Drinks with Dead Poets

by Glyn Maxwell

  Ha ha ha! (I roared with laughter) ha ha ha ho yes ho ho brilliant John I like it he he he it won’t be a huge crowd tonight, more of a select sort of quality crowd it’s, you know, the start of term.

  ‘I never expect anything.’

  Usually wise in this line of work. Would you take some questions after the reading? Then maybe we could get a beer in the, you know. There’s a tavern in the town.

  His eyes light up and he raises his hand as if to remember something he heard lately: ‘Stopping at a tavern they call – hanging out.’

  They do, yes!

  ‘Where do you sup? is Where do you hang out?

  It still is, these days! We still say – I mean it just – it is.

  ‘Hanging out. . . with a cherry brandy.’

  Quite possible! Anything else you’d drink if they don’t have. . .?

  ‘I enjoy claret, to a degree.’

  Better, d’you like – whisky?

  ‘Very smart stuff. Very pretty drink, much praised by Burns.’

  Very true, that’s –

  ‘Twill make a man forget his woe; twill heighten all his joy; twill make the widow’s heart to sing, tho’ the tear were in her eye. . .’

  Tear were in her eye, that’s – indeed what it will do, great stuff!

  The day was looking up. John’s mood was buoyed by his little Burns recital, and he decided to go for a walk in the cool October twilight, though he seemed unsure of where to be quite when. I said start walking back when you hear the bells chime the three-quarters, and off he ambled up the road in the northerly direction, stopping almost straight away. He turned a full circle as if to take in everything and then confided cheerily, ‘The setting sun will always set me to rights!’

  *

  ‘Small or large.’

  Huge.

  ‘Y’know the bottle’s better value.’

  Give me value, Norman.

  ‘Look at ’em all just drinkin’.’

  The pub’s more crowded now. There are too many people to be given nicknames or epithets, I’m really just interested in boozing for a spell, but Ollie rocks up beside me, beaming as usual:

  ‘Getting stuck in!’

  Beside him is bristly Heath in a leather jacket, guy’s not yet cracked a grin.

  Help me out, Ollie, no one’s gonna show up to this reading and it’s Keats.

  ‘I know, it’s the meet’n’greet in Cartwright, it’s really bad planning.’

  Sod the meet’n greet, you’ve all met, you’ve all gret, come and hear Keats.

  ‘We’ve not met the novelists or playwrights,’ says Ollie.

  What novelists, what playwrights.

  Ollie acknowledges my uselessness with a smile, ‘The other writing classes?’

  Am – I teaching them?

  ‘No! They’re at the Uni!’

  Aren’t you at the Uni? You’re always at some uni.

  ‘We all are! You’re like, an elective, Glyn, an option. We don’t get credits. I spread the word! If you build it they will come, or something, who’s the second glass for?’

  Me again. I need to sit.

  Soon we’re joined at what’s already The Poets’ Table (give me strength) by Caroline the lavender lady, and Iona the Scots girl who says aye, we all say where we come from, we get through that bottle then Caroline picks one better. The women say they’ll come to Keats. Ollie says he’ll do his best, Heath makes a roll-up.

  That’s how I come to be standing in the chilly dark outside the village hall on the deserted lane in the village of Lord Knows, at roughly seven-fifty shouting out to no one:

  Reading here tonight! John Keats! The John Keats! In person!

  Well I say to no one, but I don’t forget to raise my lone plaintive cry to the black and newly starry heavens, which I do think ought to hear this, plus the man himself is sauntering up the lane to make my lunatic rant come true.

  *

  ‘When old age shall this generation waste,

  Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe

  Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,

  Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all

  Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’

  Twelve hands make the sound of ten hands clapping, because Heath doesn’t deign to clap from his chair three rows back, he just nods alone in the dark a bit as if that helps. Then again at least he showed up, to show his tough-guy approval of the gifted little chap. No sign of bloody Orlando or Barry or Lily Bronzo. On the front row the angels clap ferociously, Iona McNair, Mrs Caroline Jellicoe, and a tall girl called Isabella I believe I know. And shy wordless Niall is clapping for all his worth, as am I, as I sit down next to John on the edge of the stage again, but that’s ten hands and that’s your lot.

  Wonderful, John, you said you’d be happy to take some questions? (He looks at me and shrugs and Caroline’s already raised her hand) ‘That was so beautiful, John. Can you tell us something about your influences?’

  Influences John?

  (He looks at me as if this wasn’t quite what he had in mind, but he seems to make up his mind to be agreeable)

  ‘I – never quite despair if I read Shakespeare.’

  (The three women are all nodding in approval, and he goes on) ‘I’m very near agreeing with Hazlitt that Shakespeare’s enough for us.’

  Hazlitt, yes, earlier John we met earlier remember, you talked about Dante. . . that amazing Canto Five of Inferno? (I haven’t had time to look it up but at least I got the number.)

  John smiles wider than ever before, his legs give a little dangling kick, and he leans back with his hands spread behind him on the dusty stage: ‘Paulo and Francesca. . . I dreamt of – I’d passed many days in rather a low state of mind and I – I dreamt of being in that region of hell. . . one of the most delightful enjoyments I ever had. . . I floated about the whirling atmosphere with – with a beautiful figure to whose lips mine were joined – it seemed for an age – I was warm. . . flowery tree-tops sprung up and we – we rested on them with the lightness of a cloud. . . I tried a sonnet but – nothing,’

  Did you cry to dream again, John?

  He clocks my Caliban, applauds me with a bully-for-you, and says ‘I could dream it every night’

  This obviously earns a short adoring silence, which Isabella breaks by asking ‘Do you think a poet is born? Or can you learn to be one,’

  I glance at her approvingly but she’s gazing on him like a moon at a planet. I’m being cold-shouldered in my own coma.

  ‘In the first place,’ saith the poet, ‘Sancho will invent a journey heavenward as well as anybody.’

  From Don Quixote there (inserts their teacher)

  ‘No. . . the poetical character,’ goes John, ‘it’s not itself. . .’ Isabella’s already seriously nodding and scribbling, ‘it – has no self. It’s everything and nothing. It has no character. It enjoys light and shade, it lives in – gusto, be it foul or fair, high or low, rich or poor. It has – it has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. A poet is the most unpoetical thing in existence, because he has – he has no identity. He’s continually in for – filling some other body. . .’

  Are you talking in terms of the poet as playwright, John?

  To which he pays no heed: ‘I think poetry should – surprise by a – a fine excess, not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a – a wording of his highest thoughts – appear almost a remembrance. . . its touches of beauty should never be halfway – the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should – like the sun – come natural to him, shine over him and set soberly, in the – luxury of twilight. . .’ He grins and looks for his water-bottle, Tut it’s easier to think what poetry should be than to write it.’

  Iona has a question: ‘Do you have a favourite way to work?’

  He’s still concluding his thought: ‘If poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to the tree. . . it’d better not come at all.’

  (I say after a silence) Ion
a’s asking if you have a way you tend to work, John.

  ‘Where you sit,’ she smiles, ‘like a nice view of something? Do you write at dawn? After midnight?’

  A lark or an owl, John (I go helpfully) I’m a lark myself if anyone’s interested,

  ‘I read and write about eight hours a day. . .’ at which Ionas mouthing to Isabella oh my Lord. . . 1 went day by day at a poem for a month – at the end of which time I found my brain so overwrought I’d neither rhyme nor reason in it – yet. . . It’d be a great delight to know in what position Shakespeare sat when he began To be or not to be. . . ’

  He chuckles and points at himself with both forefingers, as if to say How about cross-legged like me? pretends to inscribe verses on the air and we all laugh, then he goes back to the question, indicating an imaginary room of his dreams, setting out walls and all his special places:

  ‘My books in a snug corner. . . Mary Queen of Scots. . . Milton with his daughters in a row. . . a head of Shakespeare. . . I should like the window to open onto Lake Geneva, and there I’d sit and read all day like the picture of somebody reading. . .’

  ‘Can we come and visit?’ Caroline Jellicoe beams for England.

  ‘Fine weather, and health, and books, and a fine country,’ the young poet sighs, ‘a contented mind, a diligent habit of reading and thinking – and an amulet against the ennui, please heaven, a little claret-wine cool out of a cellar a mile-deep, a rocky basin to bathe in, a strawberry bed to say your prayers in, a nag to go you ten miles or so,’ then he gestures to his tiny little audience, ‘two or three sensible people to chat with,’ then at me with a wink for dramatic counterpoint – ‘two or three spiteful folks to spar with, two or three odd fishes to laugh at and two or three numbskulls to argue with!’

  John that’s so –

  ‘And – and – a little music outdoors played by somebody I don’t know. . . a little chance music. . .

  He starts engraving on the air again, mouthing the exaggerated shapes of ‘To Be Or Not To Be That Is The Question. . .’ when the sweet quiet is abruptly broken by a loud voice from the side of the hall. I look there in time to see big Barry Wilby silhouetted by the light of the porch, only just arriving having missed the whole of the reading. He repeats himself but louder again:

  ‘Where d’you get your ideas, Mr Bains.’

  (oh for fucks sake) You know what? Let’s walk twenty yards with John Keats and bloody well get him his claret-wine and his numbskulls! Ladies and gentlemen I give you John Keats!

  *

  We hit the Cross Keys just before it fills up with the Orientated from the Meet’n’Greet, so were able to colonize a little snug with some big plum-leather chairs. Those who heard him read – plus Barry Wilby, who came too late – settle thereabouts, throw coats and bags over seats to possess them, and Isabella and I go and buy the first round.

  How’s the writing, Isabella.

  ‘After that I just feel like stopping.’

  Don’t, though. I walked to class with my old teacher once on Bay State Road in Boston. He said he’d just read four lines of Ovid and he felt like stopping. And hes him. If you stop, you should.

  ‘I’m writing a novel.’

  Oh. I said that to my old teacher and he called me a whore. Here comes our wine.

  *

  When we get back with our red and our white, a lemonade for Barry (the lummox) and yes, why not, a shapely glass of De Kuyper’s cherry brandy, John’s in full flow:

  ‘Negative Capability,’ he’s saying (as it happens) accepting with a nod his beaker full of the warm Netherlands, ‘that is, when a man’s capable of being in uncertainties – mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact or reason. Coleridge, for instance -incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge!’

  Whats Coleridge like, I ask as I pour the white.

  John downs half his brandy in response – I send Niall off with a twenty to get two more – and our poet grins into his glass.

  ‘Coleridge. . . I walked with him at his alderman-after-dinner pace for near two miles I suppose. . . In those two miles he broached a thousand things. . . see if I can give you a list. . .’

  We all gather closer, and I wonder if any of them know who Coleridge is, know he’s dead, know he’s alive, know Keats is dead or alive, know where we are, why we’re here, what’s happening to me, I think you could possibly say I dwell in Negative Capability, anyway, our Visiting Poet is talking: ‘Nightingales, poetry – on poetical sensation – metaphysics – different genera and species of dreams – nightmare – a dream accompanied by a sense of touch – single and double touch – first and second consciousness – the Kraken, mermaids, a ghost story. . . I heard his voice as he came towards me, I heard it as he moved away, I’d heard it all the interval! He was civil enough to ask me to call on him at Highgate.’

  ‘Do you know Lord Byron?’ breathes enraptured Isabella.

  John sits back and considers.

  ‘There’s this great difference between us. He describes what he sees – I describe what I imagine. Mine’s the hardest task.’

  I hear Heath say ‘Hang on, though,’ and I step in:

  Wordsworth?

  ‘Wordsworth. . . sometimes – in a fine way – gives us sentences in the style of school-exercises. The lake doth glitter/Small birds twitter!’

  He creases up at this gibe of his, then sighs and clears the air between them: ‘He has epic passion. . . martyrs himself to the human heart. . . I don’t mean to deny his grandeur – I mean to say we needn’t be teased with grandeur. . . a great poet if not a philosopher. Let’s have the old poets.’

  It seems appropriate to drink to that and we do, and here come the rest of my students to stand around us, and some novelists and playwrights no doubt, it’s getting pretty crowded in the Cross Keys, as a girl dressed all in black snakes through, deposits a double-shot of something clear by my right hand, says: ‘’sup Max,’ and goes away again.

  Hey Mimi? (I summon up too late, as Barry Wilby asks his question again) ‘Just askin’ about your Ideas, Mr Bains,’ and Keats, who is fair plastered by this time – ‘I should’ve been a rebel angel. . .’ – ‘young ladies that wear watches’re always looking at them!’ – ‘I think I’ll be among the English poets after my death. . .’ – suddenly delights in being called ‘Johnny Bains’ and reels this thing off in his best cod-cockney voice:

  ‘Two or three cats

  And two or three mice –

  Two or three sprat’s

  At a very great price –

  Two or three smiles

  And two or three frowns –

  Two or three miles

  To two or three towns –

  Two or three pegs

  For two or three bonnets

  Two or three doves eggs

  To hatch into sonnets!’

  *

  At the end of the day John Keats was young, and slight, and he couldn’t really hold his drink – who can hold that much cherry brandy? – so having thrown up pure crimson down a drain he was now propped between myself and Heath Bannen as we waited on the lane by the light of a half-moon. Lots of other people were there, it was a raucous night by now, but no one had any clear idea what we were waiting for except, oddly, John himself, who kept saying this was the place.

  He confided in the two of us one by one, to this shoulder then that, confided in his gentleman supporters, out of the earshot of the mostly female crowd. To Heath I believe he said, ‘See what it is to be under six foot and not a lord,’ and to me, with his eyes ranging across the shrieking and bonding women all around, he said: ‘I do think better of womankind than to s’pose they care whether Mister John Keats – five feet height – likes ’em or not. . .’

  After midnight struck we heard hoof-beats and a small horse-drawn carriage came clopping in from the east, a shade late for Cinderella. The hooded coachman said nothing, the windows were black. John vaguely waved at everything from me to the moon and stars, and we help
ed him step up. At the door he simply slurred to the world with his eyes bright: ‘Ignorant! Monstrous! I’s forced lately. . . to make use of the term MINX. . . ’ And then he tumbled inside and as the hinged door swung shut with a whiff of perfume, there did seem to be someone rising in time to catch him.

  *

  I sit in my digs and watch the moonlight on the lake out to the west. My head’s still ringing and clanging with the time I’ve had. It had to break up quickly, I felt I was waking up, so I said my quick adieux and was off. But I didn’t wake up, I walked back home and here I am at my window, dreaming, dead, comatose, mad, or wide wide bloody awake. Wherever I am it’s term-time.

  * * *

  Week Two – October 3rd

  I woke up and it was all a dream.

  I filled with relief and joy and disappointment, then soon some grand acceleration of thankfulness came shuddering through, resolving itself into the heartfelt words To whom do I write a cheque? now I’m back in the Angel with everyone to tell everything to, where will I start with it all, so many little details, I better get back to the banquet what banquet the banquet in the circus-tent what circus-tent?

  And I’m staring at the ceiling, it is surprisingly close by.

  I met Keats.

  I never closed my curtains last night and the world outside is bright grey.

  I am completely without a hangover, which in normal circumstances means I didn’t drink, or I drink so much I’m doomed, but in this case means nothing.

  Now I’m kneeling on my bed like a boy, is this some memory of prayer, some bookending of sleep – or bookending of – what? I do like my room. Tartan blanket which I needed, I gather it towards me, it’s cold air beyond it, and the matting on the wooden floor, and the slanting windows out on the world, whatever world, three windows, mine, and the things I had with me when I came here are propped up there and there. My boots, they know what’s what. I stumble and stride about, good god I’d started my unpacking. Somehow I had a suitcase and my wash-bag’s gone where it knows to go. All these empty drawers to fill! Books open on the small desk, some closed, some open, one open at a page.

  A Thought went up my mind today –

  That I have had before –