Dear Roy

It’s a wonder but not always 

of obligation what difference comes to. 

For instance that photo on the cover 

of your ghost of a paper bag. 

I never saw a party table set out 

on the street where I grew up 

nor so many neighbours at once. 

Was that the difference between Handsworth 

& Thornton Heath or 1935 & ’53? 

Or between a Silver Jubilee & a Coronation? 

You were four at the one & I was three at 

the other & although you’re right that some 

difference is neutral there’s more to come: 

one of the faces in that photo’s yours but even 

if we’d had a street party for the Coronation 

I know I’d be missing from the snaps. 

I was only let peep at the cakes & paper crowns 

in next door’s front room. Perhaps because 

seeing so many neighbours at once I cried 

hard enough to be ushered or rushed home 

to bed & to forget. Is that another local 

suburban difference or the pre- against postwar 

or north v. south? Although Handsworth’s 

not so far north & Thornton Heath 

just south of London & we did leave to 

live elsewhere. Heading north but harking back. 

The rivers in both our towns were built over. 

How could I tell what the party next door 

meant to mean & you must have wondered 

at the obligation of a Silver Jubilee. 

That’s what bewilders even when 

we’re not children. The difference 

not neutral helping poems out. 

Alan Halsey. Poet, artist and co-director of the antichoir Juxtavoices. He ran The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye from 1979-96 and and was the editor of West House Books. His major publications include The Text of Shelley’s Death (Five Seasons 1995), Marginalien(Five Seasons 2005) Not Everything Remotely (Salt 2006), Selected Poems (Shearsman 2017) and Remarks of Uncertain Consequence (Five Seasons 2022). He was an Affiliated Poet at Sheffield University’s Centre for Poetry and Poetics. Alan died in October 2022.

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