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128 Memorials a professional reason to phone him, namely to discuss the meaning of the word‘dichten’: earlier that morningI had re-readthepagesonBasilBuntinginPound’sABCof Reading , in which BBis quoted as having discovered the equation ‘dichten=condensare. . . whilefumblingaboutinaGermanItalian dictionary’. This, we are told, was Basil’s ‘prime contribution to contemporarycriticism’. ‘Dichten’ involves one wordwhereEnglishinvolves three: ‘tocomposepoetry’. The implied poetics underlying the equation – ‘condensare’ obviously meaning to condense or to compress – was immediatelyinfluential andhasremainedsoeversince. SomethingIsaac Rosenbergwrote ina letter (I knowthe quoteoff byheart) suddenlycametomind: ‘Iamdetermined that this war, withall its powers for devastation, shall not master my poeting; that is, if I amlucky enoughto come throughallright’. Heused the verbform ‘. . . my poeting . . .’, whichcouldonlyhavecomefroma non-existentverb‘to poet’. Isitpossiblethat, knowingYiddish, whichemploysthesame word‘dichten’ as inGerman, Rosenberginventedtheverbin English, ‘to poet’ being the one-word literal translation of ‘dichten’?IthinkIhavemadeadiscovery. A final gloss: Wittgenstein wrote somewhere that ‘Philosophie düürfte maneigentlichnur dichten’: ‘Philosophy ought to be composedlike poetry’ or ‘philosophy ought to be like poeting.’ Having recently published a book by Christopher Middleton, I decidedto runthis past him. He happens tobeinEuropeat themoment, makingit easier to reachhimonthephone–because ofthetimedifference–than at homeinAustinTexas. Hecameupwithanimprovement: ‘philosophising should be like writing poems.’ He also confirmedone’s suspicionthat theItalianlexicographer, very convenientlyfor Bunting’s standingas acriticintheeyes of the Gaffer, was perpetrating a false etymology, whether deliberatelyornot. I once wrote that if Donald Davie was the exemplary poet-critic and Jon Silkin the exemplary poet-editor, then
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Memorials 129 Michael was the exemplary poet-translator. He was the role model for many of us. What is more, he remained a socialist and a radical to the end, and was one of the few people I could speak frankly to about my fears that nuclear or climate apocalypse will arrive sooner rather than later, for he shared them one hundred per cent. Nearly forty years ago, the very first Menard Press publication saw the light of day, misprints and all: the Michael Hamburger issue of The Journals of Pierre Menard. Later, he wrote introductions to two Menard books: With All Five Senses by Hans Cohn translated by Frederick Cohn and Nerval’s Les Chimèères translated by William Stone. Coda: re-reading Geoffrey Hill’s ‘Pindarics (after Cesare Pavese)’ in Without Title, I yearn to phone Michael for a chat about Höölderlin and Pindar. But, instead, I shall be going to Suffolk tomorrow to attend and participate in Michael’s funeral in the village church of Middleton (think Saxmundham, not Christopher). I am to recite the traditional Jewish burial prayers, Kaddish (the sanctification of God and life) and El Moleh Rachamim (the prayer for the dead). Iain Galbraith Between Day and Night Suddenly it seems too soon to be writing about this man from whom I have learned so much. Close to my window grows an apple-tree. After this summer’s loopy pendulum of downpour and sunshine its reddening fruit is almost ripe for the picking. Once I took two plastic bags bulging with Marsh Acres apples Michael had given me on the plane back to Germany – species I would never find in any supermarket, several with names I had never heard. To have grown to know Michael over the decades, glimpsing the complex, contradictory shape he made in the world, was always to have too much to say – to him, about him – or, not quite a contrary, so much that will not be

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Memorials

a professional reason to phone him, namely to discuss the meaning of the word‘dichten’: earlier that morningI had re-readthepagesonBasilBuntinginPound’sABCof Reading , in which BBis quoted as having discovered the equation ‘dichten=condensare. . . whilefumblingaboutinaGermanItalian dictionary’. This, we are told, was Basil’s ‘prime contribution to contemporarycriticism’. ‘Dichten’ involves one wordwhereEnglishinvolves three: ‘tocomposepoetry’. The implied poetics underlying the equation – ‘condensare’ obviously meaning to condense or to compress – was immediatelyinfluential andhasremainedsoeversince. SomethingIsaac Rosenbergwrote ina letter (I knowthe quoteoff byheart) suddenlycametomind: ‘Iamdetermined that this war, withall its powers for devastation, shall not master my poeting; that is, if I amlucky enoughto come throughallright’. Heused the verbform ‘. . . my poeting . . .’, whichcouldonlyhavecomefroma non-existentverb‘to poet’. Isitpossiblethat, knowingYiddish, whichemploysthesame word‘dichten’ as inGerman, Rosenberginventedtheverbin English, ‘to poet’ being the one-word literal translation of ‘dichten’?IthinkIhavemadeadiscovery. A final gloss: Wittgenstein wrote somewhere that ‘Philosophie düürfte maneigentlichnur dichten’: ‘Philosophy ought to be composedlike poetry’ or ‘philosophy ought to be like poeting.’ Having recently published a book by Christopher Middleton, I decidedto runthis past him. He happens tobeinEuropeat themoment, makingit easier to reachhimonthephone–because ofthetimedifference–than at homeinAustinTexas. Hecameupwithanimprovement: ‘philosophising should be like writing poems.’ He also confirmedone’s suspicionthat theItalianlexicographer, very convenientlyfor Bunting’s standingas acriticintheeyes of the Gaffer, was perpetrating a false etymology, whether deliberatelyornot. I once wrote that if Donald Davie was the exemplary poet-critic and Jon Silkin the exemplary poet-editor, then

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