The Genius of John Clare

First published in Art and Soul Magazine 2006

In May this year, I was kindly asked to play at Dorchester Folk Festival. It was a lovely gig to play, especially after the previous days gig on Clapham Common was virtually deserted due to what seemed at the time like monsoon weather.

After the Dorchester gig, I was told I was staying with a man named Alistair Chisholm who turned out to be the local town crier. He answered the door to me in full town crying attire complete with cuffs, bell, cravat and a large tricorn hat with what appeared to be an ostrich feather protruding from one side. Welcoming me into his home, he made me a strong cup of tea before going to walk the dog.

On finding myself alone, my first instinct after noticing the newspaper clippings of Alistair’s recent nude town crying stint at Studland naturist beach to "maximise the exposure of Dorchester", was to look at the bookshelf that covered a whole wall in his livingroom.

I soon noticed that strangely, the majority of the books seemed to be written on the subject of Thomas Hardy. Books of his poetry, biographies, collections of photographs and paintings, short stories and novels. It probably should’ve taken me less time to realise that this was probably because I was staying right in the heart of Thomas Hardy country (or possibly just in the house of a very big fan).

It seems quite strange to me that a poet seems unwittingly espoused to the area in which he or she lived, a link probably vehemently encouraged by the tourist board. Reading Hardy’s beautiful handwriting and the intoxicating twisting rhythms of his poems such as "During Wind and Rain" which inspired music by Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst, I felt a tinge of jealousy that the most our part of the world can hope to be called is "John Clare country".

At first glance, John Clare doesn’t seem to have much to offer; his best known poem "I Am" appears to be the solipsist whinging of a self-pitying loner, he is often seen as a country simpleton with an unhealthy obsession with gypsies, fields and flowers. Much as Wordsworth was publicly slated by Lord Byron for what he saw as a wishy-washy penchant for all that is nice and pretty ("What will any reader out of the nursery say to such namby-pamby?"), Clare is often seen as being nothing but a commentator on all that is dull and clichéd about the English countryside.

Granted, Clare had a talent for writing poetry about nature, and given any beginners guide to John Clare, it is very likely that you’ll be greeted with poems solely about meadows, maidens and skylarks, but he had a whole bredth of talent which far exceeded his label as simply a "Peasant Poet". When reading the poetry of John Clare, you are struck with many conflicting ideas, as Clare was in his own personal life; it is stark and lonely yet strangely comforting, it has a classical elegance but is also brushed by everyday imperfection and crudity.

Clare was removed from school at the age of seven to tend sheep and geese. The preceding difficulty in his grasping the rules of English grammar and questionable spelling proficiency didn’t hinder his early ventures into poetry. He used them to his advantage, using the vocabulary of the farmyard and his own spellings (lady-cow instead of ladybird and frit instead of frightened) and made up his own rules for grammar. "Grammar in learning", he said, "is like tyranny in government – confound the bitch, i’ll never be her slave!". But it was more than these grammatical idiosyncracies that marked out Clare as a special and highly original poet.

Clare had a gift for describing the scenes of the countryside, in the language used by those that saw it most. Unlike a lot of the Romantic poets who wrote in praise of wildlife before him, he had a real understanding of nature.

Clare suffered from mental illness for most of the latter part of his life. He was extremely depressed and his behaviour became more and more erratic, at one point he interupted a performance of Shakespeare’s (someone who in an interview he later claimed to be) The Merchant of Venice, shouting abuse at the character of Shylock. He was admitted to two different mental hospitals, the latter being Northampton General Lunatic Asylum (now St Andrew’s hospital) which he escaped from in 1841 and walked the 80 miles home to Northborough, through Werrington over 4 days. The days spent in hospital were some of the saddest of Clare’s life, although it was when he wrote arguably some of his best poetry. He died at the age of 75 in 1864. His body was carried from Northampton to his Helpston home by train (ironically the only rail journey he ever took).

Sometimes it’s best to remember that when bearing the stress of modern life, or when overcome by the harshness of the city, with the gutteral mating calls of the out of place 4x4s, the concrete mountains and the hordes of workers on their 20 minute lunch breaks, that the perfect remedy is appreciation of, or even a short trip to the English countryside. And when turning on the television to be greeted with the site of "Sex-change hospital" or "Celebrity Love Island" or hearing the dire cacophany of Peter Andre’s comback single, then likewise remember that the antidote is sitting down and reading John Clare. Perhaps it’s more than time for someone to elect themselves as town crier and start preaching the news of our local poet genius.

Alistair Chisholm BBC article
John Clare Poetry online