Summary

In “Redbreast” Jackself journeys through the harsh landscape of winter around Lamanby, wondering to himself “how long/since Jeremy Wren went into the earth” (45). He compares Wren to a seed potato being planted in the ground, “livid-skinned, with unseeing eyes/and hair sprouts” and then sings three lines of a song he has written, which goes “I see a robin redbreast in a blackthorn tree/I see a robin redbreast in a blackthorn tree/the seasons turn but all year round it’s winter time in me” (45).

“The Misery” is a pseudo-epic poem in which Jackself, still reeling in the grief from Jeremy Wren’s suicide, embarks on a quest to confront this grief head on. The poem begins with Jeremy Wren’s spirit observing Jackself in his state of depression and deciding Jackself needs a quest to pull him out of it...