Death of a Naturalist is a wonderful collection of poems which chiefly deal with Heaney’s rural Irish childhood and heritage.  Individually, they are earthy and emotional and they combine together to form an impressive and coherent whole picture.  What sets Heaney’s poetry apart is the sensuous quality of the language, how the words sound when said aloud and how they feel in the mouth.  He seems to take great delight in rhyme, in onomatopoeia, in sibilant and plosive sounds and the physicality of words.  This is definitely a collection which begs to be read aloud.

The poems themselves are a  potent blend of nostalgia towards innocent childhood activities and a peculiar menace or sorrow.  This becomes more pronounced as the book advances, ranging from the wild, childish imaginings of the titular poem ‘Death of a Naturalist’, in which Heaney pictures the frogs and frogspawn that so absorb his younger self fighting back:

The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

This becomes more explicit in poems such as ‘The Early Purges’, where he observes animals being killed:

Still, living displaces false sentiments
And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown
I just shrug, ‘Bloody pups’. It makes sense:

‘Prevention of cruelty’ talk cuts ice in town
Where they consider death unnatural
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.

And continues with the most heartbreaking line which finishes ‘Mid-term Break’, about the death of Heaney’s younger brother while he was away at school:

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

That’s not to say that Death of a Naturalist is all doom and gloom, but it is deeply felt and evocatively written all the way through.

Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney.  Published by Faber, 199, pp. 46.  Originally published in 1966.

A Flower Wedding is an illustrated verse story describing the marriage of Lad’s Love and Miss Meadow Sweet and is essentially an excuse for Crane to mention the names of as many flowers as possible so that he can draw them all.  It is a very short piece, each page featuring a single couplet or half couplet which provides a caption for the accompanying image, but it is perfectly wrought.  Crane’s illustrations are stunning and his incorporation of all the different flowers, both into the poem and into the pictures, is skilfully done.

The edition of this book that I have is an absolutely beautiful object, and one of the best arguments in favour of printed books that I’ve had the pleasure of reading for some time.  It is bound in soft cream cloth with designs embossed on the boards and spine in gold; the corners are pleasantly rounded; the paper inside is thick and creamy; the endpapers are bright and eyecatching; and there is a pretty ribbon to mark your place.  It was produced by the V & A Museum to tie in with their new exhibition The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 and I can certainly see why.  This is a book that I’m very glad to own and will definitely be returning to to admire the illustrations regularly.

A Flower Wedding: Described by Two Wallflowers by Walter Crane.  Published by V&A, 2011, pp. 40.  Originally published in 1905

Wolfwatching is a collection of poems which divides fairly evenly into the nature poems that I love so much and poems about Hughes’ father and their relationship.  I personally prefer the former type because of the shocks of recognition that they provide; the poems which aren’t centred around the natural world are more opaque and harder to pin down, but they feel profound even if I don’t understand them as well.  It is a slim volume of only 55 pages, but it is powerfully written and full of beautiful phrases.

As I find it almost impossible to review poetry, I thought I would share some of my favourite passages instead.  The first example is drawn from the first poem in the book, ‘A Sparrow Hawk’:

Those eyes in their helmet

Still wired direct

To the nuclear core – they alone

 

Laser the lark-shaped hole

In the lark’s song.

I love how it both physically describes the bird and conveys the speed, efficiency and deadliness of the hawk’s attack.

Next is an offering from ‘Manchester Skytrain’, perfectly describing a highly-strung racehorse:

Every known musical instrument

The whole ensemble, packed

Into a top-heavy, twangling half ton

On the stilts of an insect.

And finally, the famous ending of one of the more esoteric poems in the collection, ‘Two Astrological Conundrums II: Tell’:

With all my might – I hesitated.

Wolfwatching by Ted Hughes.  Published by Faber and Faber, 1989, pp. 55.  First edition.

The poems in The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy are bizarre little snippets about people suffering from unlikely and grotesque disfigurements, amusingly illustrated by the author, such as ‘The Boy with Pins in His Eyes’, ‘Melonhead’ and ‘The Girl Who Turned into a Bed’.  They are peculiar and strange, combining these horrifying subjects with the childlike rhythms of nursery rhymes.  They reminded me a little of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales in their tone.

This book should have been really good as the subject matter and style suit Burton down to the ground, but sadly it didn’t live up to expectations.  In poems like these, a regular rhythm is a really important part of emulating the nursery rhyme style which contrasts so beautifully with the dark subject matter.  The familiar, repetitive rhythms should lull the reader into a false sense of security, which is what makes the poems so uncanny and unsettling, yet it is something with which Burton frequently struggles.  Often just changing a word or two or even simply rearranging a line would have made the poems scan perfectly but instead the rhythm is ragged and irregular, so I didn’t find the poems as effective as they could have been.

Some of the poems seemed more like captions for the pictures rather than poems in their own right.  The entry ‘James’ for isntace simply reads: ‘Unwisely, Santa offered a teddy bear to James, unaware that/he had been mauled by a grizzly earlier that year.’ The pictures are undeniably good and well suited to the book’s style and subject matter (in fact, my chief enjoyment in the book came from the illustrations) but I wouldn’t consider them good enough to justify so little writing.

On the whole, I thought that the illustrations, the concept and the occasional flashes of humour were excellent, but I would have preferred greater attention to detail and technique on the writing side of things.

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories by Tim Burton.  Published by Faber and Faber, 1998, pp. 115.  Originally published in 1997.

Title:

Author: ed. Douglas Brooks-Davies.  Illustrated by Dovrat Ben-Nahum

Published: Phoenix, 2000, pp. 221.  First edition

Genre: Poetry

Blurb: Here, in this beautifully illustrated anthology, is the spirit of Christmas in one hundred poems.

When, where and why: I was given this book for Christmas many years ago, but somehow never got around to reading it.  As already mentioned, I decided to use books as an alternative advent calendar this year and, as this book has one hundred poems, they divided up quite nicely to give me four poems to read each night before bed in the run up to Christmas.  Again, this book is reviewed out of reading order and qualifies as book 43/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge.  I don’t think I’m going to make 50 somehow.

What I thought: There are some Christmas poems which seem to be ubiquitous at this time of year.  It’s difficult to pass through the month of December without having heard or read ‘The Night Before Christmas’ by Clement Clarke Moore at least once, or sung Christina Rossetti’s ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’.  Christmas Please! is a lovely collection of poems for the festive season because it not only includes these classics and other well known poems, it also contains many gems that I had never encountered before.

In his interesting introduction to the collection, Douglas Brooks-Davies explains the evolution of the Christmas poem throughout history and how its focus as been affected by factors such as the social climate, politics and current fashions.  His explanation is erudite but accessible and is definitely worth reading.  As well as being fascinating in its own right, the introduction also explains the scope of the collection, which is essentially a history of Christmas poetry, ranging from anonymous medieval poems in praise of the Madonna and Child to John Betjeman’s wonderful poem simply titled ‘Christmas’, which remains one of my favourites.  Because of the historical focus of the collection, the content is quite heavily biased towards religious poems and so this book may not be for those just looking for some festive entertainment, but after all that is the reason behind Christmas.

Some of my favourite poems in this book were ‘Nativity’ by John Donne and Thomas Hardy’s short and bitter ‘Christmas: 1924′:

‘Peace upon earth!’ was said. We sing it,
And pay a million priests to bring it.
After two thousand years of mass
We’ve got as far as poison-gas.

I also loved the darkly atmospheric ‘A Child of the Snows’ by G. K. Chesterton:

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown,
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a Child comes forth alone.

All of these poems were new to me and I’m very glad that this book led me to discover them.

My only complaints about this book are regarding the organisation.  Firstly, books without page numbers drive me insane and although the poems in Christmas Please! are numbered, the pages are not.  I know there’s a newer edition of the book since mine was published so hopefully this one has page numbers.  I also wasn’t keen on the way that the poems were organised alphabetically by author, with anonymous offerings thrown in at random.  I think that, given the introduction, it would have been far more interesting to have the poems organised chronologically and it feels like a missed opportunity.  This is definitely a collection to revisit though.

Title:

Author: Julie and John Hope.  Illustrated by Sue Hellard

Published: Bantam, 2000, pp. 32.  First edition

Genre: Humour poetry

Blurb: This is a collection of limericks featuring cats and their antics, beautifully illustrated by Sue Hellard. You can learn your cat’s views on life—from why they lust hungrily after your pet canary to the art of turning your home into complete shambles.  (Goodreads.com)

When, where and why: This was another stocking present some years ago.  I’ve dipped into it before but never read it properly, so it counts as book 36/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge.

What I thought: Christmas Crackers for Cats is an entertaining collection of limericks, with one longer poem in the style of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales.  It is once again filled with the lovely comic illustrations of Sue Hellard which help to augment the humour, and is an amusing swift read.  Despite the title, the contents are not festive at all, so it could be read and enjoyed at any time of year.  I think that this was my favourite limerick:

A raunchy old tomcat called Bertie

Had a mind that was ever so dirty

Now his goolies have gone

He’s just one peeping Tom

So all he can do is get flirty.

This is of course accompanied by a picture of a lascivious looking cat enthusiastically assaulting a cushion.  I wish I could share some of these illustrations, but sadly I lack both camera and scanner (I’ll have to see what I can do about this in the new year).

However, unlike Christmas Carols for Cats, this book suffers a bit from being read cover to cover as the limericks, while entertaining, start to sound a little repetitive after the fifth one.  I would still recommend this book, but it’s definitely one to dip into rather than read straight through in one sitting.

Where this book goes: I’m putting this one back on the shelf next to Christmas Carols for Cats for whenever I feel like reading an amusing limerick.

Tea talk: I read this book while enjoying the same large pot of English Afternoon Tea.

Title:

Author: Julie and John Hope.  Illustrated by Sue Hellard

Published: Bantam Books, 1998, pp. 29.  Originally published 1996

Genre: Humour poetry

Blurb: A witty, charming treasury of traditional Christmas carols -rewritten by cats for cats – includes such classics as “The Twelve Days of Catmas,” “We Wish for the Fam’ly Goldfish,” and “Bark! The Hairy Scary Things.”  (Goodreads.com)

When, where and why: I was given this book by Father Christmas in my stocking several years ago.  I felt the need for something light, festive and amusing to read, so this seemed the ideal book to pick up before bed.  It counts as book 35/50 for my Books Off the Shelf Challenge.

What I thought: Christmas Carols for Cats is great fun.  It features twelve well-known Christmas songs and carols rewritten so that the centre around cats (as all things in life should, I feel).  The adaptations are clever and witty and they scan so well that I found myself humming them under my breath as I read the book.  There are a few contributions which don’t work quite as well, in my opinion, such as ‘Collar Bells’ which is set, unsurprisingly, to the tune of  ‘Jingle Bells’, but I found something to enjoy in every single song.  The illustrations by Sue Hellard which accompany the carols are perfect, bringing out the humour of the words and enhancing it through their appealing depictions.

One of my favourite songs in the book is ‘The First Slow Yell’ to the tune of ‘The First Noel’, something which will be familiar to all owners of hungry cats:

The first slow yell for you as you lay

Asleep in the morning on Christmas Day

O do not snore please get out of bed

It’s seven o’clock and I haven’t been fed.

O Yell O Yell O Yell O Yell

Feed me at once or I’ll make your life hell.

To lay a-bed is an awful disgrace

Get up right now or I’ll sit on your face

My furry paw ‘neath the covers will crawl

Fill up my bowl or I’ll caterwaul.

O Yell O Yell O Yell O Yell

Feed me at once or I’ll make your life hell.

Your last big chance now give us a break

I’ve clawed at your nightshirt you should be awake

I’ll niggle and naggle, be ever so rude

For nothing else matters when I want my food.

This would definitely be the perfect Christmas gift for any cat owner or cat lover.

Where this book goes: I’m going to hang on to this book to read again at future Christmas times.  It’s a good, quick read, great for sharing with others and guaranteed to make me smile.  What more could anyone want at Christmas?

Tea talk: I indulged in a whole pot of English Afternoon Tea from St James’ while reading this book and a few other little Christmas books which will be reviewed shortly.  It was rich and mellow and just what I wanted.

This was a wonderful little collection of poems from a delightful poet. I loved the literary parodies and the way she pokes fun at the things people take too seriously. Her use of bathos is just perfect and I often found myself laughing out loud. Although the majority of the poems in this book are humorous they contain kernels of wisdom and grains of truth, and the overall comic tone of the collection makes the few serious poems seem all the more serious by comparison. Definitely not a book to read on the train, although having read Cope’s poem on the subject, I now know that this would be the perfect way to make sure I get a seat.

Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis by Wendy Cope.  Published by Faber and Faber, 1999, pp. 61.  Originally published in 1986.

N.B. This is an old review written in 2010 and posted on Goodreads and LibraryThing before I started keeping track of all the books I read here at Old English Rose Reads.  I’ve decided to keep copies here so that this remains a complete record of my reading since I started reviewing books for my own pleasure.