A FRIEND REVISITED
A subscriber poet pays tribute to an old friend in a poem highlighted by Alison Chisholm
POETRY WORKSHOP
Alison Chisholm
There’s something very satisfying about a work of literature inspiring another by a different author. Christopher Marlowe’s 1599 poem The Passionate Shepherd to his Love led to Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1600 response The Nymph’s Reply to the Shepherd. Carol Ann Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife includes poems based on the Bible (Queen Herod), Marlowe’s play (Mrs Faust), Homer’s Odyssey (Penelope), and many other examples.
Elizabeth Horrocks, of Wilmslow, Cheshire, has used a perennial favourite to inspire her poem. Although the narrator is not named, it would be hard to mistake the fastidious maiden lady and the archetypal English village. The only thing missing is the knitting.
There’s a light touch throughout the poem, with tongue-in-cheek humour that celebrates the dark side against the backdrop of the idyllic village. The diary device mentioned in the title is neatly explained in the first stanza, while the second goes on to provide clues to the narrator’s identity, showing her living alone, and with her friend Dolly and nephew Raymond.