Kirkup, James (Falconer)
KIRKUP, James (Falconer)
Nationality: British. Born: South Shields, County Durham, 23 April 1918. Education: South Shields High School; Durham University, B.A. 1941. Career: Gregory Fellow in Poetry, Leeds University, 1950–52; visiting poet and head of the Department of English, Bath Academy of Art, Corsham, Wiltshire, 1953–56; traveling lecturer, Swedish Ministry of Education, Stockholm, 1956–57; professor of English, University of Salamanca, Spain, 1957–58, and Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan, 1959–61; lecturer in English literature, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, 1961–62; professor of English literature, Nagoya University, Japan, 1969–72. Since 1963 professor of English literature, Japan Women's University, Tokyo; professor of English literature and poet-in-residence, Amherst College, Massachusetts, 1968; Arts Council creative writer, University of Sheffield, 1974–75; Morton Visiting Professor, Ohio University, Athens, 1975–76; dramatist-in-residence, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff, 1976–77. Since 1977 professor of English literature, Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. Literary editor, Orient/West Magazine, Tokyo, 1963–64; founder, Poetry Nippon, Nagoya, 1966. Since 1969 president, Poets' Society of Japan, and since 1991 president and cofounder, The British Haiku Society. Awards: Atlantic-Rockefeller award, 1950; Japan P.E.N. Club International literary prize, 1965; Batchelder award, for translation, 1968; Keats prize, 1974; Scott-Moncrieff prize for translation, 1993. Fellow, Royal Society of Literature, 1962. Address: BM-Box 2870, British Monomarks, London WC1N 3XX, England.
Publications
Poetry
Indications, with John Ormond and John Bayliss. London, Grey Walls Press, 1942.
The Cosmic Shape: An Interpretation of Myth and Legend with Three Poems and Lyrics, with Ross Nichols. London, Forge Press, 1946.
The Drowned Sailor and Other Poems. London, Grey Walls Press, 1947.
The Submerged Village and Other Poems. London, Oxford University Press, 1951.
The Creation. Hull, Lotus Press, 1951.
A Correct Compassion and Other Poems. London, Oxford University Press, 1952.
A Spring Journey and Other Poems of 1952–1953. London, Oxford University Press, 1954.
The Descent into the Cave and Other Poems. London, Oxford University Press, 1957.
The Prodigal Son: Poems 1956–1959. London, Oxford University Press, 1959.
The Refusal to Conform: Last and First Poems. London, Oxford University Press, 1963.
Japan Marine. Tokyo, Japan P.E.N. Club, 1965.
Paper Windows: Poems from Japan. London, Dent, 1968.
Japan Physical: A Selection, with Japanese translations by Fumiko Miura. Tokyo, Kenkyusha, 1969.
White Shadows, Black Shadows: Poems of Peace and War. London, Dent, 1970.
The Body Servant: Poems of Exile. London, Dent, 1971.
Broad Daylight. Frensham, Surrey, Sceptre Press, 1971.
A Bewick Bestiary. Ashington, Northumberland, MidNAG, 1971.
Transmental Vibrations. London, Covent Garden Press, 1971.
Zen Garden. Guildford, Surrey, Circle Press, 1973.
Many-Lined Poem. Sheffield, Headland Poetry, 1973.
Enlightenment. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1978.
Scenes from Sesshu. London, Pimlico Press, 1978.
Prick Prints. Privately printed, 1978.
Steps to the Temple. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1979.
Zen Contemplations. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1979.
The Tao of Water, with Birgit Skiöld. Guildford, Surrey, Circle Press, 1980.
Cold Mountain Poems. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1980.
Dengonban Messages. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1981.
Ecce Homo—My Pasolini. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1981.
No More Hiroshimas. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1982.
To the Ancestral North: Poems for an Autobiography. Tokyo, Asahi, 1983.
The Sense of the Visit. Knotting, Bedfordshire, Sceptre Press, 1984.
The Guitar Player of Zuiganji. Kyoto and London, Kyoto Editions 1985.
So Long Desired, with John McRae. London, Gay Men's Press, 1986.
Fellow Feelings. London, Gay Men's Press, 1987.
Three Poems. Child Okeford, Dorset, Words Press, 1988.
Words for Contemplation. Newcastle upon Tyne, Cloud Editions, 1992.
Shooting Stars. Flitwick, Bedforshire, Hub Editions, 1992.
First Fireworks. Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1993.
Short Takes. Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1993.
Throwback-Poems towards an Autobiography. Ware, England, Rockingham Press, 1993.
Blue Bamboo. Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1994.
Formulas for Chaos. Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1994.
Look at It This Way: Poems for Young People. Ware, England, Rockingham Press, 1994.
Omens of Disaster: Collected Shorter Poems Vol. 1.
Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, n.d. Once and for All: Collected Shorter Poems Vol. 2.
Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, n.d. An Extended Breath: Collected Longer Poems Vol. 1.
Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
Strange Attractors: New Poems. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
The Patient Obituarist. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
Broad Daylight: Poems East and West. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
Measures of Time: Collected Longer Poems Vol. 2. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1997.
Counting to 9,999.
Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1997.
He Dreamed He Was a Butterfly. Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1998.
Pikadon: An Epic Poem of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1998.
One Man Band: Poems without Words. Flitwick, Bedfordshire, Hub Editions, 1999.
Plays
Upon This Rock: A Dramatic Chronicle of Peterborough Cathedral (produced Peterborough, 1955). London, Oxford University Press, 1955.
Masque: The Triumph of Harmony (produced London, 1955).
The True Mistery of the Nativity (televised, 1960). London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1956.
The Prince of Homburg, adaptation of a play by Heinrich von Kleist (produced New York, 1976). Published in Classic Theatre 2, edited by Eric Bentley, New York, Doubleday, 1959.
The True Mistery of the Passion: Adapted and Translated from French Medieval Mystery Cycle of Arnoul and Simon Grélan (televised, 1960; produced Bristol, 1960). London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1962.
The Physicists, adaptation of a play by Dürrenmatt (produced London and New York, 1963). London, Cape, and New York, Grove Press, 1964.
The Meteor, adaptation of a play by Dürrenmatt (produced London, 1966). London, Cape, 1973; New York, Grove Press, 1974.
Play Strindberg, adaptation of a play by Dürrenmatt (produced New York, 1971; London, 1973). Chicago, Dramatic Publishing Company, n.d.
Portrait of a Planet, adaptation of a play by Dürrenmatt (produced London, 1972). London, Cape, 1972.
The Magic Drum (for children; produced Newcastle upon Tyne, 1974; London, 1977). New York, Knopf, 1972.
Peer Gynt, adaptation of the play by Ibsen (produced Cardiff, 1973).
The Conformer, adaptation of a play by Dürrenmatt (produced Sheffield, 1974).
Cyrano de Bergerac, adaptation of the play by Rostand (produced Newcastle upon Tyne, 1975).
The Anabaptists, Period of Grace, and Frank the Fifth, adaptations of plays by Dürrenmatt (produced Cardiff, 1976).
An Actor's Revenge, music by Minoru Miki (produced London, 1978). London, Faber, 1979.
Friends in Arms (produced Cardiff, 1980).
The Damask Drum, music by Paavo Heininen (produced Helsinki, 1984). Helsinki, Pan, 1984.
An Actor's Revenge: A Kabuki Opera. London, Faber Music, 1989.
True Misteries and a Chronicle Play of Peterborough Cathedral. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1997.
Radio Play: Ghost Mother, 1978.
Television Plays: The Peach Garden, 1954; Two Pigeons Flying High, 1955; The True Mistery of the Passion, 1960; The True Mistery of the Nativity, 1960.
Novels
The Love of Others. London, Collins, 1962.
The Bad Boy's Bedside Book of Do-It-Yourself Sex. Privately printed, 1978.
Gaijin on the Ginza. London, Peter Owen, 1992.
Queens Have Died Young and Fair. London, Peter Owen, 1994.
Other
The Only Child: An Autobiography of Infancy. London, Collins, 1957.
Sorrows, Passions, and Alarms: An Autobiography of Childhood. London, Collins, 1959.
These Horned Islands: A Journal of Japan. London, Collins, and New York, Macmillan, 1962.
Tropic Temper: A Memoir of Malaya. London, Collins, 1963.
England, Now. Tokyo, Seibido, 1964.
Japan Industrial: Some Impressions of Japanese Industries. Osaka, PEP, 2 vols., 1964–65.
Japan Now. Tokyo, Seibido, 1966.
Frankly Speaking. Tokyo, Eichosha, 1966.
Tokyo. London, Phoenix House, and South Brunswick, New Jersey, A.S. Barnes, 1966.
Filipinescas: Travels Through the Philippine Islands. London, Phoenix House, 1968.
Bangkok. London, Phoenix House, and South Brunswick, New Jersey, A.S. Barnes, 1968.
One Man's Russia. London, Phoenix House, 1968.
Aspects of the Short Story: Six Modern Short Stories with Commentary. Tokyo, Kaibunsha, 1969.
Streets of Asia. London, Dent, 1969.
Hong Kong and Macao. London, Dent, and South Brunswick, New Jersey, A.S. Barnes, 1970.
Japan Behind the Fan. London, Dent, 1970.
Insect Summer (for children). New York, Knopf, 1971.
The Magic Drum (for children). New York, Knopf, 1973.
Nihon Bungaku Eiyaku No Yuga Na Gijutsu (The Elegant Art of Literary Translation from Japanese to English). Tokyo, Kenkyusha, 1973.
Heaven, Hell, and Hara-Kiri: The Rise and Fall of the Japanese Superstate. London, Angus and Robertson, 1974.
America Yesterday and Today. Tokyo, Seibido, 1977.
Mother Goose's Britain. Tokyo, Asahi, 1977.
The Britishness of the British. Tokyo, Seibido, 1978.
Eibungaku Saiken (Discovery of English Literature). Tokyo, Taishukan, 1980.
Scenes from Sutcliffe: Twelve Meditations upon Photographs by Frank Meadow Sutcliffe. Osaka, Kyoto Editions, 1981.
Folktales Japanesque. Tokyo, Kenkyusha, 1982.
I Am Count Dracula. Tokyo, Asahi, 1982.
Modern American Myths. Tokyo, New Currents International, 1982.
I Am Frankenstein's Monster. Tokyo, Asahi, 1983.
When I Was a Child: A Study of Nursery Rhymes. Tokyo, Taibundo, 1983.
My Way-USA. Tokyo, Asahi, 1984.
The Glory That Was Greece. Tokyo, Seibido, 1984.
The Joys of Japan. Tokyo, Gaku Shobo, 1985.
Lafcadio Hearn. Tokyo, Kirihara Shoten, 1985.
James Kirkup's International Movie Theatre. Tokyo, Nan-UnDo, 1985.
Trends and Traditions. Tokyo, Seibido, 1986.
Portraits and Souvenirs. Tokyo, Asahi, 1987.
The Mystery and Magic of Symbols. Tokyo, Seibido, 1987.
The Cry of the Owl: Native Folktales and Legends. Tokyo, Takumi Shoten, 1987.
Sorrows, Passions, and Alarms (autobiography). London, Collins, 1987.
I, of All People: An Autobiography of Youth. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, and New York, St. Martin's Press, 1988.
The Best of Britain. Tokyo, Seibido, 1989.
It's a Small World. Tokyo, Seibido, 1990.
I, of All People. London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1990.
A Poet could not But be Gay. London, Peter Owen, 1992.
Me All Over: Memoirs of a Misfit. London, Peter Owen, 1992.
A Certain State of Mind: An Anthology of Classic, Modern and Contemporary Japanese Haiku in Translation with Essays and Reviews. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1995.
Burning Giraffes: An Anthology of Japanese Poetry. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
Child of the Tyne: Autobiographies. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
A Book of Tanka. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1996.
Tanka Tales. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, n.d.
Editor, Shepherding Winds: An Anthology of Poetry from East and West. London, Blackie, 1969.
Editor, Songs and Dreams: An Anthology of Poetry from East and West. London, Blackie, 1970.
Translator, with Leopold Sirombo, The Vision and Other Poems, by Todja Tartschoff. London, Newman and Harris, 1953.
Translator, The Dark Child, by Camara Laye. London, Collins, 1955.
Translator, The Radiance of the King, by Camara Laye. London, Collins, 1956.
Translator, Ancestral Voices, by Doan-Vinh-Thal. London, Collins, 1956.
Translator, The Girl from Nowhere, by Hertha von Gebhardt. London, University of London Press, 1958.
Translator, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, by Simone de Beauvoir. Cleveland, World, and London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson-Deutsch, 1959.
Translator, Don Carlo, by Schiller, in Classic Theatre 2, edited by Eric Bentley. New York, Doubleday, 1959.
Translator, It Began in Babel, by Herbert Wendt. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1961.
Translator, Sins of the Fathers, by Christian Geissler. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962.
Translator, The Captive, by Ernst von Salamon. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962.
Translator, The Gates of Paradise, by Jerzy Andrzejewski. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962.
Translator, with Oliver Rice and Abdullah Majid, Modern Malay Verse. London, Oxford University Press, 1963.
Translator, My Great-Grandfather and I, by James Krüss. London, English Universities Press, 1964.
Translator, The Heavenly Mandate, by Erwin Wickert. London, Collins, 1964.
Translator, Daily Life of the Etruscans, by Jacques Heurgon. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964.
Translator, Daily Life in the French Revolution, by Jean Robiquet. London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964.
Translator, Immensee, by Theodor Storm. London, Blackie, 1965.
Translator, Tales of Hoffmann. London, Blackie, 1966.
Translator, The Little Man, by Erich Kästner London, Cape, and New York, Knopf, 1966.
Translator, Michael Kohlhaas: From an Old Chronicle. London, Blackie, 1967.
Translator, A Dream of Africa, by Camara Laye. London, Collins, 1967.
Translator, The Little Man and the Little Miss, by Erich Kästner. London, Cape, and New York, Knopf, 1969.
Translator, The Eternal Virgin, by Paul Valéry. Tokyo, Orient Editions, 1970.
Translator, Brand, by Ibsen, in The Oxford Ibsen, edited by James Walter McFarlane. London, Oxford University Press, 1972.
Translator, with Michio Nakano, Selected Poems of Takagi Kyozo. Cheadle, Cheshire, Carcanet, 1973.
Translator, Modern Japanese Poetry. Brisbane, University of Queensland Press, 1978; edited by A.R. Davis, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, Open University, 1979.
Translator, The Guardian of the World, by Camara Laye. London, Collins, 1980; New York, Random House, 1984.
Translator, The Bush Toads. London, Longman, 1982.
Translator, To the Unknown God, by Petru Dimitriu. London, Collins, and New York, Seabury Press, 1982.
Translator, An African in Greenland, by Tété-Michel Kpomassie. London, Secker and Warburg, and New York, Harcourt Brace, 1983.
Translator, Miniature Masterpieces of Kawabata Yasunari. Tokyo, Taishukan, 1983.
Translator, Black Letters. London, Atlas Press, 1990.
Translator, The Guardian of the Word, by Camara Laye. London, Fontana Books, 1984.
Translator, This Little Measure, by Margherita Guidacci. Nagoya, KoPoetry Association, 1989.
Translator, Painted Shadows, Jean-Baptiste Neil. London, Quartet Books, 1991.
Translator, A Room in the Woods, by Patrick Drevet. London, QuartetBooks, 1991.
Translator, Vagabond Winter, by Jean-Noël Pancrazi. London, Quartet Books, 1992.
Translator, All the World's Mornings, by Pascal Quignard. London, Quartet Books, 1992.
Translator, Worlds of Difference, by Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt. London, Quartet Books, 1993.
Translator, My Micheline, by Patrick Drevet. London, Quartet Books, 1993.
Translator, The Man in the Red Hat, by Hervé Guibert. London, Quartet Books, 1993.
Translator, The Compassion Protocol, by Hervé Guibert. London, Quartet Books, 1993.
Translator, State of Absence, by Tahar Ben Jelloun. London, QuartetBooks, 1994.
Translator, Isabelle, by Marcelle Lagesse. London, Quartet Books, 1995.
Translator, Blindsight, by Hervé Guibert. New York, Braziller, 1996.
Translator, Paradise, by Hervé Guibert. London, Quartet Books, 1996.
Translator, with Michio Nakano, How to Cook Women: Poems and Prose of Takagi Kyozo. Salzburg, Austria, University of Salzburg Press, 1997.
*Manuscript Collections: Brotherton Library, University of Leeds; South Shields and Newcastle upon Tyne public libraries; Labadie Collection, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts: University of Durham; Yale University, Beineke Rare Books and Manuscript Library.
Critical Study: "James Kirkup As Haiku Poet" by A.W. Sadler, in Literature East and West (Austin, Texas), 9, 1965.
James Kirkup comments:
Characterized by a very wide variety of themes and verse forms, including many oriental subjects and techniques. Most deeply influenced by Japanese and Chinese poetry, as well as by French. No English or American influences. Major themes: the sea, loneliness, music, painting, photography, sport, travel, the Orient, peace and war, science and space exploration, UFOs, legend, people, psychical research, medicine, satire, social criticism.
In my poetry I have attempted always to express an essence both of myself and of experience, a crystallization of my personal awareness of this world and worlds beyond. I feel I am slowly developing, after nearly fifty years of writing poetry, a voice that is only my own and illuminating areas of experience and technique untouched by other poets. I am original, so I do not strive for originality for its own sake or experiment with form unless the subject demands it. My aim is to be perfectly lucid, yet to provide my candor with serious and mysterious undertones of sound and meaning.
The following quote, from Constantin Brancusi, the Romanian sculptor, has influenced me in my search for essences in poetry: "Reality is not the outer form but the idea, the essence of things."
(1995) Finding it increasingly difficult to get serious work published by British firms, I am more and more choosing excellent small publishers like Hub Editions and Rockingham Press. I have recently concentrated on translations and on the writing of haiku, senryu, and tanka, as well as obituaries for the Independent. I am also writing a lot for Japanese publishers and magazines and preparing a new collection of recent poems, A Certain Chaos.
* * *The blurb on the dust wrapper of James Kirkup's collection The Body Servant includes this statement by the American poet and novelist James Dickey: "With Kirkup's work I don't feel that facility is the problem, as it is with many writers." Certainly Kirkup sometimes gives the impression of being able to knock off a passable poem at the drop of a hat. Subject matter is never lacking; his trash can, photographs in a railway compartment, the New Year, a pet cat—all have suggested poems. Kirkup's first collection, The Drowned Sailor, was published in 1947 and was very much a book of its time in style and language. A determined poeticism may be the best way of describing it, with its peppering of enormous abstractions such as "memory's mountain" or "the candelabra of the soul." The other poets of the time (see Wrey Gardiner's Poetry Quarterly) were full of such stuff, as if there were an urgency to plump out otherwise flat poems, a sort of poetic padded bra, but Kirkup was too adept at this for his own good.
It was in Kirkup's second collection, The Submerged Village, that something distinctive was to be observed. There were still oddly old-fashioned pieces ("The Ship," "Music at Night," and "Poem for a New Year") that read like those poems the leisured gentlemen of previous centuries were so adept at "turning," as they would put it—competent, agreeable, but strangely impersonal. But among these were poems such as the title poem itself, in which it was as if the poet had taken a cool, hard look at his subject and determined to deny himself the indulgence of his particular facility:
Calm, the surrounding mountains look upon
the steeple's golden cross, that still
emerges from the centre of the rising lake.
Like a sinking raft's bare mast and spar
anchored to earth by chains of stone.
The facility is still there, of course, but it is used to the purpose of the poem and not as a merely decorative addition.
The progress toward an individual voice and style was to flower in the next collection, A Correct Compassion, in which the title poem can stand with the finest poems written since World War II. Here, in a poem written after watching the performance of an operation at the General Infirmary in Leeds, Kirkup combines keenly observed detail—
The glistening theatre swarms with eyes, and hands, and eyes.
On green-clothed tables, ranks of instruments transmit a sterile
gleam.
The masks are on, and no unnecessary smile betrays
A certain tension. true concomitant of calm
while using the whole as a prolonged and deftly handled metaphor:
—For this is imagination's other place,
Where only necessary things are done, with the supreme the
grave
Dexterity that ignores technique; with proper grace
Informing a correct compassion, that performs its love, and
makes it live.
It is as if from the controlled skill of the surgeon Kirkup has, as the poem makes clear, not only learned something concerning the nature of art but also has found a parallel for his own technique. Another poem in the collection, "Matthew Smith," begins, "Yours, brother, is a masculine art, / The business of doing what you see." In a sense, with A Correct Compassion Kirkup's also becomes a masculine art.
It is true that the old temptations remain, and "Rhapsody on a Bead Curtain" sees the facility at work wringing out to the last drop the metaphor of a bead curtain as a shower. But firmness prevails almost to the point of harshness in "Medusa"—"those frog-like legs / Seem barely able to support / That sad, amorphous bum"—where Kirkup is in danger of overbalancing the other way. Poems such as "The Ventriloquist," "A Visit to Brontë Land," "Photographs in a Railway Compartment," and "Summertime in Leeds" reassure us, however, that Kirkup has found his true voice—
No idle toy would have tempted Branwell
From the "Bull," and brandy; or kept that sister
From her tragic poems. They knew they had nothing but the moor
And themselves. It is we, who want all, who are poor
—and that he will stick to it, even though, like Branwell, he may be tempted by the "bull," as he sometimes is.
Kirkup has published numerous collections. Some have been serious volumes, some, like The Body Servant, with its journey over the body's parts and old chestnuts such as the part without a bone, rather more playful. The trend of his later work would seem to be toward a more direct, almost haiku-like simplicity. It probably says more about the writer of this essay than Kirkup himself if I voice a definite preference for the poetry of A Correct Compassion and The Submerged Village. Here I am saying no more than that a poet, rightly, should be remembered by his or her best work. For this reason a selected poems as a showcase for Kirkup's best work is long overdue and would do the poet the justice he deserves.