Review of From the Notebooks by Harry Fainlight, by Niall McDevitt

Niall McDevitt reviews From the Notebooks, a small publication of writings by Harry Fainlight (1935-82) from Iconoclast Press, priced at £5 plus postage. The review appeared in issue 15 of The Wolf. McDevitt presents Fainlight as a missing link of English poetry and an exotic figure who belongs on the list of poètes maudits, although he is never on any official list.

The review sketches Fainlight's literary world rather than dwelling on his troubles. His dual British and American citizenship opened the way to the New York avant-garde and to a close friendship with Allen Ginsberg, who rated him among the most gifted English poets of his generation. He contributed to little magazines, was linked with the London paper International Times and read at the 1965 Albert Hall event captured in the film Wholly Communion. His one English pamphlet, Sussicran, was issued by Turret Books, and Ted Hughes later wrote an elegy for him. The review also notes his appearance as a character in Neil Oram's play The Warp and in stories by Dave Tomlin.

McDevitt is cool about the 1984 Selected Poems edited by Ruth Fainlight, finding it handsome but thin, too pastoral and short on the urban work for which he is best remembered. From the Notebooks, he says, fills part of that gap: it transcribes a cassette of a lecture given at an art squat in the 1970s, and its prose-poems, philosophy and rants show Fainlight as a true original and master ironist. He still finds it difficult to measure the achievement without more work, but he rates the best poems, such as Spider Song, as serene mystical lyrics and an antidote to fashionable comic verse.

The review closes with passages quoted from the notebooks themselves. Anyone researching the 1960s counterculture or the afterlife of overlooked poets will find a sympathetic and detailed assessment.

Work

From the Notebooks

Author

Harry Fainlight

Publisher

Iconoclast Press

From the Notebooks is a unique tribute to a unique poet.

Niall McDevitt, The Wolf, issue 15