Grateful for this, Jeremy. By chance I read Still Life with a Wine Glass again yesterday on the train home from John Welch’s memorial gathering in Hackney, where Amanda was encouraging us to take away Many Press publications including Roger’s More or Less (2002) in which the poem appeared.
“To know Roger Langley was to learn the virtue of both knowing and not knowing about beautiful things.” Thank you – I wasn’t familiar with Langley’s work and I look forward to exploring more.
Good question, Thea! All the published journal entries since the Shearsman book are available in back issues of PN Review (print and online). (Will answer on IG too, but posting this here in case other people have the same question.)
Your selections from his Notebooks were always a joy in PN Review, and I am delighted now to be able to order the book from Shearsman. Your critical approach matches his poetry perfectly, I think — fine detail is handled with such a quiet bravura that it creates a sense of trust and rightness in language and life.
Thank you, James — that is very kind. I was saying to a friend recently that the opportunity I got (a very lucky one, I now see) to review RFL’s Collected Poems at length for the London Review of Books in 2001 was the first time as a critic that I really felt that I was trying to say something for myself about poetry, because there was so little prior discussion to build on. So that really was formative — and then to get to know Roger, and to read new poems as he wrote them, and hear him speak about them (albeit modestly and obliquely), and respond to my questions and comments — well, that was an education all over again, not only in what he knew, but how he thought about it (for example, etymology). Like all the best teachers, he communicated his insights from the starting position that they mattered to him, so of course they would matter to you!
To befriend a poet, time well-spent together; to be read a draft of a newly-written poem. To look at the stars in the aftermath and think of him. To care for his legacy. To spread the word, his. A lovely piece.
Grateful for this, Jeremy. By chance I read Still Life with a Wine Glass again yesterday on the train home from John Welch’s memorial gathering in Hackney, where Amanda was encouraging us to take away Many Press publications including Roger’s More or Less (2002) in which the poem appeared.
Ah, I am very sorry to hear that John has died — I prized that Many Press pamphlet, and remember the launch reading in Cambridge fondly.
Very sad to hear of John Welch's death. Many Press was such a rich treasure.
“To know Roger Langley was to learn the virtue of both knowing and not knowing about beautiful things.” Thank you – I wasn’t familiar with Langley’s work and I look forward to exploring more.
Very interesting. I live near the bridge with the coping! Are his later journal entries (2005 onwards) in print? If so, where can I find them?
Best wishes,
Thea (please message @smileyrant on Instagram - I'm not usually on substack)
Good question, Thea! All the published journal entries since the Shearsman book are available in back issues of PN Review (print and online). (Will answer on IG too, but posting this here in case other people have the same question.)
Your selections from his Notebooks were always a joy in PN Review, and I am delighted now to be able to order the book from Shearsman. Your critical approach matches his poetry perfectly, I think — fine detail is handled with such a quiet bravura that it creates a sense of trust and rightness in language and life.
Thank you, James — that is very kind. I was saying to a friend recently that the opportunity I got (a very lucky one, I now see) to review RFL’s Collected Poems at length for the London Review of Books in 2001 was the first time as a critic that I really felt that I was trying to say something for myself about poetry, because there was so little prior discussion to build on. So that really was formative — and then to get to know Roger, and to read new poems as he wrote them, and hear him speak about them (albeit modestly and obliquely), and respond to my questions and comments — well, that was an education all over again, not only in what he knew, but how he thought about it (for example, etymology). Like all the best teachers, he communicated his insights from the starting position that they mattered to him, so of course they would matter to you!
Thank you for this beautiful essay. It reminded me of how much I have liked R.F. Langley's work when I have read it. I will now read more.
To befriend a poet, time well-spent together; to be read a draft of a newly-written poem. To look at the stars in the aftermath and think of him. To care for his legacy. To spread the word, his. A lovely piece.
Thank you, Luciana. Yes: at the time, it just seems part of life, but looking back it was time very well spent.
All time well spent is precious, isn’t it? And then all these beautiful stories to tell.