A Poem About a Word

Advanced Husbandry

‘Married’ vine trained around ‘husband’ trees, a common practice in early wine-making. Via Guado al Melo ‘Wine and the Etruscan’

A short poem today after last week’s lit-crit longueur (my favourite word, but so rarely get a chance to use it). Thanks for hanging in there.

The poem I’m sharing this week is about the etymology of the word ‘husband,’ and how we try to train and police our own creativity. ‘Husband’ derives from ‘good steward of the land’, ‘cultivate,’ ‘tiller of the soil,’ and, in a more conservative vein, ‘conserve resources,’ ‘use frugally.’ So, the question I’m asking, here, is how do we ‘husband’ our writing? Good husbandry is a productive, diligent practice, but let’s not cultivate away all the wilderness. In fact, art might have more to do with unproductive, disorganised, unkempt places than a well-tended garden. This is all old-hat Romantic poet stuff, of course, but thinking about the verb, ‘to husband,’ gave me a sudden vision of my own internalised surveyor with a clipboard and a measuring wheel.

A couple of notes on the poem: ‘husband’s tea’ is a nineteenth-century phrase meaning weak tea made from very few leaves or re-used dregs. It wasn’t good enough for guests, but fine to palm off on a poor uncaffeinated husband.

One fact I tried to squeeze in, but couldn’t, is that in Roman chariot racing, it was said that a husband-and-wife horse team would always win the race. Make of that what you will.

The other bit of background worth mentioning is a day trip to Center Parcs. On the approach, between one bend of the road and the next, softly wooded Thomas Hardy country gave way to a steep, coniferous valley. At the entrance to the holiday park was a log cabin and from the cabin came an official in a peaked cap. He checked our credentials, elaborately, against a multi-page document, recorded the car registration number, conducted a head count by putting his own head inside the car, and consulted at length with a second official before (eyes averted) raising the barrier. Beyond the barrier was a paved and well-lit ‘forest.’ Honestly, we had a great day and the kids clamoured to go back, but the entrance checkpoint really was something.

Anyway, here’s the poem. I’d like the fire at the edge of the property to be ambiguous — a beacon of home for weary travellers and / or a sign of looming disaster — but you can’t keep a grip on a poem after it’s written. However much I protest about etymology and ‘husband’ as a verb, not a noun, I do see what I’ve done here. I once read this poem at a workshop and it divided the room, roughly along gender lines.¹ I suppose things get in under the good-husbandry fence.

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If, like me, you’re sometimes struck down with writer’s block or creative stagnation, I offer you Emily Brontë’s Top Tip Of The Week:

‘the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.’

What looks bleak and impossible might just be a lovely bit of wilderness.

1. The workshop was with the brilliant Mark Waldron at Poetry School. I was introduced to some great contemporary poetry I probably wouldn’t have discovered on my own, and met some wonderful people. Lots of courses can be taken on online so you don’t have to be in London. Here’s a link to current courses.