100 Years of George Barker
I'm really delighted to have been asked at the last minute to take part in the centenary celebration of George Barker's birth this coming Tuesday at Star Anise Arts Café in Stroud, alongside Barker's widow Elspeth, Philip Rush, Jay Ramsay, David Clarke, Anna Saunders, Jeff Cloves, Dennis Gould and more (click here for more details).
I'd grown up with Barker's name rolling around in the background of my consciousness, as you might expect given that my mother, father, stepfather are poets, but didn't really connect the name with the work until I was in my late teens and happened to pull a copy of Anno Domini from my father's poetry shelves one evening. It's an electrifying book, one that I paced around my room reading aloud from as a teenager, and one which I return to regularly - it's as relevant, quotable and fresh-sounding now as it was when I first read it in 1988:
at a time of bankers
to exercise a little charity;
at a time of soldiers
to cultivate small gardens;
at a time of categorical imperatives
to guess about clouds;
at a time of politicians
to trust only to children and demigods.
After that I began to work my way erratically backwards through his books, though there are still holes in my reading. I'm really hoping to encounter books and poems I haven't discovered at this event, which is the first of many such coming up at festivals in Barker's centenary year; this one falls on the actual day of his birth.I've chosen to read a poem of his called 'Circular from America', a coruscating attack on the Beats written in a propulsive rhetorical style. I don't entirely agree with Barker's verdict on the Beats, but given all that I've heard from my father and read of Barker over the years, it's clear that he liked a good argument now and again. 'Circular from America' is, whatever my reservations, a finely honed argument in verse and an absolute joy to read aloud.
The event is free, so if you too are free and near enough to Stroud this coming Tuesday, February 26th, come along. If you've not heard of George Barker before, it's well worth finding out more. If you have, you'll probably understand why I'm excited about this.
