The Trusty Servant
Published on 15. July 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
72 pages
978-1-84861-844-2 (ISBN)
Description
I chanced to see Old English verse in paragraphs like prose, obsolete characters redolent of atmospheres we are no longer encouraged to admit. An ancient tradition, reaching beyond us into new forms, frames what we might hand over or betray.
"The status of the Underground as an 'imagined village' where everybody knows each other has brought about stability - and compromised the forward dynamic written into its charter. This describes, at least vaguely, the role of the malcontent. No-one is more malcontent than Jordan. . . . To speak seriously of 'hegemony' challenges the warm identification between writer and reader which is the attraction of poetry for so many readers. It launches a critique of participation." -Andrew Duncan, A Poetry Boom 1990-2010
Must we conform to the current state of poesy, and thus trade in cosy arrangements, or might we say instead that now the truth of poetry is vital and endangered? When the answer to that question is in doubt, the time has come to find a Trusty Servant.
"The status of the Underground as an 'imagined village' where everybody knows each other has brought about stability - and compromised the forward dynamic written into its charter. This describes, at least vaguely, the role of the malcontent. No-one is more malcontent than Jordan. . . . To speak seriously of 'hegemony' challenges the warm identification between writer and reader which is the attraction of poetry for so many readers. It launches a critique of participation." -Andrew Duncan, A Poetry Boom 1990-2010
Must we conform to the current state of poesy, and thus trade in cosy arrangements, or might we say instead that now the truth of poetry is vital and endangered? When the answer to that question is in doubt, the time has come to find a Trusty Servant.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Exeter
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 203 mm
Thickness: 4 mm
Weight
142 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84861-844-2 (9781848618442)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Poetry occupies a space that is inaccessible to the mundane world. It can be felt, and thus known within the perceptual processes of those who cannot write it, but it cannot be entered, altered or subverted. Such activities can be pretended, as they now are at the periphery of what remains of the cultural sphere - in the bought and sold universities, for instance, and in various forms of media and performance venue - but these essays and attempts do not compromise poetry, and nor can they. Poetry proves the truth it proclaims, for it is itself that truth. Aesthetic forms, and the languages they are made of, can be defaced and broken, but they, connecting the present to the absolute, regenerate. And they do this regardless of what degenerates around them. Poetry enters, and it alters those who write it and who read it, but that is a one way process. How we respond to poetry is not a conscious choice. That which is essential - the eternity we carry, within ourselves - this responds, as it must, regardless of what we wish, intend or profess. Poetry offers everyone, even the most propagandised and thus lost, a way out of the hell that a failing culture creates. Poetry is a metaphysical engine that, complementing faith, creates and empowers the image of renewal.
The Trusty Servant (2022) is Andrew Jordan's third book from Shearsman, the others being Ha Ha (2007) and Hegemonick (2012).
The Trusty Servant (2022) is Andrew Jordan's third book from Shearsman, the others being Ha Ha (2007) and Hegemonick (2012).