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I'm currently reading a collected works of John Betjeman. Anybody a fan?
I did wonder if some of his poems are too exclusively 'English' for some people as well. Is this off putting for those outside of the UK at all?
A few poems below, starting with the excellent Slough poem, as read by Ted Hughes, at least I'm pretty certain it sounds like Hughes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-935c...D7E9AF379F9F86
My interest in poetry hardly stretches beyond Ozymandias but it would be difficult for any reasonably educated person in England not to know something of Betjeman. Being the epitome of Englishness, his poems probably don't travel well, they seem to my mind to have a certain tweeness about them, although they do capture a middle-class preoccupation with change and a sense of paradise lost.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Hi Neely I am not read of John Betjeman but do you have a favourite in mind we could read or perhaps discuss?
"Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough".
Larkin loved Betjeman I think because the middle class voice lamenting a disappearing kind of England was one he sympathised with. I'm not a great fan, but he is very accessible and can be very funny.
These were nice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
I liked the line "Love's so pure it had to end" in Indoor Games near Newbury.
Yes the comments about him being very accessible is certainly true, he was a bit of a people's favourite and quite popular in his time. Also the points about him writing about, romanticising even, the disappearing England - the quiet country villages, the little cricket grounds etc, is also correct, for this it seems he was both praised and criticised in equal measures.
What about the Slough poem?Quote:
Originally Posted by cacian
Slough
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/intuition/Slough.html
It's also read at the start of the link I posed earlier. This is one of his more famous poems, very well known. The TV comedy series written by Ricky Gervais was based in slough, presumably because of the poem of course.
Cont later...
Great, I'm glad you liked the poems Yes/No.
That John Betjeman, he sure had rhythm!
Indeed!
The Slough poem I think is absolutely brilliant (for some reason it reminds me of To Autumn -and nearly as good.) OK, maybe this is also personal because I totally detest labour, especially the artificial type, but still I think this is a great piece, and worthy of some respect. It's so modern too it is scary. It's not consistently good, but immediately it scores points on the Neely front:
Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death
Fantastic. You've obviously got Betjeman's love of the past/nature Vs the industrialized office nonsense thrown in with the humbleness of the poor cow, where there isn't a patch of grass left in such god awful place. That, and then the simplicity of the list line, "swarm over death" is pretty powerful stuff.
Just some other quick points. I also love:
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years
Jesus, what a waste. Working in such dumps, plastic "tinned" places, miles away from nature and real life.
And then you get the description of the office twat:
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:
And the anger of those working below him:
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
Absolutely, destroy him!
But our humble narrator doesn't punish them all, he realises the brainwashing that goes on in the game:
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
You are so right they have tasted hell. The sad thing is though that they don't even know it. Some of them are even conned into thinking it is a good thing.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
So removed from nature...
And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
Brilliant. Daren't look up and see the stars! Wowza. False bravado again too.
The falseness extends further:
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
All show and no substance...
Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
Arrhh. The cabbages are coming, nature and sanity returneth, hopefully, simplicity. The earth exhales.
Also, don't forget his was written in the 30s. Applicable today? Totally.
Nice commentary on the Slough poem, Neely. I can see you liked the poem.
I know little about the place except what was in Wikipedia. Has it gotten worse since Betjeman wrote the poem or better? Is there some particular reason he chose Slough over some other place?
Oh ta, I only rushed it as I was cooking at the time. I do like the poem though yes, though I'd almost forgotten about it, even though it is one of those modern classics that have seeped into the general consciouness, in England at least. I'm wondering though is this just popular in the UK? Have you heard of it before? I wondered if Betjeman travelled well.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I think it is better today, Slough, but I've never been there, (don't want to!) However, you can just replace Slough with almost anywhere similar/industrialized - concrete, it's not even that important. Slough could represent many such places and attitudes that come with it being detached from nature/reality. I believe at the time of writing Slough was particularly horrendous though.
The thing about Betjeman is that his poetry is accessible - an oer used word, but you know what I mean - It rhymes, it scans and the message is there, clearly written down on the page. There seems to be very English Irony in there too, but it is more than that, it is the calculated pretence o irony, a kind o double bluff. What seems to begin as a joke, turns out to be deadly serious.
Hae you read Inexpensive Progress? A urther deelopment o his on this theme with an equally memorable opening line.
Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons.
I agree completely. That which makes Betjeman so good is the fact that he combines a genuine poetic gift with a capacity for openness and humour. He may be a bit twee, and unapologetically middle-England, but I'd take his poetry over, for example, Larkin any day of the week. Even a poem as serious as Slough still raises a wry and entirely heartfelt smile. And, I suggest, it is impossible not to be infected by the enthusiasm and positively bouncing lyricism of something like A Subaltern's Love Song:Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Miss J.Hunter Dunn, Miss J.Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!
Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.
Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.
The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.
On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.
By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.
Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surry twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!
Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.
And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
Did Betjeman really write that? It reads almost like self-parody, and that is the problem with him; although, like a great many people, I do enjoy the obvious sincerity behind his verse, he is so easy to send up and it's not hard to imagine that there have been many a would be poet writing this sort of thing after reading him:Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Son of the Soil
Beside the new laid crazy paving
Beneath a Union flag awaving
From flagpole standing on the lawn
His ownership proclaiming
Seated on his garden mower
Beneath the chestnut's leafy bower
He glides across the emerald sward
His progress nothing can retard
And nought will halt the mowers traction
Until he stops with satisfaction
A smile upon his plump red face
For in the sun he's found his place
And though it is of Tudor mock
An hour from the office block
Wherein he spends his working week
In managerial doublespeak
When polished shoes are cast aside
And wellies green the lawn bestride
Then in his element he stands
A new hedge cutter in his hands
Become through powered tool and toil
Suburbia's 'son of the soil'.
Yes I love A Subaltern's Lovesong as well. It's also another one of his very famous pieces, perhaps even his most famous poem.
Not yet but it certainly grabs my attention!Quote:
Have you read Inexpensive Progress? A further development of his on this theme with an equally memorable opening line.
Encase your legs in nylons,
Bestride your hills with pylons
I like the 'Son of Soil' poem Emil. It reminds me of my previous employment where I would escape to a grassy churchyard with a book during my dinner hour, in order to try to reclaim a little sanity.
This I thought was interesting, from the introduction of the collected poems by Andrew Motion:
Perhaps Bejetman's keenly felt sense of time and fear of death, also shows in his obvious distaste for it being wasted amongst the office and concrete life as well?Quote:
...The poems about his father show deep feelings with the protective veil ripped away. They are studies of remorse and self-accusation, howls about death in general and the prospect of his own death in particular, and frettings about time. They prove his remarkable range as a poet, but they also show that the two opposite poles are connected.
Given this, it is not surprising to find Betjeman searching time and again for a mood or a place he can consider safe. The word 'safe', or 'safety' appears like a nervous tic in his poems - 'safe in bed', 'safety with old friends', 'safe in G. F. Bodley's greens and browns,/Safe in the surge of undogmatic hymns': there are at least ten uses of the word in one hundred-odd pages of Summoned by Bells, and it connects with every one of his interests and allegiances: his passion for the seaside (especially Cornwall, which distils childhood memories of feeling coddled and secure; his enthusiasm for parish churches and their-honoured reassurances; his addiction to Victoriana, with its elaborate manifestations of solidity...
Bejetman's verse autobiography, 'Summoned by Bells' is available read by him on Youtube here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsDb-dgXnU4
It is BBC production from 1976. I have not watched it myself yet, I might watch it later. Notice the use of the word 'safe' as even the first word!
Edit: Looking in my collection, which includes 'Summoned by Bells', 'safe' is not the first word. It looks like the BBC version is edited slightly, it looks interesting though, I've started watching the first part.
Interesting to read about Betjeman's penchant for Cornwall. Some time ago, I was listening to his daughter on a radio programme saying that when they travelled there, he kept stopping to go and look at churches he noticed along the route and they usually reached Cornwall much later than expected.
Whatever one thinks of his poetry, I couldn't imagine anyone disliking him; he belongs to a time when gentlemanly behaviour was unexceptional.
I haven't heard of the poem before, but others in the US might have. I'm probably not representative of people who read literature in the US, but I realized that I did have a copy of his collected poems on my bookshelf. I think I bought it long ago in a used book store because I could see that it was metered verse. I've finally started reading it based on your thread.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
I think I read Betjeman in secondary school, but I'm not too excited by his poetry.
I would be very interested in what non-Brits think of A Subaltern's Love Song. It is so English - the Hillman in the drive, the pictures of Egypt (We know why they are there and what they tell us about the Hunter-Dunns, just as the upstart Austins among the Rovers at the Golf Club have significance.) Aldershot and the healthy Deb, the sexual delight at being beaten by her (obviously a Public Boarding School chap.) every detail and association is English and comforting. I wonder if such a place and time ever really existed, is it another safe place he yearns for and invented?.
I doubt that he invented it but it is seen through the prism of nostalgia so that any rough edges have been smoothed over and we are presented with a picture that, although ostensibly true, is probably not quite as it was. Nostalgia appears to be the basis for a number of Betjeman's poems and that may explain their popularity but it's something integral to human beings and anyone who doesn't occasionally experience it is probably dead already.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
Oh OK, is there anything in particular you don't like, say the nostalgia or the Englishness or is it just a general thing? What do you think of the poems posted on page 1?Quote:
Originally Posted by OrphanPip
Oh OK great stuff, let us know how you get on with it.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Yes I was going to add such a nostalgia point as well.Quote:
Originally Posted by Emil Miller
I had to look up the word "subaltern". I assume it means a military officer. I don't know what a Hillman is nor what the pictures of Egypt signify--maybe some military adventure in Egypt? I could sense that the Hunter-Dunns were privileged, but the reference to the Austins and Rovers didn't make much sense to me. Also "full Surrey twilight" probably has meanings I'm unaware of.Quote:
Originally Posted by prendrelemick
No doubt, I missed a large part of the sense of place in the poem.
I liked the sound of the line, "And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells", as a way to describe a wooded area, but that could be anywhere.
The poem starts with the subaltern being defeated by Joan at tennis, but ends with him winning an engagement to her. That's what I found attractive about the poem.
It's certainly very true that the poem is grounded in the world of the priveleged upper middle-classes: the young officer-class man, the hint of colonial endeavour, tennis in the garden, dances at the golf club, quality cars (and several of them), the southern setting, and so on. Slough, clearly, is much more to do with the working classes and the nouveau riche that have emerged from them. It's very clear which world Betjeman feels more comfortable in, but I think there is an undercurrent of compatriotic sensiblity in Slough, even if the clerks depicted there aren't not 'one of us' in the way the Hunter-Dunns are.
A subaltern was a juniior officer in the British army while a Hillman was a make of car and the pictures of Egypt refer to the British occupation of the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Austins and Rovers were also makes of car and 'full Surrey twilight' refers to the county of Surrey in southern England which is where many people like those in the poem lived and still do.
It makes sense, now that you mention it, that the Hillmans, Austins and Rovers are makes of cars.
I saw the poem "A Shropshire Lad" and confused it with a book of Housman's poems. Here is a recital of it: http://www.geoffwilkins.net/fragments/Betjeman.htm I wouldn't have thought that "Severn" rhymed with "heaven".
It is an unusual story of Captain Webb's ghost.
It seems an unusual subject for Betjeman as Captain Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel and, apart from the fact that he was English, doesn't seem to have any other connection with the poet. Severn does rhyme with heaven incidentally.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
The Surry twilight and these lines;-Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
Adds a feeling that these things are fading away. The Austins are a Cheap basic car and are encroaching on the former preserve of expensive and luxurious Rovers. The path is gathering moss, standards are slipping.
A few lines puzzled me in A Subaltern's Love-song.
By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways
She drove to the club in the late summer haze
I assume she took some sort of back road, but it must have been smooth enough for the Hillman to travel on. There are back roads I used to take a truck on in Maine that I wouldn't expect a car to survive for long. These roads do remind me of things that are fading away.
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
I don't think they ever got to the dance since they sat in the car until nearly one o'clock, but why is the dancing "ominous"?
I don't know the meaning of by roads "not adopted" but the fact that it's given in quotes indicates that it has an already established meaning that may be from another poet's work. I'm rather ignorant of poetry and I haven't come across it before but perhaps someone else will pick it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
I take it that the ominous, ominous dancing refers to the fact that they are expected at the dance and the sound of the music is reminding them that they should leave the car, which they don't want to do.
Because England is very much smaller than the US there is a fairly comprehensive road network where even minor roads are surfaced so that the type of back roads often encountered in large parts of the USA are not nearly as frequent.
I thought that roads 'not adopted' referred to quiet, seldom used roads and having done a quick search it seems that they are such things more or less, being roads that the council have no responsibility for. Presumably he is avoiding the dance as much as possible going the long way around as to spend more time with her. Likewise the dancing is ominous because it parts them, as Emil says.
There are a few parellels between that poem and the one below:
http://poemsandprose.blog.co.uk/2007...g_pam~2965863/
Andrew Motion in the introduction also comments upon the frequency of Betjeman's athletic women.Quote:
Betjeman often appears to express a longing to be mastered by large, athletic women!
In this poem he begins by admiring Pam (a nanny?) as she pushes a pram through the Surrey countryside.
He eulogises over her playing tennis and, in the final verse, imagines himself marrying her, while we look on.
POT POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN
Miles of pram in the wind and Pam in the gorse track,
Coco-nut smell of the broom. and a packet of Weights
Press'd in the sand. The thud of a hoof on a horse-track -
Conifer county of Surrey approached
Through remarkable wrought-iron gates.
Over your boundary now, I wash my face in a bird-bath,
Then which path I shall take? that over there by the pram?
Down by the pond! or - yes, I will take the slippery path,
Trodden away with gym shoes,
Beautiful fir-dry alley that leads
To the bountiful body of Pam.
Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl,
Whizzing them over the net, full of the strength of five:
That Old Malvernian brother, you zephyr and khaki shorts girl,
Although he's playing for Woking,
Can't stand up
To your wonderful backhand drive.
See the strength of her arm, as firm and hairy as Hendren's;
See the size of her thighs, the pout of her lips as, cross,
And full of pent-up strength, she swipes at the rhododendrons,
Lucky the rhododendrons,
And flings her arrogant love-lock
Back with a petulant toss.
Over the redolent pinewoods, in at the bathroom casement,
One fine Saturday, Windlesham bells shall call,
Up the Butterfield aisle, rich with Gothic enlacement,
Licensed now for embracement,
Pam and I, as the organ
Thunders over you all.
John Betjeman
:biggrin5:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
He does seem to have an attraction to those athletic, feisty, tennis-playing females.
Don't we all!Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
Well I have walked many of the footpaths in Surrey and strongly relate to Betjeman's evocative description of them. When, it comes to mountainous sports girls with sizeable thighs, however, you can count me out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
When it comes to mountainous female features, I suppose I'd be more interested in a Dolly Parton mountainous look. I can't imagine her playing tennis.
Although my wife and I tried to learn to play tennis some years ago, we didn't have enough interest in it to continue. Tennis, like golf, seems to be a sport for those in a social class above ours anyway. What do you see the annual taxable income that the families Betjeman describes earn? My guess is above 250,000 euros.
Just heard this poem cited on the radio in an item about house building. I don't think Slough has become any more beautiful. It's probably a lot more multi-cultural now than when the poem was written. It also has airliners flying over it from Heathrow airport every five minutes. Guess what's the other side of the M4 though: Eton and Windsor, home to the queen. It's as if there was a crappy part of town divided by a classy part of town but by a motorway instead of a river. I think I went to a library in Slough once and there was a flyer of a friendly bomber plane on a noticeboard, so it seems like they actually celebrate this poem. I expect they are actually proud Ricky Gervais' The Office was set in Slough too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
There was a story that John Betjeman was appointed as a diplomat or possibly even ambassador to Ireland during the second world war. The IRA were going to kill him, but then read some of his poems and changed their minds.
I don't think John Betjeman would have approved of Dolly Parton, in tennis shorts or otherwise. She simply doesn't conform to the Britishness of Miss Hunter-Dunn.Quote:
Originally Posted by YesNo
We have the Wimbledon tennis championships coming up very soon and it does have connotations of upper class superiority but, setting aside the tweeness of strawberries and cream and Pimms no.1, tennis is quite widely played by people in England regardless of their social position.
It would be difficult to calculate the salary level of the class of people in Betjeman's poems because there is no comparison with the relative value of money then and now, but also the fact that we didn't even have decimal currency in those days. Much of a person's wealth was usually tied up in land or property and money was considered slightly vulgar and something best left to an accountant.
See also "The Olympic Girl" I can't remember the exact quote, but I remember the erotic imagery of a tennis raquet being pressed between her breasts.
Edit: here it is..
Oh! would I were her racket press'd
With hard excitement to her breast
Infact I think the whole poem is verging on the fetishist-erotic. Or is it just me!
The Olympic Girl is the third poem so far where a tennis Amazon charms a lesser mortal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLuAhKGIDbo
I don't understand the "green" in the last line of the poem:
Little, alas, to you I mean,
For I am bald and old and green.
Dolly Parton would be a better fit for a Kenny Rogers sort of man. Woody Allen's movie Match Point reminds me of the kind of woman Betjeman would admire: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416320/
I think that green there means lacking in experience or naivety. This would also fit with him describing himself as a worm and feeling that she is so much above him - he's clearly held in her power. And yes I think there is certainly more than a bit of eroticism in there for sure, it's total sexual fantasy, even more so than in the last poem.
Oh Match Point is a great film and of the stock Betjeman is referring to in the Joan Hunter Dunn poem and others. Match Point is Woody Allen's personal favourite film of his own making, if also a little nostalgically English, probably as a result of it being directed by viewing England from outside.
And there was I thinking that Betjeman was a kindly old gent with only a slight remembrance of feminine things past only to discover that he was a bit of a raver. I can tell you one thing, I shall be watching the women's tennis at Wimbledon with my eye less trained on the ball than in former years.