James Kirkup (1918-2009), author of 'The Love That Dare to Speak its Name', Dies.

The Independent, where James Kirkup used to write obituaries, was still silent, as of my writing, about his recent death... But of course there is no rush. Wednesday a very good piece of obituary was published about James Purdy (James Purdy: Controversial writer lionised by Vidal, Albee, Williams and Sitwell) who died last March in New Jersey...

The Shields Gazette first reported the death of the great poet on Monday May 11th (Internationally Acclaimed Poet Dies):

South Shields-born poet James Kirkup, whose work earned him an international reputation, has died. Mr Kirkup, who was 91, passed away at the weekend in hospital in Andorra where he had made his home for many years. He's believed to have suffered a stroke. Mr Kirkup, who was born and raised in Cockburn Street, on The Lawe, was known around the world as a prolific poet, translator, travel writer, and the author of several volumes of autobiography. His close friend in South Tyneside, Dorothy Fleet, said: "He had been getting increasingly frail and had become virtually housebound, but he was still working and creative."

Among major newspapers, only the Telegraph and The Guardian reported his death. The paper in The Guardian is the most comprehensive. The Telegraph printed the beautiful portrait by Maurice de Sausmarez (1951, University of Leeds Art Collection) reproduced above.

In the fifties the Oxford University Press published six volumes of his poetry. Glyn Pursglove, in The Guardian, writes:

His work in this period stripped away the previous extravagance and was characterised by a new precision of language. The title poem of A Correct Compassion (1952) - an account of a heart operation - has been widely anthologised and much admired for the exactness of its observation and its language. But the poem is far more than reportage (however accomplished); as a meditation on art, on its "correct compassion", it is sophisticated and deft. As a kind of "defence of poetry", it is persuasive and moving. There is much else to admire and enjoy in Kirkup's 1950s poetry, a body of work now seriously underrated. (...)
Kirkup's later poetry became richly varied in both form and subject, characterised by an impressive openness to new possibilities. His years in Japan were reflected in his successful adoption of the haiku and (most notably) the tanka.

The Beinecke Library at Yale, after acquiring his papers, provided the following profile of the poet:

James Kirkup was born in 1918 in the county of Durham. After graduating from Durham University in 1941, he applied for conscientious objector status and spent five years in an agricultural labor camp, during which time he published his first poems. His first book, The Drowned Sailor and Other Poems (1947), brought him into contact with J.R. Ackerley, the celebrated editor of The Listener, who became a close friend. He subsequently published The Submerged Village and Other Poems (1951), A Correct Compassion and Other Poems (1952), A Spring Journey and Other Poems (1954), and The Descent into the Cave and Other Poems (1957).

Having taught for three years in Corsham, Wiltshire, Kirkup spent the following years abroad: in Sweden, Spain, and, from 1959 onwards, as professor of English at Tohoku University in Sendai, in Japan, where he remained until 1961. He returned to Japan in 1963, first in Tokyo until 1970, then in Nagoya until 1972. His Japanese stay profoundly influenced his later work: The Prodigal Son: Poems 1956-1959 (1959), Refusal to Conform: Last and First Poems (1963), Japan Marine (1965), and Paper Windows: Poems from Japan (1968). The years 1972-75 took him to the United States, Morocco, and Ireland. After teaching in Cardiff in 1976-77, he moved to the principality of Andorra in the Pyrenees, which has been his residence since, while keeping close ties with Japan. In that same year 1977, the publication of his poem "The love that dares to speak its name" in Gay News triggered the first blasphemy trial in England for more than a century.

And the last one too. It is still illegal to publish The love that dares to speak its name in England:

As they took him from the cross
I, the centurion, took him in my arms-
the tough lean body
of a man no longer young,
beardless, breathless,
but well hung.

He was still warm.
While they prepared the tomb
I kept guard over him.
His mother and the Magdalen
had gone to fetch clean linen
to shroud his nakedness.

I was alone with him.
For the last time
I kissed his mouth. My tongue
found his, bitter with death.
I licked his wound-
the blood was harsh

For the last time
I laid my lips around the tip
of that great cock, the instrument
of our salvation, our eternal joy.
The shaft, still throbbed, anointed
with death's final ejaculation.

I knew he'd had it off with other men-
with Herod's guards, with Pontius Pilate,
With John the Baptist, with Paul of Tarsus
with foxy Judas, a great kisser, with
the rest of the Twelve, together and apart.
He loved all men, body, soul and spirit - even me.

So now I took off my uniform, and, naked,
lay together with him in his desolation,
caressing every shadow of his cooling flesh,
hugging him and trying to warm him back to life.
Slowly the fire in his thighs went out,
while I grew hotter with unearthly love.

It was the only way I knew to speak our love's proud name,
to tell him of my long devotion, my desire, my dread-
something we had never talked about. My spear, wet with blood,
his dear, broken body all open wounds,
and in each wound his side, his back,
his mouth - I came and came and came

as if each coming was my last.
And then the miracle possessed us.
I felt him enter into me, and fiercely spend
his spirit's final seed within my hole, my soul,
pulse upon pulse, unto the ends of the earth-
he crucified me with him into kingdom come.

-This is the passionate and blissful crucifixion
same-sex lovers suffer, patiently and gladly.
They inflict these loving injuries of joy and grace
one upon the other, till they die of lust and pain
within the horny paradise of one another's limbs,
with one voice cry to heaven in a last divine release.

Then lie long together, peacefully entwined, with hope
of resurrection, as we did, on that green hill far away.
But before we rose again, they came and took him from me.
They knew what we had done, but felt
no shame or anger. Rather they were glad for us,
and blessed us, as would he, who loved all men.

And after three long, lonely days, like years,
in which I roamed the gardens of my grief
seeking for him, my one friend who had gone from me,
he rose from sleep, at dawn, and showed himself to me before
all others. And took me to him with the love that now forever dares to speak
its name.

2009.05.17