A landmark collection of poems from the author of Cider With Rosie has been gathered in one volume for the first time, including a generous selection of previously unseen verses from his archives
‘Laurie never claimed that his experiences were unique,’ say Jessy Lee of her father, Laurie, in the preface to a new collection of previously unpublished poems, ‘but he did have a singular ability to capture, both in poetry and later in prose, the essence of life, love and loss.
Jessy re-encountered Laurie’s talent as a poet when researching for his centenary celebrations in 2014. ‘His archive is held in the vaults of the British Library,’ she says. ‘Laurie was intensely private, and his archive was something I’d previously avoided, but once there I was astonished by what I found: poems, notes, unfinished pieces, lines and verses. It was Laurie’s world. I could smell his study, his hair, his ink even – and I saw clearly why some of his previously unpublished poems should see the light of day.
‘I bathe in Dad’s words. I believe, as did Laurie, that there are no established formulae for interpreting poetry. As with any work of art, it is about your personal response, a gift for you to decide how you want to use it. I only wish that he was still here for us both to talk about his poems now.’
Larch Tree
Oh, larch tree, with scarlet berries
sharpen the morning slender sun
sharpen the thin taste of September
with your aroma of sweet wax and powder delicate.
Fruit is falling in the valley
breaking on the snouts of foxes
breaking on the wooden crosses
where children bury the shattered bird.
Fruit is falling in the city
blowing a woman’s eyes and fingers
across the street among the bones
of boys who could not speak their love.
I watch a starling cut the sky
a dagger through the blood of cold,
and grasses bound by strings of wind
stockade the sobbing fruit among the bees.
Oh, larch tree, with icy hair
your needles thread the thoughts of snow
while in the fields a shivering girl
takes to her breasts the sad ripe apples.
November
November loosens the tongue
like a leaf condemned,
and calls through the sharp blue air
a sad dance and a dread of winter.
The mistletoe reveals a star
in the dark crab-apple,
and chestnuts join their generations
under the spider sheets of cold.
I hear the branches snap their fingers
and solitary grasses crack,
I hear the forest open her dress
and the ravens rattle their icy wings.
I hear the girl beside me rock
the hammock of her blood
and breathe upon the bedroom walls
white dust of Christmas roses.
And I think; do you feel the snow,
love, in your crocus eyes,
do you watch from your trench of slumber
this blue dawn dripping on a thorn?
But she smiles with her warm mouth
in a dream of daisies,
and swings with the streaming birds
to chorus among the chimneys.
Juniper
Juniper holds to the moon
a girl adoring a bracelet;
as the hills draw up their knees
they throw off their jasmine girdles.
You are a forest of game,
a thought of nights in procession,
you tread through the bitter fires
of the nasturtium.
I decorate you to a smell of apples,
I divide you among the voices
of owls and cavaliering cocks
and woodpigeons monotonously dry.
I hang lanterns on your mouth
and candles from your passionate crucifix,
and bloody leaves of the virginia
drip with their scarlet oil.
There is a pike in the lake
whose blue teeth eat the midnight stars
piercing the water’s velvet skin
and puncturing your sleep.
I am the pike in your breast,
my eyes of clay revolve the waves
while cirrus roots and lilies grow
between our banks of steep embraces.
Laurie Lee’s Collected Poems is published in hardback by Penguin Classics on October 26, 2023. penguin.co.uk
