Poems

by J.H. Prynne

Not since the late work of Erza Pound, the Maximus poems of Charles Olson, or the early poems of John Ashbery have the possibilities of poetry been so fundamentally questioned and extended as they are in the life work of J.H. Prynne. In his new Collected Poems we have a landmark book in modern poetry.His poetry is austere, yet playful. It challenges our sense of the world, not by any direct address to the reader, but by showing everything in a different light, enacting slips and changes of meaning through shifting language. For over thirty years he has maintained this utterly singular English verse, often dealing with very basic, very current events and debates, such as economic pressures, life sciences, or medical physiology.

Collected Poems now provides many readers with the opportunity to experience the unique, challenging, and often complex world of Britain's leading late Modernist poet.

Genres: Poetry, British Literature

440 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1982

About the author

J. H. Prynne was born in Kent in 1936 and studied at Cambridge University; he worked there as a teacher and scholar in the Department of English and is currently a life fellow of Gonville and Caius College. He is also an Honorary Professor at the University of Sussex, and a Visiting Professor at Sun Yat-Sen University, People’s Republic of China. He has published forty-one collections of poems during the period 1968–2015, all now reprinted in the third enlarged edition of his Poems (Bloodaxe Books, Hexham, 2015).

This volume, The White Stones, was composed in the earlier 1960s, at the same time as working with students in the study of English and European poetry of various classical traditions, and also assimilating the force of the New American Poetry of that period. A good reading knowledge of French and German and Italian kept open a complex historical perspective, and an extremely partial understanding of Chinese demonstrated the influence of Ezra Pound in a new cross-light.

Since these early times there have also been extended commentary-essays, on the Han Chinese lyric, on a painting by Willem de Kooning, on literary/linguistic topics, and three extended commentary-monographs: on a Shakespeare sonnet, on a poem by Wordsworth and another by George Herbert, on Wallace Stevens, and on a scroll-painting by the Chinese landscape painter Shen Zhou (1425–1509). The author has traveled quite widely, in the U.S.A. and further afield; his poems have been translated into French, German, Italian, Norwegian and Chinese, and a brief selection is being prepared in Mexican Spanish; there have also been a number of musical settings and workings. His collected prose writings (2 vols) are currently in preparation. Some website material is available, including a full online bibliography and various talks and lectures.

Reviews

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to return this book to the library having only read parts of it, but I thought I might as well rate it anyway rather than just deleting it from my shelves altogether. I did enjoy reading much of it, in particular the collections Brass and Down Where Changed. But I think this may also be the most baffling stuff I've ever read - more so than John Ashbery. What most stood out to me were his shifting registers and his weird humour which chimed with me. His poems, as far as I can tell, seem to disrupt themselves an awful lot, maybe being smaller scale and personal one moment (like a lyric) then disrupting it with something bizarre and incongruous, or larger scale (something medical or with the tone of a newspaper perhaps). Also there are lots of pronouns which seem to point to nothing and lead nowhere - this idea of omitting context may be important as well. Here is one that I found demonstrates his shifting registers:

The rail is interfered with
it is cut up already
libel on the road ahead

telling you makes, really
no odds at all. That bend
is too bad, magnanimous

like a hot air balloon
over the stupendous balkans
or privately dabbing your finger

you do, that rail’s done
as a praline, softly
in the airy open

there’s no more to it
so out of true
the rail is sundered

I’m telling you.

And this one for his sense of humour:

at all
anyway
whatever

even so

rubbish

4 stars because Prynne's language does seem beautiful and intriguing, and his humour leavens the frustration that could sometimes set in when I simply had no idea how to parse what I was reading. I would like to buy this book sometime so I can come back to it (I'd like to try that in many years' time to see if it becomes less strange). I'm not studying literature but take an interest in poetry in my spare time, and I don't quite know how to go about analysing poetry like this (I feel that way about a lot of stuff I read actually). In any case, I hope you still got something useful/interesting out of this review.

[William Mego · Rating 2 out of 5]

Vastly impenetrable poetry, but deliberately so. The "Stockhausen of modern poetry" as the Guardian has referred to him gave a brilliant interview (for me, at least) in the Fall 2016 Paris Review. After spending weeks reading essays and papers about the man's work, I more or less grasp what his intent is, but to be honest I continue to wrestle with the goal. With whom should the artist attempt communication? Himself? Those who wish to delve into his own private language? These poems are as richly referenced as Ulysses, by delving deeply into etymology. Prynne mines more rare material from the roots of words than perhaps anyone in the history of the English language, but his might be a private collection. I'm left with a great deal of respect for the work, but I fear I have different goals in my practice, and in my reading. But even if I had only read the Paris Review interview, I'd be a better practitioner for it, and be forever grateful.

[Charlie Baylis · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai bien aimé, mais je trouve ça fait plus les descriptions de carton que poésie, on a toujours une musicale caché derrière, mais la raison de l'écriture reste un mystère. J'aime bien comment el dévoiler le mot pour que ce soit harmonique.

[Andrew Male · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The path clears/by the use it gets."

[Dylan Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just dip, don't cover-to-cover. Absolutely bloody brilliant poetry. But it's also absolutely bloody difficult poetry if you're not careful. Don't stop on the path expecting to go from A to B, step on the path to admire the passing rose bushes muttering amongst themselves. Let it take you, don't try and take it.

A book that's never finished.

[Mahmoud Haggui]

“...the ethereal language of love in
brilliant suspense between us and the
hesitant arc. Yet I need it too and keep
one hand in my pocket & one in yours,
waiting for the first snow of the year.”

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've barely scratched the surface here, but holy-moly, this is some shit.

[Will · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Whose Dust Did You Say

How old how far & how much the
years tear at us the shreds of cloth as
I think of them and the great palaces
with courts & the sounds of mirth
merriment in the darkness within the
great dream of the night. I live still
with the bitter habits of that fire &
disdain I live in it surrounded by
little else who can impair or bound
that empire of destined habitation
or go off into that coyly drab town
by slow stages or by any other damn
thing else who can who would waste
his time who would fritter his time
away how the years do now encircle
the season and when is a wage a
salary by dead reckoning from the
merest centre of the earth the
mere & lovely centre, of the earth."

[Emily Wolahan · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Pink star of the languid/ settles by a low window/ lap to fit, give the life/ too quickly, the storm/ a mere leveled gaze."

[Hsu Jui-Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strange, lyrical poetry that beguiles as much as it enchants.