The Penny Poet of Portsmouth by Katherine Towler

Author:Katherine Towler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781619027619
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 2016-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

From the notebooks of Robert Dunn

When the North Church steeple blew down (on account of high winds or questionable theology, depending on who you’re talking to) people decided at once that Portsmouth simply would not work without a tall steeple in the center of town. So over the next few weeks a web of scaffolding grew up to surround the empty shape of a steeple. The ideal of a steeple. Perfect in itself, as ideals must be.

And now the steeple shape has filled with wood and copper and paint. There’s talk of the gilded weathervane going up soon and the clock starting up again. A bit off time as church clocks should be. The steeple becomes a reality, up to a point, and remains an ideal beyond that. Which is a property of steeples.

Which can be a reason for being discomfortable with steeples and the houses underneath them. Many of us can remember signs at nearby resorts saying White Christians Only. I wouldn’t much care to be a white Christian only, having known a few, and it’s possible that the condition might be catching.

Which brings us to an imperative that steeples raise: that we must respect the values of our neighbors, most especially when we must not share them. As the Irish say, there is good to be found even in an Englishman. (Admittedly they don’t say it often.)

Not that we should settle for just being tolerant. The most hideous moments of the last judgment might be the discovery that I had barely tolerated people who are much better than I. It would be such a loss not to delight in the differences. People are strong and weak, wise and foolish, here and there. And if we’re not careful we may end up grudgingly tolerating the colors of autumn leaves.

So in the community of poets—a much more raffish lot than the communion of saints—we have Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman inhabiting the same moment. And as likely as not find ourselves hopelessly in love with both of ’em. The canon of poets easily becomes something like the canon of the mass. “Emily, Walt, stand here beside us.”

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