Almost Canonised

At the end of an interview between Romana Koval and Harold Bloom on ABC Radio National last week, Harold Bloom recited a poem by John Manifold. He went on to say that Manifold was a fine poet, although not a great one, and also that he was a Communist. Neither of these things seemed to diminish Bloom's enthusiasm for John Manifold. The poem he read was this one, which, he commented, showed evidence of AE Housman's influence:

FIFE TUNE 
 
For Sixth Platoon, 308th I. T.C. 
 
   One morning in spring 
   We marched from Devizes 
   All shapes and all sizes 
   Like beads on a string, 
   But yet with a swing 
   We trod the bluemetal 
   And full of high fettle 
   We started to sing. 
 
   She ran down the stair 
   A twelve-year-old darling 
   And laughing and calling 
   She fussed her bright hair; 
   Then silent to stare 
   At the men flowing past her--There 
   were all she could master 
   Adoring her there. 
 
   It's seldom I'll see 
   A sweeter or prettier; 
   I doubt we'll forget her 
   In two years or three, 
   And lucky he'll be 
   She takes for a lover 
   While we are far over 
   The treacherous sea.

Meanwhile, on this day in 1916, my grandfather, John Manifold's uncle, was about to discover just how nasty things could get on the Western Front.

There's Usually a Catch

I love Dickens, despite his sentimentality and often unlikely plots. It seems to me that you just have to put up with those flaws, if you want the stuff in his writing that you admire. In the same way, I love Vienna, while recognising that one of the things I most like about it - its calm, peaceful orderliness - is largely a product of an aspect of life in Vienna that drives me mad - the bossiness of its inhabitants, who will not brook any social conduct that is not good-mannered and sedate, even from the very young (although small fluffy dogs may do anything they like, of course.)

Similarly, John Manifold, as well as writing The Tomb of Lt. John Learmonth A.I.F. and many other fine works, was also a lifelong Communist, unmoved by the Hungarian uprising and all other evidence of the ghastliness of the Soviet regime. The arguments that can be made in his defence are: a) that he went to Cambridge at the wrong time; b) that he lived in Germany during the rise of Nazism; and c) that he was probably reacting against his wealthy, privileged background. I do vaguely understand b), since I am probably an example of the same process working in reverse: having been exposed to Soviet countries and also Communist China at a very young age, I have been ever since a lifelong conservative, unable to view the Left with anything other than suspicion.

It is an interesting thought though - how much can we forgive in our artistic heroes? There has been much fuss about Larkin's private remarks. His poems have not changed, but some people appear to think that the recent revelations have somehow devalued them. If Shakespeare turned out to have been a murderer or overly fond of sheep, would it alter his plays? I like to think that the true villains of the world - the Hitlers and Pol Pots - would be incapable of truly great works of art. Certainly, Hitler's failure to impress the artistic establishment of Vienna is often cited as a motive for his later acts.

Does it alter our perception of the good poems to know that John Manifold's political judgment was hopelessly bad? Does this poem that he wrote to mark the death of Stalin transform his other works to drivel or is it just an extremely embarrassing mistake? It is the rare person who does not flinch occasionally, remembering some carefully buried, almost forgotten moment of foolishness, but Manifold's error was never acknowledged or remedied, at least publicly. On the other hand, I've never turned to poets for advice on how to vote.

Death of Stalin

North to the reindeer herds, the snowbound dark,
Mammoth-tusk carvings and enormous pines;
South to the great canals, the silk, the vines,
The turbanned heads as brown as wattle-bark

East where the slant-eyed fishermen embark,
And tigers prowl between the silver-mines;
West to the wheatlands where the roaring lines
Of tractors wipe away the invaders' mark;

Such is his vast memorial's extent!
Here - like a fighter-plane, his petrol spent,
But straining dauntless towards a friendly drome

Whilst all his victories yet blaze in air -
Here at the dawn-lit first perimeter
Of Communism Uncle Joe reached home.

John Manifold, March 1953.

John Manifold

At The Dabbler there is a beautiful collection of poems to commemorate Remembrance Sunday. Among them is John Manifold's "The Tomb of Lt. John Learmonth, A.I.F."

Manifold was a versatile poet. When not in elegiac mood, he occasionally turned his hand to humour:

"On the Death of Mr Holt

Only a week before Christmas,
   The happiest day of the year,
They held a wake for Harold Holt,
   And the bigwig guests came here.

Bonnie Prince Charlie came owre the sea
   With Wilson, who never smiles,
And L.B.J. from the U.S.A
   And the king of the Cannibal Isles;

Chaps from Siam and from South Vietnam
   And the Philippines too, I think;
Some for the sake of the free, free world,
   And some for the free, free drink.

They made long speeches and shed loud tears
   To propitiate Harold's ghost,
And the king of the Cannibal Isles got up
   To propose a final toast.

He said: "We have had such a splendid time,
   Such generous Christmas cheer,
We hope you'll be able to drown a Prime
   Minister every year!"