HIS KIND OF MUSIC

If Poetry can be described as the extraordinary power, musicality and suggestiveness of words then I have never come across anyone with so extraordinary a talent as Hugh Stevens. To read, or better still to hear one of his longer works read was akin to listening to a great musical recital; I was about to say, to an orchestral performance, but somehow that smacks too much of control, too much of combined discipline, though God knows an orchestral performance can be powerful and deeply moving.

No; I would describe the experience rather as a pipe-organ recital, where from one instrument so much variation of tonal quality, of volume, of emotional suggestiveness and mood can be wrung. No: only a great organ, that “Vox tremendae maiestatis” would, I believe, be at all adequate for any such comparison. And how skilfully Hugh exploited word sounds, syntactic nuance and associations: at one moment querulous and insisting, then angry and complaining, next demanding and almost righteously commanding; at yet another moment coaxing and wheedling, almost the tender lover, stroking and caressing –tearful, laughing, boisterous and wildly playful. Finally, the rolling thunder as if from Sinai itself, of the Almighty’s covenanted truth. Then a prolonged silence: one had been lifted up heavenwards and was now cast down, mute.

And even here, I believe the description is apt. After the grand performance, the magic of the wonderful words, where was the meaning? After the revelation, what the stone tablets? As in such a recital, it was felt, rather than intellectually comprehended. And It was precisely at this the critics railed. “Magic words, meaningless!” “All sound and fury, signifying nothing,” was the tenor of their criticisms

In spite of this Hugh held many and very successful readings of his works, gathered a large following and sold numerous collections of his work. Amongst young people he gained almost pop-star status; poetry became ‘cool’, even if few or none of his admirers could actually explain what the marvellous cascade of words really meant.

Curious, I had gone along to one of his packed hall recitals.

How different was this Hugh Stevens from the young boy I had known.

Years ago in a town in the far north where I was working at the time, I was asked to coach the under-tens League team. Useless that I protested my lack of football skills, my lack of genuine interest in, or a passion for, the game. “Oh, come on, Johnno. We’re desperate for somebody to get the kids going. Don’t worry about not being a footballer yourself. You’re well known as a cricketer and a sportsman generally. Nobody will expect too much, the kids are only ten year olds, for God’s sake!”

Well that did it. If the kids were keen, then I’d do it till someone else could be found. Amongst the list of names was one Hugh Stevens. Hugh was smallest, but he could run fastest. His father, a lanky local beef king, made it known to me that he wanted ‘to make a man of him’; for God’s sake at ten! His mother was a whippet of a woman – no doubt where he got his build and possibly speed from. She was the local ‘grand dame’ and must have had a first name; I never learnt it: she was always “Mrs Stevens.” Whippet by build, I thought, but snappy terrier by nature.

The kid? Made for the wing or outside centre, I decided, and told him to run like hell whenever he got the ball. He did just that. His defence was novel. He’d jump onto an opponent and contrive to slow him till extra help brought his victim down, a tactic his father heckled and abused him for. I quietly told the boy, “Just keep doing what you’re doing: the important thing is to stop anyone in the other team anyway you can.” I was rather amused the next time his father ranted at him to hear him sulkily reply: “Coach says I’m to stop them others anyway I can, and I’m doing what he says!”

I was always ‘Coach’. In his mouth it sounded grand. “Did I do OK, Coach?” was always his question, but I was a bit worried to hear him all the time boasting: “We’ve got the best coach in town!”

One day after the game a few of us trainers and refs got together for a drink. During our conversation one of the refs, a school teacher, said to me: “I see you’ve got young Stevens in your lot. Bit of a problem that boy. Worships his dad and is cowed by that sharp-tongued mother of his. Seems he can’t do anything to please them, try as he might. Not terribly popular with his school mates either, who regard him as a liar and skite. Mac, a friend of mine, teaches him. At the beginning of the year old Stevens approached Mac and said he wanted the lying beaten out of the lad. (Back then the waddy was plied often and hard.) Mac was a bit taken back and asked me what I thought. My advice was to ignore the old man’s demand. The lad had retreated into a world of unreality and as a result, wasn’t really lying, merely telling things as his compensatory imagination was seeing them and the skiting was a cover for his insecurity. I reckoned the best Mac could do was quietly encourage the lad and give recognition to his efforts. Reckon you might do the same, Johnno. Judging by what I hear, he seems to think you walk on water.”

I smiled wryly. “Anyway,” he concluded, “you might give it a thought.”

The lad did seem to improve a little. There were gradually fewer ‘big stories’ and his success in the team seemed to make him more accepted by the younger fry.

Three years later, his parents sent him to the big city boarding school, probably to ‘make a man’ of him. “Well,” I thought, “might at least give him a break from their constant carping! And hopefully the masters at the place will know how to handle the lad’s problems.”

For the next couple of years Hugh would call to say hello at holiday times. Then we lost touch. I heard he had grown away from his parents and didn’t seem interested in the Property. I winced, imagining the barbs from both parents.

By the time he left boarding school I was gone from the town, but that same referee teacher, long a friend, filled me in. “You might like to know,” he wrote, “young Hugh Stevens won a scholarship to Brisbane Uni. During the Christmas holidays, it seems there was a bitter row. He evidently told his parents he was off to Uni, and as he had a scholarship, he would do what he wanted and that had nothing to do with Agriculture. Seems he’s stuck to his guns and is now bent on proving he can make it on his own.”

Five years later, I heard his name mentioned on the radio and came across a few lines about him in the Arts section of the Weekend Papers. Judging by what I read, young Hugh was now marching to his kind of music – the music of his words. So, my attendance at the recital.

I was quite impressed; more so, I think, by his confidence and assurance, something I’d never seen in him before. And though I felt there might be some truth in the critics’ words, I rather believe he’ll shrug those off much as he seems to have done his parents’ criticisms.