The Great Enigma

"Yes. The very first poem is called ‘Preludes’: ‘Waking up is a parachute jump from dreams’. That was totally new to me, just like T S Eliot’s poem ‘Let us go then you and I…’ It stopped me in my tracks and I found myself opening up my imagination, trying not to force what I was doing, trying to let the language and the experience work for themselves without either imposing my Christian viewpoint on it or a Hopkins influence on it. The words that were used about my work after that experience were that I had become permeable, as opposed to impermeable. Permeable allows the world in and language can look after itself. I know that I owe that opening of my imagination to reading Tomas Tranströmer. Subsequently, I wrote a poem and it was the beginning of writing anything good. It was called ‘Winter in Mead’. My wife had died, and in 1981, about a year after her death, came this wonderful winter of snow and frost. It lasted for three or four weeks and the physical aspect of the world around me had altered utterly, and my own life had altered utterly with her death. I allowed, for the first time, the images around me to speak my pain and suffering and to speak the change in the world. The poem has no imposition of my own world-view or intellect on it; it just allows the language to speak for itself. Yes, so what enthrals me about Tomas Tranströmer’s work is how it just speaks and it doesn’t impose anything. I would see that as a step forward in my own interest and excitement in poetry. Oh yes. That is very true. I’ve got to know the man since then. He suffered a severe stroke many years ago. He’s coping with it, but he cannot write. But his spirits are high, he travels a great deal and he has a wonderful wife who takes care of him. The third poet who I came into contact with was Thomas Kinsella."