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Christopher Logue
1926-2011
Those who are sure of love
Do not
complain
For sure of love is sure
Love comes again
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Christopher Logue is buried in
Kensal Green Cemetery, London, England.
His gravestone was designed by Gavin Stamp and carved by
Stephen Lane from Portland Stone. |
Grave of Christopher Logue ©
Rosemary Hill
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Logue was a poet, playwright, journalist and an actor. He
was born in Portsmouth and studied at Portsmouth Grammar
School. During WW2 he joined the Black Watch and he
saw service in Palestine. He was court martialled in 1945
for selling stolen pay books and spent 16 months in an army
jail.
During the
1950s he lived in Paris and, togther wth his friend Alexander
Trocchi, he edited the influential magazine Merlin -
which published writers such as Beckett,
Neruda and Genet.
Logue was associated with the early years of the English
Stage Company which staged a number of his plays. He was
also a pioneer of Jazz Poetry - a music/poetry fusion
originated by the US poet Vachel Lindsay. Logue was also an
active anti-nuclear protestor and took part in the first
Aldermaston march in 1958.
His poetry collections include: Wand and Quartet
(1953), Songs (1959), New Numbers (1969)
and Ode to the Dodo: Poems from 1953-1978.
However, he
is probably best remembered for War Music
(1981) which was an adpatation of Homer's Iliad.
It was a recreation of the Greek classic rather than a translation
and was both visceral and violent.
Louis MacNeice, who was
himself a classical scholar, said of it that: 'never was blood bloodier
or fate more fatal'.
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As he fell back, back arched,
God blew
the javelin straight; and thus
Mid-air, the
cold bronze apex sank
Between his teeth and
tongue, parted his brain,
Pressed on, and
stapled him against the upturned hull
(From War
Music)
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Christopher
Logue
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