Walter Benton (1904–1976)

Another randomly selected book of poetry, an activity that doesn't always pay dividends, but this time it did.

This is the second book of poetry I've read this year with overt sexual content, the other being Kate Tempest's Running Upon the Wires. I wasn't so keen on Tempest's collection (the first of hers I've read and didn't immediately take to), but Benton's sexual reference seem softer, more tender and poetic, even when they are not hidden behind poetical allusion, which they often are. Luckily, I didn't read the back cover blurb, which bears a review by Louis Untermeyer, saying, "The imagery is senuous and exact, but no more graphic - or pornographic - than the images in the Song of Solomon", as the denial of pornographic content would have led me to suspect more explicit content than it actually contains and I'd have returned it to the shelf - the curse of reverse-psychology and contrianism! So, yes, sexual/sensual content; no, pornographic/prurient content.

The poems bring us into a the middle of a passionate relationship, revealed through meditations upon the lover's body using images of nature, the changing seasons and cityscapes, then through break-up and a wistful longing after the lover has gone and another (less satisfying?) partnership entered into.

I'd not heard of Benton before spotting this volume, though his Wikipedia entry says that This Is My Beloved was influential in its time, with several adaptations of it being set to music between the end of the 1940s and the late 1960s.

Not necessarily what I'd have picked for myself, which is why my ongoing experiment in poetical serendipty is worthwhile.… (more)