READING A POEM A DAY 3 3.12.2016

from The Gaze of the Gorgon, a film poem

Tony Harrison

Soon, in 1994,

in this palace Greece starts to restore,

in this the Kaiser's old retreat

Europe's heads of state will meet,

as the continent disintegrates

once more into the separate states

that waved their little flags and warred

when the Kaiser's Gorgon was abroad.

So to commemorate that rendezvous

of EU statesmen in Corfu

I propose that in that year

they bring the dissident back here

and to keep new Europe open-eyed

they let the marble poet preside …

Broadcast in 1992 by BBC2, this instance of Harrison's marvellous film poetry is prescient to these Brexit days, with Gorgons looming across Europe, amidst Kaisers fumbling as the continent disintegrates.

As ever with Harrison, there is pleasure in the robust rhyming couplets, tight as steel hawsers, clean catching the reader's eye and ear.

1994/restore; warred/abroad; rendezvous/Corfu

The ten syllable lines hold right through to the end, then falter there, when the marble poet runs out of verse. What dissent does Harrison wish for, when the classical foundations of his Europe are shaken and the great fabric of humanity becomes no more than separate states and their little flags?

Is the dissident a woman, to face the EU statesmen?

Merkel? Le Pen? May?

Not likely.

More likely a steely poet. Like Harrison. Built

… to keep new Europe open-eyed

And hearted.

Collected Film Poetry; Tony Harrison, Faber and Faber, London, 2007

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