J. F. Hendry London Before Invasion: 1940
Picture Graham Sutherland 'Wrecked Public House '
Thank you to Tate Images for its use-reference N5735
London Before Invasion
" Walls and buildings stand here still, like shells.
Hold them to the ear. There are no echoes even
Of the seas that once were. That tide is out
Beyond the valleys and hills.
Days dawn and die while the city assumes a distance of stars.
It is the absence of the heart
In the ebbing seas of heaven,
An ebbing beyond laughter and too tense for tears.
Now, imagination floats, a weed, on water's vacancy.
Fates of women, lit with conscience of stone features.
Flowers have a girl's irrelevance, and mind is no
prescience.
Flood-tides returning may bring with them blood and fire,
Blenching with wet panic spirit that must be rock
May being a future tossed and torn, as slippery as wrack,
All time adrift in torrents of blind war. "
Glasgow born J.F. (James Findlay) Hendry ( 1912- 1986), served in the Royal Artillery and Amy Intelligence. Most known in World War 2 poetry circles for his involvement in the 'New Apocalypse' movement' , following the anthology of the same name that Hendry edited with Henry Treece, that was published in 1939. Two more such anthologies 'The White Horseman' ( 1941) and ' Crown and Sickle'( 1944) were published. G.S Fraser, Norman McCaig, Vernon Watkins, were briefly associated them.
Opposed to the 1930's 'Auden Generation' , the ' New Apocalyptics' were short lived as a movement and its harder to find another group of poets who have attracted such unkind comments since the Georgians of the early 20th century. Andrew Sinclair sniped at Hendry and Treece for being 'leaders without a movement' , and denounced the poetry included in 'The White Horseman' for being " obscure, self conscious and adolescent'. Vernon Scannell accused them of promoting a " kind of zany automatic writing, most of which read like a drunken parody of Dylan Thomas" . George Orwell scoffed at them.
The New Apocalyptics were uninterested in the use of social realism within poetry. Mythological images prevailed in their work, with inspirations taken from nature, pre-industrial ages, the theories of Freud, 1930's surrealism, and Anarchism of the individualist variety. The movement itself was short lived, though their influence lasted for another decade with the growth of the Romanticism in the 1940's. By the 1950's, with the rise of The Movement poets and the Angry Young Men ( in both the theatre and in novels) , the work of the New Apocalypse seemed escapist and archaic. Henry Treece became better known in post war years for writing historical novels, particularly for young readers, and some quite delightful poetry such as 'The Magic Wood'.
J.F. Hendry had two poetry collections published during World War 2, 'The Bombed Happiness' (1942) 'The Orchestral Mountain' , neither attracted much attention. But Keidrich Rhys included several of J.F.Hendry's poems in his seminal anthologies. 'Poems from the Forces' (1941) and 'More Poems from the Forces' (1943) But J.F. Hendry carried on writing. J.F. Hendry's post war work included 'Fernie Brae' ( 1947), and 'Life of Rilke' (1982).
Recently found a collection of poetry titled ' Poems of Today -Fourth Series' published in 1957, and looking at the 'best' poetry from 1938-1957. This volume included just one J.F.Hendry poem 'The Churchillian Ode'. Reminds one initially of 17th century odes to Cromwell written by Andrew Marvell and John Dryden until they both embraced the Restoration . Or John Milton's sonnets dedicated to Sir Henry Vane the Younger and General Fairfax . Quoting from the first few lines.
A Churchillian Ode
"The years grew tares for we did not tend them
Time was eaten by moths in an age of gold
And the sun eclipsed in a cloud of ignorance.
The hours sprang holes as we stared, until now, the
last,
We clasp in our hands a sheaf of bluebells in place
Of the rifle, and all our moment of laughter are
frozen
Amid flaming towns, their echoes chill as the shade of
soul's vengeance.............."
There is a sort of awkward dreaminess with a bit of surrealism thrown in. 'London Before Invasion 1940' was written in 1940, published in his collection 'The Bombed Happiness' . This title was challenged by Andrew Sinclair as having implied "that there might be a liberation and joy in destruction." This issue appears within 'London Before Invasion 1940 " - that somehow the course of history was entering a phase where human emotion simply didn't matter: "An ebbing beyond laughter and too tense for tears"- whilst there is a terrible wait for the next tide to come rushing in again, bringing new horrors.
In wider contact, I doubt that a New Apocalyptic such as J F Hendry was justifying destruction or finding something aesthetically pleasing about an air raid. He was a poet caught up in war, trying to find a space for the individual, in a world where impersonal historical forces were ranging.
Quotes by Andrew Sinclair were taken from ' War Like A Wasp -The Lost Decade of the Forties'
( 1989)
Quote by Vernon Scannell taken from 'Not Without Glory Poets of the Second World War' (1976)
Please take a look at the companion blog to this one A Burnt Ship , dealing with poetry & prose relating to 17th century warfare.
More articles about War Poetry can be found at worldwarpoetry.com
If anyone is on MeWe, have started the MeWe War Poetry Group : Feel free to join.
