Parodies, Imitations & Lampoons
Before 'Peregrine Prykke's Pilgrimage' I wrote number of isolated parodies, imitations and lampoons, most of which were first published under the name of Edward Pygge.
Hard news about Edward Pygge might prove useful to those scholars who concern themselves with the London Literary World in its more subterranean aspects. Pygge's activities were designedly shrouded in mystery, but by now there is a new generation of literati on the scene to whom the mystery looks like a conspiracy. It never was. Pygge simply happened. Ian Hamilton invented him, and composed, mainly for the pages of that astringent little magazine The Review, his first withering attacks on current poetic fashion. My own additions to the swinish canon were made in order to generate more material for a one-night literary spectacular presented at the ICA in the Mall. Rehearsed irregularly at the Pillars of Hercules in Greek Street, soho, and unofficially known as the Edward Pygge Revue, the show was produced by Hamilton and myself but stolen outright by Russell Davies, who made a dramatic, unheralded appearance in the role of Pygge. Seemingly just off a plane from Chicago, Davies wore a dark suit, darker shirt, white tie, pointed shoes, and a black fedora with the brim pulled low over the eyes.. He carried a violin case under his arm as if it contained a Thompson sub-machine gun loaded ready for action. He read our Pygge poems a variety of voices to stunning effect. It could also be said that his own Pygge poems, when he could be persuaded to write them, were of deadly accuracy and unmatched inventiveness. He had that flair. The last two lines of 'The Wasted Land', for example, were supplied by Davies sotto voce, or perhaps blotto voce, as he sipped a pint in rehearsal. I appropriated them without compunction.
A man to respect, a back-room boy, an itinerant torpedo whose power depended on the obscurity of his turned-up coat collar, Edward Pygge found his reputation turning into fame, with all of its attendant dangers. On two occasions there were double-page spreads of Pygge poems in the New Statesman. Pygge started showing up in the same newspaper's weekly competition. He became a handy sobriquet for anyone who had a spoof to launch. The feminist termagant Edwina Pygge put in an appearance. Obviously it would have been only a matter of time before Edward and Edwina were joined by Edward Pygge and their Nordic cousin, Hedwig Pygge. The star having gone nova, he duly dissipated into a nebula. Occupied by long confections far out of scale with Pygge's pin-point focus, I forgot that I had ever been part fo the collective brain beneath that dangerously angled black hat.
Hard news about Edward Pygge might prove useful to those scholars who concern themselves with the London Literary World in its more subterranean aspects. Pygge's activities were designedly shrouded in mystery, but by now there is a new generation of literati on the scene to whom the mystery looks like a conspiracy. It never was. Pygge simply happened. Ian Hamilton invented him, and composed, mainly for the pages of that astringent little magazine The Review, his first withering attacks on current poetic fashion. My own additions to the swinish canon were made in order to generate more material for a one-night literary spectacular presented at the ICA in the Mall. Rehearsed irregularly at the Pillars of Hercules in Greek Street, soho, and unofficially known as the Edward Pygge Revue, the show was produced by Hamilton and myself but stolen outright by Russell Davies, who made a dramatic, unheralded appearance in the role of Pygge. Seemingly just off a plane from Chicago, Davies wore a dark suit, darker shirt, white tie, pointed shoes, and a black fedora with the brim pulled low over the eyes.. He carried a violin case under his arm as if it contained a Thompson sub-machine gun loaded ready for action. He read our Pygge poems a variety of voices to stunning effect. It could also be said that his own Pygge poems, when he could be persuaded to write them, were of deadly accuracy and unmatched inventiveness. He had that flair. The last two lines of 'The Wasted Land', for example, were supplied by Davies sotto voce, or perhaps blotto voce, as he sipped a pint in rehearsal. I appropriated them without compunction.
A man to respect, a back-room boy, an itinerant torpedo whose power depended on the obscurity of his turned-up coat collar, Edward Pygge found his reputation turning into fame, with all of its attendant dangers. On two occasions there were double-page spreads of Pygge poems in the New Statesman. Pygge started showing up in the same newspaper's weekly competition. He became a handy sobriquet for anyone who had a spoof to launch. The feminist termagant Edwina Pygge put in an appearance. Obviously it would have been only a matter of time before Edward and Edwina were joined by Edward Pygge and their Nordic cousin, Hedwig Pygge. The star having gone nova, he duly dissipated into a nebula. Occupied by long confections far out of scale with Pygge's pin-point focus, I forgot that I had ever been part fo the collective brain beneath that dangerously angled black hat.
Poems
- From Robert Lowell's Notebook
- Once Smitten, Twice Smitten
- Adrian Henri Wants to Write Poems
- R.S. Thomas at Altitude
- Edward Estlin Cummings Dead
- John Wain's Letters to 5 more Artists
- Symptoms of Self Regard
- Richard Wilbur’s Fabergé Egg Factory
- Godfrey in Paradise
- The Wasted Land
- After Such Knowledge
- What about you? Asks Kingsley Amis
- The North Window