Collected Poems

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Causley is one of today’s preeminent writers of children’s poetry, and his children’s verse bears an illuminating relation to his work for adults. “When I write a poem,” Causley has commented, “I don’t know whether it’s for a child or adult.” His children’s book, Figgie Hobbin (1970), for instance, reveals the continuity of his work. Although the poems in Figgie Hobbin are simple in structure and often written from a child’s perspective, they are almost indistinguishable from his adult verse. (It is instructive to remember that Blake published his Songs of Innocence as an illustrated children’s book. It was posterity that reclassified it to the more respectable category of pure lyric.) In these children’s poems he explores his major themes in a fully characteristic way. Indeed they fit seamlessly into the Collected Poems (1975), where they are presented without comment among his adult poems. Moreover, as a group, these tight and polished poems rank high among Causley’s published work, and validate his theory that a truly successful children’s poem is also a genuine adult poem. “What Has Happened to Lulu?,”“Tell, Me, Tell Me, Sarah Jane,” and “If You Should Go to Caistor Town” are among Causley’s most accomplished ballads; “I Saw a Jolly Hunter” is among his best humorous poems. “I Am the Song” has an epigrammatic perfection that eludes classification, and and “Who?” may be the finest lyric he has ever written. The Charles Causley Poetry Competition 2016". Give me challenge. 15 October 2016 . Retrieved 18 January 2017. The poem comprises six stanzas, four of four lines each, one of three lines, and a final single-line stanza. This enables the poet to build up the picture, reaching a dramatic climax, and the final one-lined stanza a resolution. There is a regular rhyme scheme in that every line ends with consonant rhyme in groups of four, ABAB, CDCD etc. For example, ‘spins’ and ‘suns’ in stanza four; ‘dress’ and ‘grass’ in stanza two. This gives a sense of cohesion, but is so subtly done that it is easy to miss. I Had a Little Cat (2009) -- an intervening version between those of the Collected Poems for Children, above

Charles Causley Poetry Competition - Writing East Midlands". Writing East Midlands. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017 . Retrieved 18 January 2017.

Further Reading:

Charles Causley (1917-2003) was born and brought up in Launceston, Cornwall and lived there for most of his life. When he was only seven his father died from wounds sustained during the First World War. This early loss and his own experience of service in the Second World War affected Causley deeply. His work fell outside the main poetic trends of the 20th century, drawing instead on native sources of inspiration: folk songs, hymns, and above all, ballads. His poetry was recognised by the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 1967 and a Cholmondeley Award in 1971. In addition to these public honours, the clarity and formality of his poetry has won Causley a popular readership, making him, in the words of Ted Hughes, one of the “best loved and most needed” poets of the last fifty years. That haunted – and haunting – blend of reflections on comradeship, loss, anger, isolation, shame and obligation informs many of his poems drawing upon war in one way or another. Some recount evocative episodes, or sketch insightful portraits, from Causley’s six years of service. Others are a veteran’s musings, up to nearly 50 years on, about ‘aftermath’. The war subtly infused much of his peacetime world and vision. From the late 1960s, Causley published poetry for children. Some are simple rhymes designed to delight younger readers mainly by their sound alone, while others carefully observe of people, the world and life, and tell strong stories. Many of these books were illustrated by prominent artists. Causley always agreed with the view that “there are no good poems for children that are only for children”, and indeed there is some overlap between his Collected Poems (several editions, the last of those coming out in 2001) and his Collected Poems for Children (1996).

Johnny Alleluia also marks a deepening of Causley’s thematic concerns. Many poems explore his complex vision of Christ as humanity’s redeemer. Fully half the poems in this volume use Christ figures either explicitly, as in “ Cristo de Bristol” and “Emblems of the Passion,” or by implication, in strange transformations such as those in “For an Ex-Far East Prisoner of War” and “Guy Fawkes’ Day,” where the effigy burning in the holiday fire becomes a redemptive sacrificial victim. Likewise Causley alternates scurrilous parodies of the Christ story, such as “Sonnet to the Holy Vine” and the more disturbing “Master and Pupil” with his most devout meditations. Reading his many treatments of the Christian drama, one sees that Causley believes in the redemptive nature of Christ’s sacrifice, but that he doubts man’s ability to accept Christ’s love without betraying it. Twenty-Five Poems by Hamdija Demirovic (1980), translated with the author from the original Yugoslavian The University of Exeter: Special Collections (literary and personal papers of Charles Causley; reference EUL MS 50, et al)

He was much in demand at poetry readings in the United Kingdom and worldwide—the latter travels were sometimes as part of Arts Council and British Council initiatives. He also made many television and radio appearances over the post-war period, particularly for the BBC in the West Country, and as the presenter for many years of the BBC Radio 4 series Poetry Please.