IT was, I think, Mr. S. P. B. Mais who told us that we live ‘in an age of amazing geniuses.’ The observation is so profoundly true, and one owes so much to this critic’s sane and luminous appreciations of contemporary writers, that one cannot help feeling surprised that he nowhere makes any mention of Grigsby. Certainly, in these fruitful times, a man cannot criticise all his fellow-authors; there are other omissions, notably D. S. Ballowby, Geoffrey Domsteen, Hilda Perkstone (who wrote Wherefore?), and Anna Lummit; nevertheless, a lover of contemporary letters can hardly forgive the critic’s strange neglect of Grigsby. Therefore, although making no pretence of being specially fitted for the task, I feel that my long admiration for the poet and my several years’ acquaintance with the man himself, render it a duty on my part to try and give a sketch, however slight, of his career, personality, aims and achievements.
Harold Hopkins Grigsby, poet and littérateur, was born sometime in the late seventies of the last century in the pleasant old town of Channingford. Like many other famous men of letters, he came from a family that showed no particular devotion to literature or the other arts; his father, a not very prosperous corn-merchant, spent his leisure hours breeding fox-terriers, while his mother was chiefly occupied with domestic duties. Grigsby himself, troubled maybe by painful memories, has said little of these early days, so little that I am unable to state where it was he received his education, but tuition of some sort he undoubtedly had. When we next see him, he is nearing the threshold of manhood, and is far removed from Channingford, being at Wolverhampton, apprenticed to an oil and colour merchant. There, in the oil and colour shop, he was indeed a caged soul; even yet he cannot speak of those Wolverhampton days without a trace of bitterness: ‘The oil did not make my path more smooth; the colour did not make my world less drab,’ he has said to me more than once. Then it was that his fancy began to take wing; he turned to literature. Friendless, away from home, misunderstood by those about him, he turned to the poets for consolation. ‘I owe more than man can repay,’ he has frankly confessed to me, ‘to Snipper’s fourpenny “Flowers of Poesie” series!’ He became an ardent student of the poet’s craft, and it was not long before he himself began to write. Several little things of his found their way into the Poets’ Corner of the local journal, and shortly after his twenty-second birthday, there appeared the first volume from his pen, Blossoms of Sorrow (West Midland Almanac and Railway Guide Publishing Co.). It was not a success, being rather an immature production and quite unlike the poet’s later work; indeed, for years, he was ashamed of the volume, and refused to speak of it even to his intimate friends. Yet those of us who are fortunate enough to possess a copy (it is very scarce now, and must fetch a good price), can turn to Blossoms of Sorrow and find, here and there, the definite promise of what has since been so magnificently achieved, can discover among so much immature writing more than a few hints of what was to come, the occasional note of the real Grigsby. Lines like these:
‘The withered flowers of an outworn passion
Trodden under the feet of the dawn....’
Or
‘...You and I
Are weary of life and enamoured of death,
The end of the travail of blood, the labour of breath,’
are not without their significance now, when we know to what fulness of meaning and felicity of phrase such things are leading us.
About this time came the darkest hour of Grigsby’s early struggles. The volume, as I have said, was a failure; meanwhile, the poet’s father had died, owing money; and there had been a quarrel with the oil and colour merchant. Grigsby had now neither employment nor friends to whom he could turn. But the good fortune that has attended some few of our poets (notably Wordsworth) waited upon Grigsby when he had almost given up hope. He learned to his surprise that an aunt, whom he had not seen for years, had died leaving him a considerable sum of money, for the most part safely invested in Imperial Mineral Waters Pref. He was now free to devote all his time to the pursuit of letters, and it was not long before he did what most young geniuses do sooner or later, he went up to London. I have not space to chronicle his early years there, though a full record would make a very fascinating chapter in the literary life of the time; let it suffice to say that he moved as far as was possible in the literary and artistic world, formed many valuable friendships, yet never let a day pass without taking up his pen. Like many other brilliant young literary men, he soon came under the influence of R. U. Bortwith, the editor of the Pale Review and the literary oracle of his day. It was in the Pale Review that Grigsby’s first narrative poem, ‘Palomides,’ appeared, along with occasional lyrics. He also edited The Apothecary in English Literature in the well-known series published by Messrs. Downe & Cashe, wrote a monograph on Henry Kirke White, and contributed some excellent criticisms and reviews to various periodicals. All this time, though he was becoming known to a small but influential group of critics and editors, no second volume of verse had come from his pen.
His friendship with Bortwith, however, soon brought him into touch with several other young poets, Robert Blorridge, Geoffrey Domsteen, Anna Lummit, and others, and it was not long before the famous ‘No Verb’ group was formed, a group of which, I have reason to know, he was the leading member. Whatever may be said to the contrary, there is no doubt that it was Grigsby, and Grigsby alone, who kept the ‘No Verbs’ together. By this time, everyone knows the aims and achievements of this enthusiastic little band of writers; how they triumphed in spite of a storm of hostile criticism is now ancient history; and we are only concerned with the movement so far as it affected Grigsby. To him most of the credit is due, for the original idea was his: I have had the story from his own lips. They were talking late one night at Domsteen’s, some four or five young poets, and the subject was, as usual, their art. It was agreed upon by all present that the old forms of verse were outworn, and that if the fresh beauty of English poetry was to be restored, there would have to be a change of form. It was then that Grigsby, in a flash, saw a solution to the problem—the Verb!—English verse must be shorn of its verbs to recover its beauty and arise rejuvenated. The idea was quickly outlined, and all his hearers took it up with enthusiasm. There and then, it was decided to eliminate the verb, and the group dispersed to begin experiments with the new form. Who can forget the battle that followed—the indignant letters, the replies, the hisses of derision and disapproval from pedantic critics, the answering battle-cry of ‘Down with the Verb!’? But we are not concerned now with the movement itself, but with what was its finest fruit—Grigsby’s second volume, Nullity, the book that made his reputation. It was only to be expected that a volume by a writer so original, and, moreover, written in the ‘No Verb’ manner, would be ignored or derided by conservative critics; nevertheless, it met with a warm welcome in some influential quarters. A review that appeared in The Bellman’s Journal was particularly enthusiastic, and did credit to its author, who, by a singular coincidence, chanced to be no less than Grigsby’s cousin. All good judges would not hesitate now to agree with the concluding remarks of the review: ‘By his sincerity, courage, extraordinary wealth of imagery and happiness of phrase, force of passion and depth of thought, Mr. Grigsby in Nullity has shown himself not only a writer to be reckoned with, but one who has gained for himself, in one bound, a foremost place among contemporary poets.’ No sooner does one recall the volume than countless wonderful lines leap to the memory, passages of such sombre beauty as:
‘Faint press of worn etiolated feet
Upon the dun mephitic street,
Under a bulging reasty sky....’
or such well-remembered things as: