Customer Reviews

Children of Albion: poetry of the 'Underground' in Britain; (The Penguin poets, D116)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I just finished reading this book cover-to-cover, including the lengthy"afterwords" by the editor, Michael Horovitz. I was very engaged by this 1969 anthology of anti-establishment poetry. In fact I enjoyed this trip so immensely that I feel like a piker for only giving it four stars. But I just can't bring myself to totally endorse a work whose underlying philosophies seem so -um, well- radical!

This book is an epitome of radical 60's intellectual upheaval, when moderation was the dirtiest of words. What I found appealing about it is the vitality displayed and the determination to escape the bounds of cliche and convention in these poems.

The editor, Horovitz, plainly set his stamp on this collection by influencing and shepherding his flock of underground poets along certain broad, but definite channels. The most obvious influence is that of 18th century British poet William Blake. This is apparent from the title, as well as the respects paid to Blake in the "afterwords" as well as several of the poems. Albion was the name of a character in Blake's poetry who symbolized Britain. Blake's mystical, visionary poems were concerned with the freeing of the spirit of Albion from the demonic forces of rationality and materialism.

So Horovitz considered himself and his group of fellow poets to be modern day crusaders whose mission it was to continue and enlarge upon the tradition of William Blake. There is such a messianic zeal to the goals and intentions outlined by Horovitz in his editorial afterword that the book seems like a quasi-religious manifesto. Horovitz preaches a doctrine where the role of Deity would be filled by Jung's collective unconscious or Blake's mystical conception of man's suppressed and hidden godhood. The most inspired prophet of this religion of liberation, according to Horovitz, was beat poet Allen Ginsberg, with honorable mention to Bob Dylan. The new gospel would be the new poetry expressed in a vital living way that broke through the old boundaries and conventions which rendered poetry lifeless, and a mere thing to be studied - in other words,"literature".

Some of this poetry I found very compelling in its confessional exploration of the meaning of self, and its attempts to capture the immediacy of existence. Some I found merely incomprehensible, at least to me. I would have said at this point that the book was a time-capsule of the late sixties had I not discovered that, as of this writing, Michael Horovitz, now 74, is still fomenting rebellion against the establishment and advocating immediate redistribution of wealth. You can find his blog by google-searching his name.

I bought my used copy of this paperback because of the colorful picture of a William Blake engraving on the cover. The mystical-appearing cover, the publication date, and those venerable tanned pages imparted an aura which I couldn't resist. Once again, I felt rewarded for taking a chance on something obscure and out of the mainstream.

England in the 1960s. The fervor of a dream near to realization, a new England, a new Albion distinct from the old one. Well, it obviously didn't turn out the way that they expected. Though look at England today, maybe they weren't completely off base.

Anyway, these poems are markers of their time. Worth looking at when thinking about the return of the Morris Dancers and the conflict/contrast(?) of the new weird England the old weird England.

The exuberant, joyous figure of William Blake's "Glad Day" that adorns this wonderful anthology tells you everything you need to know about it. Compiled & published during the glory days of the 1960s in England, it's an amazing collection of poems by young poets ablaze with wit, optimism, and visionary fire. There's celebration to be found in thse pages, and sensuality, and a righteous wrath at the stodgy Establishment, which was obviously going to fall in very short order, replaced by a golden new Albion. Alas, like so many other Romantic dreams, its flowers were doomed to fade all too quickly. But the poems remain, a reminder of hope & a pointer to unborn possibilities. And the lengthy stream-of-consciousness essay in the back will not only tell you about the poets, but convey the magical atmosphere of the era vividly. I doubt that we'll ever this this particular volume in print again, so if you should stumble across a copy, snap it up!