J.H. Prynne Dies Aged 89

Hello Gentle Reader,

Some poets have the quality and fortune of forever being lauded and appreciated. Canonized into some literary sainthood. Others are less fortunate. Sentenced to dusty tomes and shelves, neglected, but adored by an almost cultish following. J.H. Prynne is a poet who embodies and could be described by some as the epitome of the later. As a poet, Prynne was considered a defining pillar of what is now reflected on as the mid-century (and therefore late) modernist school, “British Poetry Revival,” which continued the modernist traditions of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, while taking inspiration from the poets across the pond, with their postmodern sensibilities encapsulated by John Asherby, Frank O’Hara and Robert Creeley. These poets sought to push against the poetry corralled under the banner “The Movement,” which promoted a return to a traditional formalistic approach to poetics, rejecting the metaphysical wonderings and natural rhapsodizing of Dyland Thomas. “The Movement,” also claimed membership of Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin, who would later go on to be grouped in with the “Angry Young Men,” crowd. Truly mid 20^th century literature had no shortage of movements and ideas. They swelled, crested, crashed and receded, with alarming regularity. Difficult to imagine how some writers didn’t end up shipwrecked, stranded, or drifting as mere flotsam. As for J.H. Prynne, there is no contemporary who could be considered his equal. Prynne was a poet of competing contradictions, erudite and intellectually flexible, while being obfuscating and obtuse. Here was a poet whose love of language would also be the reason which alienated readers and was ignored by academic and literary circles. As critics and academics viewed the work as being to willfully hermetic in nature and indentured to an inflexible aesthetic form, which was not only out of fashion but out of place. Regardless, J.H. Prynne found resounding success in the avant-garde and small publishing houses, who would become his poetry collections homes throughout his long career. It wasn’t until the eighties, however, that Prynne’s poetry found academic and critical evaluation with his first collected poetry selection titled “Poems.” A collected poems titled “Poems,” was published in 2024; Prynne’s prolific nature is equally a point of admiration for its industrial scale. J.H. Prynne poetry can always be viewed as the antithesis to the violent firebrand music of Ted Hughes or the pinched bleak misery observations of Philip Larkin, as Prynne’s poetry held onto a lumine opacity. Incomprehensible and argumentative, yes, but shimmering with singular opalescence. Beyond his poetry, J.H. Prynne was an influential academic teaching in Cambridge and was a Life Fellow of the Gonville and Caius College, additionally he was the colleges librarian. Despite not being canonized in the public or literary imagination, J.H. Prynne will endure in a legendary capacity, not just by his complex verse, but also due to his refusal to participate in publicity campaigns, readings, or photographs. J.H. Prynne is and was no Charles Causley or Wendy Cope in his deliberations, but his language, however difficult it was to parse, is Prynne’s enduring legacy to literature.

Rest in Peace J.H. Prynne.

Thank you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
 
M. Mary