Charles CausleyRecensioni

Published in 1951 this book of short stories gives more of a flavour of life in Britain during the second world war than possibly any other book I have read published in that year and yet many of the stories take place in foreign countries.

Charles Causely was a British poet, school teacher and writer, but most of all he was a Cornishman. His first poems entitled Farewell, Aggie Weston were published in 1951 (now long out of print and hideously expensive secondhand), but he also published some short stories: Hands to Dance in that year. I read the 1983 re-publication which includes Skylark which sets the record straight on the earlier stories, many of which were written in the first person. The short stories tell of the exploits of a Seaman who enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1940 and was trained as a coder, he was demobbed 6 years later, and spent much his service overseas in Gibraltar, Spain, Malta, Italy, Egypt, Australia and Africa. Causely's afterword Skylark makes it clear that his stories were largely fictional; his life as a coder may have been just as dangerous, but the colourful derring-do of some of the exploits were beyond the range of the shy, unpromising physical specimen that was Causely at that time.

Many of the stories take place in dockland areas in British naval bases abroad and are concerned with enemy attacks or more usually with local civilians or fellow seamen that he met during his service. The stories generally play down the danger and their matter of fact re-telling makes one feels that they could only have been written by a circumspect Englishmen. They never fail to emphasise the discomfort of living in digs abroad, or the unrelenting work schedules, or a seaman who never really got over his sea sickness. His short spells on leave place him in another world that of his rural background in a small Cornish town. Interspersed with the exploits of seaman Causely are three or four stories based in Cornwall written in an omnipresent voice and they are so realistically presented that they fit right in with the flavour of the more biographical tales. There are nineteen stories, averaging about 8 pages each, complete in themselves and with a poets eye for detail and a writers eye for colourful characters. There is no drop in quality and a few of the stories are very good indeed, some prefiguring the dangers of war service on the minds of those who survived.

The flavour of Britain in the 1940's is well captured, through the eyes of this Cornishman. The transport arrangements in wartime: for example 6 changes of train to get up to the base on the Scapa Flow, or the life in a small town during wartime, or British serviceman abroad. A fine collection of short stories which capture life in exceptional circumstances and so 4 stars,

Charles Causley is a poet who tends to come with epithets like "much-loved" — he was never a heavyweight Nobel-track intellectual, but he had a big popular following and probably counts as the most respected of the generation of British poets that emerged around the end of World War II. He wrote a lot of poetry for children, and he became a familiar voice on the radio, both of which must account for a good deal of his popularity, whilst his Cornish, working-class, war veteran background was something people found easy to identify with at the time. But, crucially, he also had the gift of expressing complex ideas in deceptively simple language (and making it rhyme!).

Secret Destinations closes with "Eden Rock", a poem that must have become a firm favourite with GCSE examiners, if the number of YouTube hits for "analysis of Eden Rock" is anything to go by. Causley imagines his parents, both in their twenties and with a picnic already set out, waiting for him on the other side of a river together with the terrier Jack.

I hear them call, "See where the stream-path is !
Crossing is not as hard as you might think."

I had not thought that it would be like this.

The collection has opened with a set of poems about Causley's relatives and his childhood in Launceston, then moves on via trips to Australia and Canada and a few translations from German and Spanish. The poem about Arshile Gorky's "The artist and his mother" (the cover image of some editions) is striking in its unspoken autobiographical subtext: looking at the serious, prematurely adult boy standing beside his care-worn but dignified mother, it's difficult not to imagine that it's a picture of Charles and Laura Causley...

Charles Causley is a poet who tends to come with epithets like "much-loved" — he was never a heavyweight Nobel-track intellectual, but he had a big popular following and probably counts as the most respected of the generation of British poets that emerged around the end of World War II. He wrote a lot of poetry for children, and he became a familiar voice on the radio, both of which must account for a good deal of his popularity, whilst his Cornish, working-class, war veteran background was something people found easy to identify with at the time. But, crucially, he also had the gift of expressing complex ideas in deceptively simple language (and making it rhyme!).

The selection of Causley in PMP3 includes must of his best-known early poems, such as the unforgettable "Timothy Winters", a poem you feel should be hanging on the wall of every social-worker dealing with child poverty, the enigmatic sonnet "The prisoners of love" ("The prisoners rise and rinse their skies of stone / But in their jailers' eyes they meet their own"), the ever-quotable "The seasons in North Cornwall" and the gloriously tricky "Nursery rhyme of innocence and experience". All wonderful, and at least a little bit perplexing.

On this re-reading I was also stopped in my tracks by "At the grave of John Clare", which must date from Causley's time training as a teacher in Peterborough, where he imagines Clare walking "With one foot in the furrow" and "the poetry bursting like a diamond bomb". Quite.

Thirteen delightfully engaging children's poems from Cornish poet Charles Causley are paired with the gorgeous ink-drawing illustrations of American artist Trina Schart Hyman in this wonderful little book. From nonsense poems like 'Quack' Said the Billy Goat, in which all the animals make the wrong sounds, to poignant selections such as Riley, in which an elderly homeless man, known for living happily by himself in the wild, disappears one day, the selections here are all interesting, and frequently emotionally involving. I loved the rhythm of the rather grisly I Saw a Jolly Hunter, the haunting feeling of Tell me, tell me, Sarah Jane, and the Cornish folk references in the titular Figgie Hobbin...

Although I read the American edition of Causly's collection, which (as mentioned) contains thirteen poems, I would at some point like to track down a British edition as well, as I understand that some of them have closer to forty selections. I'm not sorry to have read this version of Figgie Hobbin, as I enjoyed the poems immensely and found the illustrations absolutely gorgeous, but I would certainly like to read more! This was my first experience of Causly, and I was quite impressed. I sometimes find that children's poets pay more attention to structure - rhyme scheme, rhythm, etc - than to the beauty of the language itself and, most importantly, the meaning and feeling behind the words. Here however, we have a children's poet who manages to do it all! Perhaps this is owing to the fact that Causly was indeed a poet - a poet for adults, who happened also to write poetry for children. Highly recommended, both to young poetry lovers, and to fellow fans of Trina Schart Hyman's distinctive and beautiful artwork.

Includes “Moonlit Apples” by John Drinkwater (lovely surname). His “Derbyshire Song” I had to find online and save. I knew it originally from an illustrated anthology my mother had, based on different places around Britain (“Britain in Verse and Sketch”, long gone), which also had Alfred Noyes' rousing Robin Hood poem "Sherwood".

Includes Robet Nathan's "Dunkirk, a ballad". I was surprised to find out that Nathan was in fact American. This very moving poem is about the little privately owned craft, yachts and fishing boats, who went over to bring British soldiers back from Dunkirk, incredible if we didn’t know it was true. You do not have to be a Brexity Little Englander to be proud of such moments in history and want to celebrate them, as this poem does. It also includes Muriel Stuart's "A Seed Shop"; appropriately, she later wrote gardening books.

I had thought Causley was a fairly accessible and "easy" poet, knowing till now only 'Timothy Winters' and 'The Ballad of the Bread Man'. He actually isn't; many of his poems are strange, with half-understood meanings that will only be revealed over a number of readings perhaps. Incredibly rich, vivid verse, full of angels, devils, fools, saints, hanged men, sailors, children....
Art thou of Cornish crew? Well, maybe. If you go far enough back in my family tree, there may be a smidgen of Cornish; by the 18thC they are living in Devon, but very close to the border, and they have a Cornish surname.

Summary
This book of poems is based in England and tells little stories about hunters, a king, and a hobbin just to name a few. The pictures in the book are illustrated to help you see the poem with a picture.

Personal reflection
I really didn't care for these poems, mainly because I as an adult had a hard time understanding the meaning of some of these poems. I think that these poems may not be a good choice for some children.

Extension
1. Have the children pick another country they would like to visit and write a poem about it.
2. Pick one poem from the book and have the children write a poem from the picture alone.
3. Have the children explain a poem in their own words from the book.

I’m not sure whether children in America these days read any poetry other than collections of funny poems like Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein. If there are children’s poetry readers out there yet, I give a hearty “Yes!” to this little poetry collection, Figgie Hobbin.

Some of the poems are quite funny, too, like “ I Saw a Jolly Hunter” and but with a sly, intelligent humor that we don’t often find in children’s poetry. And not all the poems are humorous. Some are dark and bleak, like “Logs of Wood”, and bittersweet like “My Mother Saw a Dancing Bear”, poems that speak more to the grownup reading the poem aloud to the child than to the child. Causley uses words like firecrackers and sparklers. Happily, no clichés and gooey-sweet rhymes in this collection of children’s poetry.

If for nothing else, this book is worth reading for the beautiful pictures by one of my favorite picture book illustrators, Trina Schart Hyman. (Is that considered when the 1001 books were chosen?)
A 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up.

Beutifully illustrated, this is a work of art. Lovely to dip into forthe poetry or just to enjoy the feel of the pages and the beautifully soft illustrations. A real 'comfort' book.

No QTP Stamp