David Jones*

David Jones (1895—1974) is a painter and the author of two major works of modernist poetry: In Parenthesis (1937) and The Anathemata (1952). Guy Davenport, in the New York Times Book Review, said, “For David Jones art was a sacred act and he expected the reading of his work to be as much a rite as he performed in the composing of it.”

The Poetry Foundation describes The Anathemata as “modernistic, allusive, and fragmented…” which as I see it contributes to making it one of the most difficult major poems of the twentieth century. The poem is more than 200 pages in length, and leaps from theme to theme, place to place, and from time period to time period ― including ancient Greece and Rome, Western Europe and England, and by the end reflects on the Last Supper and Christ’s Crucifixion.

The David Jones Society webpage concedes that “Jones's style has been considered 'densely allusive,' 'fragmented' and 'palimpsestic…'” It says The Anathemata “traces the course of Western culture in light of its various geographical, mythical, historical and religious roots, using the Roman Catholic Mass as a significant framework.”

According to Robert Knowles, “The achievement, then, of The Anathemata is that it is an extended metaphor of what it is to be, uniquely, modern: for Jones, old forms of faith exist alongside present forms of explanation and the difficulty remains the association or integration of this apparent duality.”

What follows are the closing stanzas of The Anathemata.

From The Anathemata

At the threshold-stone
------------------------------lifts the aged head?
can toothless beast from stable come
----------------------------------discern the Child
in the Bread?

------------But the fate of death?
Well, that fits The gest:
How else be coupled of the Wanderer
whose viatic bread shows forth a life?
------------― in his well-built megaron.
If not by this Viander’s own death’s monument
by what bride-ale else lives his undying Margaron?
------------― whose only threnody is Jugatine
and of the thalamus: reeds then! And minstrelsy.
------------(Nor bid Anubis haste, but rather stay:
for he was whelped but to discern a lord’s body).

He does what is done in many places
What he does other
------------he does after the mode
of what has always been done.
What did he do other
------------recumbent at the garnished supper?
What did he do yet other
------------riding the Axile Tree?

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about David Jones: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the author of five poetry collections including Angelicus (2021, Cascade) ― a book of poems written from the point-of-view of angels. His books are available through Wipf & Stock.

George Johnston

George Johnston (1913—2004) is a Canadian poet whose work is characterized by rhyme and meticulous rhythm — for he felt that poetry should be memorized. A favourite poet, and influence was A.E. Housman. Northrop Frye said, "Johnston is an irresistibly readable and quotable poet. His finest technical achievement, I think, apart from his faultless sense of timing, is his ability to incorporate the language of the suburbs into his own diction."

He was known internationally as a poet and translator. He, and his wife, Jeanne, often hosted visiting poets in their home in Ottawa. When on sabbatical in England, from Carleton University, he became friends with the Welsh poet David Jones.

Stephen Morrissey, said in his “In Memorium” piece on Johnston: “George was preeminently a humble man, his religious leanings were to both Quakerism and the Church of England as he searched for an expression of his spirituality. He was a family man and...mentored younger poets...George treated me with respect as a person and as a poet. Overall he enlarged my life. What greater praise can be given to someone than stating that we learn to be a better person from their example.”

Nine days after his death in 2004, his wife of sixty years, Jeanne, died of a heart attack.

No Way Out

No excuse
Though I keep looking for one;
No use
Pretending it is not me, has not been done.

No way out
But always farther in
In doubt,
Fate-strong, heart-struck, ground fine.

I have not
Seen Paradise, nor its trees,
But what
I glimpse of unspoiled brings me to my knees.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca

David Jones

David Jones (1895—1974) is a modernist poet, of Welsh heritage, who lived in London. His work was highly praised by influential contemporaries such as T.S. Eliot. More recently, Edward Lucie-Smith mentioned, “The extreme complexity of David Jones’s work...” in his introduction to Jones in British Poetry Since 1945 — calling him a “twentieth century equivalent of William Blake.”

Jones served as an infantryman in World War I and was wounded in the Battle of the Somme. He fictionalized his experience in his first extensive poem, In Parenthesis, in which he seeks to encapsulate military experience from the beginning of time.

His second major work, The Anathemata, reflects his faith, and his understanding of art. Jones believed that art should be a form of worship, and that worship is a form of art. W.H. Auden called The Anathemata, “one of the most important poems of our times.”

A, a, a, Domine Deus

I said, Ah! what shall I write?
I inquired up and down
------------(He's tricked me before
with his manifold lurking-places.)
I looked for His symbol at the door.
I have looked for a long while
------------at the textures and contours.
I have run a hand over the trivial intersections.
I have journeyed among the dead forms
------------causation projects from pillar to pylon.
I have tired the eyes of the mind
------------regarding the colours and lights.
I have felt for His wounds
------------in nozzles and containers.
I have wondered for the automatic devices.
I have tested the inane patterns
------------without prejudice.
I have been on my guard
------------not to condemn the unfamiliar.
For it is easy to miss Him
------------at the turn of a civilisation.
I have watched the wheels go round in case I might see the living creatures like the appearance of lamps, in case I might see the Living God projected from the machine. I have said to the perfected steel, be my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt some beginnings of His creature, but A,a,a, Domine Deus, my hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible crystal a stage-paste . . . Eia, Domine Deus.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about David Jones: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. He is the award-winning author of the poetry collections Poiema (Wipf & Stock) and So The Moon Would Not Be Swallowed (Rubicon Press). They are both available at: www.dsmartin.ca