Tony Harrison: V

Length / Form One of Harrison’s longest poems.

Relationship to Classical text Traces his relationship to Classics in the lansdscape of his upbringing (‘I’d survey / the places I learned Latin, and learned Greek.’) Latin text on funerary monuments in the graveyard. Classics/education used to articulate class-tension (‘Can’t you speak / the language that yer mam spoke. Think of ‘er! / Can yer only get yer tongue round fucking Greek?’).

Comment Also televised as a film poem which aired on Channel 4, 4 November 1987 (amid much controversy) wining the Royal Television Society Award.