POETIC LICENCE

English poet Charles Causley (1917-2003) is called by the people of Launceston, the Cornish town in which he lived for most of his life, “the greatest poet laureate we never had”. He was a contender for the laureateship after Sir John Betjeman died but was not appointed, much to the surprise and regret of many, including his close friend Ted Hughes, who was!

Causley’s poetry is simple, direct, conversational and invariably rhythmic. It cleverly uses rhyme to surprising and amusing effect, but what at times can appear childlike often hides serious and very adult concerns. His famous early poem called “Timothy Winters”, for instance, highlighted the realities of poverty in the lives of underprivileged children.

He rarely differentiated in his writing between poems for adults and those intended for children, composing liberally for both . The fact is that he was just a superb poet, one who, in my opinion, is greatly undervalued.

This week I’ve had the pleasure, as in the past, of driving out to Assegai Trails to toy with words along with a number of youngsters from local schools at the annual Holy Cross Reading Camp. It’s always great fun, made all the more so when we read Charles Causley’s delightful and playful poem ‘I Am the Song’ – well worth seeking out and enjoying for yourself.

But it’s two other Causley poems that I want to share here. One is engagingly funny and can, I think, be enjoyed by children and adults alike. Here it is:

I Saw a Jolly Hunter

I saw a jolly hunter With a jolly gun Walking in the country In the jolly sun.

In the jolly meadow Sat a jolly hare. Saw the jolly hunter. Took jolly care.

Hunter jolly eager ‒ Sight of jolly prey. Forgot gun pointing Wrong jolly way.

Jolly hunter jolly head Over heels gone. Jolly old safety catch Not jolly on.

Bang went the jolly gun. Hunter jolly dead. Jolly hare got clean away. Jolly good, I said.

The other is quiet, introspective, nostalgic, its regular pattern of half-rhyme much less obvious and clearly aimed at an older generation becoming increasingly aware of its (our!) own mortality. Yes, it is about death but I find the poem both beautiful and oddly reassuring in its haunting, dreamlike quality.

Eden Rock

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock: My father, twenty-five, in the same suit Of genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack Still two years old and trembling at his feet.

My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat, Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass. Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.

She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight From an old H.P. sauce bottle, a screw Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.

The sky whitens as if lit by three suns. My mother shades her eyes and looks my way Over the drifted stream. My father spins A stone along the water. Leisurely,

They beckon to me from the other bank. I hear them call, "See where the stream-path is! Crossing is not as hard as you might think."

I had not thought that it would be like this.

Charles Causley (From Collected Poems 1951-2000, Picador, 2000)