A Growing World Poems from King’s High
Introduction
Foreword
Poetry – both generally in wider society and too often in schools – has been regarded as a solitary exercise written in isolation from others. This is against much of the evidence of literary history. The Metaphysical poets were largely in contact with one another and all drew their lead from John Donne’s verse letters. The Lakeland poets were close associates, as were Shelley & Byron in the second generation of Romantic poets. Pound & Eliot collaborated and went on to influence the generation of poets that succeeded them by, among other things, publishing their poetry at Faber. In short, poetry has progressed largely through a sense of shared technique & aesthetic values.
Poetry, said Robert Frost, is ‘a fresh look and a fresh listen’, and the relocation of King’s High to its Banbury Road campus in 2019 gave an opportunity for poetry to be just that, and to celebrate this new beginning for the school. It has been my pleasure and privilege to work with the students and staff of the school as Poet in Residence, and I am delighted to present this anthology of new poetry to conclude my term in the role.
King’s High is hugely fortunate to have invited Gregory Leadbetter to be our Poet in Residence and the volume that you now hold in your hand is testament to his inspirational work with our students through a critical period in the School’s history. Here you will find poems directly about the School, but also poems linked at times by shared subject matter or (in the case of the Sappho fragments) by shared form. It would be nice to think of this anthology as the birth of a literary school but, irrespective, it is the reflection of how literary our school has become and I look forward to seeing how our poets develop in their future work. Caroline Renton King’s High
Some of the poems here have their origins in the four poetry workshops I ran at the school between September 2019 and March 2020 (when the pandemic somewhat diverted our plans). We tackled several themes in these workshops, often around the idea of new beginnings: new ways of looking and listening through language, and how its patterning as poetry can not only express the subtleties of our prior experience, but also create new forms of experience in itself. I am grateful to Mr Grier for his help in running my fourth poetry workshop – based on the archaeological remains discovered at the school’s new grounds – where I used ‘[Fragment 26]’, by Sappho, translated by the Canadian poet Anne Carson, as an example of the way fragment and ellipsis can be used to suggestive imaginative effect. You will be able to spot the poems that came from this particular exercise very easily in what follows! Several poems here were submitted for the anthology later, entirely separately from the workshops, while others are extracted from writing done at the Inspire Dinner in January 2020, where I was honoured to be the guest speaker. With regard to all the students’ poems, my editorial touch has been very light: what you read is their work. I am glad to include two poems by Robert Dougal Renton, Mrs Renton’s husband, which he wrote to mark the relocation of the school, and its excellent new motto, Spiritus Reget. When I spoke at the school’s Festival of Ideas in November 2019, I read a poem of my own, ‘Archaeopteryx’, from my new book of poems, Maskwork (published in September 2020, but named in 2019, for reasons entirely unconnected with personal protective equipment), and I include that here. It is, among other things, a meditation on language, its powers of fascination and origination. Finally, I include two poems that I have written especially for the school. I am grateful to Dr Seal for all his support throughout my time as Poet in Residence, and to Polly Beidas for lending me Of Mulberries, Ilex & Acorns: The Story of King’s High and Warwick Preparatory School, 18792019, by Polly Beidas and Jennifer Edwards, which gave me much to contemplate during the composition of these poems. Gregory Leadbetter Poet in Residence 2019-20 A Growing World Poems from King’s High | 1
Contents
King’s High
Foreword, Gregory Leadbetter 1 King’s High, Laura Barnes 3 A legacy in blue, Polly Rumble 4 Flight KH141, Jess Hartshorn 5 A New Beginning, Siobhan Appleyard 6 King’s High, Maud Beidas 7 From beans to dreams, Laura Scott-Brown and Poppy Wright 8 King’s High, Sophia MacKenzie 9 Waribons, Anon (two King’s High students) 10 King’s High, Sofia McBride 11 Hope, Anon (King’s High student) 12 Roman fragment, Molly Horton 13 The absence of clues, Laura Barnes 14 Altar, Jess Worth 15 Romans, Jess Worth 17 What little, Rosie Brooker 18 Sediments, Rosie Brooker 19 Mirror Me, Hope Brotherhood 20 As the Romans, Rose Agnew 21 Mirror, Gracie Ratcliffe 22 A note, Faith Christopherson 23 Old Soul, Faith Christopherson 24 History, Izzie Gore 25 Small, Izzie Gore 26 Nightmares, Anon (King’s High student) 27 The Veil, Amelia Wolniak 29 Poppy, Jessie Strens 30 New beginning, Jessie Strens 31 Upon the Yorkshire Moors, Polly Rumble 32 From the Earth to the Night Sky, Polly Rumble 33 Valete and Salvete for King’s High: Two poems, Robert Dougal Renton 34 Archaeopteryx, Gregory Leadbetter 37 Landor’s Head, Gregory Leadbetter 38 Wist ye what it is the wavelets say?, Gregory Leadbetter 40 Notes 41
is like the roots of mountains. The corridors fill with fledglings soaring out of their nests. Each morning a golden wisp floods our foundations. Sometimes I hear a bird call of new welcome and sometimes an albatross fixes its gaze upon a new dawn and more than anything it aspires to spread its wings among the stars and to bestow its gift upon a growing world.
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Laura Barnes, 12G
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A legacy in blue
Flight KH141
King’s High is like a small blue dot, a pinprick on a map, a blue dot of joy, twinkling for a hundred and forty years, seven hours of knowledge in a day. A river of thought from every mind. Someday the magpies will take flight, glide away, sprayed with the soft mist of ladyhood.
King’s High is like a hive full of buzzing workers.
Polly Rumble, 9K
But sometimes we fear the sting of a Note Home.
The corridors swarm with bustling girls. Each morning we gather, ready to collect the nectar of knowledge. Sometimes we feel the honey thrill of a High Mark.
More than anything we aspire to grow our wings And prepare to fly out to the big world. Jess Hartshorn, 8H
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A New Beginning
King’s High
Lots of people, lots of subjects.
is like a beating heart, pulsing against fragility. The corridors flow with universes accelerating into orbit. Each morning a new energy sparks from the roots of integrity. Sometimes I hear whispers from an internal voice. And sometimes – silence.
Corridors twisting, Late to lessons, lost in the school, Barely surviving. I’m a small Year 7 with So many questions.
Maud Beidas, 12F
What’s revising? Pause – let me think. A new beginning, New people, new friends. Corridors twisting, Lots of interesting lessons, new facilities. I’m thriving, Small and mighty, But one question – What’s revising? Siobhan Appleyard, 7S
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From beans to dreams
King’s High
King’s High is like a pyramid of canned beans in a shop. Remove one – it falls!
Sometimes I hear girls laughing in the Quad. And sometimes teachers too.
Laura Scott-Brown, 7S, and Poppy Wright, 8K
Sophia MacKenzie (Student)
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Waribons A rainbow balloon soaring above the rainbow stars. The corridors fill with rainbow water when it floods. Each morning rainbow suits arrive like rainbows. Sometimes we hear voices rainbowing over the airport. Sometimes rainbow-eyed birds tweet in lessons. Rainbows are very prominent in this poem, And that’s why we love King’s High.
King’s High is like a present waiting to be unwrapped. Sofia McBride (Warwick Prep student)
Anon (two King’s High students)
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Hope
Roman fragment
Hope is not a feeling. Hope is a force. Hope is appealing. Hope is Light in the Dark. The Light is the place where you feel the Hope, The Dark is the place you should preserve it. Even with knowledge of the danger ahead, Hope is always there in King’s High.
Anon (King’s High student)
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the building width [ ] river, tile kiln, similarity [ ] [ ] same day, different [ ] way.
Molly Horton, 8F
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The absence of clues
Altar
] silently ] buried in the ground in the hands of god almighty ] bones ] broken ] ] ] ] altar ] broken like twigs broken by toddlers ] centre of religion it is [ ] centre of life ] ] ] mystery ] findings ] fragments ] awe- [ ] detail ] sandstone ] depths of inspiration ] partition ] ] wealth ] ] ] lead rolls ] ] lost but found ] ] diminutive fragments ] trade but not wealthy ] ] happened? ] ] gods watch from the heavens
] the absence of clues ] ancestry ] similar ] ] followed unknowingly ] years over ] seemingly simple nature ] worn away ] ] they found their hiding ] ] they didn’t want us to
Laura Barnes, 12G
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Romans ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]
] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ] ]
them in themselves
bones buried find more? knows? searching
Jess Worth, 9G
go to war like gods murderous tampered with the Iron [
]
rob people of ideas are mad shining gold show great threat to the Greeks hatred into crazed [
] into warlike [
]
wealthy as a growing empire
trade busy cities Londinium and Rome defeated finally
they kind and caring? they a bloodthirsty empire? to Rome to home once more
Jess Worth, 9G
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What little
Sediments
In comparison to sea to time to wind to earth to life
Thick with earth’s blood. Succulent with strata. Soaked with years of sweat and dew. Imagine, do – a sediment where every footstep stayed, fungoid in the soil, herbaceous in its bacciferous growth. Imagine, do – which feet have trodden this ground, which souls have feared, which eyes have seen, which lives have lived where I now sit and ponder? Where I wander, and speculate, let my inspirations ferment – where I now trample soil made rich by the bones and the rot of ancient men – where I am now, and say: what power in time is there that makes the lives of men, which so engrave our earth, as mystifying as the pebble engraved by the sea? What might is there that makes nature as unknown to man as his fellow man? Imagine, do – with the flow of time, our neighbours’ lives become ground for our neighbours’ kin to stand upon. With the flow of time, the sea erodes the imperfections of the pebble smooth and round, telling the tale of its wearing away in elegiac softness. A mirror – what faces? A key – what treasures? A life – what lives? Such things time steals from us, such things the sea erodes, what things the soil hides from us. Imagine, do – on those trodden sediments, were you to trace your footsteps, where would they go, which grave would they lead to? What secrets are there that curiosity cannot reveal? What mysteries not under wax and seal?
what little
we know we see we think we try we ponder
what little worth have we in comparison to those gone to those dead to those asleep to those passed by what power have we to hallow words sent from the ancients, those messages from the grave? What right to put our houses our schools our plants our graves our feet our lives on ground taken by those silenced and ancient voices Rosie Brooker, 9G
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Rosie Brooker, 9G
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Mirror Me
As the Romans
with an opening line from Gregory Leadbetter The brain is a pattern-finding organ deciphering the conundrums of history. Mirrors found in subterranean depths, clinging to a perplexing past of mysterious means.
How sublimely serendipitous was the shovel that stopped there, on the bricks of a bygone building. Buried beneath what in semblance seemed a field lay remembrance of a past long forgotten. It’s rare that I think that, and I should more often. For I stand on such ground as the Romans once stood.
Tall and mysterious, he stares into gold and emerald fields, the smell of drying corn on his destitute clothing. Further down the bends of time, the wealth of his family grew: greyware and Samian bought for perennial use, and now
I inhale the same air through the same human nose that they breathed through all those millennia ago. I regard the same sky, the same soil, the same grass. And the line starts to blur between present and past.
in a modern dawn we stand in his tattered shoes deciphering the place he once called home.
Lost are the names and the stories and faces, scarcely recalled through their tie to a place in the earth that preserved them, as earth often does. And preserve them far longer these words, I hope, shall.
Hope Brotherhood, 9G
When I am long gone, will my memory survive? Or will I be a being to oblivion consigned? Will our new Roman barn become memory or stand, erect as it is on the same level land? For if King’s does not keep, and rather is kept as a secret of sorts – uncovered by the happiest of accidents – when they dissect each crevice and cranny and nook, and record all their findings in history books, will they know that beneath what beneath them they found, was a whole other culture sequestered in ground? Well, if time does someday bury our world, I pray that this poem it somehow conserves. That the readers of the future may know well and good that this was such ground as the Romans once stood. Rose Agnew, 10W 20 | A Growing World Poems from King’s High
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Mirror
A note
As I gaze into the jagged depths of the glass I wonder, was it tortured in the distant past? I feel as if I stare at the eyes of history…
Although it may seem trivial and pointless, reflection and recognition are of great importance. It allows one to step back and observe the greater picture. We tend to overlook our past mistakes, forget and move forward. One does not need to dwell, but pause, in acceptance that one cannot change the past, only use it as a means to grow.
…and they are looking back at me. These jaded eyes, with stories to tell, can’t be heard in this imperfect well of ever-changing tides – how they affect our lives. Who could have seen inhumane worlds through the glass? But what is really in the distant past? Gracie Ratcliffe, 8S
So, here we are, not dwelling, merely a fleeting glance, an observation, an inclination to thought for improvement. As we are, every day, trying to better ourselves, our judgment. And what better way than to focus on not making the same mistake twice. Faith Christopherson, 13H
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Old Soul
History
I don’t know if I am supposed to be here on this earth. I feel that maybe I was born before my time. I feel old, old and wise. I feel that maybe I could delve into the mysteries of life and never surface. All the things this earth has to offer may never be enough. As life is but a flickering flame, soon to be extinguished. To be blown away by the breeze of nature or by some foreign entity, unknown yet feared by all. I don’t know whether to survive and to live is really the same thing? One a mere instinct so one does not become extinct. The other however, intangible but oh so close to touch. To live may be a matter of opinion: one does not live but thrive. Cherish every moment of life, of time. The concept of which never occurred to me. We are taught to ‘work hard, play hard’ but never stop and think how it is to be alive, breathing. Just…living. Even if I feel as though I may be too old to live, I have to accept that my time is now. And whether I choose to grasp it firmly by the hand or to let it slip between my fingers, finely woven and silky. I am here now and should do well to accept it.
Why must we fight for peace? Why must we choose one person over another? Decide someone is wrong for simply who they are.
Faith Christopherson, 13H
Why must we injure each other? When protesting to stop the pain, Hurt others when they never hurt you first. Why must we mock people? Who do you think you are? To decide who someone should love and make colour into a war. Why do you think you’re superior? When we should all be equal, Can’t a girl be a strong and a boy be graceful? You may want to destroy history, But instead learn from it. If it upsets you, then don’t do it again. We are the future, living for the new day. The past has happened and the future the next page. We are the future, we are making history. Don’t fight for the past. Live the next page. Izzie Gore, 11G
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Small
Nightmares
They will make you feel it’s your fault, make you feel so small. Let darkness hit and sunshine fall, voices raised and names called.
Soundly sleeping in your bed With your toys around you like a crowd of people Not worrying about anything going on in the world
Friendships become a burden and suddenly it’s going wrong. Family doesn’t understand and again you feel so small. This person you held so close was kicking you in the heart. Your brain is telling you ‘run’ but still you come back for more. Smaller and smaller you feel, like the world is weighing you down – But stand up straight. Dust yourself down. Are they really worth the fall? ‘It’s not your fault’, ‘You’re not to blame’ People continue to declare. But are they right? I hear you ask. Oh by hell, they are. Just like the trees and stars stand up tall and tell yourself, ‘I am not small, nor can you make me’. You must learn from the past! And just like that, you’ve done it: broken from the chains, no one can hold you down. And the sunshine? Well, it’s shining once again. Izzie Gore, 11G 26 | A Growing World Poems from King’s High
Then it comes That dreadful dream that was holding on to haunt you There is no coming back from this dream, this wicked dream This nightmare that waits in the back of your mind to petrify And drive you out of your wits You are walking up a steep hill The moon on your face like a mirror Then the sound rumbles through the valley That you thought was a mere rustling in the distance You take no notice You don’t care that it is there It follows you up the hill to the ruinous, perplexing forest You become paranoid every time the sound comes near you Small beads of sweat appear on your forehead Every breath becomes shorter and closer together Your toys try to calm you down But you disregard their pleas for you to wake up To end this childish torment You suddenly stop in the heart of the forest That is closing inwards towards you The sounds of the forest reaching into your mind Embedding the screaming like glue To make it stay for the rest of the abnormal night Your mind turns to autopilot Frantic you turn from left to right Walking into shadows Backing into the hands of trees That brush you into the pitch blackness
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The Veil The sound that followed you grows around you More and more tumultuous each second Then you see it It is staring at you It is staring into your soul like a demon You slouch against a willow tree Cowering in fear for your life You look up at the full moon Its eyes are elsewhere Heedless of the monster below The stars look like they could fall into your eyes and blind you The sound echoes around your mind Bouncing around your mind Pulling you to your wit’s end The ground grumbles suddenly And the leaves murmur to each other And gape with their noses at you like you Are not important The trees slant away into the pitch blackness Into the unnatural world to which you have been sent The monster’s shadow creeps into the uncanny world Its smile is the only thing you can see as the colour Black claims your sight The earth beneath you cracks like an egg and you topple forward You wake with sweat on your face
I watch as you grow waiting patiently for the fates to tell me when. You prosper in life as I languish. Waiting. You’re a fool if you think you can beat me. You all fear me, the unsettlement of the unknown. You even create sanctuaries into which you pour your hopes for comfort. I laugh at this as I see your lives revolve around their falsehood. Yet you, I watch you grow and still you aren’t afraid of me – I, who can destroy and bend cities to my will I, who alone know what lies beyond the curtain of rain. I, who know the bounty of your life. Yet, yet still you have no trepidation of me. For that I commend you. For when we meet, I will see you as an equal for you have already defeated me within your mind. You have vanquished fear itself. So, you have vanquished me – for I am Death. Amelia Wolniak, 12H
It is time for school That dream, that wicked dream You want to forget it forever Anon (King’s High student) 28 | A Growing World Poems from King’s High
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Poppy
New beginning
Poppy lifts her face to light, her petals red, three drops of blood from soldiers all lined up to fight, their shiny boots now caked in mud.
The moon shone round, a perfect egg Watching through the bars. Swallowed by the sea of ink, A thousand shining stars.
With weary arms they lift their guns, and thunder claps across the skies. The rain beats down, no time to run, the wind drowns out their desperate cries.
The wind curled through the narrow gaps, A chill seeped through my bone. I curled up tight, my head resting Against the calloused stone.
One man now stands alone and lost, chest tight with fear, a coiled fist, his fingers shake, too stiff with frost, his gun tumbles into the mist.
Then came a knock, a racketing rap Upon my iron door. My grin split over hollow cheeks, The lock dropped to the floor.
Silence falls, his boots are slick, he skids and stumbles down the slope. Thoughts of home make him quick, they warm his heart and spark his hope.
‘Your time is up,’ a rough voice called, An angel’s silhouette. My eyes fluttered shut, I breathed a prayer, Into the light I stepped.
He doesn’t see the shadow form, hunched against the sheet of rain, the ghostly face, red coat all torn, eyes shadowed with grief and pain.
I daren’t look yet, could barely breathe, My handcuffs snapped in two. My blistered wrists were free at last, My hope began to brew.
Its eye twitches, it curls its fist, with a dry grin it lifts its gun, and then emerges from the mist. One quiet click, the deed is done.
The rusted gates slammed loudly shut, As day took over night. My eyes squinted against the sun, Harsh and loud and bright.
One perfect shot, he barely bled. His eyes go dull, the rain runs red, and Poppy weeps and bows her head, tears for her lover, cold and dead.
My skin was leather, hair was grey, But my eyes shone wide with youth. The world was large, and time was short, My past was not my truth.
Jessie Strens, 11G
Jessie Strens, 11G
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Upon the Yorkshire Moors
From the Earth to the Night Sky
Atween the clumps of purple heather I wandered in step with the wind. A joyful ferocity greeted me as I stumbled across my enchanted way, decked with fallen leaves.
Good morning night, lying above, throwing your blanket over a sleeping world, a welcome to a different day. Jewels twinkle above me, the moon lighting my way, a hunter protecting me, a bear hiding from me. Every day I gaze at you, a perspective I shall never have. This time I will notice you, this time I will look at you, my beautiful, timeless sky.
The pallor of an autumn day closed in upon the hills. As clouds gathered around me graceful yellow leaves began to fall. A little ripple of clammy cold danced a jig through the valley. I watched a wave of blustered wind weave away upon its journey. The sun was a creamy pearl, smiling behind a shroud of grey, cascading her gentle rays to the earth, casting gold upon the moors. I gazed across the purple haze, watching time go by as soldiers in silhouette stood guard, peaks guiding my way. Polly Rumble, 9K
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Across you blows a gentle wind, rustling through my hair. Around me resonate the calls of owls, across your face echo your stars. Leaves fall from the autumn trees, my seasons change, yours will stay forever. How far can you be from me? How close to me can you seem? Forever I can gaze at you, lost in your endless beam. Polly Rumble, 9K
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Valete and Salvete for King’s High: Two poems
A Conversation of Ilex and Mulberry After Walter Savage Landor’s ‘Imaginary Conversations’ Holly Oh, my roots and branches! such affront. Dug up, routed, never left to be. By & large these humans always want Some trophy from the noble Ilex tree. At Christmas – and without a ‘by your leave’ – They deck the halls with cuttings from my limbs. They twist upon their doors my thorny wreath And pair me with the ivy in their hymns. Mulberry Today you’re paired with stately Mulberry: On cold and frosty mornings, so they sing, Their circumambulation centres me. I the Christmas wreath and you the ring. My roots hold fast the spirit of the space I’ll sentinel when all these girls have done gone. A cutting has been taken in my place: A continuity to dwell upon. Like the ship of Theseus, it’s true! Humans have short lifespans and don’t know I’m not the Ilex that the girls first knew. That one died, oh, seventy years ago. A school for boys was once upon this site. A boarding house for girls it did not stay And thus they did not trouble us at night Who troubled our serenity all day.
We’ve watched their little sproutlings, seen their birth: Rootless runners, skipping at their games, Never peaceful in the good old earth. Bright new faces, old familiar names.
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Never thought they’d take me with them! True. What business has a tree with moving home? While people like fresh fields & pastures new We like our roots in old, familiar loam.
They like old things around them, recognise The origins that shaped and made them so. Humans chase a time that never flies. The past is further from them than they know.
A school is not its students, nor its staff, Nor certainly its buildings on their plot; Not represented in a photograph: The portraiture of what a school is not.
I am not the tree I ought to be. While I move on while strangely standing still. We paradox this continuity: Mascot their changing school and always will.
And so, impatient houseguests, as you go Ponder the tree that here you leave behind, Ponder the tree that left here weeks ago. Ponder the planting newly there to find.
A little taken, little left to take, A little lost, I hope a little found, Yet very, very much that’s left to make In other places and the self-same ground.
Robert Dougal Renton
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Spiritus Reget
Archaeopteryx
Not the Crown, Though to our monarch fealty We pledge while queen and governments remain; Though princes frown A queen will not our ruler be. Spirit shall reign.
Not the folded bone and feather, but the word had taken hold: a fossil angel echo splitting open that first syllable, the optics exposed in the sound I heard:
Not the mind, Though minds be wisely fostered here And minds shall raise what teachers first explain; Thoughts will find Their path to tread from year to year. Spirit shall reign. Not sporting fame Though we shall seek on track & field To win what skill & effort may attain. Loving the game We shall not lightly lose or yield. Spirit shall reign.
before I knew, something spoken now stirred a tongue in stone, elastic and audible, my English cleaving to its alien kernel at work in the absence of the first bird. I remember this, and the story you told: a visit to the Natural History Museum, the reptile wing as living as dead, my language as young as its grain was old: you, wondering at your infant son, the attendant, startled at what I said. Gregory Leadbetter from Maskwork (Nine Arches Press, 2020)
Not love of friends Though time shared will long endure When we recall our schooldays once again. Though friendship blends Beginnings fast with endings sure Spirit shall reign. Spirit shall reign For this, of everything, alone, Is felt in every action that we take. Spirit shall reign As we aspire to heights unknown For Spirit’s sake. Robert Dougal Renton
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Landor’s Head travels by night: one morning was found on a midsummer cushion in a playing field, stone eyes wide with the dream of day and a sky too blue to be true. He was dug up once on Myton Road, proud as a Roman bust, his brow a little furrowed – as if disturbed from a favourite book he’d been reading since before you were born. You know how it is when a gnome disappears from a garden: two months later, photos arrive from Berlin, Paris, and Rome, with the gnome at Checkpoint Charlie, the pyramids of the Louvre, and perched on the lip of the Trevi Fountain with a smiling crowd… A curious traveller at large among wonder – a mind abroad, a little out of place.
Landor’s head listens too – not just to your music, to which he travels through walls, nor just to your echoing talk in reception as you pass through – but to the silence he fills like a library when he’s alone. He wonders where he is, absent-minded sometimes – what’s happened to his house, to the ilex he loved… then he sees the future: it is his home. Sometimes, Landor’s head just stays right where it is. He doesn’t have to speak to start a conversation. There are more ways than one to make sense. A model, in these adventures, of intelligence. Gregory Leadbetter
I have heard Landor’s head in a whisper with Aunt Do – quite fluent in the seven languages she spoke. Vlah was a growl in the shadow.
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Wist ye what it is the wavelets say?
Notes
A line from the school song, 1902, by Miss E.J. Ahrons
A Conversation of Ilex and Mulberry – Robert Dougal Renton
You hear them in their weaving of the school, where breath becomes voice: spirit takes form. Breaking ground from moment to moment, not just for the foot of the school to take hold, but its voice to breathe on.
‘Their circumambulation centres me’: It’s been suggested that ‘Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush’ originated at Wakefield Women’s Prison. ‘The ship of Theseus’: The Grecian Ship Paradox. If over time the boards, beams and nails of a ship are replaced yet a second ship is created from the parts removed, which is the true ship?
Twenty-one girls from 1879 travel to arrive at their time: it is now.
‘I’m not the Ilex that the girls first knew’: Dated to 1949 based on comments at the School’s 140th anniversary celebrations.
The long-buried fragment of a mirror lifts from the earth, the better for us to see: lights up a face with a glint of the sun.
‘A school for boys was once upon this site’: The girls’ school was founded in 1879 only after the premises were vacated by the original King’s School, now Warwick School.
Wist ye? Learn how to learn. Your curriculum: life itself. Stop – rest here. Listen. We do not stop enough to listen at the wavelength of ourselves. What it is the wavelets say! Those voices, the lives you wish with the best of yourselves – they are your daughters.
The form of the poem was inspired by the Imaginary Conversations (1824-1829) of Walter Savage Landor. (Notes to this poem are courtesy of Robert Dougal Renton.)
Landor’s Head – Gregory Leadbetter This poem alludes to the bust of the classicist and poet Walter Savage Landor, which can be seen in the School Reception. King’s High School opened in 1879 in Landor House, then known as Eastgate House, on Smith Street, Warwick. Landor was born there in 1775, and in the 1890s the building was re-named in his memory. Aunt Do: A nickname among the girls at the time for Miss Victoria Doorly, Headmistress of the School 1922-1944. It was said that Miss Doorly could speak seven languages. Vlah: Miss Doorly’s dog, a German Shepherd of fearsome reputation. Wist ye what it is the wavelets say? – Gregory Leadbetter Miss E.J. Ahrons, who wrote the words to the school song of 1902 – a line from which I have used here – was Sixth Form mistress and later Deputy Head of the School. The School had twenty-one pupils when it first opened in 1879. A fragment of a mirror – a rare find – was among the Roman remains discovered during the archaeological excavation of the School’s new premises that preceded its relocation.
Gregory Leadbetter 40 | A Growing World Poems from King’s High
A Growing World Poems from King’s High | 41
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