Some years back, well quite a few really, I wrote a Ph.D. thesis entitled ‘Existential Literary Criticism and the Novels of Colin Wilson’.

What has this to do with a poem by iain britton?

Well rather a lot. Wilson’s prime edict regarding his notion of existential literary criticism (ELC) was this: all literature is to be ultimately judged by how much it contributes to what Viktor Frankl coined as ‘man’s search for meaning’. My thesis incidentally pointed out that not all of Wilson’s several novels could be given a ‘pass mark’ under his own standards of ELC.

Let me return to iain britton’s poem, the name deliberately written in lower case as this is how this poet steadily denotes himself throughout his poetic oeuvre, always with a small ‘i’, as if he is relegating himself to the sidelines of his mahi toikupu. Almost as if his self-reference is a deliberate stylistic quirk like the horizontal marks separating phrases he also routinely employs. Or more likely a form of self-effacement, because iain britton is indeed a humble man.

There are two interrelated processes revolving symbiotically during i pick up on something more substantial and please note the contrast between the first and final words of this title; the titular phrase repeated inside the poem.

The poet or speaker in the poem does pursue some actions, such as going outside to discover something more essential and elemental, and they certainly reflect quite profoundly about the distant past, about history. At the same time, intertwined with these wanderings and ponderings, are several physical events incorporated in the bounteous arms of Nature—flowers, sea/surf/waves, birds, children—and events caused by mankind which are fracturing these arms, such as the oil slick.

The final lines are the sum of these two congruent parts of the poem, where the past and this poet’s search for meaning congeal, where the archaeological dig has not disinterred the bone flute personified as ‘holding its breath’, but the rugged waves have. The personified past is alive in the immediate present. At least for a little while yet.

Of course, personification is manifest throughout this poem, which tends to further accentuate the poet/speaker’s diminished presence. Metaphor—much of it quite marvellous—also prevails, and there is a bit of alliterative play thrown in near the end too. The poet can present a poem very well indeed, about this there is no question. Take for example this recently discovered gem—‘i deftly unstitch the morning’s fog’. A glorious find.

Yet, there is obtuseness here too. I for one cannot quite unravel ‘global offspring i call my own’. Ko wai tēnei? More, why exactly are the ‘human fables’ ‘clandestine’? Kāore ahau he mōhio.

So, where are we now? What would my old mate Colin Wilson say about another old mate (iain britton) and this poem via the vista of ELC? Is something ‘more substantial’ revealed? Wilson, never a poet himself, would probably say, ‘Well, yes, it’s an amazing set of images. But what does it all mean? Does Mr. Britton know himself? Are these magical patterns an aspect of the poet/speaker’s own ‘fantasy’? The poet/speaker who transmogrifies into an archaeologist themself when they ‘rake through deposits’?

I would be kinder than Colin. The poem unearths indigenous Being well prior to other living beings attempting to exhume anything. Sadly, the grimy machinations of these ‘global offspring’ fellow men threaten even the ever-extant past, as the physical present is itself becoming sullied, possibly overturned, obliterated. The ‘fantasy’ remains exactly that.

This is the ‘more substantial’, disinterred in a poem by a poet of stature who ironically minimises themself, who performs self-epoché throughout.

But don’t let me get started on a phenomenological exegesis.

Tēnā koe mō tō toikupu e hoa.