Remember the puzzle of May 2011?
I had two blog entries last May about attempts to track down the mysterious Jean Mackie, author of the privately printed A Little Piece of Earth.
In Another Lost Poet, there are three poems by Jean and the story of how Alan Hill first sent me a copy of the original publication. The following week there was More about the Mysterious Jean Mackie, in which contact was made with Jean’s son Charlie.
Since then, much has happened, and I feel I know a little bit about the background to these poems. I’ve read the classic memoir by Jean’s husband, John R. Allan, Farmer’s Boy (I cannot imagine how I had missed reading this all my life). And I savoured John R. Allan’s North-East Lowlands of Scotland, which Charlie Allan reckons is his father’s masterpiece. I loved the chapter about the ballads, which connected beautifully with my own interest in these ancient narratives. And more recently I had a splendid time reading Them That Live The Longest, by Charlie himself, which describes Jean’s son’s own childhood and fills in even more of the background.
While all this was going on, I was type-setting most of Jean’s poems in a pamphlet (rather longer than the usual ones), and Charlie was writing a biographical introduction. He also sent me copies of poems by Jean’s granddaughter, herself mentioned in one of the Jean’s poems. Alan Dixon was generating woodcuts for the cover and Charlie was going through his mother’s papers to check whether there were more poems buried in her past (she died in 1991).
There were no more poems. The set that appeared under the title A Little Piece of Earth were a late flowering. As a teacher, and lecturer in drama, and journalist, she rejoiced in the printed word and loved poetry all her life, but she hadn’t always written her own. These poems seem to have been a sudden outburst, a response to the alarming process of suddenly finding herself . . . old.
When I was going through the endless process of checking the pages, setting the poems, moving this and that a hair space or so, I kept reading the poems. As I did so, the pages kept blurring because of the tears in my eyes. These are not all perfect pieces of literature (a few are outstandingly good), but each contains beautifully turned fragments, or wry asides, or attributes that are wholly personal to their author. They are extremely moving. Three poems by Jean’s granddaughter, Susie Malcolm, are included as an insert.
One mystery remains. The quotation from which the collection took its title is in the original, and I have added it to the HappenStance publication. But I haven’t managed to source it. I don’t know whether it’s from a poem or perhaps a popular saying. It could even be something a member of the family was known to have said. But if anybody recognizes it, please let me know:
Some ants carry their young
And some go empty
And all to and fro a little piece of earth
The Athenaeum –
James Silk Buckingham, John Sterling, Frederick Denison Maurice – 1833 – Social Science
“the earth, with man upon it, does not seem much other than an ant-hill, … and
some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro, a little heap of
dust.” … This is a reference maybe not the one you are looking for. Jim Brown
This sounds remarkably close, doesn’t it? In which case it might be a sort of found poem. But I’m not clear from your reference who actually wrote these words… It was in an edition of The Athanaeum then? In 1833? But though Buckingham, Sterling and Maurice were all involved with the magazine, not all at the same time, I think. What was your source, Jim? Can you send a link?
I’d love to say I remembered it from some intellectual pursuit in the past, but I just googled the
Some ants carry their young
And some go empty
And all to and fro a little piece of earth.
and up that reference came. It may help. I’ll try a bit more searching
Go for it. I spent ages googling and came up with a little piece of nothing… 😉
Hi Nell, There is a possibility that it is Virgil. Francis Bacon quotes it in “The Advancement of Learning.” in 1605. ….” So certainly, if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls except) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to and fro a little heap of dust.
Best get on with cutting the grass here comes my wife. JIm
I think it is not Virgil, but Bacon himself. If you extend the quotation a bit, it makes a lot of sense in the context of the poems themselves. (I’m writing the Happen[i]Stance[/i] Story, Chapter Seven, just now, which is what has brought me back to this).
“. . . if a man meditate much upon the universal frame of nature, the earth with men upon it (the divineness of souls except,) will not seem much other than an ant-hill, whereas some ants carry corn, and some carry their young, and some go empty, and all to-and-fro a little heap of dust. It taketh away or mitigateth fear of death, or adverse fortune; which is one of the greatest impediments of virtue, and imperfections of manners.”
I think the fear of death, or certainly of aging, is behind the whole set of Jean’s poems.