‘The Ballad of the Fanfarlo’ was her piece de resistance, and it met resistance from editors. Then Erica Marx at the Hand and Flower Press published it in a little book. Marx’s publishing choices were astute. Her shilling pamphlets were devoted to writers who had yet to produce a full collection in England. In this and other categories her authors included Thomas Blackburn, Charles Causley, Michael Hamburger, Edwin Morgan, Peter Russell and Charles Tomlinson. She also published Black and Unknown Bards: A Collection of Negro Poetry (1958) and Beyond the Blues: New Poems by American Negroes (1962), among the earliest British anthologies of African-American poetry.
When Spark’s first novel, The Comforters, was published in 1957 and well received, she went wholeheartedly the way of fiction, producing in four years five novels, the book on Emily Brontë and two books of stories. Poetry was demoted to second fiddle, and Collected Poems I added a sparse ten poems to her first collection. Going up to Sotheby’s added two more. All the Poems and Complete Poems swell the oeuvre further, but Spark’s muse remains brilliant and exiguous. In ‘The Creative Writing Class’ we come to understand the caustic ironies of an earlier, less forgiving climate. Spark set the bar higher than most. Not that she did not write more poems, but that she chose to publish only what she could in conscience, as a reader of herself, unblushingly stand by.
INDEX OF TITLES AND FIRST LINES
Titles are set in italic.
A black velvet embroidered handbag full of medium-size carrots
10
A change in the weather. Winter’s edge breaks to the soft west wind.
117
A square space on the wall
43
Abroad
19
Abroad is peculiar names above the shops.
19
Against the Transcendentalists
55
Anger filled her body and mind, it
46
Anger in the Works
46
Anyone in this top-floor flat
3
Arriving late sometimes and never
37
As I was going to Handover Fists
36
As stated above, we were not expecting . . .
68
At his age, something light,
92
Authors’ Ghosts
15
The Ballad of the Fanfarlo
95
Before the jubilees of Angels
82
Bluebell among the Sables
74
But really, is it the same place, that
89
By night I watch a fitful tribe
24
Canaan
77
The Card Party
59
Chrysalis
60
Communication
69
Complaint in a Wash-out Season
32
Conundrum
36
The Conversation at the Inn
80
The Conversation of the Angels
82
The Conversation of the Shepherds
79
The Conversation of the Three Wise Men
79
Conversation Piece
53
Conversations
58
Created and Abandoned
70
The Creative Writing Class
14
The Dark Music of the Rue du Cherche-Midi
6
Day of Rest
4
Daybreak Composition
3
Dimmed-Up
47
Do you want to know why I am alive today?
71
Edinburgh Villanelle
12
Elegy in a Kensington Churchyard
61
Elementary
54
The Empty Space
43
Epilogue (Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli)
123
Evelyn Cavallo
62
Everything plus the Kitchen Sink
94
Facts
31
Faith and Works
35
The Fall
34
87
Father was a debt-collector
31
Flower Into Animal
18
For salt, no word seems apposite;
13
Four People in a Neglected Garden
66
Fruitless Fable
38
Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli:
122
Going up to Sotheby’s
20
The Goose
71
The Grave that Time Dug
23
‘has ended in a victory for the wasps’
63
Hats
44
Having considered the place, having decided
27
He is like Africa in whose
67
Here is the time of watching birds;
26
Holidays
30
Holy Water Rondel
13
(from Horace 1:4)
116
(from Horace 1:9)
118
(Horace 1:38, in the Jacobean mode)
115
The Hospital
42
The House
5
I think that authors’ ghosts creep back
15
I want to fall asleep in the chair
42
I was writing a poem called
44
I’m here in the hotel
88
I’m sorry I can’t come to-day;
29
If you should ask me, is there a street of Europe,
6
Industriad
76
Intermittence
28
Is This the Place?
89
It is the market clock that moonish glows.
5
It occurs to me, perversely perhaps, but unmistakably,
53
Kensington Gardens
3
Lady who lies beneath this stone,
61
Last thing at night and only one
5
Leaning Over an Old Wall
17
Leaning over an old wall, gazing
17
Let’s live Catullus, or else let us love—
121
Letters
29
Like Africa
67
Like poor Verlaine, whom God defend,
11
Litany of Time Past
33
Look up at Mount Soracte’s dazzling snow
119
Lying on the roof of everything I listen
22
Man in the Street
5
The Man Who Came to Dinner
92
The Messengers
37
Mr Chiddicott, being a bachelor,
38
Mungo Bays the Moon
40
40
My friend is always doing Good
35
My Kingdom for a Horse
27
My kitchen in Trastevere –
94
My mind’s in pickle. Think of my talents all soused
32
The Nativity
79
Night, the wet, the onyx-faced
54
Not yet. That is the high concession,
66
Note by the Wayside
39
Nothing to Do
88
Noticed by chance an entry in Who’s Who
48
&nb
sp; O tell me what shall I do with the family symbols,
87
Oh, So So
91
Old ladies and tulips, model boats,
3
Omen
26
On the Lack of Sleep
22
One sad shoe that someone has probably flung
51
Out of the houses they came in their unlikely clothes
90
Pacified, smooth as milk, by cakes and tea,
59
Panickings
41
The Pearl-Miners
24
Persicos Odi
114
Persicos odi, puer, apparatus:
114
Prologue (Nox est perpetua una dormienda)
121
Prologue and Epilogue (after Catullus)
120
Report on an Interrogation
86
The Rout
63
Samuel Cramer came down in the lift
80
Samuel Cramer came down in the lift,
95
Scream scream I am
41
Seeing them in that semi-exclusive place
69
She is committed to earth, and the earth
77
Shipton-under-Wychwood
57
Sisera
85
Sisera, dead by hammer and nail, fared worst
85
Sit in a chair.
72
So hushed, so hot, the broad Zambesi lies
52
So near to Home
90
Solvitur acris hiems grata vice veris et Favoni:
116
Standing in the Field
49
Suburb
5
That Bad Cold
16
That hand, a tiny one, first at my throat;
16
That Lonely Shoe Lying on the Road
51
That scarecrow standing in the field
49
The advantage of getting dim-sighted
47
The clock knocked off at quarter to three
4
The European Bison fell from grace.
34
The Gladanka was saying, If a ewe gives
79
The month of the holidays,
30
The old ridiculous partner is back again
28
The use of words,
91
The visitor came clothed with sables,
74
Their last look round was happening when
5
There are more visionaries
55
‘There is’, he declared.
14
There was a convincing story, yes
86
There was some difficulty at first, hesitation
76
These eyes that saw the saturnine
12
They did not intend to distinguish between the essence
9
This is the grave that time dug.
23
This is the pain that sea anemones bear
18
This person never came to pass,
62
This was the wine. It stained the top of the page
20
The Three Kings
84
To Lucius Sestius in the Spring
117
To the Gods of My Right Hand
50
To you, fretful exemplar, who claim to place
39
A Tour of London
3
Two or three on the winter pavement talking,
58
Under Wychwood the growth and undergrowth
57
Verlaine Villanelle
11
The Victoria Falls
52
Vides, ut alta stet nive candidum
118
A Visit
72
Vivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
120
We found it on a bunch of grapes and put it
60
We Were Not Expecting the Prince To-day
68
Weave in my garland, boy, no more
115
What the Stranger Wondered
4
What?
10
What’s today?
33
Where do we go from here?
84
Where does she come from
4
Where have you gone, how has it ended with you,
70
While Flicking Over the Pages
48
‘Wind and slobber,’ said the Flate, ‘my words are
79
Whoever the gods may be that come to occupy
50
Winter Poem
119
The Yellow Book
9
You, Hate and Love, companions of this poet
123
Every effort has been made by the publisher to reproduce the formatting of the original print edition in electronic format. However, poem formatting may change according to reading device and font size.
First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Carcanet Press Ltd, Alliance House, 30 Cross Street, Manchester M2 7AQ.
This eBook edition first published in 2015.
Texts by Muriel Spark © Copyright Administration Limited, 2004, 2015
Afterword by Michael Schmidt © Michael Schmidt, 2015, 2015
The right Muriel Spark to be identified as the author of this work, and of Michael Schmidt to be the author of its afterword, has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988
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Epub ISBN 978 1 78410 125 1
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The publisher acknowledges financial assistance from Arts Council England.