Further Discoveries

I really liked the two poems that were employed in the English A1 Paper 1 examinations this year. The one about the cat, by Marge Piercy, I think, was a lovely piece, which reminded me in some ways of Ted Hughes's animal poems. Less obviously 'masculine' though, I suppose. Certainly made me want to look out for more of her work - another case where I'm sort of familiar with the name (assuming I've got it right - I haven't got any copy of the paper), but need to do some more serious research and reading. So, in line with what I was saying the other day, a little bit of a discovery is made which may well lead somewhere rewarding.

The other poem, in the HL paper, was by Alfred Noyes, and an example of more obviously 'traditional' verse: Now that's what I call a poem, with rhymes and a nice beat and everything. (But no one seems to talk like that anymore, do they? Similarly with regard to painting. Modernism won. Inevitably.) Actually stupid me got confused. I recognised the name Noyes and, for some reason, got it in my head that he'd written Invictus. So that got me thinking that Noyes was pretty outstanding, since the poem selected for the paper was an excellent piece, in its (traditional) way, and I reckon Invictus is superb. And not just for its 'inspirational' qualities - though it's got those in buckets. I finally recognised just what a fine poem it is as a poem after hearing it read by Ted Hughes - odd that his name pops up again - and recommend you try and get to listen to that reading, if you have any doubts regarding its status.

But then I realised I was about half a century out in terms of dating Noyes and Henley, and it finally came to me that the place I'd seen Noyes's name with the greatest regularity was at the bottom of The Highwayman, that wonderfully atmospheric, beautifully crafted tale of melodramatic derring-do, beloved of English teachers in the 1950s. (I was still using it to good effect in the 1980s, by the way, in many a captivated, haunted classroom. So much for poems being 'dated'.) Now The Highwayman, lovely as it is, is no Invictus, but that has not put me off from seeking out more Noyes. There's something very exciting about coming across what the great and good of the literary world regard as a minor talent that you recognise as being liable to afford major enjoyment.