A HIGH CALLING: Paul McDonald enjoys an intriguing mix of poems, literary history, critical analysis and autobiography which John Greening uses to explore the motivations of a poet
A High Calling: or, Where Do You Get Your Ideas From?
John Greening
Renard Press
ISBN-13: 978-1804471494
£14.99
This book’s subtitle makes it sound like a ‘how to’ guide, and in some respects it is, although it’s a memoir too, with Greening offering a biographical context for a lifetime’s engagement with the “high calling”. His opening chapter, ‘Why’, explores why poets do it – why do they engage in “this shuffling of words into combinations”? After dispensing with motivations only non-poets would suspect – i.e. money, and the remote possibility of posthumous fame – he concludes, “Perhaps in the end I write because I have read”. For me this is as good an answer as any, and it nicely sets-up the next chapter, ‘Reading’, exploring his relationship with texts, from a childhood love of Rupert books to early encounters with Louis MacNeice. As he matures, Greening finds himself “caught between the poles of Larkin and Hughes”, discovering a way forward via Modernism, and particularly imagism. The latter became important during his time living and working in Egypt; anyone familiar with imagism and Egypt will probably appreciate why: “That style of short lined, intense, ‘instamatic’ verse is just what I needed initially to capture the excitement and intensity of Egyptian life”. The book is full of such details, and their potential value for young poets soon becomes apparent: Greening proves a sagacious mentor for those seeking ways into poetry, what it means to be a poet, or, as the title suggests, where ideas come from.
A prolific critic, Greening has read a lot during his long career, and I enjoyed hearing about his literary tastes, impressed by the knowledge and enthusiasm he brings to his status as a bibliophile. He loves bookshops, and I can identify with the description of himself as “a browser, happy to surf the waves of serendipity” in search of intriguing and inspiring volumes. He has interpretative nous too, and while the book mostly avoids detailed analyses of individual poems, he’s sensitive to how his reading informs his creative work, and includes several of his own poems to complement and illustrate the narrative. For instance, ‘Reading’ is followed by a lovely poem about browsing in bookshops, ‘Arcadian’, where he dreams of an afterlife in “an old, darkly panelled, cigarette-/haunted, quiet centre of browsing, whose stairs twist out of sight above shelves/laden with poetry”. I’ve had similar dreams, and wonder if Greening has been trespassing in my head! It’s a well chosen poem, linking ‘Reading’ with the chapter that follows, ‘Dreaming’, which addresses the links between dreams and art. Here he references the dream related work of, among others, Tomas Tranströmer and Louise Glück; we learn too about Greening’s own experiences with dreams, including one at Heinrich Böll’s Cottage on Achill Island, where he felt a sense of being visited by Böll’s ghost, an incident that features in the opening sonnet of Greening’s sequence, Achill Island Tagebuch.
The chapters that follow are structured in a similar way: each addressing themes of interest to poets, unpacked with reference to Greening’s own experiences and poetic practice. The thematic range is comprehensive, encompassing writing materials, travel, walking, waiting, watching, and listening. He also has chapters on magic, meaning, coincidence, and genius. His thoughts on the latter are particularly interesting: by their very nature, geniuses have the capacity to succeed in their “high calling”, which for Greening include those able to find an aesthetic balance between “high and low”, the profound and the popular. He identifies a “specifically English genius among those poets” who successfully occupy that middle ground. Shakespeare is an obvious example; certainly Greening acknowledges, as Shakespeare did, “the need for a creative artist – genius or not – to make a living”. Of course there aren’t many poets who’ve managed to make a living entirely from poetry, including Greening himself, who’s had a variety of jobs from teacher to children’s magician. This isn’t a shortcoming for him or any other poet – diversity of experience beyond poetry has enriched his craft, and it enriches this book too, which teems with entertaining anecdotes about his occupations, the countries he’s visited, and the people he’s met, supplemented by a nice collection of photographs.
While most chapters focus on sources of inspiration, the ‘Asheville Journal’ section comprises of notes taken during a year spent in North Carolina, working on a production of his play about Charles Lindbergh: it’s a pleasing insight into the production process, not to mention the specific creative problems associated with writing successful verse drama:
In my play, I tried to use the whole range of possible resources:
lyrical chorus, lofty chorus, jokey exchange, rhetorical outburst,
dark meditation, bright dialogue, allusive monologue, song, parody,
chant, satire, ritual…no wonder the cast was bewildered at first.
While Greening clearly learned valuable lessons about verse drama from Shakespeare, making money from it isn’t a trick he’s able to emulate, and he leaves the States ready to “prepare myself for sudden obscurity”. Most poets realise that potential indifference accompanies their “high calling” – even when they’ve struggled to “get something right in the language”, it requires luck to get attention, and, even then, “Whether anybody will care about it is quite another matter”. Many respond to the “high calling”, but few, as we know, are chosen…
Greening takes himself seriously as a poet, and his sense of vocation is engaging and inspiring. He takes other poets seriously too, and I particularly enjoyed his ‘Some Contemporaries’ chapter, exploring the influence of writers he’s known personally, like Stuart Henson, Penelope Shuttle, Ann Stevenson, William Scammell, and Dennis O’Driscoll. Some fascinating creative collaborations emerged from these friendships: his postcard sonnet exchange with Henson, for instance, evolved into the collection a Postcard to (2021), while childhood memories of Hounslow Heath inspired a verse dialogue with Penelope Shuttle. Greening discusses the genesis of this at length, including the developing “synchronicity” between their creative responses, and the similarities and differences in their approach: while Shuttle “tended to foreground the wider human narrative rather more; I was inclined to bury it or divert it to my own symbolic purposes”. Gradually however their efforts built into a joint collection, Heath (2016). There are numerous insights of this kind, and as the book progresses we get a strong sense of Greening’s aesthetic sensibility, and how his life and friendships impact on it – a lucid and compelling account of how poetry is made.
Greening never quite answers the question of why poets do it, but there’s clearly no simple answer. Ultimately I guess he makes poetry because he thinks like a poet: he sees creative possibilities where others would miss them, is ready to make connections that others would ignore, sees significance in all aspects of his experience, and has the wit and fluency to communicate it – this is what it means to respond to a “high calling”. Naturally it helps if some people care, but fortunately some people do, and if you’re reading this you’re probably one of them.
Sep 28 2025
A HIGH CALLING
A HIGH CALLING: Paul McDonald enjoys an intriguing mix of poems, literary history, critical analysis and autobiography which John Greening uses to explore the motivations of a poet
This book’s subtitle makes it sound like a ‘how to’ guide, and in some respects it is, although it’s a memoir too, with Greening offering a biographical context for a lifetime’s engagement with the “high calling”. His opening chapter, ‘Why’, explores why poets do it – why do they engage in “this shuffling of words into combinations”? After dispensing with motivations only non-poets would suspect – i.e. money, and the remote possibility of posthumous fame – he concludes, “Perhaps in the end I write because I have read”. For me this is as good an answer as any, and it nicely sets-up the next chapter, ‘Reading’, exploring his relationship with texts, from a childhood love of Rupert books to early encounters with Louis MacNeice. As he matures, Greening finds himself “caught between the poles of Larkin and Hughes”, discovering a way forward via Modernism, and particularly imagism. The latter became important during his time living and working in Egypt; anyone familiar with imagism and Egypt will probably appreciate why: “That style of short lined, intense, ‘instamatic’ verse is just what I needed initially to capture the excitement and intensity of Egyptian life”. The book is full of such details, and their potential value for young poets soon becomes apparent: Greening proves a sagacious mentor for those seeking ways into poetry, what it means to be a poet, or, as the title suggests, where ideas come from.
A prolific critic, Greening has read a lot during his long career, and I enjoyed hearing about his literary tastes, impressed by the knowledge and enthusiasm he brings to his status as a bibliophile. He loves bookshops, and I can identify with the description of himself as “a browser, happy to surf the waves of serendipity” in search of intriguing and inspiring volumes. He has interpretative nous too, and while the book mostly avoids detailed analyses of individual poems, he’s sensitive to how his reading informs his creative work, and includes several of his own poems to complement and illustrate the narrative. For instance, ‘Reading’ is followed by a lovely poem about browsing in bookshops, ‘Arcadian’, where he dreams of an afterlife in “an old, darkly panelled, cigarette-/haunted, quiet centre of browsing, whose stairs twist out of sight above shelves/laden with poetry”. I’ve had similar dreams, and wonder if Greening has been trespassing in my head! It’s a well chosen poem, linking ‘Reading’ with the chapter that follows, ‘Dreaming’, which addresses the links between dreams and art. Here he references the dream related work of, among others, Tomas Tranströmer and Louise Glück; we learn too about Greening’s own experiences with dreams, including one at Heinrich Böll’s Cottage on Achill Island, where he felt a sense of being visited by Böll’s ghost, an incident that features in the opening sonnet of Greening’s sequence, Achill Island Tagebuch.
The chapters that follow are structured in a similar way: each addressing themes of interest to poets, unpacked with reference to Greening’s own experiences and poetic practice. The thematic range is comprehensive, encompassing writing materials, travel, walking, waiting, watching, and listening. He also has chapters on magic, meaning, coincidence, and genius. His thoughts on the latter are particularly interesting: by their very nature, geniuses have the capacity to succeed in their “high calling”, which for Greening include those able to find an aesthetic balance between “high and low”, the profound and the popular. He identifies a “specifically English genius among those poets” who successfully occupy that middle ground. Shakespeare is an obvious example; certainly Greening acknowledges, as Shakespeare did, “the need for a creative artist – genius or not – to make a living”. Of course there aren’t many poets who’ve managed to make a living entirely from poetry, including Greening himself, who’s had a variety of jobs from teacher to children’s magician. This isn’t a shortcoming for him or any other poet – diversity of experience beyond poetry has enriched his craft, and it enriches this book too, which teems with entertaining anecdotes about his occupations, the countries he’s visited, and the people he’s met, supplemented by a nice collection of photographs.
While most chapters focus on sources of inspiration, the ‘Asheville Journal’ section comprises of notes taken during a year spent in North Carolina, working on a production of his play about Charles Lindbergh: it’s a pleasing insight into the production process, not to mention the specific creative problems associated with writing successful verse drama:
While Greening clearly learned valuable lessons about verse drama from Shakespeare, making money from it isn’t a trick he’s able to emulate, and he leaves the States ready to “prepare myself for sudden obscurity”. Most poets realise that potential indifference accompanies their “high calling” – even when they’ve struggled to “get something right in the language”, it requires luck to get attention, and, even then, “Whether anybody will care about it is quite another matter”. Many respond to the “high calling”, but few, as we know, are chosen…
Greening takes himself seriously as a poet, and his sense of vocation is engaging and inspiring. He takes other poets seriously too, and I particularly enjoyed his ‘Some Contemporaries’ chapter, exploring the influence of writers he’s known personally, like Stuart Henson, Penelope Shuttle, Ann Stevenson, William Scammell, and Dennis O’Driscoll. Some fascinating creative collaborations emerged from these friendships: his postcard sonnet exchange with Henson, for instance, evolved into the collection a Postcard to (2021), while childhood memories of Hounslow Heath inspired a verse dialogue with Penelope Shuttle. Greening discusses the genesis of this at length, including the developing “synchronicity” between their creative responses, and the similarities and differences in their approach: while Shuttle “tended to foreground the wider human narrative rather more; I was inclined to bury it or divert it to my own symbolic purposes”. Gradually however their efforts built into a joint collection, Heath (2016). There are numerous insights of this kind, and as the book progresses we get a strong sense of Greening’s aesthetic sensibility, and how his life and friendships impact on it – a lucid and compelling account of how poetry is made.
Greening never quite answers the question of why poets do it, but there’s clearly no simple answer. Ultimately I guess he makes poetry because he thinks like a poet: he sees creative possibilities where others would miss them, is ready to make connections that others would ignore, sees significance in all aspects of his experience, and has the wit and fluency to communicate it – this is what it means to respond to a “high calling”. Naturally it helps if some people care, but fortunately some people do, and if you’re reading this you’re probably one of them.