute with buttercup dust on my shoes.
What lives we lead – dear God, what lives!
What a palimpsest of double days
The Master of our journey gives!
Forever round our casual ways
Strange omens peer, strange portents wink;
And we stand darkly on the brink
Of more than mortal mysteries.
[from 'The Willow Seeds' in Mandragora,
1917 (Hopkins p.146)]
You once said "poetry in itself never betrays us, but the poets
who write it do." Poets betray their secrets in their work and
to those who seek to fully understand you I would say do not
ignore the poems. My interest in your philosophical essays was
heightened by the many references you make to poetry. The muse
never leaves you and in every argument a poet lurks.
See, it is past, my life.
There is no more to do, no more to say ---
Yet I had hoped to have writ something that
Should live when I was dead -- something that should
Become a fellow-minister with winds,
Vapours and floods, valleys and rooted hills
And all the potent agents of the morn
And solemn night, in the great temple courts
Of everlasting beauty
---
[from 'The Dying Poet' in Poems,1899
(Hopkins p.53)]
This poem is beautifully realised and lingers in the mind. It
belies the assuredness and defiance in your philosophical
essays. Is it you -- is it someone else? No matter, the reader
stumbles not on one jarring word or inharmonious line. This
poem is not for the lofty critics looking for bathos, plagiarism
and influences, it is for the reader like myself who becomes
immediately engaged with its expressiveness, reflection and
surrender.
'Lucifer' was published at last and never have I read a poem so
thrilling, compelling and dramatic in its imagery. You hoped
this poem would be the one to last. So it must. What a
wordsmith you are, how daring. What a triumph is this work.
On this dark promontory against the sky
Satan stood forth. No words could tell the grace
Of his proud form, the pride of his bowed head,
As the large desolation of that place
Folded its wings about him.
[from LUCIFER,1905, 1st pub.1956, part
six (Hopkins p.216)]
I hope to read all your poems one day.
Yours sincerely,
Eunice Theaker
From The Powys Society Newsletter, No 61
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