Drinks with Dead Poets

by Glyn Maxwell

  As these dice are enough for the game, these four walls and floor and ceiling are enough for the world. This is all there is. The black-dots-on-white die: people. White-dots-on-black die: emotion.

  Samira raises her hand and asks: Are these going to be poems, professor?’

  Of course. They’re going to be four-line poems, rhymed ABAB.

  (A communal groan)

  ‘Nursery rhymes,’ Heath says.

  Yeah for nursery slopes (I say because he’s getting on my nerves)

  Samira puts her hand up again: ‘It’s hard enough having to falsify an emotion about someone you don’t want to write about, but -formal constraints as well?’

  You’re right. Let’s make it harder. Mention only what’s in this room.

  Consternation: ‘Nothing’s in the room!’

  Nine chairs, table, kettle, mugs, fridge, clock, windows, pen and paper and the trace-memory of a Twix wrapper. Oh, and not forgetting that Nothing’s in the room.

  I weather the groans like a port in a storm. You can’t teach the poet I’m teaching.

  *

  Exactly one hundred years before I lived, a woman in a small Massachusetts town came across an article in The Atlantic Monthly and realized that it was, in theory, addressed to her.

  It was asking her for poems.

  LETTER TO A YOUNG CONTRIBUTOR.

  My dear young gentleman or young lady, – for many are the cecil Dreemes of literature who superscribe their offered manuscripts with very masculine names in very feminine handwriting, – it seems wrong not to meet your accumulated and urgent epistles with one comprehensive reply, thus condensing many private letters into a printed one. And so large a proportion of “Altlantic” readers either might, would, could, or should be “Atlantic” contributors also. . .

  At considerable length, a literary critic named Thomas Wentworth Higginson sought to explain to all the aspiring writers out there – you, me, and so forth – what kind of poetry might make it into the pages of The Atlantic Monthly. He urged the young hopefuls to charge your style with life’ and weeks later there came in the mail, from that same woman in Massachusetts, four odd little poems and a note: ‘Mr Higginson, are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?’

  *

  You can’t teach Emily Dickinson, you can’t write like her either. You no more have to write in her stanzas than you have to write limericks or clerihews. But you do have to absorb that she wrote about everything she could think of — herself, others, life, death, God, Time, being here, being gone – in little quatrains shaped like hymns, rhymed or half-rhymed, mostly four beats then three beats, four, three, stanza-break, and she barely left her bedroom.

  She finished her chores, had lunch, went upstairs and sat down at a desk about the size of a tea-tray. She had two windows overlooking the one town she lived in. That was pretty much it, give or take a term in South Hadley and a short trip to Philly. Her only niece, Mattie, had a childhood memory of entering that room with her. Aunt Emily closed the door behind them, mimed the act of locking it, and said: ‘Mattie, here’s freedom’.

  What you should be asking yourself is this: what is there so mighty and demanding in you - by which I also mean me – that calls for such a vast plenitude of forms? Are you more complex, do you see from wider angles, have you solved her questions?

  What you owe to such a poet is a true pause for thought.

  Face the wonder of her narrow choice before you run bewildered from it. For it’s narrow like a ray of the sun.

  And when you’ve finished running, from rhyme, from form, from repetition, from silence or stillness or the abstract nouns that some vague sense of the Modern has told you you can’t use any more – as if your use of concrete nouns is the last word in exactitude – when you’ve finished running from all that and are panting with your freedom, or sweating from the demands of your so complicated life-scape, at least sit down at your own tea-tray and try writing the present second –

  I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –

  The Stillness in the Room

  Was like the Stillness in the Air –

  Between the Fieaves of Storm –

  The Eyes around – had wrung them dry –

  And Breaths were gathering firm

  For that last Onset – when the King

  Be witnessed – in the Room –

  I willed my Keepsakes – Signed away

  What portion of me be

  Assignable – and then it was

  There interposed a Fly –

  With Blue – uncertain stumbling Buzz –

  Between the light – and me –

  And then the Windows failed – and then

  I could not see to see –

  Yes we can note the glories – do it – her infinite narrow way of I along which all things travel – evoking the Wonderchild to whom it occurs to write when I died’ – the vast O in Onset as the mouths one option when the last breaths are gathering – the words that forlornly spread themselves, entreating the moment to slow: Keepsakes, Assignable, interposed – the use of Be in ‘King/Be witnessed’, which falls outside of mortal Time – try ‘Was or ‘Is’ to see what I mean – those last brave shots at aural infinity: Flyyy, Buzzzzz, meeee, faaaaailed – and, above all, the profound humility of the dashes – removing from the poet the grand assuming cloak of power to begin or end anything – stick a full-stop at the end and you’ve shot the thing like the Fly who killed Cock-Robin.

  So much for the glories. Higginson, shaken, wrote her back with guarded encouragement but found it hard to see what place ought to be assigned in literature to what is so remarkable, yet so elusive of criticism.’ He couldn’t make her out at all. Eventually he had to go to Amherst just to look her in the eye, for she wouldn’t travel. At the door she gave him two lilies and said: These are my introduction. Forgive me if I am frightened; I never see strangers, and hardly know what I say

  He knew he was in the presence of the unique. Later he would say he’d never met with any one who drained my nerve power so much. Without touching her, she drew from me. I am glad not to live near her.’

  And yet to Mattie, the niece, ’Aunt Emily stood for indulgence.’

  Despite Higginson’s interest she had virtually nothing published. That which was was altered for the worse to match conventions of the day. Bullet-hole full-stops. You can still find those versions, it’s like trooping to the churchyard to stand by her grave, as I did with my Amherst students in the small hours on her birthday. But read her as she meant you to and she’s standing right beside you.

  She left her bedroom for good in 1886. Her sister Lavinia found eighteen hundred little poems locked away in a chest.

  *

  Let’s lock you in a room with your freedom.

  Like in all my games and exercises, cards or dice stand in for fate and circumstance, and you play the role of Human Item Stuck on a Shred of Time.

  So go on, shake. Shake.

  Niall: Hatred of Caroline. (‘Got it.’)

  Barry: Envy of Glyn. (‘How now, brown cow?’)

  Lily: Pity for Samira. (‘Really?’)

  Heath: Love for Caroline. (‘Oh jesus. . .’)

  Samira: Hots for Lily. (‘Mm-hm. I see.’)

  Ollie: Fear of God. (‘Woo, terrified!’)

  Caroline: Hatred of Lily. (‘Oh no must I?’)

  Iona: Pity for Ollie. (smiles, starts writing)

  Is everybody happy? You bet your life you are. Express that one emotion using the form I gave you and the things inside the room. Amaze yourself. Bother me. Leave them in my box in Kerri’s office. I won’t share them with anyone, this is you against a dice-throw. In all my exercises the benefit is half in your resentment and three-quarters in your effort, it doesn’t matter how I think you did. If you do it you win, if you don’t the – Windows – fail –

  And with that I’m off to the station.

  *

  It’s at the south end of the village. I’ve always as
sumed I came by railway because I was walking north from it when I began here. It’s a very small station, an old green stone building by the line. There’s no name on the name-sign, just room for it. There are benches on some paving-stones and that’ll do for a platform. There’s a path on the rails to the other side, then a wild-flower meadow sloping away and some little patterned cows far off against the autumn mist. Sunlight never came today, the lightest clouds are low and dull in the sky to my right. I can just make out the lakeshore in the distance. To the left the ground rises into wooded hills, and I see a tunnel entrance over yonder in the distance, blue on the grey hillside. I sigh and then in silence a tiny train appears.

  I like to see it lap the Miles –

  And lick the Valleys up –

  And stop to feed itself at Tanks –

  And then – prodigious step

  Around a Pile of Mountains –

  And supercilious peer

  In Shanties – by the sides of Roads –

  And then a Quarry pare

  To fit its sides

  And crawl between

  Complaining all the while

  In horrid – hooting stanza –

  Then chase itself down Hill –

  And neigh like Boanerges –

  Then – prompter than a Star

  Stop – docile and omnipotent

  At its own stable door –

  I await a small frail lady in white as the train slows down and grinds and stops. Then when no one descends at all, why would they – one does, slender and straight, from the very last carriage in a dark blue shawl and with her hair tied up. Once on the platform, some forty yards along, she goes on looking at the train, and then watches it pull away and leave her all alone. She seems so intent on doing this I stop walking, and we wait until the train has quite curved out of sight behind me, as if we can’t begin until we’ve ceased to dwell on how we came.

  I resume walking towards her, and am suddenly proud to be dead, or in a coma, or in a dream, and must resist saying so, must resist saying so,

  Miss Dickinson its a dream to make your acquaintance!

  She is pointing at her little feet: ’I resolved to be sensible, so I wore thick shoes,’ and I burst out like an idiot:

  I lived five years in Amherst! I lived on Dana Street! I taught in Johnson Chapel!

  She raises her eyes from her shoes, not quite so far as to catch my eye, and says: ‘Old Time wags on pretty much as usual at Amherst.’

  The pleasantries I spout next I’m embarrassed to relate even here, but I manage to remember to take her little round suitcase, and enquire about her journey on the train.

  ‘The folk looked very funny. Dim and faded, like folks passed away.’

  Weird that.

  We’re walking along the lane, myself and Emily Dickinson, who focuses mainly on her walking feet in their sensible shoes, with occasional glances up ahead.

  ‘The world’s full of people travelling everywhere.’

  Tell me about it!

  ‘Until it occurs to you that you’ll send an errand, then by hook or crook you can’t find any traveller to carry the package.’

  Totally. I mean I know.

  ‘It’s a very selfish age, that’s all I can say about it.’

  There’s a spark in her voice that suggests she might be kidding, and I steal a glance at her but don’t receive one back.

  You’re staying at the Saddlers Inn, Miss Dickinson. They do a good eggs florentine I mean they do eventually.

  While I resolve to jump in the lake later, she sighs: ‘I could keep house very comfortably if I knew how to cook!’

  I know. Me too. Totally. You can see the inn in the distance there. . .

  We reach the Cross and she stops, turns and looks all four ways like I would.

  ‘October’s a mighty month,’ she says. Then she asks where there’s a library.

  (I don’t know where there’s a library) Let’s get you checked in, yes, then I’ll see if the Library’s open. The reading’s at eight, in the village hall. There’s some other stuff going on tonight, usual things on a Thursday, but my poetry group will be there, heigh-ho, so a small keen high-class crowd!

  *

  We jingle through the door of the Saddlers Inn, whereupon Kerri stands up smartly from a table to escort our Guest to Reception. I get to sit down for a second, stare clean out of my mind through the windows and find life’s splendours too bright to bear. I actually do this in Angel too, and the Garden City and New York City, not just in dreams and comas.

  My vacant stare can’t help but fill up with strangers, and a group of several walk by the Inn, interesting faces, various ages, a rag-tag bunch, and one who stops, frowns, peels off from the gang and here she comes, Mimi, in her black suede jacket with tassels, a death-stare to the closing door for jingling in her wake.

  ‘Why aren’t you teaching, Max, Orlando’s at your class.’

  Collected our visitor, look.

  Mimi sits down opposite and glances over at the small woman stooping to sign the register: ‘Woo. Legend.’

  You remember her?

  ‘You taught me, didn’t you. Zero at the hone. When’s her reading?’

  Eight. Can I ask you, why don’t people drink in here? it’s nice and peaceful.

  ‘Answer supplied with question,’ she goes.

  Cross Keys is a bit grim.

  ‘We like upsetting Norman. He hates students and he hates drinking so we pile in and order cocktails on account.’

  Fair enough. Who were all them?

  ‘Who were all them? Glad I took a course with you Max. They’re the actors from my course. I don’t mean actors, they’re just freaks doing what I do.’

  Why don’t you take my course again? Killer reading series, look.

  ‘Nah I want to try acting. Anyway I can always come to your stuff, it’s not like it’s official, we don’t get credits.’

  You can come, are you going to?

  ‘To her? Hell yes. Moneypenny wants you.’

  Over at Reception, Kerri’s quietly beckoning. The boy at the bar is querying something, while Emily has drifted off to peer at the cheap prints on the walls.

  She’s signed herself in Mrs Adam, Amherst, which got the desk-boy confused.

  It’s fine, (I say) she can say she’s who she likes. Right, Miss Dickinson?

  We wrongly assumed she’d heard none of this, instead of all, and she turns again with that downward smile not quite meeting our eyes: ‘I’ve lately come to the conclusion that I’m Eve, alias Mrs Adam.’

  Neither Kerri nor the boy understand why she’d say that, but Mimi snorts with appreciation from across the room, so Emily waves this cheerfully her way: ‘You know there’s no account of her death in the Bible. Why am I not Eve?’

  Mimi grins in support, while Kerri offers to show our Guest upstairs to the Bluebell Room. As they’re ascending out of earshot I slide in opposite my former student rolling her roll-up.

  Not going to smoke that in here, are you?

  ‘Not going to say that in here, are you, so look I have this problem,’ and she takes out a piece of pale blue paper, flattens it face up. ‘Been sent this valentine that’s just a fail in three ways. First I don’t do valentines, second it’s October, three it blows.’

  (I read it and well yes) Why do you think it’s a valentine, it doesn’t say it is.

  ‘Alright it’s just a poem, but still Max, come on, it’s got love in it look.’

  Is it from Orlando?

  ‘Yeah alright four ways.’

  Why don’t you ask him to stop?

  She licks along her liquorice rizla, ‘I want him to know he ought to.’

  How will he if you don’t tell him?

  ‘If I tell him it’s too late.’

  Like you say, you have a problem. What can I do?

  ‘Not your circus, not your monkeys. Can I smoke this out in the world?’

  Sure Mimi. You smoke it out in the world.

  * />
  I forgot to ask Mimi where the library was – like she’d know – but it didn’t matter for when Kerri brought our Guest, now all in white and looking much more like herself, treading down from upstairs, round about the tables and out through the jingling door, the Library’s where we were heading.

  Kerri asked polite questions on the way:

  ‘How long have you been away from home, Miss Dickinson?’ ‘Been nearly six weeks,’ she said briskly, then I felt her voice begin to clot with sorrow, a longer time than I was ever away. Kind of gone-to-Kansas feeling.’

  Not over the rainbow then (say I).

  We’re walking east we three, over the Cross, leaving the pub behind on the left, and then upward on a slight gradient, curving into trees. It’s getting quite gloomy by now, more blue than grey, and I’m pretending I know there’ll come a library soon – but everything else is real, and the small voice I hear is even running with my thoughts.

  ‘I was very homesick for a few days, but I’m now quite happy. If I can be happy when absent from my. . . I have a very dear home. Love for them sets the blister in my throat.’

  That’ll do it for sure.

  We seem to have passed the outskirts of the village now, the last houses, a barn or two, and I’m wondering where this library is, where the signs are, what the time is, when we reach a little collection of stalls set back in a leafy space all carpeted with coloured mats. There are old books on every stall, twelve stalls, volumes and volumes, and great swathes of canvas thrown back behind the hardwood frames as if to protect them when needed. They’ll be needed soon, the day is ending and there’s dampness in the air.

  This is all the library is.

  I mean to say that aloud but don’t know if it’s a question, or a horrified question, or a sad statement, or a sigh of the times. The reaction of our visitor sends all those four packing, for she just stares, palms raised, in on a miracle, quoting in delight: ‘And I saw the Heavens opened. . . ’

  She advances on the first stall and starts to trace her finger along the spines, as Kerri murmurs to me discreetly ‘Keep an eye on the clock. . .’

  We’ve got a good hour, I say cheerily, we’ve got a wondrous hour.

  ‘Wondrous forty minutes,’ goes Kerri, doing up her coat.