Fred Johnston's commitment to the Western Writer's Centre often overshadows his own ongoing career as a writer. Following on from his success in publishing his work at home and abroad we took a look at a selection of his poetry and were hugely impressed.
Johnston's poetry expresses a keen sensibilty to the fragile nature of the human psyche immersed as we are in the brutality of the world around us. The poem L'Abbatoir expresses this very Beckettian awareness of the indignity which life often meets out. Like Beckett too, all three of the poems quoted below were originally written in French and subsequently translated.
L'Abattoir
(Nantes, le août, 2008)
La petite femme qui écrit dans son cahier au bord de la rivière
Me dit que des guerres, des meurtres et des catastrophes soient
Les sujets des cahiers de ce genre; et dans la poche d'une joile femme
Au bord d'une rivière, on peut trouver toutes les horreurs du monde,
Les promesses délabrées et les peines qui n'existent que dans l'abattoir.
The Abbatoir
The young woman writing in her note-book beside the river
Tells me that wars, murders and appalling tragedy are
The things one finds in that type of jotter: and in
A pretty girl’s pocket, at the river, we can find all the horrors
Of this world; broken promises and the kind of distress that exists
only in an abbatoir.
Any dealing with Johnston will quickly convince you that he is a very active, political and insightful commentator, often making life difficult for those who choose complacency over practical solutions. This has resulted in his gradual marginalisation by those in authority and in his sense of being a voice calling in the wilderness. In his poetry too there is a sense of his being an outsider, of being caught between two worlds and this is very clearly expressed in Le Rêve de mon Enfance.
Le Rêve De Mon Enfance
Mon enfance circulait
entre les deux pays
comme une rêve
qui s’interpose entre
les deux cauchemars, ou
une liaison qui éclate pendant la guerre –
De cette façon,
on nait hors de sa géographie,
sans regarder aux circonstances –
on vit comme un môme
qui est perdu dans
l’hypermarché, entre le kawa
et les cadavres, qui gerbe,
qui pousse un cri, sans réconfort –
et un flic, comme la mort, le suave.
Child’s Dream
My childhood ran
between two countries
like a dream
intruding between
Two nightmares, or
A love affair that breaks out in wartime –
Thus was I born
outside geography
regardless of circumstances;
like a kid
lost in a supermarket
between the coffee
and empty bottles, throwing up
screaming, inconsolable –
and a cop, like death, delivers him.
Archetypal images such as the lost child cut through the hint of biography here, exposing the experience of the wider race, lost and abandoned in an unnatural and price tagged existence. The only sense of redemption comes from the slight possibility of communication, perhaps in relationships with the people encountered throughout the poems but more importantly with the reader. Johnston is a keen observer however, and even that relationship with the reader he realises can often be a one-way street for a poet. In an Orphic image in 'Aux Yeux Bandés' he shows the blindfolded musician, singing 'the world's apologies'.
Aux Yeux Bandés
Personne ne voit
L’aveugle qui joue de l’accordéon –
Personne n’écoute
Sa musique dans la rue.
Mais il écoute
La foule qui passé sous silence,
Et it voit
Les notes derrière
ses yeux,
Et dans sa bouche
Il chant les excuse du monde.
Blindfolded
No one notices
The blind accordion player
No one hears
His street music.
But he hears
The crowd passing in silence
And he sees
The music behind his eyes
And in his mouth
He sings the world’s apologies.
It is important to remember that many voices such as Fred Johnston's were forced into exile in the past. If we have learned anything from such mistakes we should recognise in Johnston's poetry and in his commentaries, an honesty and poetic value which are vital to the ongoing success of our cultural standing.
Further selections from his French and English work may be found in the forthcoming:
Weyfarer Poetry Journal
http://www.weyfarers.com/index.html
Weyfarer Poetry Journal
http://www.weyfarers.com/index.html
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