I was telling Gareth Southgate
only this morning about
the convenience
of having my weekly
train ticket on my phone.

He said that I had made
a sensible choice.

He was also pleased
that I make myself a ham
and pickle sandwich for my lunch.
Although he suggested
the occasional Scotch Egg.

We skipped down the lane to the station.
July’s cornflowers choking
June’s poppies to death again.
Our hands were almost touching.

Gareth sniffed at the horizon,
told me that rain can appear knowing
on the days we fall in love.

“It can be warm, cool, or lush -
a comfort inside our madness.”

We both recited some poetry
Of Adlestrop, birds
and Gloucestershire.

I asked him about the penalties.
Gareth said he was trying to make a point.

 

Ralph Dartford ‘England’s Dreaming’¹

I don’t think there’s a poet quite like Ralph Dartford. Yes, I’m sure that can be said about a lot of poets, but there’s something about Dartford’s work that moves me. I can sit and read his poetry for hours, over and over. In fact, I’m quite sure I’ve re-read Dartford’s works more than any other poet or poem – excepting Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’. Maybe it’s because I have met him, shared a drink with him, so I can see him in his poetry more clearly than I can with those I’ve never met. Or maybe that’s just an innate characteristic of his poetry: the personality is there in the words.

I often struggle to read and enjoy the works of people I have met, either those I casually know or am close friends with. This became apparent in my years reviewing music. I covered album, EP, and single releases for over two hundred bands, give or take. Only two of these artists remain in my playlist, and I possess physical copies for only one of them. Maybe this is my flaw as a listener (or, in the case of poetry, my flaw as a reader). I do wonder though if it is this musicality to Dartford’s work that makes even the most niche, personal poem wonderfully accessible. There is always fluidity bordering on melody. He once posted online that line breaks in poetry are like silence in music, and that changed entirely how I thought about the shaping of a poem.

Before we go any further, let me state something in no uncertain terms: Dartford is the kind of artist we could all do to explore – and is someone you need to hear reading at an event. Want to get into poetry? Read Dartford. Have loved poetry all your life, but want something new? Read Dartford.

Dartford has a background in spoken word, having been a founding member of the ‘A Firm of Poets’ spoken word collective. He then turned his attention to poetry for the page, and has published three collections via Valley Press since 2019. For our poem of the month, I’ve picked ‘England’s Dreaming’, taken from his third collection House Anthems (2024). It’s Dartford’s favourite poem (at the moment, he says), very appropriate for a World Cup, and so summery.

I often try to be objective when writing this column, but the safety and sensibility presented in Dartford’s fictionalised ‘Gareth Southgate’ feels like English self-deprecation. What was Southgate if not too safe and careful during his tenure as England manager – a characteristic that was eventually our undoing with not a single shot on target for over 85 of the 90 minutes in the Euro final against Italy, at our Wembley home? And what is England if not self-deprecation, told with a sly smile, regularly misinterpreted as arrogance or overconfidence?

To international readers who also happen to be football fans: most of us never really believe it’s coming home. People seem to see it as English arrogance. I assure you, it’s merely English dreaming.

But that is an aside, an in-joke, for this poem. What is the most moving is its brief intertextual homage to Edward Thomas’s ‘Adlestrop’, one of my favourite poems to come out of the First World War period. It comes overtly in just a brief mention at the poem’s end:

We both recited some poetry.
Of Adlestrop, birds,
and Gloucestershire.

I don’t want to divert onto Thomas’ poem for too long, but I had the chance to teach it to a GCSE student about a day after I discussed ‘England’s Dreaming’ with Dartford. It had been a while, but the soft beauty of the poem struck me like the sight of a familiar face. The whole piece reads like a slice of conversation between two Englishmen. Though conceived thanks to a train journey a month before the First World War broke out, it has been read and taught as a war poem as it was written between 1914 and 1915. It is impossible now to read it without acknowledging people facing the horror of war with soft patriotism and quiet, powerful acceptance, while celebrating and adoring England’s pastoral beauty. 

The tone of ‘Adlestrop’² is mirrored in ‘England’s Dreaming’. Dartford’s collection was inspired by the death of his brother, Joe – and a celebration of the life and times he and his brother inhabited, reflected through the musical ties in each poem. In Dartford’s own words in the introduction, he is incorporating “the music and anthems of Joe’s life and time. Which of course is mine too”.

When the speaker “asked [Gareth Southgate] about the penalties” at the poem’s end, it felt like he was finally facing something that he didn’t want to but was unable to avoid. I can’t help but see this as a euphemism for grief. Again, Dartford declares “The collection was not specifically meant to be about [his brother Joe] at all, but reading the poems now, it’s all about him”. ‘Adlestrop’ wasn’t necessarily intended as a war poem, and House Anthems wasn’t meant to be about Dartford’s brother. It also isn’t really about the penalties, is it?

Some would say I’m overcomplicating matters. This poem celebrates Englishness, from “a ham / and pickle sandwich for my lunch” and “the occasional Scotch Egg” to “July’s cornflowers choking / June’s poppies to death again” – the former a long-lasting, hardy wildflower and the latter a fleeting beauty. But can we ignore the connotation of remembrance carried in “poppies”? They symbolise thankfulness for a sacrifice and a celebration of heroism.

This brings me back to Ralph’s brother Joe, and to music. Each poem in House Anthems features a song. ‘England’s Dreaming’ names ‘Summertime in England’ by Van Morrison. Dartford sees the music as secondary to this collection (the music takes more of a lead in his preceding book Hidden Music) but is it supplementary, and it is music from the lives of Ralph and Joe.

Maybe give that a spin after you read this poem, then come back and read the poem again. Find the hidden music (pun very much intended) in Dartford’s words. Give this your attention on a hot summer day.

Not to shoehorn my favourite line from the poem in there but, when the inevitable English rain comes, remember that “rain can appear knowing / on the days we fall in love”. Let’s all be attentive to what, and who, we love.