Hello and welcome to Frank Skinner's Poetry Podcast.

Today I want to look at the Cornish poet Jack Clemo.

Jack Clemo was born in 1916 and died in 1994.

And I want to focus on his earlier period.

I want to look at a poem from his first collection, which was called the clay verge.

Why the clay verge, that will become very apparent as we go on.

Clemo's obituary in the Independent in 94 when he died described him as remorselessly austere.

But don't let that put you off.

I think he's absolutely brilliant.

And I kind of want to get straight into the poetry and then we'll jump off for

explanations and further discussion. The poem I want to look at is called a Calvinist in

love. I mean it's already pretty good, you must admit.

And it's from, as I say, his collection, The Clayverge, which was published in 1951.

He was, or he certainly described himself as a Calvinist.

Calvinism, of course, is a sort of dissenting religion. It is quite austere. None of the gold trappings and finery of my own religion, Roman Catholicism. It's much more

stripped away than that. Clemo, his religion was a sort of an

amalgam of a few non-conformist religions, but he called himself a Calvinist, but there's a bit of

Methodism and all that stuff going on. Who cares? Basically, he likes his religion, strip bare and painful. That sounds

creepier than it was meant to. Let me get into the poem and you'll get the feeling. This is,

remember, called a Calvinist in love, which is a sort of a, almost a contradiction it feels like, but of course Calvinists fall in love, which is a sort of almost a contradiction it feels like, but of course

Calvinists fall in love. And for this particular Calvinist, this is what it was like. I'll just

give you the first two stanzas. I will not kiss you contrary fashion by headsides where weasel and hair claim kinship with our passion.

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