Secret Destinations

by Charles Causley

A collection of poems by Charles Causley.

Genres: Poetry

69 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Charles Stanley Causley was born in Launceston in Cornwall, and spent most of his life there. After serving in the navy in the second world war (an experience he wrote about in Hands to Dance and Skylark), he worked as a teacher in Launceston and began publishing verse in the 1950s. His poetry includes many references to Cornwall and its legends, and in his later years he published many books of verse for children, several of which have been illustrated by prominent artists.

In addition to his poetry, Causley wrote plays, short stories and opera librettos. He was also a prolific editor of collections of poetry. In 1958 Causley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded a CBE in 1986. Other awards include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1967. He was presented with the Heywood Hill Literary Prize in 2000. Between 1962 and 1966 he was a member of the Poetry Panel of the Arts Council of Great Britain.

Causley was very highly regarded by his fellow poets, and on his 70th birthday, many of them, including Ted Hughes, Elizabeth Jennings, Roger McGough and Seamus Heaney contributed to a collection of poetry and prose tributes published in his honour.

Charles Causley died in 2003.

Reviews

[John Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superlative writing. Now to throw a few words together in praise of this. He is one of my favourite poets. I encountered a smattering of his poems at school in an anthology. It whetted my appetite and I’ve read more of him in later life. Cornish to the bone, several of these poems are written on his travels abroad, particularly in Canada and Australia. All jewels. What a way to see the places he saw, through his eyes and voice.

A selection, which I’ll try to keep short but no doubt fail to:

From ‘Grandmother’

Rises before the first bird. Slugs about
In gig – sized slippers. Soothes the anxious whine
Of the washing-machine with small bequests
Collected from our room. Whacks up the blind.
Restores a lost blanket. Firmly ignores,
With total grace, your nakedness. And mine.

….

Her face is like a man’s: a Roman beak
Caesar might quail at; and the squat, square frame
An icon of compassion.

From ‘Bankhead’ (Ghost town in Canada once a mining town)

…
Bankhead! The mine stopped like a tooth;
The unmade engine-house a mix
Of little stones and children’s bricks;
Torn rail tracks, giant cacti; paths

From nowhere to nowhere; a scar
Of soil where a church stood, a school.
A burst lamp house. Then becomes now.
No sound but a thin creak of air.
The slow Albertan sky empties
Itself of light, slag-coloured.

From ‘Greek Orthodox, Melbourne’

The church leaks yellow light; a scent
Of drooling wax. A priest hurls in,
Suddenly pitches his black tent,
Scolds God in Greek. The skewer-thin
Acolyte in red trainers tugs
His lace aside, chews gum, prepares
White smoke. Christ from his icon stares
Sightless at ribbons, painted eggs
Smudging in children’s hands.
……

‘Legend’

Snow-blind the meadow; chiming ice
Struck at the wasted water’s rim.
An infant in a stable lay.
A child watched for a sight of Him.

‘I would have brought spring flowers’, she said.
‘But where I wandered none did grow’.
Young Gabriel smiled, opened his hand,
And blossoms pierced the sudden snow.

She plucked the gold, the red, the green,
And with a garland entered in.
‘What is your name?’ Young Gabriel said.
The maid she answered, ‘Magdalen’.