Mitteleuropa

Reading, that should be enough, let alone writing. There are no readers anymore, the poet says. Well, none in Britain. Or at least none in Manchester. Or none in his street, or in his flat. There are no readers in his flat, he knows that. Not even him! Not even him, he says mournfully.

He stands outside reading. He's waiting outside. He's sunk to the floor in the eternal corridor, waiting to be admitted, but knowing that he will never, ever be admitted, not to reading, and even if he were admitted, it would be to find that there was nothing behind the door, that reading had fled long since.

*

Of course, the real reader of poetry would be able to quote poetry, the poet says. To quote it, great reams of it. He's unable to quote any poetry, says the poet. He should be able to, but he can't. How could he? He's British, and for the British, poetry is altogether too literary.

The British are very suspicious of the literary, he says, and rightly so. The literary can run off with you, he says. The literary can abscond with you, and you'll have no idea where you are. It's fine in Europe, in Old Europe, where life, in general, is more literary, in the positive sense of the word literary, he says. Over there, in Old Europe, in Mitteleuropa, it's perfectly possible to read poetry and to quote it.

He can imagine them, the Mitteleuropeans, roaming their wilderness, wandering through the forests and steppes, poetry on their lips. They lead literary lives, literary meant here in the positive sense, says the poet. But the British person is not a literary person, he says.

Literature is not natural to us, for all that our country has produced so many poets. No, literature is not natural to us at all, which is why, probably, our poets, British poets, either have to live abroad or in some kind of internal exile, says the poet. They have no place here, as he has no place here, not really, says the poet.