The poet within the musician

by Michael Shackleton · March 23, 2009

RECOGNITION: Poems by Barry Smith. Pretext Publishers, Cape Town. 2008. 72pp.

Reviewed by Michael Shackleton
Barry Smith has been associated with sacred music in South Africa and abroad for a very long time, 42 years of it as organist and master of the choristers of St George�s Anglican cathedral in Cape Town.

He is renowned for his skill and experience, and has been described as a totally professional musician, whether at the grandest of organs or directing the tiniest of choirs and orchestras. He has made many memorable recordings, most connected with the organ or choir of St George�s cathedral.

On top of his intense feeling for musical expression, in this collection of 72 short and trenchant poems, he gives us a deeper and all-too-brief glimpse of his emotions in relation to people and places. This is not astonishing when one considers that he holds not only a doctorate in music and musicology, but also a degree in English literature.

In the book�s introduction, Canon Chris Chivers of Blackburn cathedral describes these verses as �echoes of his music-making turned into poetic song�, and discloses that Barry Smith simply loved the writings of TS Eliot.

Music-making requires audible sound, and so does fine poetry. It has been said that Eliot has to be read aloud for anyone to grasp and feel his association of words, images and the real world. In that case, reading Barry Smith�s verses aloud is rewarding too. The poems are not tediously long or complex. The longest of them at only 42 lines, �The Journey�, is a look to the future and the past in one�s life.

The title of this collection comes from the first of the poems, �Recognition�, in which, abruptly meeting again someone you have known from the past, makes you exclaim: �I know you�.

In his gentle telling of love and life in today’s world, the author demonstrates sensitive awareness and compassion. Some poems suggest a lost love after which the poet still hankers, such as �Absence�:

Even as you walk away
Silence mutes the music that surrounds me,
Coldness slips into the sun’s unwarming rays,
Sweetness leaves the scented garden,
Darkness dims the once bright-shining star,
And, where you once had stood with me,
I stand on holy ground.

There are many who know and appreciate Smith the brilliant music-maker but probably very few who know of his brilliance as a verse-maker. Here�s their chance to get to know this great and modest South African in a new and subjective manner and to marvel again at his talents.

Michael Shackleton is a former editor of The Southern Cross.