that they will, I’m sure, soon become a commonplace tool of law enforcement agencies. They’re incredibly cheap to produce and to operate. When one spies a police helicopter flying above, one can be quite sure that it’s on a serious and specified task, for the costs of flying them are too much to allow for them to be used for generalised and non-specific surveillance. This is not true of drones. Not only do they allow just anyone to spy on anyone at any time, they also allow the state to do the same. And, unlike CCTV cameras, they are quite conspicuous, both conceptually and physically. Much like Orwell’s telescreens, the fact of their existence carries with it a fear not bound to their immediate purpose. Imagine a world in which these things are ubiquitous, and you imagine a world in which the very skies remind you that you’re being watched. No stroll is private, no park bench intimate; at any moment you are liable to be interrupted by the claxon sound and disembodied eyes of a stranger; eyes which, unlike real ones, give no hint of their motive or purpose, and from which there is no obvious way of hiding. They are attuned to no specific purpose. Tasked with no limited responsibility to observe, they speak only to that sinister part of us which is voyeuristic, and terrify that sensible part of us which fears it. R a p e Cu lt u r e ? In a rather peculiar contrivance of circumstance, I recently found myself speaking at an event called Confronting Rape Culture. This had not been my intention, for I was in attendance to hear SoGol Sur (also published in this esteemed magazine) orate and not to contribute myself. Nevertheless, I ended up on the chair, attempting to recall verse. I say that the contrivance was peculiar because I am deeply sceptical of the term “rape culture”. I do not believe that all rape is equal, much less that all sexual assault is rape. Having, on two occasions, been on the receiving end of the latter, I find that my conviction on this point only becomes stronger as facts and knowledge present themselves. Besides, I have never once written a poem about rape. That said, if one subscribes to the old (and proper) view of poetry – that it must have form and obey the laws of metre – then very few of the speakers before me had written poems about rape, either. The location
afforded me an opportunity to hint at this: Housmans Radical Books h o p (aside from being one of the few places one may safely get away with calling one’s associates “comrade”) takes its name from Lawrence Housman, brother of A.E. Housman. Besides being my formative influence, A.E. Housman once delivered a lecture entitled The Name and Nature of Poetry, which is essential reading for anyone aspiring to learn about, let alone write, poetry. In it, he reaffirms a deep and sincere commitment to form, amongst other things, and is scathing of the modernist tradition. (This, in turn, was panned by the then-influential modernist critic F.R. Leavis, who said that it would take twelve years to undo the ‘harm’ done by Housman in a single hour. Given the state of modern verse, if indeed we consent to call it verse, one rather wishes the “harm” had been more severe and long-lasting.) But one should always seek to speak to the motion, whether or not one thinks its terminology valid. So I required an excuse to recite verse with no obvious connection to the topic. Happily, one quickly presented itself. Again, it was partly afforded by the venue: the poetry of A.E. Housman is defined by a certain nostalgia, one born of the period in which he wrote. Housman witnessed not only the profound and speedy social change of the late-Edwardian era, but also the First World War, and this imbues his poetry with a keen sense of, and a want to recall to mind, things loved and lost. So I had a passable cause to revisit my first attempts at poetry, which look increasingly likely to be my last attempts at the same. And what, I asked, is rape, if not the murder of innocence and the corruption of whatever things are true, beautiful and lovely? One should not fight only on annexed ground. So surely, if we are to confront “rape culture” (whatever it may be), we should devote time not only to explaining unspeakable wrongs but also to reaffirming that which is good about life. Only by this can we prevent tragedy from defining us. And with that, I think my own contribution was given some small worth. One or two of those I recited may find their way into the back of this magazine. (The event was filmed, and I’m told the video will be uploaded to the Facebook page, entitled “Confronting Rape Culture”, in the coming days.) 9