Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

This is purportedly juvenilia, but bears the same neat-rhymed style of the children’s verse Burgess write in the late 1970s, especially in Long Trip to Teatime. Published in Little Wilson and Big God, p. 101.

213. ‘A prism is a useful thing.’ Claimed as another piece of juvenilia in Little Wilson and Big God, p. 101.

214. ‘I wrote on the beach, with a stick of salty wood.’ The colliding ‘s’ sounds are comparable with the linguistic experimentation of G. M. Hopkins. Little Wilson and Big God, p. 101.

215. ‘Calm lies our harbour, while the maiden day.’ Burgess says he sent this sonnet ‘to the Sunday Times, which sent it back’. No copy of this correspondence is listed in either the IABF or HRC archives. Little Wilson and Big God, p. 150.

216. ‘Father of fire who, with bold simony.’ ‘There was my father [in the poem] proffering a flaring Swan Vesta. He had become both myth and comedy.’ Little Wilson and Big God, p.195.

217. ‘J.B.W.’ Little Wilson and Big God, p. 210.

218. ‘The sea, green and deep.’ Burgess describes this verse as a mnemonic rhyme for the phoneme /I:/. A Mouthful of Air, p. 330.

219. ‘Winter wins.’ This, according to Burgess, is a mnemonic rhyme for the phoneme /I/. A Mouthful of Air, p. 330.

220. ‘Out of the station puffs the train.’ This also appears in Burgess, Language Made Plain (London: Fontana, 1975), p. 147. Following this verse, Burgess notes: ‘Meanwhile, read. The Bantam dual language books and the Penguin anthologies of foreign verse are cheap and useful. They have literal translations next to the text. Whatever the view of poetry held by the average Englishman, most other peoples are fond of it. Read a French poem in a French café and people will applaud. Read a Russian poem to Russians, and they will kiss you and buy you drinks. Learn short poems by heart. That is a sure way into the heart of the language and the hearts of the people’ (p. 147). See also A Mouthful of Air, p. 129.

221. ‘Crippled, the antarctic fire with chiselled skill.’ This poem appears in the typescript of an unpublished play, ‘The End of Things: Three Dialogues for Old Men’ (1991). After the poem has been recited, one of the three characters in the dialogue, Aubrey, comments: ‘That sonnet is about something, and that something is the impossibility of making sense of the world. Its meaning is the necessary cancelling out of meaning. It is art, hence it is beauty.’

222. ‘Imagination is your true Apollo.’ IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/5.

223. ‘Our Norman betters.’ IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/8.

224. Nostalgia In Head Plunging. IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/4.

225. ‘Dreaming when dawn’s left hand.’ IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/4.

226. ‘An Elegy for X’ in Stephen Spender (ed). Hockney’s Alphabet. (London: Faber, 1991).

227. Princess’s Lullaby/Queen’s Lullaby. Previously unpublished. From ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’ (IABF, AB/ARCH/A/MOS).

228. Chant. Previously unpublished. From ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

229. Soldier’s Song. Previously unpublished complete version. Variant published in Revolutionary Sonnets without final line. From ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

230. Prayer. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver.

231. Lullaby. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

232. Pastorale. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

233. Water Song. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver.

234. Desert Song For Moses. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

235. Travelling Song. Previously unpublished. From ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

236. Miriam’s Song of Triumph. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

237. Miriam’s Song of Triumph. Previously unpublished. From ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

238. Marriage Round. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

239. Moses’s Song. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

240. Travel Song. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

241. Bull Song. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

242. Golden Calf Song. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

243. Bard’s Song. Previously unpublished, from ‘Music for Moses the Lawgiver’.

244. Jubilee Anthem. For Malayan Boys’ Voices. Previously unpublished, from handwritten MS, c.1955. Written to be sung by boys of Malay College Kuala Kangsar, whose golden jubilee was celebrated in 1955 (IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/15). For more detail, see Sholto Byrnes, ‘Unveiled: Work by Anthony Burgess Suppressed for Years’, Independent, 5 December 2010.

245. The Three Dimensions. This poem appears on pp. 51–3 of the prose draft of Byrne (published 1995). The full verse does not appear in the final version, although it is alluded to.

246. Words Getting In The Way. Previously unpublished. Transcribed from undated MS. It is not clear as to whether the poem was intended for a novel, play, or translation. The section beginning ‘No matter how powerful or subtle or fine’ is from another draft (IABF, AB/ARCH/A/CYR/20).

247. ‘Slavery slavery.’ Previously unpublished. From red notebook of the brand ‘Block Notes Mediolanum ICCI Produzione 5’.

248. ‘None but the coward.’ Previously unpublished.

249. ‘He bought me from a Saracen.’ Previously unpublished. MS draft.

250. ‘Sevilla, Seviya, Sevija – or Seville.’ Previously unpublished. MS draft.

251. ‘Take him, you don’t have to pay for him.’ Previously unpublished.

252. ‘I love hate.’ Previously unpublished. IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/3.

253. ‘What I’d like to do.’ Previously unpublished. From ‘The Doctor is Sick: Motion Picture Typescript’, p. 52. Stage direction on p. 51: ‘A teenage group [called The Kneetremblers] is at work, almost inaudible for adulation. There are TV cameras trained on them, along with a fullfledged TV team.’

254. ‘Eight and twenty years.’ Previously unpublished. From the script for Cyrus the Great. Sung by a bard with a harp. The stage directions indicate that the character Astyages ‘sits with Harpagus at supper […] There is a feast of venison’.

255. ‘To be a king, to be a king.’ Previously unpublished. From the script for Cyrus the Great. Sung by a number of boys. Verses one and two are from one draft, and three and four are from another draft.

256. ‘A drink. What is a drink?’ Previously unpublished. MS on a diary page, preprinted with date ‘Samedi 12 Novembre’. 12 November fell on a Saturday in 1966, 1977, 1983 and 1988. The correct date is probably 1977.

257. Bed. Previously unpublished. IABF, AB/ARCH/A/POE/12.

258. Bear. Previously unpublished. IABF,