Steven Heighton introducing Robin
Robertson
Canadian Steven Heighton introduces Scottish
poet Robin Robertson
Steven Heighton (Canada)
 Steven
Heighton is a poet and fiction writer. His most recent book is the
novel Afterlands, which has appeared in six countries
and was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. His other fiction
titles include The Shadow Boxer and Flight Paths of the
Emperor. His most recent poetry book, The Address Book,
was shortlisted for the ReLit Award, while various poems from
the collection won the Petra Kenney Prize and a gold medal in
the National Magazine Awards. His other poetry titles include The
Ecstasy of Skeptics (a Governor General's Award finalist)
and Stalin's
Carnival, which won the Lampert Award for best first book and
has recently been translated into Russian.
…introducing Robin Robertson (Scotland)
 Misquoting
Cromwell while reading Robin Robertson
My father told me this one.
In April 1653 Oliver Cromwell—officially England’s
'Lord Protector', unofficially a military dictator, additionally
a war criminal given to thanking God for his mercy but disinclined
to show much of his own—dissolved the last vestige of Parliament,
known as the Rump, with the following speech: "You have
sat here too long for all the good you have done. In the name
of God, now go." And the Rump dissolved. Cromwell had thirty
musketeers with him, of course, and a reputation for savagery;
he might have said anything and dissolved the Rump. Told a joke,
if he knew one. Issued his order in Basque. But (my father said
to me, repeating that one-breath speech) what is it about those
twenty words that makes them so damn effective? (When I was a
boy, he liked to be teaching me things all the time. Especially
when driving me places.)
I scratched my nose. I can’t remember, now, if I came up with
any sort of response.
Certainly the Lord Protector’s speech had been short. Had the
Rump dissolved in sheer gratitude? That was an age of interminable
speeches, wasn’t it?
Twenty words, my father said, and twenty syllables. Count them.
› Read more by Stephen
Heighton on Robin Robertson
  
|
