Selected Poems
Published on 1. December 2003
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-1-84471-013-3 (ISBN)
Description
Nuttall grew up in a remote valley of Herefordshire, where his father became the village schoolmaster. Nuttall formed his standards of assessment in this valley and they have not altered very much since. He trained as a painter in the years following the Second World War, and in 1962, as a result of a session at the Salzburg Seminar in American Studies, and as a result of meeting Bob Cobbing, he began writing poetry.
In 1975 Nuttall was elected chairman of the National Poetry Society and held this chair throughout the confrontation between the modernists and the neo-Georgians for which the NPS formed an arena. In that year he was Poets' Conference nominee for Poet Laureate.
This book is a selection made from the work of a lifetime that coincided with the Cold War. It is clearly the writing of a man who expected the human species to terminate within his lifespan. An elegiac mood prevails behind the scatology and verbal clowning. Nuttall's long line is much in evidence, punctuated by staccato percussive passages. The content always reverts to a gravitational concern with the way in which physical love must transform the repellent without euphemising or diluting its Swiftian character.
The poems we have are mostly desperate, the poems of a man who is afraid the light is going to go out forever, a man in panic. They echo and extend Nuttall's involvement with jazz, in the rhythms, breathe-groups and harsh tonalities. The alternative disciplines of Welsh poetry, learned through Hopkins, make them relentlessly dynamic.
Nuttall has lived first by teaching fine art in schools and polytechnics, finally by acting small parts in film and television. He has been busy across a broad range of creative disciplines but it is in his poetry that his inimitable concerns are most clearly seen.
In 1975 Nuttall was elected chairman of the National Poetry Society and held this chair throughout the confrontation between the modernists and the neo-Georgians for which the NPS formed an arena. In that year he was Poets' Conference nominee for Poet Laureate.
This book is a selection made from the work of a lifetime that coincided with the Cold War. It is clearly the writing of a man who expected the human species to terminate within his lifespan. An elegiac mood prevails behind the scatology and verbal clowning. Nuttall's long line is much in evidence, punctuated by staccato percussive passages. The content always reverts to a gravitational concern with the way in which physical love must transform the repellent without euphemising or diluting its Swiftian character.
The poems we have are mostly desperate, the poems of a man who is afraid the light is going to go out forever, a man in panic. They echo and extend Nuttall's involvement with jazz, in the rhythms, breathe-groups and harsh tonalities. The alternative disciplines of Welsh poetry, learned through Hopkins, make them relentlessly dynamic.
Nuttall has lived first by teaching fine art in schools and polytechnics, finally by acting small parts in film and television. He has been busy across a broad range of creative disciplines but it is in his poetry that his inimitable concerns are most clearly seen.
Reviews / Votes
Overall, Nuttall's Selected Poems conveys a sense of how language can be manipulated for different ends. His novel painterly and musical poetry form a distinctive approach and legacy that has been marginalized more from the lack of an appropriate critical language than anything else. Combined with his critical writing, his poetry offers a celebratory vision of nature and the body, as opposed to material greed and shallowness. Seven hundred people, many of whom were taught by Nuttall, attended his London memorial event. He inspired them to fulfil their potential. -- David Caddy * Wandering Dog * The Selected Poems (Salt) of the poet, novelist, artist, musician, actor and cultural commentator Jeff Nuttall, published very shortly after Nuttall's death in January 2004, offers an excellent selection of Nuttall's poetry, and acts as a superb, if unplanned, memorial to this multi-talented and influential man. -- Robert Greenwood * The Guardian *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Not illustrated
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-84471-013-3 (9781844710133)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Jeff Nuttall was born in Clitheroe, Lancashire, in 1933 and grew up in Herefordshire. He trained as a painter in the years following the Second World War and began writing poetry in 1962. He published widely with Writers' Forum, Turret Press, Unicorn Press, Fulcrum, Trigram, Pirate Press, Rivelin and Penguin (Modern Poets No. 12). He taught ?ne art in schools and polytechnics, and acted in film and television. He lived in Crickhowell, Wales and died in 2004.
Content
Waiting For The Holocaust
Windows
I shall invite my little friends to tea
A phrase cracks through
They come like a wall, stalk forward gravely
It wouldn't reach in the summer night
Little Miss Muffet
Summer drops dollars
An ancient thing
Dangerous to drink day
Insomnia
Notes Towards a Suicide Note
Ruth & Rover
Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me
To Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Lord of Time and Father of the Universe
Schoolmistress
Autobiography
Gutter Grace
Dogs came to us
Locked buckled couple
Your sleepy musk is a season's tang
To My Wife
Could see her a milky thing
Spread thighs bowstrung with your stretch pants
Them There Eyes
It's a long way out on the swell of gristle
Skeins of groundmist
Girl forked on horizon sticks
The Voyeur
Mother & Daughter
Summer
The Twin
In the Park
When it had all been told
Barking
Jumpin' at the Maudesley
A pale old woman sits in a thicket
Sun Sequence
Lightning Sequence
Driving the jumper
Blood let / melt light
As a breast
Day breaks brittle blades around my heart
Medieval : England
Open my bones when the rain spills
Pig proud pain for the pit of her
Murder Song
There's going to be
Small room big bed
DaDa
Kwela for a Situation
There was a cabbage
Acres of wreckage strewn round a rhino
Pig on a prong
Scissor. Trunk. Elephants.
Still Life I
Still Life V
Still Life VII
Still Life IX
Still Life X
I wandered lonely as a seal
The red turkey
Green rippers split curtains
George the corner crocodile
Pennine
Three Takes of the Same Chorus
I embrace an apple twice
I shelled a boiled egg badly
A little shrieker
Sheets aghast at an air's intake
He goes out on an always Sunday frequently
bird with fall-coals
Handful shaved out of moorland
I am a hill
The Split
Premonitions of Divorce
Europe - Medieval
Newhaven Ferry
Dogwind
Debts
Four-Way
Pogrom
To Feminists
Summer Holiday
Jeff Nuttall's Psychedelic Poem
Domestic Interior - Late Night
Margaret Thatcher And The Fox
Suburban Garden
Goodbye to Leeds (Regret)
Two Takes of the Same Chorus
Puritans
Welsh Bay
Cloudscape
"The levels of gold are constant. . . ."
Summer
I yawn for a fishboy shy among bilberries
An essence so delicate
Love is a goad, a goatfoot god
The surly postman
Sea food salt pond
And the bee on wheels has laments on a stick
Autumnal
Tremble vigil
Every night is a curtain over deeper dark
Oysterflesh nurtures pearl
Shot Theft
Wet Kestrel
Sentinel
Shrike Shriek
When it comes
Stands at the stairs' turn
The Familiar Ghosts
The Coast
Sculptures
Maintenance
Ejaculation
Siege
Radnor Sunset
Mediterranean
Return Trip
Mischief
Hillside Pregnancy
Channel-Crossing
Woman Approaching
Sore as a sandrock
16th August 1981. Bedroom, Scarcroft.
Banks of vapour, flower-strewn
Humped cherrywool and a cockatoo whisp
Scenes and Dubs
Three Scenes: West Yorkshire
Dub One
Three Scenes: North of England
Dub Two
Two Scenes: England
Dub Three
Three Scenes: Todmorden
Dub Four
Two Scenes: North of England
Dub Five
Three Scenes: England
Dub Six
Two Scenes: North of England
Dub Seven
Three Scenes: London
Dub Eight
Three Scenes: Lancashire
Dub Nine
Three Scenes: Algarve
Dub Ten
Three Scenes: Todmorden
Dub Eleven
Three Scenes: Manchester
Dub Twelve
Houses
Prologue: Dream Houses
I. Alcohol
II. The Relationship
III. Religion
IV. Travel
V. Nationality
VI. Art
VII. Language
VIII. Anxiety
IX. Body
X. Sleep
Epilogue: Dream House
Abergavenny
Breakfast at Guernsey Grove
Hotel Bar, Harrogate. August 1992
Putney Antique Fair
Spaghetti
Bed Crash
For Basil
Sleep
Lower Usk
A social chrysalis looks like a tin bug
Some mumble so dim
Sketch for Autumnal
Autumnal
When the wind whisks at first-light leakage
The rain sends children
He's lain by us all night
We set him high on a windowsill
Windows
I shall invite my little friends to tea
A phrase cracks through
They come like a wall, stalk forward gravely
It wouldn't reach in the summer night
Little Miss Muffet
Summer drops dollars
An ancient thing
Dangerous to drink day
Insomnia
Notes Towards a Suicide Note
Ruth & Rover
Suffer Little Children to Come Unto Me
To Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, Lord of Time and Father of the Universe
Schoolmistress
Autobiography
Gutter Grace
Dogs came to us
Locked buckled couple
Your sleepy musk is a season's tang
To My Wife
Could see her a milky thing
Spread thighs bowstrung with your stretch pants
Them There Eyes
It's a long way out on the swell of gristle
Skeins of groundmist
Girl forked on horizon sticks
The Voyeur
Mother & Daughter
Summer
The Twin
In the Park
When it had all been told
Barking
Jumpin' at the Maudesley
A pale old woman sits in a thicket
Sun Sequence
Lightning Sequence
Driving the jumper
Blood let / melt light
As a breast
Day breaks brittle blades around my heart
Medieval : England
Open my bones when the rain spills
Pig proud pain for the pit of her
Murder Song
There's going to be
Small room big bed
DaDa
Kwela for a Situation
There was a cabbage
Acres of wreckage strewn round a rhino
Pig on a prong
Scissor. Trunk. Elephants.
Still Life I
Still Life V
Still Life VII
Still Life IX
Still Life X
I wandered lonely as a seal
The red turkey
Green rippers split curtains
George the corner crocodile
Pennine
Three Takes of the Same Chorus
I embrace an apple twice
I shelled a boiled egg badly
A little shrieker
Sheets aghast at an air's intake
He goes out on an always Sunday frequently
bird with fall-coals
Handful shaved out of moorland
I am a hill
The Split
Premonitions of Divorce
Europe - Medieval
Newhaven Ferry
Dogwind
Debts
Four-Way
Pogrom
To Feminists
Summer Holiday
Jeff Nuttall's Psychedelic Poem
Domestic Interior - Late Night
Margaret Thatcher And The Fox
Suburban Garden
Goodbye to Leeds (Regret)
Two Takes of the Same Chorus
Puritans
Welsh Bay
Cloudscape
"The levels of gold are constant. . . ."
Summer
I yawn for a fishboy shy among bilberries
An essence so delicate
Love is a goad, a goatfoot god
The surly postman
Sea food salt pond
And the bee on wheels has laments on a stick
Autumnal
Tremble vigil
Every night is a curtain over deeper dark
Oysterflesh nurtures pearl
Shot Theft
Wet Kestrel
Sentinel
Shrike Shriek
When it comes
Stands at the stairs' turn
The Familiar Ghosts
The Coast
Sculptures
Maintenance
Ejaculation
Siege
Radnor Sunset
Mediterranean
Return Trip
Mischief
Hillside Pregnancy
Channel-Crossing
Woman Approaching
Sore as a sandrock
16th August 1981. Bedroom, Scarcroft.
Banks of vapour, flower-strewn
Humped cherrywool and a cockatoo whisp
Scenes and Dubs
Three Scenes: West Yorkshire
Dub One
Three Scenes: North of England
Dub Two
Two Scenes: England
Dub Three
Three Scenes: Todmorden
Dub Four
Two Scenes: North of England
Dub Five
Three Scenes: England
Dub Six
Two Scenes: North of England
Dub Seven
Three Scenes: London
Dub Eight
Three Scenes: Lancashire
Dub Nine
Three Scenes: Algarve
Dub Ten
Three Scenes: Todmorden
Dub Eleven
Three Scenes: Manchester
Dub Twelve
Houses
Prologue: Dream Houses
I. Alcohol
II. The Relationship
III. Religion
IV. Travel
V. Nationality
VI. Art
VII. Language
VIII. Anxiety
IX. Body
X. Sleep
Epilogue: Dream House
Abergavenny
Breakfast at Guernsey Grove
Hotel Bar, Harrogate. August 1992
Putney Antique Fair
Spaghetti
Bed Crash
For Basil
Sleep
Lower Usk
A social chrysalis looks like a tin bug
Some mumble so dim
Sketch for Autumnal
Autumnal
When the wind whisks at first-light leakage
The rain sends children
He's lain by us all night
We set him high on a windowsill