Gas #1 : Choosing a Poem

I remember Steve remarking during the National Poetry Day Recital Evening at Abney Park Chapel that only one (or was it two?) of the poems chosen for recital were written by women. I immediately resolved that for my next “By Heart” poem I would choose one by my favourite poet, Fleur Adcock.

But which? “A Surprise in the Peninsula”, “Bogyman”, “The Man Who X-rayed an Orange”, “Instructions to Vampires”, “The Pangolin”, “A Walk in the Snow”, “The Ex-Queen among Astronomers” all sprang to mind. I pondered and rejected each in turn. Too long, too short, too personal and finally I hit on the answer.

I’ve always been 0ne who reverses the cliche, believing strongly that “the means justifies the end”. It is the process that is important in terms of morality and ethics when considering our actions; the end is a by product of “doing the right thing” and may not be at all what you had expected or intended to achieve. It seems to me that we focus too often on “achieving an objective”, breaking the task down into chewable little pieces and measuring and celebrating our successes when we “reach targets” - as though we learn nothing during our journey, so certain are we that our initial calculations were precise, worthy and unchanging. But it is during the journey where our learning takes place not when we arrive at our destination.

With this in mind, I’ve decided to choose to learn a poem that is surely too long to learn. I’ve got no expectation of being able to recite the whole thing off by heart in full, but I want to explore what learning it piecemeal teaches me. I’ve always enjoyed narrative poems - I recall a brilliant film/poem broadcast many years ago by the BBC, Tony Harrison’s “The Shadow of Hiroshima” - so I’m going to pick an unusual and rather atypical poem of Fleur Adcock’s to learn.

It is a science fiction poem called “Gas”. If you are not familiar with it then following my posts on it will also be a little like reading episodes in a short story.

I’ll learn the opening lines and then post them with some thoughts shortly.

In the meantime here’s another of Fleur Adcock’s poems that I love and pretty much already know:

Things

There are worse things than having behaved foolishly in public

There are worse things than these miniature betrayals

Committed or endured or suspected; there are worse things

Than not being able to sleep for thinking about them.

It is 5 a.m. All the worse things come stalking in

And stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse

and worse.