R.F. Langley, whose Complete Poems have been published this month, taught me English Literature for four years at Bishop Vesey’s Grammar School, Sutton Coldfield. Poets studied as set texts included Shakespeare, Donne and Browning but the years were filled with an unforgettable exploration of the whole canon of English Poetry.
As a teacher he was an inspiration. These set poets were in his very blood. Famously he is quoted as saying “A Midsummer Night's Dream might still be the answer to everything” so exploring Shakespeare was always going to be a rollercoaster ride of ideas. One lesson might see him introduce an approach inspired by the thinkers who had inspired him – Susanne Langer, Adrian Stokes, Melanie Klein – and the next lesson dedicated to a close reading of a short passage to bring out all the interplay of language, sound and meaning.
I still have an essay from my sixth form years– it is a visual joy. Roger marked passages he liked with ticks. A pupil could instantly tell if the essay was any good by the amount of ticks that filled the margins. An average or everyday observation received one tick. Our aim was to develop ideas that sent the ticks into overdrive; getting four or five ticks in the margin was a clear sign that Roger was impressed. And, at the end of the paper, there would be comments and suggestions from Roger that were often as long again as the original essay. The tone was always encouraging, always supportive.
During lessons and particularly during an after-school session each Friday, we began a life-changing examination of texts that Roger loved and thought exploring. Not for this bunch of teenage boys a gentle introduction, not for us any dumbing down – from the off we poured over works by William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Ezra Pound, Charles Olson, William Bronk and many others. These were not ‘lessons from the Master’ either. Roger gave us the great credit of listening to our opinions. No idea was rejected, as long as it was supported by the text. He guided us, he filled in the background details if required and he pushed us to stretch the texts to their very bounds and to take the most that each poem could offer.
Roger’s unshakeable faith in High Modernism was matched equally by his faith in his pupils. I don’t think he ever doubted that not only would we eventually be able to understand these seemingly ‘difficult’ poems, but that we would also be making a valuable contribution and developing valid ideas. He never doubted, either, the centrality of poetry to existence; poetry was not just for pleasure and it certainly wasn’t a means to getting a good exam grade. To him, and then to us, poetry was a way to explore language and ideas; it was the essential form for conveying “the deep power of joy and see into the life of things” as Wordsworth declared.
He was humane, he was witty and he was modest. We used Donald Davie’s idea of the “extensive manifold” as a way of exploring syntax in poetry but never did Roger mention that he had been tutored by the great critic and poet. Roger may have pointed us in the direction of some latest publication by a small poetry press (I remember buying a Grosseteste Review and Prynne’s Unanswering Rational Shore
It is clear from Jeremy Noel-Tod’s excellent notes that Roger was writing verse at the time he was teaching me (1981-1984) although publishing rarely. We never studied any of his poetry. In fact he never spoke about his writing. Perhaps the reason was modesty but it would, in retrospect, have been a real pleasure to explore, say, ‘Juan Fernandez’ or ‘Matthew Glover’ with him.
Is it too presumptuous to think his pupils influenced his writing? As Noel-Tod points out, exploring Olsen’s ‘The Kingfishers’ was a kind of right of passage for Roger’s Sixth Form Eng Lit students, and that bird’s luminous shadow falls across Langley’s ‘Matthew Glover’. Could the classroom discussion have affected the final version of the text? For me, Wallace Stevens influences much of the earlier work, and perhaps the ideas generated by his pupils’ looking at ‘Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird’ provided some influence on ‘Juan Fernandez’.
My greatest pleasure in reading the Complete Poems is in hearing once again Roger Langley’s voice – his unique voice as a poet, as well as literally hearing (still vivid today) that witty, humane (and very Midlands) voice that inspired a teenage boy with a love of poetry, still undiminished after 30 years.
Brett Sidaway was a pupil of R.F. Langley’s at Bishop Vesey Grammar School
The Carcanet Blog Sale
With every blogpost we offer 25% off a Carcanet title, or titles by a particular author or group of authors.
With every blogpost we offer 25% off a Carcanet title, or titles by a particular author or group of authors.
For the next two weeks, we're giving you 25% off R.F. Langley's Complete Poems ed. Jeremy Noel-Tod
All books come with 10% off and and free delivery at www.carcanet.co.uk so to claim your extra discount, use the code BLOGLANGLEY (case-sensitive). Happy reading!