Edith Sitwell, 1927, by Cecil Beaton
Oh, to be a poet, now that April’s here! I have been a-wandering in Merrie Stratford-Upon-Springtime, just me, the locals, and five hundred million sixty-something tourists.I visited the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, inside which the Bardic One is buried; but I resented getting 2/3 through the sanctuary and then being hit up for £1.50 to go into the chancel and see the tomb. I don’t know: it was like a peep show. And I’m not enough of a tourist to care. So I left.
I sat by the river Avon and watched the sixty-somethings disport themselves for a bit, then walked about taking pictures with my phone – as you do – then walked about the town for a long time till my feet started to hurt, and then realised THAT’S what’s been wrong with my right foot lately! (Even with Don Share worshipping it, which he has assured me on Facebook he does. You know, only the most profound declarations make it onto Facebook.) My shoes! Clearly what is needed is something with a bit of a heel, a bit of a platform, some arch support in the form of – well – being a bit, though not too, high – and maybe rope around the heels… but black or brown? Black, obviously, with the dress; but then, further, why is the only pair of such a shoe in this town priced at £159? (And don’t say it’s because they are ineffably lovely and handmade and Italian. We knew that.) (The real answer is that we are in Chocolate-Box-Upon-Avon.) (There’s nothing in H&M.)
I bought two books from the pleasingly named Chaucer’s Head bookshop, and the bookseller (who bought it as a running concern) agreed that he thinks the name of the shop is delightful. I’ll wear one on each foot.
A tiny roll and a half of Adnams in a pub, where I read parts of Shakespeare of London, by Marchette Chute – one of my new shoes – a delightfully readable account published in 1951. What a find! Reading about the building of London’s first four theatres – Burbage’s Theatre, the Curtain, the Rose, and the Swan – I honestly got a bit choked up. I had to stop reading. It’s just as well, too, because I’m meant to be writing a poem about the City of London for my bit of the St George’s Day reading in Camden tomorrow night, and I’m trying to focus on a Shakespearean theme… I know! I know!! I do have an idea. It’s just doing it.
And first there’s this reading… (Well, first I’m going to have a shower. Right now I’m lying on my bed in the Hamlet Guest House eating treacle toffee out of a bag and typing this out.)
Now, Laura commented the other day, apropos my self-declared fatness and my understated black jersey frock, that “the great thing about being a poet is that you can wear what the hell you want, and people just put it down to artistic eccentricity, especially if you add in big dangly earrings and a couple of chunky, clinky bracelets.” This comment is to the fore today, really, especially what with my new book-shoes. (As it goes, I have a prejudice against huge dangly earrings. As to the bracelets, I already clank too much; I usually take some off before a reading so it won’t annoy the audience!) I really think there is no more tragic sight than some female poet taking the stage in frumpy clothing accentuated with enormous earrings; or looking too spangly because, hey, she’s a poet (and possibly a Wiccan as well); or wearing anything at all made of velvet, especially crushed velvet, or anything purple or self-consciously flowing; or trying to look like that but in chain-store clothing.
In short, I think we’ve lost the knack. I include myself in this. Is it because we all shop in chain stores? Is it because a well-cut suit is no longer the universal panacea? (I do favour little suit jackets, in fact, with jeans. I buy them in the old lady section of the department store.) Where is the woman in the clothing that swirls imperatively about her like a wave? Whatever happened to turbans, and brooches like tigers? The look so integrally strange that it is absolutely unassailable? Is it because we all have to hold down a steady job and fill in forms all the time now?
Edith Sitwell for example would never have worried. To have worn middle-of-the-road clothing with accents from Accessorise would have been for her a fate worse than death.
Anyway, I bought a book by her at the Chaucer’s Head this morning! Facade and other poems, 1920-1935. A delightful thing which will help me along my way very well, I think. Here is the passage which, opened to at random, made me buy it – the beginning of a poem called The Avenue:
In the huge and glassy room
Pantaloon, with his tail-feather
Spangled like ther weather,
Panached, too, with many a plume,
Watched the monkey Fanfreluche,
Shivering in his gilded ruche,
Fawn upon the piano keys,
Flatter till they answer back
Through the scale of centuries,
Difference between white and black.
The echo of Gérard de Nerval’s suicide note is chilling there, eh.
Now here’s a funny story, which Laura’s comment reminded me of. One day I was getting read to go out to a reading. My oldest kid, the one I refer to as the Urban Warrior, who has an impeccable eye, was then around 13 or 14 I guess. On my way out we had this exchange:
Me: Okay honey,I’m going… how do I look?
UW: (Looking me up and down) Like a poet.
Me: Oh my God, really? (Frantically investigating all my garments) What, is it the shoes? Should I change my shoes?
UW: It won’t help.
And now into the shower – maybe more coffee – and thence to the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Shop, where I hope to buy an enormous ballpoint quill pen and possibly some more toffees (for the kids).
Baroque in Hackney 