A Man of Heart
Liam Guilar
(Shearsman Books, 2023); pbk £14.95
History is a record of brutality
tempered by outbursts of idealism
(‘Maxim 1’)
Liam Guilar’s A Man of Heart transforms historical record into contemporary poetry, unearthing narratives of 5th-century Britain by blending reimagination with realism. His compelling sequel to A Presentment of Englishry continues his poetic retelling of the British history depicted in Layamon’s Middle English verse poem Brut. Filtering Layamon’s 12th-century imaginings into free verse, Guilar rewrites the foundations of Britain with relevance and urgency, grappling with the abandonment of the Roman Empire, threats of impending raids, and power politics.
Guilar vividly creates new visions of the historical British landscape. However, he simultaneously expresses scepticism towards an absolute reliance on archival documentation or material remains for his revisioning, as shown in ‘Vortigern in London’:
It’s easy for a map to lie.
These forts have long since ceased to function.
The roads are overgrown or braided to confusion.
This is a tidy memory of a dead world.
Not even accurate when it was made.
Within this ‘dead world,’ fixation on the past threatens to erase the future of this province – London is depicted as a city ‘dying into itself’ and ‘shrunken, huddled / against its inevitable night.’ The city’s inhabitants are warned ominously that ‘this is what time will achieve / when no one bends a back against it.’ Guilar skilfully addresses this era’s political fragility by personifying the city, struggling to survive the aftermath of the Roman Empire’s abandonment.
Yet Guilar includes the footnote that ‘no attempt has been made to adhere to strict chronology’; these footnotes provide the bridge between research and reimagination, reminding us that to rewrite the past is to inevitably mould it into new shapes and directions.
Furthermore, Guilar impressively includes a historical figure based on minimal evidence. The warlord Vortigern, whose very existence is still debated by scholars today, becomes impressively and vividly three-dimensional in ‘Vortigern’:
He has no policy, no pension plan,
retirement scheme. He fears his sons
will knife him when he sleeps before
his enemies carve him on the battle field
or nail him to his burning hall.
Guilar’s version of Vortigern radiates fear and tyranny within a politically charged atmosphere: ‘strong men don’t look him in the eye, / they say he measures them for burial.’ Familiar concepts such as pension plans and retirement schemes links Vortigern’s plight to concerns surrounding our own capitalist working culture, making this historical experience more relevant to modern-day readers. Despite exploring darker aspects of Vortigern’s leadership, Guilar also humanises his protagonist through anxieties experienced today – his past is ‘a broken mirror /making the present look deformed.’ Ultimately, Vortigern is:
Scheming to improve the limits of his power
before death dumps him out of history
or into genealogy, if he’s worth the space[.]
Guilar pulls Vortigern back into history, advocating that Vortigern’s perspective is indeed ‘worth the space.’ Omniscient third-person narration allows the poetry to freely flow between multiple perspectives, from the political problems of warlords and soldiers to the brutal realities faced by women; in ‘Maxim 2’ for example, ‘A father will trade his daughter for a Kingdom / A daughter will trade her body for a crown.’
Seamless poetic transitions guided by this narration enables a lost community’s collective voice to resurface alongside an ongoing analysis of historical reimagination as it is being written. This is evident in ‘Departure’:
People invest the past
with qualities they feel
are lacking in the present.
But for once in history,
those Empire days
really were that golden.
Statements probing the legitimacy of historical retelling intersperse with Guilar’s own literary characterisations, asking key questions about his writing practice as it is enacted. Ultimately, we are urged, ‘don’t be misled by eloquent historians / who make the past seem rational.’ A refreshing retelling that is not afraid to question the ethics of its own creation, A Man of Heart bears testimony to the power and potential of historical reimagination.
Orla Davey
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