John Calder

Internationally renowned publisher John Calder has published hundreds of books since 1949. His publishing commitment to his life-long friend Samuel Beckett, and promoting the French nouveau roman, has made him an icon in Anglo-literary life. In this collection of poems What's Wrong? What's Right? which I read on a train to Maison Laffite, he gives us his philosophical poetical view of life as though he was there, next to you, opening his heart to us all -- humanity. We may embrace his courage and use it to encourage others to live up to what is left of humanity in this world. It is a collection of poems that are as profound as anything you may find today and forget elsewhere - any thing else.

GOURMANDISE

Now, today, I have indulged myself.

The joumey was long, but not unpleasant. Now, back in Paris, the city where I have decided to die and before that live as much as the world lets me,on this Sunday, this February Sunday, where there is no sun, I buy a ticket for a hated return and indulge.

A glass - a coupe - from royal Rheims

and a platter, called a plate, of delicious seafood

laid on ice and a half-bottle

of a favourite wine:

the special taste of dry Sancerre,

dry but fruity, lingers on the palette, followed by a sea-snail and another sip.

My appetite encouraged by the passing waiters,

small as it is, I reach for a clam -

brown bread and butter dries the mouth -

­another clam, this time with lemon;

I order Badoit

to slow the wine consumption and to aid

digestion. Then an oyster

with its shell-juice, then another sip.

ln other climes

children starve and water's not for finding.

Many die from poisoned rivers, many from despair.

Many die for freedom's cause and many die against it.

Many fight the next door tribe

and slaughter or are slaughtered.

Bombs and famine, casual killing

(another clam goes down)

global warming, global business

side by side drive mankind onward

to a grim tomorrow,

where all the growth and aU the killing,

all the trade and manufacture,

all the art and all the writing,

all the notes composers put together,

all the loving potting and ceramic,

all the loving leading to new life,

all the pious ceremony and preaching,

and suppression of ideas,

or the liberty to spread them,

will all go together when they go.

And let the world ... the wine is nearly finished!

Carpe diem says the hand that reaches

for the final oyster; two sea,snails

and a prawn are left. Dear Sam,

Sam Beckett, saw it coming long ago,

and now I hear the next door table ordering

dishes more lavish in a normal voice

and I reproach my small indulgence, thinking:

in England you would not get this,

even at five times the price.

The world of affluence divides:

some pay for much at little cost

and others much for little

and never know the difference.

And in the other half

where life from day to day goes on

as polar bears and wolves and whales

strive not to be extinct,

and scenes like this indulgent restaurant

lie far beyond the thinking of the average man,

faite la moyenne, it averages out, and welcome what's to come:

sans food sans suffering sans pleasure and sans life.