Collected Poems by Anthony Burgess (best e ink reader for manga txt) 📕

sonnets can be found either in the HRC and IABF collections. See ABBA ABBA, p. 126.

72. The Father of the Saints. Previously unpublished variant. Inserted in the sequence of sonnets in the MS in its current position. It is very different to the version that eventually appeared in the novel; it is not included in the appendix, but is embedded within the prose of the main story. In the novel, the poem is given by Belli to John Keats, who hides it amongst his papers. Two full variants of this sonnet are known to exist. The version selected for inclusion in the main body of the present edition is thought to be the first draft. What is presumed to be the second draft is much closer to the version read by Keats in the novel:

These are some names, my son, we call the prick:

The chair, the yard, the nail, the kit

The holofernes, rod, the cock, in rock,

The dickery, the dick, the liquorice stick,

The lust, Richard or the listless dick,

The old blind bob, the just on twelve o’clock,

Mercurial finger, or the lead-filled sock,

The monkey, or the mule with – kick.

The squib, the rocket, or the Roman candle,

The dumpendebat or the shagging shad

The lovelump or the pump or the pump handle

The tap of venus, the leering lad,

The hand-dandy, stiff proud as a-dandle

But most of all our sad glad bad mad dad.

In the presumed second draft MS, these lines are appended to this poem, which cannot be seen on the presumed first draft:

And I might add

That learned patents by their midnight tapers

After endless low standing high

Fat phallus done – papers

These unfinished lines are similar to those included in the novel. Note that the version used in the present sequence is much longer than a sonnet. It is presumed that the last six lines were included as a possible variant, but both are included. This also follows the pattern of lines that are embedded in the novel, which also includes extra material.

73. Local Industry. Previously unpublished. The typescript from here includes versions of ‘The Bet’, ‘Two Uses for Ashes’, and ‘The Fair Judith’ (see item 40, above). After these, the ‘Three Apocryphal Sonnets of Belli’ also includes ‘The Bet’, ‘Two Uses for Ashes’, ‘The orchidaceous catalogue begins’, and the sonnet that was eventually published in ABBA ABBA as ‘Privy Matters’. To avoid duplication, the present edition tackles the Apocryphal sonnets only once, and this is explained below. Choosing to do so allowed for the inclusion of previously unpublished sonnets ‘Local Industry’, ‘Spaniards’, and ‘Work’ at a point that seems most logical.

74. ‘Spaniards’. Previously unpublished. MS on diary paper pre-printed Sabato/Gennaio 3. Title added by editor.

75. ‘Work’. Previously unpublished. Title not given by Burgess, but adopted by editor.

76. The Bet. Previously unpublished variant. Same title as the version published in ABBA ABBA, but with different indentation. Marked, on the MS, as one of ‘Three Apocryphal Sonnets of Belli’. Note that this sub-title has not been adopted in the present edition, as there are four such sonnets. Minor variants between this and the ABBA ABBA version include: use of ‘Ah’ on line five (later removed), ‘Albert’, which became ‘one man’, ‘Right’, which became ‘Reet’, and ‘pound’, which became ‘quid’. Another variant MS exists that shows these substitutions being made in Burgess’s hand. On this variant, the following lines were considered and then redrafted by Burgess: ‘Some chaps was arguing, as chaps often will’ (first line); ‘“Coming up” was the first thing that he spoke’ and ‘“Get ready” was the first thing that he spoke’ (line 12). See ABBA ABBA, p. 88.

77. Two Uses for Ashes. Previously unpublished variant poem. Geoffrey Grigson’s full name is present in the MS version, but not in the ABBA ABBA version. In the novel, this sonnet is ascribed to J. J. Wilson, who apparently writes it having been present at a University Literary Society lecture by the Oxford poet G—y G—n. The ‘swinging censors’ is compariable with the phrase ‘swinging like twin censers’, which Burgess re-uses in his long poem about Augustine and Pelagius. Geoffrey Grigson wrote two negative reviews of Burgess’s work in 1960 and then in 1970. See Biswell, The Real Life of Anthony Burgess, pp. 217, 315. See ABBA ABBA, p. 88.

78. ‘The orchidaceous catalogue begins.’ Previously unpublished variant poem. Geoffrey Grigson’s full name is present in the MS version, but not in the ABBA ABBA version. In the novel, this sonnet is ascribed to J. J. Wilson, who apparently writes it having been present at a University Literary Society lecture by the Oxford poet G—y G—n. The ‘swinging censors’ is compariable with the phrase ‘swinging like twin censers’, which Burgess re-uses in his long poem about Augustine and Pelagius. Geoffrey Grigson wrote two negative reviews of Burgess’s work in 1968 and 1970. See ABBA ABBA, p. 89.

79. Privy Matters. Previously unpublished variant poem. In ABBA ABBA, this sonnet by Burgess is ascribed to the character J. J. Wilson, a literary historian. The indentations are not present in the ABBA ABBA version. Other variations include: ‘neighbour box’, which became ‘next nook’, ‘be damned’, which was eventually removed, ‘scatographic theses’ which became ‘a scatographic thesis’, and the last line, which was published in ABBA ABBA as ‘Lucky? I haven’t got me kecks down yet.’ Another version of the sonnet in this MS uses capital letters for the speech in line eight and line fourteen, and uses the word ‘cabinet’ for ‘box’. Following this variant sonnet in the archive MS is another copy of the poems intended for Playboy magazine, plus a number of intermediate prose transliterations that were used as part of the translation process, plus some very early drafts of sonnets included in the present sequence. See ABBA ABBA, p. 88.

80. Foreword 1974 (from Moses). Previously unpublished. IABF, AB/ARCH/A/MOS/28.

81. Foreword 1976 (from Moses). Previously unpublished in this form. The original English spelling (from the MS) has been restored. IABF. AB/ARCH/A/MOS/29.

82. Moses – The Bondage. IABF. AB/ARCH/A/MOS/28.

83. Moses – The Young Moses. IABF. AB/ARCH/A/MOS/29.

84. Moses – The Burning Bush.