IN MEMORIAM HELEN VENDLER, APRIL 2024 Critics who die are never loved; Love itself is a paradox their ambiguous work Cannot solve; theirs are the rocks The penmanship of prose is driven onto – Theirs the grove the poet is not laurelled in – Canyons divide what labours they prove To themselves have value, from The impression made by them on authors Stranded to one side of their prodigious wake – They take more than they give, some say – While others bask in their praise, as if Their gift was new, more luminous solar rays – But even when their own texts approach, Penumbral, art itself, the beauty or truth They claim remains incongruously peripheral, Like the third lover in any complicated bed – Used, then merely tolerated, perhaps despised, For envy is bred by savage intimacy entangled by Parasitical limbs – or what passes lyrically for such, In the books they tore to shreds, or adumbrated, As the worthiest of desire’s deceitful a
Since it is Easter week, I have been watching Jesus of Nazareth again, that star-studded 1970s spectacle, that brings back wonderful memories of being 11 and watching it with my Uncle Jack. My other favourite TV experience of the 70s is The Poseidon Adventure , when it was broadcast, and the two productions share a similar theme, actually - a holy man trying to lead his flock to safety in a dangerous environment. Both also have Oscar-winning casts (including Ernest Borgnine ). The Jesus of Nazareth mini-series is now seen as a Sir Lew Grade classic, with Maurice Jarre 's rousing score, and astonishing array of actors, and realistic location-shoots, adding much. Oddly, the screenplay was partly written by Anthony Burgess , whose A Clockwork Orange is probably antithetical; and much of the key moments are directly from the King James Bible New Testament. Whatever else one may think about The Bible, few books have ever had as many great lines of dialogue, so many memorable saying