Wolf's-bane rhymes

by John Cowper Powys

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Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1916

About the author

Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, where his father was vicar. His mother was descended from the poet William Cowper, hence his middle name. His two younger brothers, Llewelyn Powys and Theodore Francis Powys, also became well-known writers. Other brothers and sisters also became prominent in the arts.

John studied at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and became a teacher and lecturer; as lecturer, he worked first in England, then in continental Europe and finally in the USA, where he lived in the years 1904-1934. While in the United States, his work was championed by author Theodore Dreiser. He engaged in public debate with Bertrand Russell and the philosopher and historian Will Durant: he was called for the defence in the first obscenity trial for the James Joyce novel, Ulysses, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman.

He made his name as a poet and essayist, moving on to produce a series of acclaimed novels distinguished by their uniquely detailed and intensely sensual recreation of time, place and character. They also describe heightened states of awareness resulting from mystic revelation, or from the experience of extreme pleasure or pain. The best known of these distinctive novels are A Glastonbury Romance and Wolf Solent. He also wrote some works of philosophy and literary criticism, including a pioneering tribute to Dorothy Richardson.

Having returned to the UK, he lived in England for a brief time, then moved to Corwen in Wales, where he wrote historical romances (including two set in Wales) and magical fantasies. He later moved to Blaenau Ffestiniog, where he remained until his death in 1963.

Reviews

[Richard S · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Wolf's-bane" was Powys' first book of poetry since "Odes", written about 15 years previously, and reveals a poet who has found his own voice. The poetry is rhymed and the biggest influence is clearly Poe (who had been discussed at length in his prior "Visions and Revisions"), but there is a lot of Hardy in there still.

Honestly, the poetry is not great, with the exception of one poem, "On the Downs", which was terrific, and worth reading several times. I share the first of its five stanzas:

"Squeeze out the cowslip-wine and let me drink
Deep of the hush that lieth on the hills!
Let all the murmurs of the valley sink
Far down, far distant, like a cup that spills
Its sweetness on a drowsy-mossed lawn
Smelling of twilight as the rooks sail by
And the last twitterings of the sparrows cease -
With nought above me but Orion's horn,
Calling thro' space to Perseus, let me lie,
Silence; - a plover's scream, - the world's release."

Otherwise, Powys struggles with the rhymes, the message and the feeling. Three-quarters of the poems are completely forgettable. He is "better" when he gets intensely personal. His poem "M.C.P." is to his mother (who died in 1914, 2 years before the poem); contains the lines "I only loved you when you were dead..." shows his emotional struggles. I think he spends a lot of time on his poetry, but once it gets to a certain point he stops.

It should be noted that "In a Hotel Writing-Room" from this collection was included in Philip Larkin's "Oxford Anthology of 20th Century Verse". I'm not sure I would include this particular poem among JC Powys' best however.
http://firstknownwhenlost.blogspot.co...

"Wolf's-bane" was only published in the United States and does not appear to have been much of a success. It has a lot of Powysian themes, particularly nature, and he loves to put stars and constellations in his poetry. As part of this project I'm undertaking of reading all of JC Powys' work, it was interesting, but I can't recommend the book on a stand-alone basis, except for the one poem mentioned.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

"No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine-" A quote from Keats, Ode on Melancholy on the title page explains the title choice, and that is an interesting poem itself. This book isn't the best Powys (or book of poetry) that I've ever read. (I enjoy his fiction much more.) I'm sorry that I feel a bit ambivalent about it, I'm so rarely on the fence with a book, it leaves me unsettled. I take a very long time reading a book of poetry, taking it one at a time. I'd pick a poem, read it, the first few lines would be fine and then I wander off... They didn't pull me along like his run-on sentences, happily full of semi-colons and commas, skipping words like stones flung across the water. I think if he just gave up on trying to rhyme he'd have a better time and go "fuck all" free-verse all the way. (Personally, I'm a crappy poet and I know it, so I free-verse all over my poe-ems, if I ever rhyme it's by accident, and I'm probably doing it to be funny.) There's a sense of JCP's familiar brooding, death (lots remembrances of dead folk in the ground), and of course life especially nature, birds, trees, fog and flowers, rainy, earthy and lush mossy passions typical of him. I thought a lot about Wolf Solent (1929), his walks and pondering about life and death, daydreaming... his mythology.

Wolf's-bane.

Don't know, I'm probably reaching to make that possible connection with the beloved novel, but this thought makes me like this book a little more; enough to rethink and revisit. I normally do keep poetry books handy for a spell after I finish reading them just in case I missed something between the lines.

I happen to be reading from an original 1916 hardcover copy, not a Nook as noted here.