Air From Canada

 So many fine poets were born in the 1920s – Richard Wilbur, Philip Larkin, Anthony Hecht, Donald Justice, Thom Gunn – and most of them, Gunn (b.1929) excepted, are now past their centenary. Three years past his now is the New York poet James Schuyler, who was born on this day in 1923. Here is one of his best, a poem imbued with the 'wonderful freshness' and Nova Scotian light that it describes, but with a very dark edge, and a stark closing image... 

Air from Canada

A wonderful freshness, air
that billows like bedsheets
on a clothesline and the clouds
hang in a traffic jam: summer
heads home. Evangeline,
our light is scoured and Nova
Scotian and of a clarity that
opens up the huddled masses
of the stolid spruce so you
see them in their bristling
individuality. The other
day, walking among them, I
cast my gaze upon the ground
in hope of orchids and,
pendant, dead, a sharp shadow
in the shade, a branch gouged
and left me "scarred forever
'neath the eye." Not quite. Not
the cut, but the surprise, and
how, when her dress caught fire,
Longfellow's wife spun
into his arms and in the dying
of its flaring, died. The
irreparable, which changes
nothing that went before
though it ends it. Above the wash
and bark of rumpled water, a gull
falls down the wind to dine
on fish that swim up to do the same.

'Evangeline' references Longfellow's epic poem – hugely popular in its day – about an Acadian girl expelled from Nova Scotia. 'Scarred forever 'neath the eye' is a quotation from Schuyler's fellow New York poet Frank O'Hara's 'A City Winter': 'You are not how the gods refused to die, And I am scarred forever 'neath the eye'. 

Two 'Minors'?

My sturdy volume of Peter Porter's Collected Poems (Oxford, 1983) – 330-plus closely packed pages – is ideal for browsing in. Last night, doing just that, I happened on this one, dedicated to a remarkable Renaissance artist who was as prolific and gifted as Porter himself, and with whom he seems to identify as an honourable 'minor' artist. 

For Sophonisba Anguisciola

So much going for you, 
a woman painter of the sixteenth century, 
dying at ninety-seven
if the reference books are right, 
and with such an elegantly
unpronounceable name.

It seems an attainment of grace
just to honour you and to forget
some undistinguished pictures, 
almost as if the procession of geniuses
with their 'Triumphs of Time'
and their 'Feasts of the Gods'
passed right through the town
and out into the countryside,
leaving you, me, my typewriter
and an honoured calling
to represent the human race. 

Yes, Sophonisba may well have painted 'some undistinguished pictures' – the price you pay for being prolific, just as Porter wrote some undistinguished poems. However, both also touched greatness in some of their work – Sophonisba chiefly in her brilliant self-portraits (like the one above) and her family portraits (like the one below – 'The Chess Game', with Sophonisba herself at the left). 

   The name Sophonisba has an unfortunate literary resonance in the notorious line 'Oh, Sophonisba! Sophonisba, Oh!' from James Thomson's 1730 verse drama of the same name. The line attracted so much ridicule that Thomson changed it in later editions to 'Oh, Sophonisba! I am wholly thine!' Which was certainly an improvement. 

Gram

 I missed a big anniversary yesterday – what would have been Gram Parsons' 80th birthday, had he not died of a massive overdose at the age of 26, young even for a self-destructive rock star. The first time I heard him would have been on the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo album, but soon after that a schoolfriend who had a knack of getting hold of all the latest, coolest records, often as imports, introduced me to the first Flying Burrito Brothers album, Gilded Palace of Sin, and that was it – I was in thrall from there on in. His was a truly extraordinary talent, and heaven knows where he would have taken his Cosmic American Music had he lived longer – but he was never going to. Here's a death-soaked track from the great posthumous album, Grievous Angel...

My Number One Fan

 Such is the world we live in that anyone who writes a book nowadays is going to get bombarded with AI-generated scam fan mail, aimed at extracting money for non-existent services. Everyone, that is, except me. I've had plenty of offers to work wonders for my blog (which of course I ignore), but nothing for either of my books.
  Until today. 
  In my inbox this morning was a mail from someone (or rather something) called Gloria J. Villegas. 'Dear Andrew', it began – not a great start – then 'I'll keep this short', which is invariably code for 'this is going to be punishingly long'. The lovely Gloria adores my book, The Butterfly: Flights of Enchantment and is keen to introduce it to the BookTok reading community, whatever that might be. She offers a rather lame one-line sell for the book, then helpfully relates its contents. She has 'mapped out a full approach' for my book, including 'video angles', whatever they might be, and she offers to send me 'the complete plan' for it, if I simply reply to her email. This I shall not be doing, but I am of course deeply grateful to Gloria J. Villegas for her kind attentions. 
  This would all be good fun if it were not for the dreadful exploitative industry behind it, run by Chinese gangsters and other truly evil people. There was a revealing, deeply depressing piece about this in the Guardian recently – here's the link...

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/nov/01/like-many-authors-im-bombarded-by-scam-fan-mail-i-wasnt-prepared-for-what-would-happen-when-i-wrote-back

Once again I find myself asking who, in his right mind. could ever have thought AI was a good idea? 

Library Girls

Something I glimpsed on Facebook this morning (and, of course, couldn't find again) alerted me to the existence of a literary subgenre that had somehow passed me by – midcentury 'library girl' fiction. These are novels following the adventures – too strong a word, in some cases – of improbably good-looking female library assistants. Some of them, such as Molly Qualifies as a Librarian by Bertha Lonsdale or Nancy Runs a Bookmobile by Enid Johnson, are closer to careers information than fiction, but others offer rather more.

In Jinny Williams, Library Assistant (1962), which is set in New Jersey, the somewhat saintly Jinny, while not dealing with library-related challenges (e.g. chucking out troublemaking teens), is torn between two lovers – well, boyfriends – one of them blue-collar and uncultured, the other a cultivated Princeton student whom she meets at the library. Which will she choose? No spoiler alerts here, so let's pass on...

Kitsy Babcock, Library Assistant by Joan Sargent (1958) is set in Florida, and follows the eponymous heroine as she takes a part-time job as a 'library page' (i.e. library assistant)  in order to be able to afford to stay on at university. There is romantic interest in this one too, as Kitsy is attracted to Don, a black-haired artist who also works at the library. The two of them are drawn into a mystery – and into danger – after an important collection of rare historic documents is stolen. In the course of their investigations, Kitsy and Don find themselves kidnapped and tied up in a hotel room at gunpoint. Can they figure out a way to escape and retrieve those precious documents? (Well, what do you think?).

More of a straightforward romance is Jan Marlowe, Hospital Librarian by Margaret Malcolm (1960), originally published in the UK as a Harlequin Romance. Our Jan, the hospital librarian, is, like everyone else, highly excited by the arrival of a good-looking new consultant ophthalmic surgeon. She is attracted to him – but even more so to one of the patients. What a quandary – which one will turn out to be her true love? Again, no spoilers. By the way, some of these books are now rare and hard to find. If you spot one in a charity bookshop, it might be a very good investment. 

   Reading about these 'library girl' titles, I couldn't help thinking of Philip Larkin, who of course had extensive experience of library assistants, and created the most memorable library assistant in fiction – Katherine Lind, in that haunting novel A Girl in Winter. We know that Larkin, under the pseudonym Brunette Coleman, wrote mildly erotic girls' school stories in his student days, and it would not be surprising if he tried his hand at spicy tales of goings-on in the stacks, but, alas, nothing has come to light. Had he lived long enough, he would surely have enjoyed this one, published in 2009...

Librarian By Day features 'shy, reserved librarian' Jennifer Davidson, who has a secret sideline – writing erotic spanking romances. She hasn't ever been spanked herself, but when her boyfriend happens upon one of her books, that all changes, and 'soon, Jennifer is embarking on a sensual journey of discovery where she learns that having her bottom warmed for real is better than anything she'd ever written about in her books.' Phew.

Phenomenal Talent

 Watching the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year concert last night was wonderfully heartening. Whatever else is wrong with the world – and with music education – somehow these phenomenally talented youngsters keep emerging. The three finalists were whittled down from an original pool of several hundred video applications and forty auditionees, and, to judge by those who made it to the later stages, standards must have been very high indeed. For those who didn't see the final, the three contenders were the first-ever all-female line-up – an 18-year-old saxophonist, a 17-year-old recorder player, and an 18-year-old violinist. The saxophonist and the recorder player – who worked with six instruments on stage, including a gigantic contra-bass – performed contemporary works, while the violinist opted for Tchaikovsky's great concerto, which she played as if she had inhabited the piece for decades. A slight figure who looks even younger than her years, she played with effortless virtuosic brilliance, exquisite musical sensitivity, and every appearance of enjoyment. Her name is Sofia Demetriades, and we shall surely be hearing a lot more of her. 
   The BBC's musical activities are one of the few strong arguments for its continued existence as a publicly funded corporation. On the other hand, I'd happily pay a subscription to keep that side of things – including Radio 3 and 6 Music, of course – going. You can watch the whole of the Young Musician of the Year final on the BBC iPlayer. Enjoy. 

Nothing Like It

 November began in Thomas Hood mode – 'No sun – no moon! No morn – no noon', etc. However, the morning fog gradually thinned, and suddenly the sun came through – glorious mellow sunlight, illuminating the beautiful autumn colours. There is something special about sunshine in November, as Edward Thomas knew – 

THERE'S nothing like the sun as the year dies,
Kind as it can be, this world being made so,
To stones and men and beasts and birds and flies,
To all things that it touches except snow,
Whether on mountain side or street of town.
The south wall warms me: November has begun,
Yet never shone the sun as fair as now
While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough
With spangles of the morning's storm drop down
Because the starling shakes it, whistling what
Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot
That there is nothing, too, like March's sun,
Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's,
Or January's, or February's, great days:
And August, September, October, and December
Have equal days, all different from November.
No day of any month but I have said–
Or, if I could live long enough, should say–
"There's nothing like the sun that shines to-day"
There's nothing like the sun till we are dead.

Thomas wrote this celebration of November sun, a meditation on the dying year and on mortality, in November 1915, when he was contemplating enlistment in the army.  Less than a year and a half later he was killed in action at Arras. 
  The phrase 'nothing like the sun' has resonance. Originating in Shakespeare's sonnet 130 – 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun' – it also furnished the title for Anthony Burgess's Shakespeare-themed novel, and indeed the second album of Gordon Sumner, aka Sting.