Our thoughts on the poetry of ASJ Tessimond (1902-1962), chosen by Tim for our June poetry week.
Tim:
NOT LOVE PERHAPS
This is not Love perhaps –Love that lays down
Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown –
But something written in a lighter ink, said in a lower tone:
Something perhaps especially our own:
A need at times to be together and talk –
And then finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places
And meet more easily nightmare faces:
A need to reach out sometimes hand to hand –
And then find Earth less like an alien land:
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street ;
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, halts for discoveries to be shared ,
Maps checked and notes compared:
A need at times of each for each
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech .
I am sorry I did not suggest in advance ASJ Tessimond – Not Love perhaps – Selected poems (Faber). Or ASJ Tessimond – Collected Poems – Blood Axe. When we were looking at funny poems I referred to his “The Psycho-analyst “…….”The Analyst is always right”.
In a sense, A.J.S. Tessimond was born and died before his time. The longing he so constantly expressed in his poems for “an unperplexed, unvexed time“ for a “one day” when “people will touch and talk perhaps easily” and will “unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea” chimes prophetically with the hopes and desires of a younger generation today.
In another way he was very much of his time. After his death in 1962 from a sudden brain haemorrhage his books went out of print until 1978 when he came to my notice and that of others with “Not love perhaps“. Some feel it is a negative poem but I consider it beautifully expresses the value of friendship, perhaps after initial passion – an alliance against a hostile world out there.
EDITH PIAF
Voice of one whose heart
Has mended with the years,
One who can stand apart
And laugh at life through tears.
Voice of one who has long
Outlived regret, outgrown
Hope, and at last is strong
Enough to stand alone.
Try reading more if you do not know him
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Christine A:
Tessimond is a mid-twentieth century poet highly rated by as diverse people as Bel Mooney, Brian Patten and possibly Bernard Levin (Maggie Smith read Tessimond’s Heaven at Levin’s funeral). I have done a trawl of the internet for examples of Tessimond’s work and the anthology which appears to be his finest is called after the first poem in the collection Not love, perhaps. Here is that poem
This is not Love perhaps – Love that lays down
Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown –
But something written in lighter ink, said in a lower tone:
Something perhaps especially our own:
A need at time to be together and talk –
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places
And meet more easily nightmare faces:
A need to reach out sometimes hand to hand
And then find Earth less like an alien land:
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street:
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, halts for discoveries
to be shared,
Maps checked and notes compared:
A need at times of each for each
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.
When Bel Mooney was the Daily Mail’s Agony Aunt she used this poem in her reply to a divorced father of two who was worried that he had found contentment but not quite love. A splendid use of poetry I feel, and the interpretation that the obsessive search for romantic love can obscure a quieter emotion of more enduring value, does chime with the poem.
The second poem I have chosen is Popular Press from a collection entitled Voices in a Giant City published in 1947
I am the echoing rock that sends you back
Your own voice grown so bold that with surprise
You murmur, ‘Ah, how sensible I am –
The plain bluff man, the enemy of sham –
How sane, how wise!’
I am the mirror where your image moves,
Neat and obedient twin, until one day
It moves before you move, and it is you
Who have to ape its moods and motions, who
Must now obey
Despite the formality of the language the sentiments seem as relevant today as they were in 1947
For me, Tessimond’s poetry has to include the first two lines of his poem Cats
Cats no less liquid than their shadows
Offer no angles to the wind
Perfect imagery to sum up the lithe elusive nature of cats in an unsentimental way. When you watch a cat move it does so with such grace. I love the economy of words.
********
Christine B:
I know very little about ASJ Tessimond, apart from his sad end, and look forward to learning more.
For a long time I have loved his poem – ‘Not Love Perhaps’
This is not Love perhaps – Love that lays down
Its life, that many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown –
But something written in lighter ink, said in a lighter tone;
Something perhaps essentially our own:
A need at times to be together and to talk –
And then the finding we can walk
More firmly through dark narrow places
And meet more easily nightmare places:
A need to reach out sometimes hand to hand –
And then find Earth less like an alien land:
A need for alliance to defeat
The whisperers at the corner of the street:
A need for inns on roads, islands in seas, halts for discoveries to be shared,
Maps checked and notes compared:
A need at times of each for each
Direct as the need of throat and tongue for speech.
********
Richmond Hill Reading @ The Roebuck 