In Parenthesis and David Jones

WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
In keeping with the spirit of the book - transcendence over death - a thread for the work and the man

He returned to my gaze during late summer’s boiler-fest days last year, as war continued to unfold in Ukraine. Half forgotten from college reading but on closing its raw final page, the absolute power Jones displays, his creative abilities melding abstraction and pinpoint focus, his overall command of language, all resonated well into autumn. “Cushy” never sounds the same again, post-read

A starter to chew on. What do you think? Different people will scrutinise the work from their own unique positions and experiences
 
Benny Bunter

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Who's read it? Who hasn't yet? I'm about halfway through. Powerful urge to type out quotes from practically every single page.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
I am really like him. I’ve commented on other threads but I’m happy to pick up Anathemata and read it again - I’ve not read other stuff by him, I probably should.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
he's not a natural obviously. so a lot of it is really clunky and it always feels very 'worked.' but that is also what makes it good. the vocabulary is a huge stumbling block but less so now you can look it all up on the internet. lots of latin etc.
 
C

catalog

Well-known member
T03192_10.jpg
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
craner said:
He wrote poetry like he was engraving wood and engraved wood like a poet.
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thats a good line. it does have a labouriously worked, pedantic quality to it. never pretty. never fluent. words don't come naturally to him and he's incapable of making them sing.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
this hilarious line has always stuck in my head and is a good illusion of how clunky he always is

Then it is these abundant ubera, here, under the species of worked lime-rock, that gave suck to the lord? She that they already venerate (what other could they?)
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luka

luka

Well-known member
im fairly sure he's buried near where i am now, in the cemetary between brockly and crofton park
 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
www.findagrave.com

David Jones (1895-1974) - Find a Grave Memorial

Artist, war poet, essayist and engraver, born Walter David Michael Jones. His most famous poem was In Parenthesis, which was based on his experiences in the trences, where he served during the First World War. The poem was praised by T.S Eliot as a 'work of genius'. He firstly studied at the...
www.findagrave.com www.findagrave.com

yes, Brockley and Ladywell
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
He can't really be claimed as a Welsh poet, he was a suburban Londoner and a European modernist.
 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
craner said:
He can't really be claimed as a Welsh poet, he was a suburban Londoner and a European modernist.
Click to expand...

he clearly had a grasp of its history, why else continually reference Y Gododdin? he was surrounded by Taffs at the front too, so even if he wasn‘t Welsh he respected his colleagues origins, unlike some
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
these people want to be welsh for much the same reason they want to be catholic, its an attempt to latch on to an older, venerable and more trippy tradition. not the pragmatic secular beer guzzling potato looking angloids
 
WashYourHands

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
the separation I’d make is both wanted to get into the guts of what makes this island tick

to do that you have to choreograph raids on deeper strata of lived experience and, admittedly, myth
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
luka said:
thats a good line. it does have a labouriously worked, pedantic quality to it. never pretty. never fluent. words don't come naturally to him and he's incapable of making them sing.
Click to expand...
I think that's right - he doesn't have the swing of Pound does he? But i think the learning in there is more accessible.
I often think Sinclair nicked an awful lot from him - maybe not the romanticism but definitely the piling on of image and the psychgeographic stuff, and interestingly again i think Sinclair, even at his best, doesn't have that lyrical quality - it feels thick on the tongue, unmusical
 
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