Exposure

by Paul Murgatroyd

Christopher Tinker sat back at his Victorian roll-top desk, nibbled a biscotto, took a sip of Madeira and nodded judiciously. The poem resonated with him. He didn’t know what its title (Ipsation) meant, and he wasn’t quite sure of its overall thrust, but, no matter, he felt that it was immanent. He read it again:

skald of allusion

symbolatry’s archpriest

imagistic orgastic

as you chant nothing assonantal

to a trio of congeners

in your CLOAK of ebony

at the shrill demented heart of a

selva oscura

pay no attention to the profanum vulgus

ignore all the littlepeople

who dismiss your poems

as pointless and unintelligible

for u are singing in perfect harmony

with the world of selfish self-indulgent humanity

speeding eyes wide shut to nullity

Yes, he decided, it was unobvious and dislocative; it had dare and edge; and it transcended tralaticious clarity – just the thing for Castalian Wood. As a courtesy, he’d show it to young Rodney, but he’d go ahead now and email an acceptance to the poet who apparently rejoiced in the name of E. Brown. Being published by such a prestigious journal would be a real coup for him.

When he read the email, Eric Brown did see it as a real coup. He punched the air and shouted: ‘Got you, Stinker! You actually fell for it, you cretinous little coughdrop.’

He sat back and gloated. Obviously, the fool hadn’t recognized his name. And he hadn’t spotted the ingenious dig at Castalian Wood in selva oscura, and hadn’t realized that Ipsation was a cutting attack on the whole obscurity-profundity equation and the kind of crepuscular poesy that his pseudy little mag championed and he penned himself. And clearly the great littérateur didn’t know that ‘ipsation’ meant masturbation. Publishing that in his own journal would expose him for all to see as the pathetic poseur that he was. And the smug bastard had brought it on himself, bragging in the Alumni section of the college magazine that he was now co-editor of Castalian Wood.

Revenge was sweet, especially on such a pretentious pillock as him. He’d been a patronizing get at school, full of shit and himself. Always making snide cracks, and mocking his accent, said he looked like Rita Tushingham, and wouldn’t give him a place on the debating team, just because he mispronounced the odd word, like ‘caste’ (talk about petty). And the snooty, superior sod had totally ignored him at college. Where he’d scraped a Third, - too busy posing around to do any work. But thanks to daddy’s contacts frig-face had become literary editor for a Tory rag and written reviews for poncey journals and had a slim volume of his unintelligible doggerel published. And got good reviews from his cronies and acolytes (you pull my plonker, angel-botty, and I’ll pull yours).

Eric snorted and knocked back his tumbler of Moroccan red. Hell’s teeth, he could have written a novel himself, if teaching English to juvenile philistines hadn’t been so bloody tiring and time-consuming. Since he’d retired for a well-deserved rest he hadn’t had the heart for it, and without Stinker’s contacts he wouldn’t get an agent or a publisher anyway. It was all corrupt, a racket. But at least he’d got that poem accepted and that would expose the four-eyed old fruit.

He poured himself another tumbler of wine and had several celebratory swigs. He got the manuscript of his poem out and read it aloud in exultation. He savoured the mockery in the literary allusions and topical conclusion and the title – a suitably abstruse word, from the Latin ipse, meaning ‘oneself’. Because that’s what that ilk of verse was – literary masturbation – enjoyable enough for the practitioner, but for others witnessing it uninteresting, unenlightening and rather repellent. Actually, the poem was so good that he might try his hand at some more satiric verse, as he obviously had a real flair for it.

However, as he finished his drink, it suddenly struck him that maybe, like Stinker, other readers would fail to see it for what it was, maybe in being obscure to ridicule obscurity he’d made his point unclear. The more he considered it the more that seemed likely. He snarled: ‘Christ on a crutch!’ and tried to think of what he could do now.

He could wait until Ipsation was actually in print, then email soft ollies, tell him who the author was and explain that he was a silly little tiddlywink who’d published a devastating attack on his own magazine and his own type of verse. That would be something. But the poem wouldn’t be understood by enough people to make the exposure of Stinker widespread. He had to do more to get him, to humiliate him publicly.

Eric wondered what he could do, but couldn’t think of anything. He decided he needed another drink for inspiration. But when he grabbed the wine bottle, he found that it was empty. He tottered off to get another bottle, fell down the stairs and broke his neck.

Nearly half an hour after Eric’s death an email arrived from Rodney de Vere, the co-editor, who had been shown Ipsation and grasped the thrust of the poem. He wrote that he was terribly sorry but there had been some sort of administrative mix up and unfortunately they would not be publishing his poem after all.