Tag Archives: happy

Well, death seems to be walking among us at the moment; a slight apocalyptic feel to this early spring. Stephen Fry has given me a small beam of comfort, after I had eyebrows raised at me for comparing Jade Goody to Princess Diana, by doing exactly the same thing. (Only I did it in the kitchen, and he did it on the Jonathan Ross show.) But that’s just a thing.

Then there is the terrible news of Nicholas Hughes’ suicide last week in Alaska. He had been suffering from depression for some time. It’s a terrible story which will gain a sort of inevitability – the Plath Curse etc – that maybe it should or shouldn’t have. A gifted marine biologist who shared a love of fishing with his father, Ted. Indeed, some of the most vivid of Ted’s published letters are the ones he wrote from Alaska, when he was on a wilderness fishing trip with Nicholas. It’s just so sad.

And from there it is but a hop & a jump to Harry Fainlight. Harry was the troubled poet brother of the poet Ruth Fainlight – herself a great friend of Sylvia’s – and indeed it was through Ted Hughes’ auspices that Harry was brought to the attention of Faber, who wanted to publish him.

He is the subject of a very interesting radio programme that was broadcast today, the first part of the Lost Voices series. It’s well worth  a listen: Harry Fainlight is one of the great apocryphal figures of midcentury poetry in England. He was the golden, unstable, adored brother; he went to America and did  drugs with Ginsberg; he spent time in mental hospitals, he was gay, he wrote sonnets, he wrote about nature, he died (in 1982) slightly mysteriously.

He apocryphally pushed a burning rag through the letterbox at Faber to get his manuscript back; given his view that publishers were “vampires feeding off the creativity of artists, really,” it may be no surprise that he was barely published in his lifetime.

He is one of the most memorable moments in Wholly Communion, Peter Whitehead’s film of the famous 1965 poetry event at the Albert Hall (imagine – 5,000 people were there! for a poetry event!), having a very bad moment. It’s horribly uncomfortable viewing. (Also worth watching for Adrian Mitchell and Christopher Logue. Rivetting, both.) (In a better way than Ginsberg with his finger cymbals, but don’t let me put you off.)

Stories accrue, but also his poetry is beautiful. There was a pamphlet published in his lifetime and a lovely blue cloth hardback after his death, which goes for a bomb on ABE. I’ve copied some stuff out of it in the Poetry Library.

Do have a listen. Be patient with the slight tone of reverence, the Mozart, the hushed tones; it is grippingly interesting. And there’s a wonderful bit with Donovan, pure sixties myth.

Now, here’s a very funny thing. I did a Google search, hoping to put a picture of Harry Fainlight here for you. There were none, but I kept getting this:

Almost as much of a tonic as that Donovan moment.

And it’s a shame: Soul on Fire is the subtitle of that BBC radio piece, but I suddenly find I’ve had the Absolutely Fabulous theme song running through my head while I’ve been writing this… oh, unworthy.