Memorial Poems:
Alan Halsey and Geraldine Monk

We will be very honoured to be able to publish a memorial volume for Roy Fisher soon. Its title is THE WORKED OBJECT: POEMS IN MEMORY OF ROY FISHER, and will include work by Fleur Adcock, ‘Kelvin Corcoran, Laurie Duggan, Allen Fisher, Alan Halsey, Robert Hampson, August Kleinzahler, Peter Makin, Geraldine Monk, John Muckle, ‘Frances Presley, Denise Riley, Peter Robinson, Gavin Selerie, Robert Sheppard, Jeffrey Wainwright and David Wheatley.

The publication has been a little delayed due to a certain plague, and will coincide with an exhibition and conference/reading in 2024. In advance of that occasion, we are very pleased to print here two of the poems offered, by two poets whose archive is also here at Sheffield, Alan Halsey and Geraldine Monk.

DEAR ROY

It’s a wonder but not always

of obligation what difference comes to.

For instance that photo on the cover

of your ghost of a paper bag.

I never saw a party table set out

on the street where I grew up

nor so many neighbours at once.

Was that the difference between Handsworth

& Thornton Heath or 1935 & ’53?

Or between a Silver Jubilee & a Coronation?

You were four at the one & I was three at

the other & although you’re right that some

difference is neutral there’s more to come:

one of the faces in that photo’s yours but even

if we’d had a street party for the Coronation

I know I’d be missing from the snaps.

I was only let peep at the cakes & paper crowns

in next door’s front room. Perhaps because

seeing so many neighbours at once I cried

hard enough to be ushered or rushed home

to bed & to forget. Is that another local

suburban difference or the pre- against postwar

or north v. south? Although Handsworth’s

not so far north & Thornton Heath

just south of London & we did leave to

live elsewhere. Heading north but harking back.

The rivers in both our towns were built over.

How could I tell what the party next door

meant to mean & you must have wondered

at the obligation of a Silver Jubilee.

That’s what bewilders even when

we’re not children. The difference

not neutral helping poems out.

                                                  Alan Halsey

THE VIEW FROM FOUR WAYS

For Roy Fisher

I stare out your window after you’ve gone: 

it needs cleaning: that Dragon’s Back racked with

curvature of spine is further distorted by downward

streaks of pollution. White peaks smear the pane

dribbling the last gasp industrial past. Emissions.

If the day were not so bright it would

be seen deep with the yellow of cowslips.

I palm a filbert of your words. Grid your view. 

The walled garden is going forward without you.

It’s a time thing. Moments slither into past. Arbor

Low. Dow Low. The near-breath of the ouroborus

tickles the nape. Teeth-nibble of tail. The smell of it.

This place imbued with huge-winged shadows.

This place where star-scratched dark glows fearless.

                                                  Geraldine Monk