Denis Gildea reviews Happiness: Lessons from a New Science by Richard Layard Allen Lane. London. 2005. 310 pages. Hbk. £17.99. ISBN 0713997699 reviews sof 73 September 2005 22 Sebastian Barker has an exquisite ear for traditional forms. He may not always avoid the Georgian pitfalls of predictable, even outmoded, dictions; but a modern traditional poem, such as ‘Curriculum Vitae’ which opens this volume runs beautifully, whether on full or half-rhyme, viz:
On the whole Science procrastinates the soul, Whose true anatomy is hurt Into the beautiful by art.
The following poem, too, ‘The Ballad of Hackney Brook’ shows the same unerring ear at work; and both poems end strikingly, e.g., ‘Curriculum Vitae’: ‘the affair / Of my mid-age, who brings me peace, / Her love, where paranoias cease.’; and the second poem: ‘For next to love I know no love / Like the love of Hackney Brook’.
Unfortunately, the following poem ‘Katie’ is a bit of a verbal marshmallow – somewhat sentimental and weak:
O Katie, my Katie, There was none like you Seated on your barstool To drink the whole night through.
Weak, too, in its choice of similes: ‘Your head as hard as granite / Your smile as soft as rain.’ I think there is a problem with this poem and the next three dedicated to members of his family because he is too close to his subjects. But when you reach ‘In the Heart of Hackney’ – a poem for Aidan Andrew Dun – any personal element is absent (despite the dedication) and Barker has the poem absolutely right. But enough of discussing Barker’s undeniable lyric gift – few poets ‘sing’ today as he does – though I would like to go on talking of successful poems like ‘Linger Awhile’, ‘Silent Meditation’, ‘The Virgin Muse’ or ‘A Song for Sarah’, but that would be to almost completely misrepresent this remarkable volume. For the heart of it is a series of discrete and most unusual meditative poem sequences – especially that which gives the volume its title – but, additionally, ‘Columbarium’, ‘The Scribe in the Scriptorium’, ‘The Teraphim of Trash’, ‘The Agony of Faith’ and ‘Against the Deadening of the Mind’ which all, in fact, live under the general rubric of ‘Damnatio Memoriae’ or ‘erased from memory’.
Sebastian Barker has made his poetry from his quarrel with both God and himself. Some ten years ago, from having gone down the road of philosophy he produced The Dream of Intelligence: a considerable poem whose focal point is the life of Nietzsche. That quasiepic poem, in one sense, was both his long dark night of the soul and its way out at the same time. No saint, Barker was a suffering Humanist of a sort for many years. But a Humanist with a strong religious impulse.
Eventually he became a Roman Catholic, though it appears to have ‘solved’ little to judge from subsequent poems.
However, it gave him the most marvellous subjects, namely, the vast doctrinal work of the Summa Theologiae and its mediated dialogue with God. Half this book, then, Damnatio Memoriae, described as ‘A Poem in Six Movements Scored for Many Voices’, is an amazing fabricated tour-de-force. There is an extensive ‘Exegesis’ to each of the movements: a litany of scriptural and other quotations that the poet has hammered ‘On the anvil of the tongue’ into lively shape. Unfortunately there is insufficient space in this review for me to plunge deeply into this profound act of scholarship and poetry.
All I can do is affirm its great fascination. For readers of sof this book of great yet personal thoughts offers a vital expression of one man’s struggle to make sense of things mortal and immortal. I feel such a readership will inevitably welcome it as much as I do.
William Oxley reviews Damnatio Memoriae by Sebastian Barker Enitharmon Press. London. 2004. 128pages. £8.95. ISBN 19005640902 reviews A Poison Tree I was angry with my friend:
Review of Damnatio Memoriae by Sebastian Barker (Enitharmon Press, London, 2004, 128 pages, £8.95, ISBN 19005640902), reviewed by William Oxley.