The role of a poet doesn't quite end with words... (The original format in print cannot be reproduced here. Sorry)

A Faithful Private - 1 with Commentary by T Wignesan
Translation of Eric Mottram’s A Faithful Private - 1 by T. Wignesan

For Barry MacSweeney
(GENERA editions by Colin Simms, issue 13 - Kent Winter-Spring 1974 - Ohio/London 1976, n.p.)

A poet should have on his coffin not a wreath but a gun to show that he was a faithful private in the liberation struggles of humanity.
Heinrich Heine
“Un poète devrait avoir sur son cercueil pas une couronne mais un fusil pour démontrer qu’il fut un fantassin loyal dans les luttes pour la libération de l’humanité.” HH

Un fantassin loyal - 1

du fait d’être effrayé ce n’est pas quelque chose
dont nous n’avions pu être certains

le passage du temps nous le dira qui tombèrent
qui se trouvaient délaissés en arrière

le front de l’orage étendant à deux cents milles
vers l’est blanc derrière le gris
les ciels du nord et du sud

est-ce qu’un homme quiconque
choisit ou quelqu’un parmi nous
est choisi que le fait
de l’écrire fasse
une différence
frère
en liberté une espace
de flamme entre nous
se soulevant dans les Serpent Mounds
des chansons sans paroles
textes rites

les mineurs montent comme des machines
descendent pour rafraichir
l'aire
pour des mines d’humus
où le soleil brille fort
sans relâche et animé

“who is this man
from abroad
to tell us we are part
of disaster

against the Freedom Trail
he urges us not to be victim”

à l’extérieur sur un arbre dénué des feuilles
un cardinal ouvre au ciel
balayé par le vent une pluie qui se jette
à travers l’analyse
à travers des tons engagés
le détritus d’un siècle
se réuni dans des chambres des côtes
les rues affaissées
se moquaient du Trail

“we are not
a moment
of your insanity”

Excerpts from an article, “From space to caves in the heart recreating the collective world in Eric Mottram’s poetry” by Clive Bush, Director of American Studies, King’s College, University of London in The Journal of Comparative Poietics, Vol. I, Nos. 2 & 3 (Paris), 1990/1991, pp. 55-56. Edited by T. Wignesan.

“One of Mottram's most distinguished essays which is at least as important as Mailer’s essay “The White Negro” (1956) which to some extent it modifies and extends, is “Dionysus in America” (1976). The essay looks at Rock Culture in the United States (and by implication the rest of the world), drawing an exemplary contrast between Altamont and Woodstock. Distinguished musician as he is, Mottram questions the value of Rock in general, makes important exceptions, and relates his two examples to traditions, inside American culture in general. Following the resources of the myth, Dionysus is seen as a “major origin of the Devil in Christian mythology and is deeply associated with ecstatic rituals of change.”27 Its embodiment in Rock music was first seen, therefore, to be profoundly upsetting to those in authority: “White Citizen Council groups linked it with sin and communism, while the Soviet Union linked it with sin and capitalism.” (***)
(…) The Dionysian break-through needs social context of viable revolution if it is not to diminish into mere rebelliousness, licensed orgy or ritual which re-energizes the reactionary and lethal status quo. (***) …Mottram also cites Nietsche to the effect that, “Dionysus deteriorated gives us “a mixture of sensuality and cruelty,” the sexuality of sado-masochistic power.” (***) …. Within this radically impoverished and controlled space, traditional American revivalist dramas are enacted (ecstasy, dissolving rationality, the promise of new community). (…)
At one level, therefore, Rock is a permutation on all rituals of hypnotic ecstacy which need a constellation of angels, stars, gods who deliver “energy” to a passively-manipulated populace intended to “orbit in half helpless gravitation.” (***)

(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017