He is also a noted translator, dramatist, and librettist whose works have been performed by Britain’s National Theatre and the New York Metropolitan Opera. Harrison is also a maker of television and film poetry.
His honors include a Unesco fellowship, the Faber Memorial Award, a U.S. Bicentennial fellowship, and the European Poetry Translation Prize. He was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984. He lives in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England.
Long Distance II
Tony Harrison – 1937-
Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.
You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone.
He’d put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.
He couldn’t risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he’d hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she’d just popped out to get the tea.
I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven’t both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there’s your name
and the disconnected number I still call.
Stephen Spender (1909-95) said of Tony Harrison’s series of elegies for his parents that they were the sort of poetry he felt he’d been waiting his whole life for. This is one of a number of moving Meridithian (sixteen-line) sonnets that Harrison wrote following the death of his father. The poem , ” Long Distance II ” written in 1978/ published in 1984 collection too , deals with the irrational manifestations that grief can take describing his father’s difficulties in coming to terms with his wife’s ( the poet’s mother’s ) death and the emotions Harrison himself experiences upon the death of his father. Harrison mainly focuses on the narrator’s concern at his father’s inability to cope with his mother’s death. His father still behaves as if his wife is alive, and there is a powerful sense of love enduring after death.Both the father and the child realize that these methods of coping could be seen as abnormal, yet they continue with those same patterns of behaviors to manage their heartbreaks. Grief is a reaction to something barely understandable, and dealing with it in ways that are not logical is somehow fitting and common. His father showed desperateness to thaw out the coldness of his mourning. The void his wife left was deep and frigid, and he needed relief by any means. The father hoped the wife was able to return to him in some form ; The reader is given these and such other details / facts in the 1 St Stanza. The facts in 2 nd Stanza shifts into explaining why the actions were actually inconvenient , and embarrassment is tied to his grief. People were not permitted to “just drop in” because the father needed time to “clear away [the mother’s] things and look alone.” Although not logical , his wife’s shoes would need to be “warm[ed],” but he continued with the process. Non- traditional way in dealing with grief , but he was mentally stable enough to know that he must hide his idiosyncrasies from the public eye and his habits remained hidden.“clear[ing] away her things” is spoken of in a way that makes it seem unnecessary. In words, “as though” , we find his son believes it’s wrong. If as a Reader like a son or daughter , sides with the father , it is not more than shared grasp in the grief. In stanza three, grief is explored. It is clear that his father will suffer a physical pain by his ‘blight of disbelief’ suggesting that he fears his son’s reaction should he see the preparations his father is making. The notion can be inferred that the narrator told the father that he did not hold the same belief that she’d return, but the father refused to accept that “disbelief” because “[h]e couldn’t risk” it. Though the delusions were as “rusted” as the “lock” with age and mistreatment, he simply had to hang on to them longer. The ‘rusted lock’ in the third stanza is a metaphor for death. It is a story of a man who was aware, deep down, that his wife was not coming home, but embracing that notion would have felt worse than living like the opposite was true. In the last stanza he refers to his dead father as ‘you’; so the reader in effect eves-drops on the poet addressing intimately his parent, even though he doesn’t believe in life after death. In the 4 th Stanza , the perspective shifts (mimicked in the rhyme scheme shifting from ABAB to ABBA and the change to present tense) so that the narrator- poet is now referencing his own beliefs and grief rather than relaying the father’s story. Here too , the idea behind holding to details of a person who has been taken by death is treated in the same way. There is no sense, to the narrator, in carrying on like the person is still alive or capable of returning. To the narrator, “life ends with death, and that is all.” The narrator has taken the time to write their “name” “in [his] new black leather phone book,” and he “still call[s]” his mother and father. Like his father, his grief is not manifesting in ways that make sense. Also like his father, he knows that his actions are illogical. Most of all though, like his father, he keeps grieving the same way, holding on to these little details of what remains of those passed on even though no rational argument can validate the practice.
It is notable how subtly the reader is drawn in to the family relationships and the complexities of grief and how humans cope with the mourning and grief on loss of loved ones. Mourning, seemingly to Harrison, does not have to be rational. It just needs to be.
” Long Distance II” By Tony Harrison: : Information Appreciation and poem Analysis Presented by V Jayaraj Pune India August 3 , 2022 : : : ; : : : : : :
MADHU MALTI 