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A fig for Tony Harrison by Sandie Byrne
from Now We Are Five
A fig for Tony Harrison
Apollo’s laurel traditionally wreathes The poets who lasting marble seek By writing in Latin or in Greek, But not the champion of demotic Leeds. This tree’s root sups at the Muses’ cascade, But its leaves, connoting biblical prude, Don’t suit a poet who’d rather go nude, And fruit, not leaf, is the right accolade. Though kumquat’s good for ambiguation, Fruitility’s lust for all that’s pleasureable, Sexual, sensual, intellectual, Needs fleshier signs of gratification. A ripe unroyal orb’s meet for one who Never συκοφαντηζ had the guts To show the fig to canary butts. Unlaurelled poet, I give a fig for you.
Sting in the tale
The fig is not a fruit in essence, its flower’s inside its infructescence. It’s made in symbiotic play: Sweet flower and wasp agaonidae.
Sandie Byrne
71
