Trigger warning: this column may contain material offensive on grounds of racism, sizeism and elitism. In the universities of today, wise academics preface every lecture with trigger warnings, in case something they say should cause offence to the kind of student whose quickness to take offence is the only quick thing about him. Or should I say “about him or her”, so as not to privilege the male gender?
This column is keen not to offend, so I am treading carefully when I say that the December issue of Poetry, the famous magazine edited in Chicago, features two poems by Jaap Blonk. At first I thought that Spike Milligan might still be alive, but on second thoughts I realised that, in Blonk’s language, my own name might mean No Parking and that he might be in possession of an immense talent. What would count would be his poems, to which I turned with my non-judgmental receptivity set to the maximum.
Each of Blonk’s poems consisted of three tinted blobs. In the first, Secret Recipe 7, the blobs were tinted purple and they were interacting with indecipherable squiggles. In the second poem, Secret Recipe 10, they were tinted yellow and interacting with indecipherable squaggles. Each poem mustered all its resources to be less interesting than the other. I sat back and expressed an elitist opinion, in violent language with scenes of a sexual nature throughout.
And yet Blonk’s poems might have been masterpieces. For the arts in general, it’s a general rule that talent can strike anybody. As well as a gift, however, the artist needs energy; and I emerged from the festive season feeling a bit decrepit.
Having scarcely left my house since winter began, I was in need of a haircut. What hair I have left on my head is sparse, but it was getting long, and one of the last things I want to do before my death is look like Howard Hughes before his. So I hobbled the few hundred yards to the barber’s shop, and afterwards continued hobbling into town, to check out the bookshops.
Temporarily stationed in front of Boots were four wandering Moldavian jazz musicians who filled the air with the kind of contrapuntal intricacy that Jaap Blonk can only dream of. Long ago, I went mad for Django Reinhardt And The Quintet Of The Hot Club Of France. This bunch could have called themselves The Quartet Of The Hot Club Of The Carpathians. The short, stout clarinettist was a wonder: he had that rare knack of sticking to the melody even as he sailed off into the unknown. It’s my favourite quality in any work of art: the framework participates in the skein of grace.
