From the diary of a writer-publisher: 9

Common Brimstone Butterfly by Charles J Sharp

22 March
A very sunny day and I saw the first Brimstone butterfly flying in the garden; in fact two at once, both males (the females are a greenish white). This is something of a relief, as a local insect spotter emailed me ten days ago to say he had seen a Peacock and Comma in his garden ‘but still no Brimstone’, and in the old days you usually saw a Brimstone long before Nymphalids like the Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell and Comma. My theory is that Brimstones actually need bright sunlight, as their colour perhaps suggests, but all that the brown and furry jobs need is a certain warmth. The spotter saw his Peacock and Comma on a day when the air temperature was high (I saw a Small Tortoiseshell flying on the same day), but the sun was not bright. Also, I remember some discussion on Autumn Watch last year of reports that Peacocks and Small Tortoiseshells were now going into hibernation a month earlier than before.

Last year there was a male Brimstone flying around on 22 February:

february sun
everyone’s talking of
the brimstone they’ve seen

(An example of the difficulty of writing haikus in English: you are supposed not to use capitals any more, but ‘brimstone’ suggests a local volcano eruption or a daytrip to Hell.)

26 March
I went to deliver John Polkinghorne’s post at the care home he went into for respite before Black Crow came over all the land. I discovered the home was self-isolating and all I could do was hand the package over at Reception. As always, there were a few ladies sitting at the tables in the foyer chatting, knitting or reading the paper. I say ‘ladies’ because although perhaps in their early nineties they are all immaculately turned out and have impeccable manners. It seemed only polite to say good morning to them and remark on the beautiful indoor temperature of the home. They all turned their heads and smiled radiantly as they returned the greeting. They looked like zinnias:

Image from plantsofdistinction.co.uk

The mystery, though, is why you never see any men partaking of the communality of this foyer. I invite explanations in the Comments column. Obviously, there are men in the home. John is waiting for delivery of a motorised wheelchair before he can get about.

30 March
A journalist has written that during times of plague Shakespeare’s theatre was closed down and ‘he could not write his plays’. Au absolute contraire, surely: if he had any sense, which he did, he must have used every moment of self-isolation to get ahead of the dramatic game for when the theatres reopened. Not only that, tied to his desk during the plague of 1593 he wrote his first long poem, Venus and Adonis, which became a best seller and must have considerably made up for loss of earnings.

I have decided to try to follow his intimidating but very inspiring example. In 2008 I started a poem (‘Making Icons’) that is in two parts of seventeen stanzas each and each stanza has twelve lines. I see from the pencil manuscript that I finished stanza 22 on 3 August 2011…eight years later I had got as far as stanza 26…in the last ten days I have written two more…  Great William, stand over me and urge me on.

It’s a tricky subject and taxing stanza form. For reasons best known to the poem, it’s both alliterative and rhymed (assonantal). The only sample I can think of that may be comprehensible out of its context is:

18

The rage-raked branches by the sea
lie still, like cerebrums of coral,
their wiry line seems hardly leaves,
so punched and packed by weather’s worry,
a fierce frisure, not fioritura,
the sheer survivance of a tree,
while ‘watercolour sky’ of Norfolk
clouds out the curlew and the seal.
Brandish and bray what you may feel,
time like the tempest, rain and sun
transmutes it into topiary:
something has died, some thing lives on.

Having just read that again, I can’t help thinking the last line describes the state of the country (‘some thing’ is meant to be two words). And I had intended to keep this post as bright and springtime as its images!

SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS 

‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement

‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine

‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian

‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’  Michael Pursglove, East-West Review

‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter

‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer

‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18

A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.

A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.