Embedded Files
[1] There are no Roy Fisher (RF) annotations beside this opening remark. It can be taken as a summary of RF’s writing in A Furnace and much else of his work and inflects for instance the close of ‘III. Authorities’: ‘Vigilant dreaming head / in search of a place to lay itself.’
[2] Three section numbers relating to A Furnace, ‘II/VI/VII’, are inserted in the left margin. Keyed to the ‘gods are many’ on the facing verso is the additional comment: ‘And must be many, or the world is surrendered’.
[3] RF has written in the margin to this remark ‘JCP [John Cowper Powys] knew’. The section number ‘II’ is below it, and keyed to the facing verso is ‘Heraclitus’.
[4] The section number ‘V’ is added in the left margin.
[5] Keyed to a ringed pencil comment on the facing verso is the date 6.8.85 and the title ‘Moral Ode’. This refers to a planned sequence of Odes, a substantial work following A Furnace and reusing materials from its working notes.
[6] The section number ‘V’ is added in the left margin.
[7] The last word is hard to decipher, but the last four letters spell ‘face’.
[8] This remark is the first of the original set. It has ‘V’ beside it, referring to the relevant section of A Furnace, and it is ticked, suggesting that it was incorporated into the poem.
[9] This remark has ‘IV’ and a question mark beside it and is crossed out in pencil. A comment keyed to it on the facing recto reads ‘or a generalisation. The livestock, killed at peak’. RF was to be very much alive on the day of his death, the 21st of March 2017.
[10] This remark has ‘VII’ beside it and is struck through in pencil with a tick.
[11] This remark is ticked and used as the short poem ‘Stop’: ‘Spent all his life / playing for time. / All of it.’ It was first published in The Poetry Book Society Anthology 3 (1992) and collected in The Dow Low Drop: New & Selected Poems (1996), p. 195.
[12] The original proposition, written in ink, ended at ‘Invents forms.’ The rest is in pencil, added later, and keying it to ‘Moral Ode, or AN’ on the facing verso. The remark has ‘II?’ by it, and it is also ticked.
[13] The remark has ‘II?’ beside it and is ticked.
[14] The remark has ‘V’ beside it and is ticked. It is highlighted by two vertical pencil lines and keyed to the words ‘Moral sketch’ in pencil on the facing verso.
[15] The remark has ‘V’ beside it and is ticked. It is diagonally cancelled in pencil.
[16] In the first sentence ‘final’ and ‘can’ are inserted above the line. It has ‘IV?’ beside it and is keyed in ink to the phrase ‘See spiral/time’ and in pencil to the word ‘Odes’ on the facing verso.
[17] This remark has ‘II/III’ next to it, while ‘Soma Avenue’ has ‘V’ next to it. It is also ticked. I have not been able to identify the location of Soma Avenue. This remark inflects the first stanza in the fourth movement of ‘V. Colossus’.
[18] This remark has ‘II’ beside it and is keyed to the word ‘focus’ on the facing verso. It is highlighted with two vertical lines in pencil and keyed to the pencil remark ‘Moral Ode by question’ which is dated ‘5/6/85’ in pencil. I haven’t been able to identify Mr Fellows or Mr Boughton.
[19] This remark has ‘VI’ beside it and is ticked.
[20] This remark has ‘I’ beside it and is ticked. It is keyed in pencil to ‘Ode, Crowded’ on the facing verso.
[21] This remark has ‘II’ beside it.
[22] This remark has ‘II/VI’ beside it and is ticked. It is also crossed through in pencil. ‘Mercurial nature’ appears in fact in ‘V. Colossus’ seven lines from the end, and then at the beginning of the second movement in ‘VI. The Many’.
[23] This remark has ‘II’ beside it and is ticked. It is also crossed through in pencil. Underneath it, an open-bracket curve is keyed to the following comment on the facing verso: ‘Inner & outer life monitoring other, drifting and coalescing. Masses of these dualisms in a flood.’
[24] This remark has ‘II/V’ beside it. It is crossed through in pencil.
[25] This remark has ‘I/II/III’ beside it. It is crossed through in pencil. The following words in ink are keyed to it on the facing verso: ‘Doxey’s Pool. Powys’s Pools; Pingoes. Nondescript swamps. Bedd Porus/ Llech Idris: that upland.’ This last refers to the Welsh early Christian sculptured stone and the Llech Idris Menhir near Trawsfynydd in Gwynedd. The phrase ‘There have always been / saucers put out for us / by the gods’ appears near the opening of the second movement in ‘VII. On Fennel-Stalks’.
[26] This remark has ‘II’ beside it and is ticked. It is also crossed through in pencil. The second movement of ‘II. The Return’ begins with a variant of these words.
[27] This remark has ‘III’ beside it and is keyed to the following comment on the facing verso: ‘Treat these topics as unquestionable assumptions, not assertions’ and this in turn been bracketed with the following remark and commented on thus: ‘OK. Tone down.’
[28] This remark has ‘VII’ beside it. It has been ringed in pencil and the word ‘phrase’ keyed to it. ‘III. Authorities’ combines [27] and [28] into ‘The town gods are parodic, / innocent’ in the second movement.
[29] This remark has a question mark beside it and the date ‘22/1/84’. It is also crossed through in pencil. I have deleted the brackets around it and removed the ‘(Rewrite)’ that concludes it.
[30] This remark begins ‘Rewrite:’. It has ‘III?’ and ‘V?’ next to it, and it is keyed to ‘See Stevens on anti-matter &c.’ which is related to ‘Feeding the fear of life’, both additions in ink on the facing verso. It is followed by the annotation ‘(43/13 passim)’. This remark is also highlighted with two pencil downstrokes, and keyed in pencil to the date ‘5/8/85’ and ‘Moral Odes affect.’
[31] This remark has ‘V or VI’ beside it and is ticked. It is annotated ‘(43’.
[32] This remark has a wiggly line and a question mark beside it.
[33] This remark has ‘III?’ beside it and is ticked. On the facing verso RF has written in pencil ‘5/8/85. Moral Ode. Link with the separateness of self from the world’.
[34] Beside this remark is ‘? V’ and it is ticked with an ‘OK.’ It is followed by ‘(43/55-6).’ The phrase ‘staining the economic imperative / from end to end with divinity’ appears at the end of the second movement in ‘VII. On Fennel-Stalks’.
[35] Beside this remark are ‘II? / III? / VI? VII?’ and it is ticked. It is followed by ‘(43/56). Passim to develop.’ Arrowed from the facing verso is written ‘Discussion.’ in ink. This remark contributes to the third movement in ‘VI. The Many’.
[36] Beside this remark RF has written ‘VII?’ and on the facing verso, keyed to it, are the words ‘Attributive, animist, stressful’.
[37] ‘VI?’ in ink on the left margin, with ‘In Odes—link to Little Boys)’ in pencil on the right.
[38] ‘V?’ in ink on the left margin, underlined in pencil, and keyed to the following in ink on the facing verso: ‘To anti-life. In polytheism the gods cross one another’s annexation-systems. That the world should only “begin” in multiplicity - that there should be no apocalypse of origin is an axiom of moral consciousness’ to which is added below in pencil: ‘It’s already multiple, like language or types of fly, at the moment of first becoming perceptible.’
[39] ‘II & VII’ in ink on left margin, ticked in pencil. ‘and enter Nature’ is underlined in ink and ‘thereby’ is ticked in pencil. The remark is followed by ‘(Narrative)’. Beside it to the right, underlined is ’43?’ This remark is adapted into the second stanza of the second movement in ‘II. The Return’ and is recalled in the fourth movement of ‘III. Authorities’.
[40] Keyed to ‘Soc. in III?’ on the facing verso, double ticked in pencil on the left, and annotated with ‘(43/99)’ in ink on the right.
[41] Followed by ‘(rewrite 43/104)’ in ink.
[42] This remark is entirely free of annotations.
[43] These three remarks are related to each other by double-ended arrows. I have set them as a single item. The first one has ‘(42/100)’ after ‘faith’. The second has ‘(etc)’ above ‘they co-exist’. It is dated ‘23/1/84’ to the left, ticked in pencil and emphasised with double vertical in lines. It is arrowed to ‘(II?) VII’ on the facing verso. It’s further emphasised with a triple vertical pencil parenthesis with the following pencil date and annotation: ‘3/8/85 Moral ode. Pagan. Daffydd ap Gwylim again’.
[44] This remark and the next are both linked with annotations including a double-ended arrow, so I have combined them here. The first one is annotated on the left with ‘II’ and ‘Identity (1)’, as well as being ticked in both ink and pencil. The second remark also has ‘II’ ticked in ink on the left margin and with ‘Identity (2)’ above it. The two roman section numbers by these remarks are connected with a line.
[45] This remark has ‘II’ arrowed to ‘III’ in the left margin, with the latter number ticked in pencil. It is struck through in pencil. It is keyed in ink to the following on the facing verso: ‘Making the question altruistic: what other character, maybe of more interest, does it breed? Apart from perennial stock untouched by it, maybe.’ Underneath this, in pencil is written ‘Continue in Moral Ode’.
[46] I have edited out ‘(Rewrite).’ from after the first sentence of this remark. In the left margin are ‘II-III’ with ‘Death?’ linked to the latter number with a line.
[47] I have edited out ‘(Rewrite)’ from the opening of this remark. In the left margin are ‘III?—VII?’
[48] In the left margin, ticked in ink, is ‘VII? or anywhere.’
[49] After the word ‘Distinguishable’ RF has written ‘(42/120-1)’.
[50] In the left margin is ‘III?’ which is ticked. After ‘unpropitious spot’ RF has written ‘(42/129)’. The phrase ‘Ovid with the exile first’, ticked in pencil in the margin, has first a row of dots under ‘exile first’ then a strong double underlining, both annotations in ink. I have closed the parenthesis after ‘farm boy’.
[51] In the left margin is ‘II.’ To the right is written ‘(42/135)’. I have not been able to identify Nancy Dawson, though suspect she may have been a resident of Kentish Road, Birmingham.
[52] In the left margin is ‘III’ which is also ticked. Ditto marks under ‘(42/135)’ suggest that this annotation applies here too.
[53] This remark is preceded by ‘(41/56)’.
[54] This remark is preceded by ‘(38/79)’.
[55] In the left margin is ‘Second half’ possibly referring to the ‘III’ in the left margin by [52]. Immediately before it, RF has written ‘38/95’.
[56] This remark is ticked in pencil and underneath it in ink appears: ‘(37/1 from 11/9)’. It contributes to a number of passages in A Furnace, such as the end of the second and the beginning of the sixth movement in ‘III. Authorities’.
[57] This remark has the date 19/2/84 in the left margin. The last sentence is underlined in pencil and linked to a ringed comment: 6/8/85 Odes. Quest theme? Inner and outer’.
[58] This remark has ‘Biog.’ above it and ‘19/82’ in the left margin.
[59] This remark is dated 28/2/84 with an ink line drawn under it.
[60] This remark is dated 22/7/84 and written under the ink line. It is the has writing on page 105 of the notebook.
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