Selected Poems: Language Games, On the Periphery and Other Writings

by Veronica Forrest-Thomson

Genres: Poetry

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Veronica Elizabeth Marian Forrest-Thomson was a poet and a critical theorist brought up in Scotland. Her 1978 study Poetic Artifice: A Theory of Twentieth-Century Poetry was reissued in 2016.

Veronica was born in Malaya to a rubber planter, John Forrest Thomson and his wife Jean, but grew up in Glasgow, Scotland. She opted to hyphenate the surname, having originally been published under the name Veronica Forrest.

She studied at the University of Liverpool (BA, 1967) and Girton College, Cambridge (PhD, 1971) where her first supervisor was the poet J.H. Prynne. Her Cambridge friends included the poets Wendy Mulford and Denise Riley.

Forrest-Thomson later taught at the universities of Leicester and Birmingham.

Her poetry collections included Identi-kit (1967), the award-winning Language-Games (1971) and the posthumous On the Periphery (1976). Subsequent gatherings of her work include Collected Poems and Translations (1990) and Selected Poems (1999). A further Collected Poems, minus the translations, was published in 2008 by Shearsman Books with Allardyce Books.

Forrest-Thomson was married to the writer and academic Jonathan Culler from 1971 to 1974. She died in her sleep on 26 April 1975 at the age of 27, after an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Selected Poems of Veronica Forrest-Thomson contains the complete texts of her two collections Language-Games and On the Periphery (published posthumously), along with a selection of "Uncollected Poems" and "Further Poems"...

from "Uncollected Poems"...

Thus party with witte
party with nygraumancy
King's College is on fire;
I have an image of dining in Hall with Dr. Dee.
We shall talk at a later occasion
of the way in which words and things may be connected.
Tonight we should like to say,
What the picture sells us is itself,
This language-game is played
instead of, We have this experience.

It patterns facts names, architecture, dates
(As in the lawcourts in Paris
a motor accident is represented
by means of dolls.)
A context in which we occur
- "the slightest hysterical style of University talk" -
teaches us our meaning;
a fourth dimension for the blue
of that bound typewriter.

The gap between red and green
is then grammatical;
white objects through coloured spectacles.
But though our syntax stains the window-glass,
those stones across the court
assert their tenses
party per fess argent and vert,
party per chevron or and gueules.

- The Blue Book, pg. 20

from Language-Games ...

But in a fairy tale the pot too can hear and see1
and help the hero on his way2
to stimulate something to thoughts of his own,
Noms de Personnes, Noms de Pays

as Proust taught le tout Paris
his little phrase
trying to get between pain and its expression.3
bring light into one brain5,6
but a man who wants discrete particulars7
cries out in pain

with the aphasiac surface of a day's
object and events,
can only choose the mouth which says:8
I should have liked to produce a good book.

This has not come about
but the time is past in which I could improve it.

1 Certainly but it can also talk
2 But of course it is not likely
3 We are not concerned with the difference, internal/external
4 Language-game no. 30

5 Or another
6 In its poverty and in the darkness of lost time
7 When the light strikes Fizeau's mirror
8 A stamp which marks them mine.

- The Brown Book, pg. 29

*

Sure
if we are to speak of the experience of thinking
the experience of speaking is as good as any,
thus:
"Who is Wittgenstein?"

(she said, having been present
at some months' acrimonious
debate on Philosophical Investigations)

With the configuration of chess-pieces
limbs describe themselves in the rooms
under the angle-poise.
"What is the opposite of brown?
- orange?
- another shade
of brown."
Limbs of the angle alter,
poise, in rooms:
what is the opposite of me?
- you?
- another shade
of me.
Suppose it were
part of my day-dream to say
"I am merely engaged in fantasy."
I can write
"I am healthy."
in the dialogue of a play
and so not mean it,
although it is true.
This is dialogue in a play
- the language-game
with pronouns.
A spot-light swivels
through faces of the cast and rests in
the mirror.
One can own a mirror
does one then own the reflections
that may be seen in it?
I love you.
- the language game
with pronouns and
"Confucius he say":
The concept of a living being
has the same indeterminacy
as that of a language.
Love is not a feeling.
Love is put to the test
- grammatical test.

Anyone who does not understand
why we talk about these things
must feel what we say to be mere trifling,
thus:
"It seems a bit of a fuss about nothing."

(she said after reading
The Language of Criticism)

Roomspace in which we dispose
ourselves is not external.
The gap between
my purple trousers
and his pale-green shirt
is then
grammatical.
I love you.
One says the ordinary thing
- with the wrong gesture.
Folded & re
folded the
map of the
town is pass
ed through
our lives
& hands ac
ross the table.

The same indeterminacy though,
which could suggest a cast-
list drawn up in language
play, that speech commits
to fantasy. And so it does
at least in the first
person singular, for:
One's hand writes it does not write because one wills
but one wills
what it writes.

- Zettel, pg. 31-33

from On the Periphery ...

If it were quicksand you could sink;
something needing a light touch
soon and so simply takes its revenge.
Slightly west of Goodwin Sands
the land hardens again with history,
resists the symbol.
Chalk requires an allegorical hand,
or employee of Sussex Water Board
who sets a notice here:
DANGER SUBMERGED STRUCTURES
and all at once Transformational Grammar
"people" the "emotional landscape"
with refutation.
You may head its melancholy
long withdrawing roar
even on Dover beach watching
the undertow of all those trips
across to France.
Follow the reader and his writer,
those emblematic persons
along their mythic route
charting its uncertain curves and camber;
for to be true to any other you must -
and I shall never know - recover
a popular manœuvre known mostly as,
turn over
and go to sleep.

- Address to the Reader, from Pevensey Sluice, pg. 70

*

Many pills, Matilda, does that make tonight?
But you must tell if you take the yellows.
The eyeball, listless under its tiny lid, moves
so slowly that downstairs in the cloakroom
were four rubber boots all left feet (this is a
Pedestrian Controlled Crossing but read as you
may you will find no mention of fish) covered even
ly with blood (groping in mud for a sound) whoever
however (and a collision is highly likely to occur)
controls the eyeball ignores this collision and takes
many yellows without telling any; hangs over books
brooding on mud. I, therefore, have nothing to add
to the scene transcribed above and the word that is
murder will fit very well. Over the boots but under
the eyeball are raincoats and hats and quotation
marks all wet through (or with name if you wish
to make plain the pills that we take for our)
into the garden it passes suffused now with pain
like an evening in spring the garland so fresh
and the roses so sweet she gave with intent to perceive.
Freckled by a glance the glass flickering advanc
es away into greenery untouched by the sun. Moreover
the grass also is green, so slowly the eyeball
did turn bloodshot in its emptying socket.

- The Aquarium, pg. 72

from "Further Poems"...

To those who kiss in fear that they shall never kiss again

To those that love with fear that they shall never love again

To such I dedicated this rhyme and what is may contain.

None of us will ever take the transiberian train

Which makes a very satisfactory refrain

Especially as I can repeat it over and over again

Which is the main us of the refrain.


I with no middle flight intend the truth to speak out pain
Of honour truth and love gone by that has come back again
The fact is one grows weary of the love that comes again.
I may not know much about gods but I know that
Eros is a strong purple god.
An that there is a point where incest becomes
Tradition. I don't mean that literally;
I don't love my brother or he me.
We have been mutually avoiding each other
For years and will continue to do so.
Even I know about cross words -
Something. The word you want is Dante.
He said he loved Beatrice. Whatever he did
He didn't love Beatrice. At least the
Beatrice Portinari whom history gives.
He knew her and the point above all these
Florentine is that they all were
Killing each other or dying of rapid
Consumption. Beatrice died; Rosetti painted her
Cutting Dante in the street. Botticelli
Painted the rest: Simonette Vespucci
Died of a rapid consumption (age 23)
Gulianno dei Medici murdered by the altar rail (age 19)
Guido Cavalcanti died in exile (age 35)
Dante dei Aligeri died in exile (age 90)
Lorenzo dei Medici who lives for ever
Since he stayed there and commissioned
The paintings, and poems, and statues
And if he also commissioned the deaths
I don't blame him. He didn't feel
Very magnificent when his brother
Was murdered in sanctuary.
Do you realise whoever did that
Wouldn't be excommunicated if, that is, if
He hadn't also murdered the papal legate,
His best friend.
I have lived long enough having seen one thing;
That term has an end.
It was getting dark on the platform of nowhere
When I who was anxious and sad came to you
Out of the rain. Out of the sound of the cold
Wind that blows time before and time after
Even Provence knows.
And as for this line I stole if from T.S. Eliot
And Ezra Pound and A.C. Swinburne. All very good
Poets to steal from since they are all three dead.
The love that is must always just contain
The glory of the love that was whatever be the pain.
We played at mates and mating and stopped up the drain.
Hear me. O Mister Poster I know
You have burnt me too brown you must boil me again
You simply have no notion how delightful it will
Be when the pick us up and throw us with the lobsters out to sea.
It is the lark, my love, and not the nightingale.
None of us will ever take the trans-siberian train.
She wanted to and was collecting people who did
I thought I did but now I know I don't.
It is the lark, my love, and not the nighingale.
In fact I've never heard either bird
But people say they sound very similar.
And what the devil were Romeo and Juliet
About wasting their last moments
Listening to birds. Hah.
I like kicking up larks or
Larking up kicks. So do most poets
Including J.H. Prynne, the memorable poet
Who is happy to say that the U.L.
Has got his middle name wrong.
He claims it stands for Hah
But there is a limit. I know it all.
Riddle me riddle randy ree
Round and round in the snotgreen sea
When they pick us up and throw us
With the Joyces out to sea.
Tell us tale of Troy's downfall
We all would have liked to have been there.
The infernal Odyssos. He it was whose bile
Stirred up by envy and revenge destroyed
The mother of womankind. And Swinburne
Got a kick out of pain but I don't
I just get kicked.
I wish I didn't keep sounding like Richard the Third
Except that if I don't I tend to sound
Like Richard the Second. And who wants that.
I suppose I must sound like Richard the First.
What did he do?
Nothing I take it
I get a kick out of larking up nightingales.
Prynne says that if I don't come back
Safe from Sicily by the thirtieth April
They will send a posse.
March is the cruellest station
Taking on bullying men
And were you really afraid they would rape you?
No. I thought there would be grave difficulties.
Not just that I was actively opposed
And so was every other man, woman, and child
On that there train.
I was afraid they would kill me.
I may look stupid but I'm not
So simple as to think your name
Is Elizabeth Brown. Well. All right
My name is Veronica Forrest-Thomson.
Agammemnon was Kind of the Achaians at the time,
Priam, of the Trojans, Theseus, of the Athenians.
And like all Good Kings, they are dead.
In my day it was the done thing to side
With the Trojans for no better reason
Than that they lost. But me I back
Winners every time.
Mary Shelley may go to hell
As she thought she was going anyway
And take Frankinsense with her.
I want her husband, alive and well.
Who, of course, also got killed.
Hardly surprising if he made a habit
Of reading Aiscylos while sailing.
He wasn't reading Aiscylos when he drowned.
Got cremated like a pagan king.
Not Agammemnon who, as I said, was king at the time
And lost, murderer of his daughter
Killed by his wife and (other) daughter.
Killed by his death killing his life.
Stabbed in the back in his bath.
I think of it every time I have a bath.
Though I have no sympathy at all
For that daughter and son.
I think it is unfair that Helen
Had everything, immortal beauty,
Lovers, cities destroyed and battles
Fought about her. And she just came home
And calmly went around being Menelaus's wife
While her twin sister, Clytemnestra
Was murdered by her son and daughter.
And the Athenians acquitted them.
They would do, a nation of sophists.
Always betraying their allies and torturing
Women and children and enslaving people.
They even killed Socrates, their one good man,
Then Plato tried to be a philosopher king.
And got enslaved for his pains.
I wish they had kept him enslaved.
He escaped, of course, and wrote books
About how he would do it better
If he was in charge. All poets do that.
They are just as incompetent as the rest
If they try to organise things.
As witness my own efforts in that direction
Or those of my avatar, Agammemnon,
Who, as I say, came home and was killed in his bath
Killing his wife and his daughter.
And if you don't know about this you ought to.
Read it in the Iliad, read it in the Odyssey,
Do not read it in Freud who is always wrong
Although even Freud didn't deserve a son like Lacan.
But first and last read me, the beloved
Who was killed in the general slaughter.
But rise again like John Donne
(read him too) I, Helen, I Iseult, I Guenevere,
I Clytemnestra and many more to come.
I did it, I myself, killing the Kind my father
Killing the Kind my mother, joining the Kind my brother.
It is the kick, my love, and not the nightingale
I like larking up kicks myself
But not kicking.
They that have power to hurt and do so
Should not be blamed by Shakespeare or anyone else
For hurting though such is the race of poets
That they will blame them anyway.
However it is a pretty productive process
Especially if one may be plumber as well as poet
And thus unstop the drain as well as writing
Poetic Artifice "Pain stopped play" and
Several other books and poems including
1974 and All That (seriously though)
I, Veronica did it, truth-finding, truth-seeking
Muck-raking, bringing victory.
It was a horse, of course, in which the warriors hid
Pretending to bring peace
And they wouldn't speak to me, crouching in the dark
Like a lot of fools, hearing the voice of the goddess
In an alien city, I speak your tongue in my own city:
Cambridge or Camelot and you won't listen to me
Advised, of course, by Odyssos, solicitor, betrayer.
And when they had killed all the men, raped all the women etc.
Agammemnon came home and, as I said, was stabbed by his wife
In his bath. Anyway it is the lark, my love,
And not the nightingale. I follow the sacred footsteps of
Hippolyta, the blest, the best
That has been said or spoken well in any tongue
Read John Donne - the memorable dun.
Don't read Matthew Arnold; he's a fool
I am not Prince Thomas Aquinas F.H. Eliot
I am not an attendant lord either.
I am the king who lives.
Spring surprises us, running through the market square
And we stopped in Prynne's rooms in a shower of pain
And went on in sunlight into the University Library
And ate yogurt and talked for an hour.
You, You, grab the reins.
Drink as much as you can and love as much as you can
And work as much as you can
For you can't do anything when you are dead.

The motto of this poem heed
And do you it employ:
Waste not and want not while you're here
The possibilities of joy.

- Cordelia, pg. 104-109