The Anxiety of Influence
Passing the baton, the famous, dead poet stops to consider what exactly
it is that he’s doing. In his hand he holds a rolled-up cloud, smooth as
birdsong in a disused gas tank. A god would call it a blessing, a sailor would
call it a shoreline, and a butcher – all ready to mince his words – would
consider it a medium cut. There’s a cliché of a café, and the famous, dead poet
sits for spiced tea and a cigarette and to watch the crowds race by in the rain
which came from nowhere until it stops. In his hand he holds an uncomfortably
white, male tradition, which bends into a rainbow – obvious, but it’ll do for
now – and quivers like the anticipated rain of fire. He sips the steam from
collapsing architecture and lights the rolled-up draft of an awkward exchange from
fame to forgetting. I consider speaking to him, but I am too nervous and he is
too famous, too dead, so I keep my distance and film on my phone as he passes
the baton through Nigredo, Albedo, Citrinitas and Rubedo
– or, in Jungian terms, Confession, Illumination, Education and Transformation
– and places the cloud back, exactly where it belongs.
An
Apologia for Public Art
The man on the white horse dreams he’s a statue in a city
where they remember heroes. They have days dedicated to people like him, and
mothers in voluminous floral skirts lift children onto their shoulders so they
can look him in his noble stone eye. His unflinching stare, awe-inspiring but
curiously benign, tells them that one day they will have horses of their own
and they may do great deeds, but few, if any, will be statues. This will nag at
the children over long days and short years, and they will ride horses and
raise children to be good and honest, and they will lift their children to take
a close look at that weathered face, with all its challenges and promises. It’s
the way things should be and, comfortingly for the dreaming man on the white
horse, it’s the way things will be. The horse, in contrast, dreams it’s a
competent amateur pianist, entertaining its family with theme tunes from 60s TV
comedies: F Troop, Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies. And Mr Ed, of course, of
course.
All the Creatures of the Air
The sky is full of bird voices
and we take it in turns to close our eyes and pull one down, thrilling to the
buzz and scratch on our palms and fingers. When I hold it to my ear, mine
sounds like an elevator in a swanky department store, so I step inside and
press the stud marked Apiary. It could be either up or down – or even
sideways, for all I can tell – but as I sway like a Hollywood legend on a
luxury yacht, I scrutinise myself in the full-length mirror, with my polished
buttons and lift attendant cap, humming sky leaking between my cupped fingers.
When the doors slide away, I’m in a room full of sky, its endless floor a
chequered conversation of owls: twit-twoo, twit-twoo, twit-twoo,
ad infinitum. Bees cluster like swooning fans, pressed to the jetty rail,
waving to the film star far out to sea. He, or she, or they – it’s impossible
to tell at this distance – calls back with birdsong, and the bees press tight
to every inch of my swaying body. I close my eyes again and the first sting
doesn’t even hurt.
Staying in Touch
When phones fail, we resort to
cans and string, tying our voices together across counties still wet from
melting snow. There are birds on the line, busking musical accompaniment to the
chit-chat, chirping interjections and exclamations like circus trombones. My
can once held powdered milk, and I imagine yours once held cocoa, though I’ve
never seen it. The string started in my grandfather’s garden and ended up in an
overall pocket until someone used it to tie my wrecked car back together one
burnt motorway summer. Stretched and knotted, it serves its purpose without
complaining until words become too heavy and it snaps, scattering shocked wings
across waterlogged fields. So, when cans and string fail, we resort to the
Ouija board, spelling out pleasantries in the accents we were born with. It
suits our needs, and the dead barely interfere, but there are no pictures or
emojis, so I make your glass describe the profile of my cat, his paw stretched
to the window as if saluting the birds ranked on the washing line. My glass
skates softly across the elbow-smoothed table: L O L
Oz Hardwick is a European poet, photographer, occasional musician, and accidental academic, whose work has been widely published in international journals and anthologies. He has published “about a dozen” full collections and chapbooks, including Learning to Have Lost (Canberra: IPSI, 2018) which won the 2019 Rubery International Book Award for poetry, and most recently A Census of Preconceptions (Dublin & Reggio di Calabria: SurVision Books, 2022). Oz has held residencies in the UK, Europe, the US and Australia, and has performed internationally at major festivals and in tiny coffee shops. In 2022, he was awarded the ARC Poetry Prize for “a lifetime devotion and service to the cause of prose poetry”. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University. www.ozhardwick.co.uk