David Gascoyne by Gertrude Hermes, 1956 National Portrait Gallery First published in 2014 by Enitharmon Press 10 Bury Place London WC1A 2JL www.enitharmon.co.uk Distributed in the UK by Central Books 99 Wallis Road London E9 5LN Text Estate of David Gascoyne 2014 Preface, selection and editorial matter Roger Scott 2014 ISBN: 978-1-907587-37-5 Enitharmon Press acknowledges the financial assistance of Arts Council England and for this publication it is particularly grateful for the support of Dr Roger Scott and the beneficiaries of the estates of David and Judy Gascoyne. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Typeset in Bembo by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire and printed in the UK by Gomer Press Ltd
CONTENTS
UNCOLL. = uncollected poems; titles in italics are unpublished
Sonnet to Alida MonroHinterlandThe Very ImageAsylumThe Perpetual ExplosionThe Hills and in the light, dailyCompline for the Occident: a cantata for choir and solo voiceTwo Untitled FragmentsThe Darks FidelityEpilogue to an EpisodeDead EndSouvenirs de Paris (I):
A La FentreEpilogue 19401Come Dungeon Dark (III)
Dear Thomas EliotThe Porch before these poems is the entrance into NightThe Hand that in the DarknessThe Son of Man is in RevoltWhen I am able to think at nightRain globules on glassAnd tell me, how is Christ preached nowA Summer Evening at Caesars Tower (Drafts)
APPENDIX A:
UNPUBLISHED POEMS, drafts and fair copies
APPENDIX B:
DRAFTS, POEMS IN FACSIMILE, TYPESCRIPTS
APPENDIX C:
NOTES TO THE POEMS
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
POETRYRoman Balcony and Other Poems (London: Lincoln Williams, 1932)
Mans Life Is This Meat (London: Parton Press, 1936)
Hlderlins Madness (London: Dent, 1938)
Poems 1937-42 (London: Editions Poetry London, 1943; reprinted 1944, 1948)
A Vagrant and Other Poems (London: John Lehmann, 1950)
Night Thoughts (London: Andr Deutsch, and New York: Grove Press, 1956; Paris: Alyscamps Press, 1995)
Collected Poems, edited by Robin Skelton (London: Oxford University Press & Andr Deutsch, 1965; reprinted 1966, 1970, 1978, 1982, 1984)
Penguin Modern Poets 17, with Kathleen Raine and W.S. 1936 (London: Enitharmon Press, 2001)
Poems by David Gascoyne, selected and introduced by Judy Gascoyne (Warwick: Greville Press Pamphlets, 2001)
Poems by George Herbert, selected and introduced by David Gascoyne, edited by Roger Scott (Warwick: Greville Press Pamphlets, 2004)
PROSEOpening Day (novel; London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1933)
A Short Survey of Surrealism (London: Cobden-Sanderson, 1935; London: Frank Cass & Co., 1970; San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1982)
Thomas Carlyle (London: Longman, Green & Co., 1952; reprinted 1963, 1969)
Paris Journal 1937-1939, with a preface by Lawrence Durrell (London: Enitharmon Press, 1978)
Journal, 1936-37 (London: Enitharmon Press, 1980)
Journal de Paris et dailleurs, 1936-1942, translated by Christine Jordis (Paris: Flammarion, 1984)
Rencontres avec Benjamin Fondane (Cognac: Arcane 17, 1984)
Collected Journals 1937-42, introduced by Kathleen Raine (London: Skoob Books Publishing, 1991)
Exploration, preface and trans. into French of Death of an Explorer and Self-Discharged by Michle Duclos (Bordeaux: Editions Dufourg-Tandrup, 1992)
Lawrence Durrell (London: privately printed, 1993)
The Fire of Vision: David Gascoyne and George Barker, edited and introduced by Roger Scott (London: privately printed, 1996)
Selected Prose 1934-1996, edited by Roger Scott, with an introduction by Kathleen Raine (London: Enitharmon Press, 1998)
A Short Survey of Surrealism, with a preface by Dawn Ades and introduction by Michel Remy (London: Enitharmon Press, 2000)
April: A Novella, edited and introduced by Roger Scott (London: Enitharmon Press, 2000)
Letter to an Adopted Godfather [Henry Miller], edited and introduced by Roger Scott (Etruscan Books, 2012)
TRANSLATIONS Salvador Dal,
Conquest of the Irrational (New York: Julien Levy, 1935) Benjamin Pret,
A Bunch of Carrots: Twenty Poems (London: Roger Roughton, 1936; trans. with Humphrey Jennings; second edition published as
Remove Your Hat, 1936) Andr Breton,
What Is Surrealism? (London: Faber, 1936) Paul Eluard,
Thorns of Thunder, Selected Poems edited by George Reavey (London: Europa Press & Stanley Nott, 1936; trans. with Samuel Beckett, Denis Devlin, Eugne Jolas, Man Ray, George Reavey and Ruthven Todd)
Collected Verse Translations, edited by Alan Clodd and Robin Skelton (London: Oxford University Press, 1970) Andr Breton and Philippe Soupault,
The Magnetic Fields (London: Atlas Press, 1985) Benjamin Pret,
Remove Your Hat & Other Works (London: Atlas Press, 1986, trans. with Humphrey Jennings and Martin Sorrell) Pierre Jean Jouve,
The Unconscious, Spirituality, Catastrophe (Child Okeford: Words Press, 1988)
Three Translations (Child Okeford: Words Press, 1988) Pierre Jean Jouve,
The Present Greatness of Mozart (Birmingham: Delos Press, 1996)
Selected Verse Translations, edited by Alan Clodd and Robin Skelton, with an introduction by Roger Scott (London: Enitharmon Press, 1996)
Despair Has Wings: Selected Poems of Pierre Jean Jouve, edited and introduced by Roger Scott (London: Enitharmon Press, 2007)
NOTE Thanks to the dedication over many years of the indefatigable Michle Duclos, and the commitment of the editor Anne Mounic, much of David Gascoynes work is available online (both in English and French) in several of the sixteen issues of
temporel: revue littraire et artistique: http://temporel.fr See, for example, the following, prefaced by my English versions: David Gascoyne: posie et environnement; David Gascoyne Henry Miller; David Gascoyne et Benjamin Fondane; Gascoyne traducteur / traduire Gascoyne.
In chthonic labyrinth where we now strayDo Thou in us make peace, O Lightbringer.Submerged in darkness glows the serene day. David Gascoyne: from Variations on a Phrase (1982)
The spirit that flickers and hurts in humanityShines brighter from better lamps; but from all shines.Look to it: prepare for the long winter: spring is far off. Robinson Jeffers, from
Selected PoemsThe true point of the spirit sways,Not like a ghostly swan,But as a vine, a tendril,Groping toward a patch of light. Theodore Roethke, from
The NotebooksIn our time, more than ever before, poets are the transcribers of a kind of truth to which only they can give articulate expression, and without which society becomes eventually one vast undifferentiated Buchenwald. In chthonic labyrinth where we now strayDo Thou in us make peace, O Lightbringer.Submerged in darkness glows the serene day. David Gascoyne: from Variations on a Phrase (1982) Next page