To a man who made it the hard way to the top but didn't live long enough to savour victory for long...
Radically Chinese
for Eric Mottram: 1924-1995 (not because of any debt, felt or incurred)*
one stroke a point
leftstroke bent
hooked
two a cover man
man enter eight borders to cover ice
table receptacle
knife strength
wrap spoon basket
box ten to divine
seal cliff private
also mouth enclosure
earth
scholar follow
walk evening
great woman child
roof inch small
lame crooked corpse
sprout mountain stream
work self
napkin shield
tiny shelter
move on
join hands
a dart a bow
pig’s head feathery
to pace heart spear door
hand branch
tap writings
measure axe square not sun
speak
moon wood owe
stop evil kill
do not compare hair family air water
fire
claws father
change a frame a strip
tooth
ox
dog
dark jade
melon
tile
sweet produce
use field
bolt of cloth
sick back to back
white skin dish
eye lance arrow stone
spirit to track grain cave
erect bamboo rice silk earthenware net
sheep feathers old
plough ear
brush flesh officer from self reach
a mortar tongue opposed boat a limit
colour grass tiger
insect blood do clothes cover
see horn
words
valley
platter
pig
reptile shell red
walk
foot body
cart bitter time
stop & go
city new wine separate village
metal long gate plenty
reach to a bird rain
azure false face
rawhide leather leek
sound heading wind
fly eat head fragrance
horse bone high
long hair fight wine cauldron ghost
fish bird
salt deer
wheat
hemp
yellow millet
black embroidery toad
tripod
drum rodent nose
even teeth drag on tortoise flute
* Eric N.W. Mottram, an outstanding critic and prolific poet, held the Chair of English and American Literature at King's College, University of London, from 1983 onwards.
[This poem was accepted for publication in Radical Poetics (London).] He won a scholarship to do English at Cambridge University at the outbreak of WWII; instead he joined the Royal Navy and served as Vice-Captain on a minesweeper in the North Sea and the Bay of Bengal. He began his studies at Cambridge after the War and obtained a "Double First" in English Tripos in 1950. Awarded a Jebb Fellowship, he used it to study economics and was offered a lectureship in Zurich University. From then on, he taught at the University of Malaya in Singapore; then as Professor at Groningen University, until he was chosen as the first lecturer in
American Literature at London University. He won the American Learned Societies' Award in 1965 (for a year to be spent in America); the rest is history: a prolific essayist, critic and poet, he produced the fame-procuring book on William Burroughs: The algebra of need. Cf. cover story dedicated to him in The Review of Comparative Poietics, Ed. by T. Wignesan.
Monseigneur, once again you are RIGHT for the WRONG reasons. No-one will blâme you for NOT understanding the words, though the TITLE explains it all. You have to know CHINESE and know something about Chinese characters, that is, RADICALS, etc. to be able to make any sense of the poem at all. In any case, it is NOT RAP: an "inside" poem, maybe. Tough luck, Ron, but thanks all the same. Best. TW.
Although a bit confused, I believe you wrote this in tribute to Mottram, rather than he wrote it. And, I gather that your words were to express homage to his long journey before he became recognized as a foremost man of letters and arts.
Unfortunately, my low intellectual capacity seems to want clarity in the words written by poets. I can't give kudos to words I don't understand or connect to anything. Your poem looks like a rap that may do quite well in a poetry slam, but searching for meaning in the words leaves me dumbfounded. It's like an inside joke, an inside poem, while getting, perhaps, applause by esoterics, may have no meaning at all to the average reader.
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Unfortunately, my low intellectual capacity seems to want clarity in the words written by poets. I can't give kudos to words I don't understand or connect to anything. Your poem looks like a rap that may do quite well in a poetry slam, but searching for meaning in the words leaves me dumbfounded. It's like an inside joke, an inside poem, while getting, perhaps, applause by esoterics, may have no meaning at all to the average reader.
Ron