Vers Idiotique X:
The Antidote to Austerity
By Andrew Seear & Victor Adereth
Contents
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Preface
by Dr Julius Knørr, FRSC,
Professor of Symmetry,
University of Rye
In
his seminal treatise, Nine Reasons To Boil Bananas, Dr Jeremy
Schmidt poses the seasonal (and reasonable) question: what is the difference
between poetry and verse?
Let
me be clear. Schmidt’s assertion that “Verse is vomit strained of
impurities; poetry, however, is the whole boiling” presupposes that poets can
cook – whereas, in point of fact, the opposite is very often the case. And
whilst verse may be freely available – as indeed are the constipatory
conconctions sold over the counter at many fast-food retail outlets these days
– the Muse dispenses poetry (and I mean genuine poetry) only
to those whose palate, so to speak, is capable of distinguishing taste from
mere digestion. In short, verse may be said to be all things to all
men; poetry, on the other hand, is none to any.
How
may this conundrum be explained? One thinks instinctively of William
Rawlings (1562-1610), whose A Turk Peers Under The Eiderdown was
for many years considered the epitome of epigrammatic expression; until Sir
Alfred Wolff-Chalmers pointed out that the revered author of The
Canterbury Tales was Chaucer – and not Chaucer as
Rawlings had wrongly rendered him, thereby making a dog’s breakfast of the
iambic pentameter with which the work had come to be closely associated. It
was not long before critics found other infelicities – and worse! – in
Rawlings’s previously celebrated canon. The simile, “as drunk as a
horse”, betrayed a woeful ignorance as regards matters caballine; and the
enjambement effected by “dead/Why” lost its raison d’être with
the placing of a full stop after “dead” – though some believe this was inserted
maliciously by his sister, Mary, who edited his works after his death and never
liked him.
Be
that as it may, one cannot remain sanguine in the face of those who profess
(and I’m thinking here particularly of Professor Norman Barnstable) to be
lovers of wine and yet still find themselves unable (or unwilling) to tell the
difference between a Louis Pericleux Chateau Jocastin, 1952, and a bottle of
weasel’s wee. Which distinction brings me neatly to the present
volume, which I have the honour of introducing to a wider public.
It is not generally known that Andrew Seear and Victor Adereth –
even the mere mention of these two iconoclastic practitioners of poesy may
bring a chill to the bottoms of the old, the infirm and the less than
seasonably insulated – have published no fewer than eighty volumes between them
on the subject of drunk horses. Seear, who initiated the enterprise,
explains that one night he found Adereth “the worse for wear” and “about to do
something unforgivable” in a stable near Norwich. The horse in
question, I’m relieved to say, went on to win the Derby – but the
episode set Seear “thinking” (his word for the process).
The
work itself – or oeuvre, as the authors liked to call it –
initially comprised five inter-linking theses, all of which purported to
demonstrate that reality was what their mentor, Sir Isaac Jones, memorably
described as “a pig’s arse”. Seear, however, became impatient with
the project and demanded what he called “something else”.
Adereth,
drawing on an eclectic mix of Marxism and empirio-criticism which had scarred
him as a boy, provided the Argument for the revised first four volumes – in
which the pair played fast and loose with traditional philosophy, ridiculing
Rousseau, mocking Montesquieu and deriding Derrida. Only Erasmus
escaped the brunt of their bile, as Adereth’s fondness for Dutchmen (which was
to cause him embarrassment in later years) precluded a serious critique of
pre-Reformation humanism. Seear, profoundly influenced by the Dover
Divinists (his Holy White Cliffs deserves particular, if
scathing, mention here) sought to “bring the whole thing round” (his words
again) in order to confront what he saw as a greater evil than dualism:
prose. Convincing his ‘partner’ that all eighty (and, if I may say
so, weighty) volumes of philosophy should be re-written as sonnets,
Seear opened what can only be described as a Pandora’s Box.
And
this is the difficulty facing this critic. Can philosophy be
transformed into poetry simply by rhyme? Is The Prelude an
endeavour or a triumph? Is a Pyrrhic victory still a victory? What
happens to the chap who crosses the Rubicon and then wants to pop back because
he’s forgotten his trumpet? To what extent does sexual desire excuse mauvaise
foi? Does a wolf in sheep’s clothing know he’s wearing another
fellow’s jacket?
Readers
of Vers Idiotique X expecting answers to these questions will
be sorely disappointed. Seear’s I Believe In Belief appears
at first hand to offer faith; but cruelly short-changes those seeking anything
in the way of life-affirmation by its retreat from lyricism in the last line:
“Fuck you!” And Adereth’s I Love Your Bottom is
predicated upon the puerile presumption that there is something erotic about
two people taking their clothes off in Harrods and engaging in a prolonged act
of sexual intimacy. Decency forbids me to mention the one verse on
which they collaborated – the penultimate canto in the obscenely over-rated We
Like It Like That! – in which they invite the reader to “feel your way
to paradise”, although I understand the entire verse is included (as an
appendix) in Elizabeth Sharpe’s seminal Mouth-watering Mediterranean
Menus.
The
publishers of this book have asked me to comment on the authors’ frequent
references to bestiality: does the preoccupation augur a return to the simple
values of rural idiocy – or is there something more sinister underfoot? There
is no doubt that some readers may be alarmed by Seear’s earnestness in Doing
Things With A Squirrel Called Simon; and Adereth’s That’s My Mongoose! sets
the bar very low as regards jumping to conclusions. Suffice it here
to say that these poets of Nature are curiously cavalier as regards a strict
adherence to their covenant, as the (curiously unattributed) You Must
Leave Now, Little Donkey makes painfully clear.
A
common complaint from readers of anthologies (as well as from postmen,
strangely enough) is encapsulated in the oft-repeated mantra, plus ça
change, plus c’est la même chose. Seear and Adereth may be accused
of many things (and frequently are, with good reason) but a slavish fealty to
precedence is not one of them. This edition boasts not only a
Supplement with a pronounced geographical emphasis but also a
brand new section, Dear Mary, in which the pair offer their advice on a range
of queries, predominantly of a sexual nature.
Whether
the present collection consists of verse, poetry or just bad manners is for
priests to judge. As a literary critic – and one who, moreover, has
always said Pah! to pedantic distinctions – I feel I am in a
unique position to point out that a man whose head has been bitten off cares
little whether the perpetrator was a crocodile or an alligator. Readers
of this volume will undoubtedly feel the same way.
Tripoli,
December, 2011
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