Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2004. Vol. 4. Eger Journal of English Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 30)
ISTVÁN D. RÁCZ Memory, Writing, Politics: the Poetry of Peter Reading
10 István D. R i.cz Of course one does not really care for the objects , just the subject It is a Vulture Industry, cashing in on the corpses. ('Collected Poems 235) Like in the previously discussed texts, in this poem, once again, the speaker manipulates both the facts and himself. The meter, which was found by accident, suggests that finding remnants of dinosaurs is just as accidental. The intellectual is transformed into a scavenger (or necromaniac), and remains within boundaries, since his investigations lead to the representation of his own subjectivity rather than the past itself. Therefore, the significance of the Japanese pattern is not the same as it was, famously, for the imagists. Instead of aiming at the clarity of images, Reading creates a link with the form only through the shape, the number of syllables. The affluence of forms also means the eventuality of forms in Reading. His virtuosity lies in his ability to write practically in any traditional meter and structure from the Petrarchan sonnet through Greek distichs. Their accidental choice is the subject matter of "10 X 10 X 10", whose unorthodox title means a self-imposed rule: the poem consists of ten stanzas containing ten lines of ten syllables. The actual theme is the invention of the form itself. After the protagonist falls down on an empty stage the poem closes with these lines: When he regained consciousness, he was considering the arbitrary nature of the Sonnet — 'One might as well invent any kind of structure (ten stanzas each of ten lines each of ten syllables might be a good one), the subject-matter could be anything.' {Collected Poems 131) Thus, the text goes back to the title, and the reader can just as well start reading again, since the poem itself is a sequel to the last lines. Of course, one can conclude: our lives today are so far from the values represented by poetry that life and poetry can only be linked with arbitrary forms. This reading would fit in the whole of Reading's life work, still such poems fall in the category of light verse, and they also signify the dangers of this type of lyric poetry. It is remarkable how often Reading says (or at least suggests) the same, and his gestures of self-reflexivity axe also repetitive. This has led to mannerism in some poems, which is particularly noticeable as the oeuvre
