Smudged Lurgsy
Research calls me away for a week, denying me the opportunity to engage in such critical mayhem as may or may not be found in and around the margins of this dear blog of mine. I implore you all, however, to feel quite free to fight among yourselves in the meantime, for I have no intention of feeling left out. Indeed – inspired by my blog-hosts’ proud insistence on a brand new feature – I even have gone so far as to leave you a little something to play with in my absence.
As some of you will no doubt know, the Bulgarian poet Tomas Lurgsy lived in London between 1975-9, refreshing his mind after a generally flawed attempt to reignite romantic rural poetry in his homeland (see here). During this short period he wrote some of his first poems in English – and a lot of his worst in any language. There were, nevertheless, a few gems – the majority of which concerned his increasing paranoia over the subject of flooding. The origins of this fear are not hard to pinpoint. In 1971 a flashflood hit his hometown in Bulgaria. The local graveyard, in which Lurgsy’s father had been lain only weeks before, was ferociously hit. Mr Lurgsy’s headstone (bought cheap and thereby weaker than your average grave-marker) was never recovered from the ensuing wreckage. The widespread pyschological damage caused by this event was equally difficult to correct. Still, Lurgsy set about it in the way he knew best: by scribbling lines of poetry onto the back of shop receipts, paper bags and bus tickets.
Though these were undoubtedly the best things he wrote at this time, he treated them casually, rarely working ideas up into any sort of significant form. Most of the works are, thus, incomplete scraps: tantalizing glimpses of what might have been. For this reason alone, scholars have long been treading on each others’ toes to throw forward their own theories; to sort the jumbled masses of half-finished odes into some kind of pattern; to substitute smudged or missing words with something of their own; something suited to their grand critical masterplan. ‘Herein lies the true Lurgsy’ wrote one critic. And lo, the graverobbers descended upon the body of literary fragments.
As the initial dust began to settle, it appeared that at least half a dozen commentators were narrowing their focus to a single piece; four, seemingly unfinished lines scrawled on the reverse of a cinema ticket. What was so special about these four lines? Who can say? Perhaps they represented a summary of Lurgsy’s London work. All the big themes were there: flooding, graves, morbidity…. Ah, but not all the words were there. One word – the second word – was smudged beyond detection: quite impossible to make out. What could it be? Everyone, literally everyone, had a different answer.
Many months have passed – and yet the battles wages on. Lurgsy’s smudged word has become, for some, a holy grail. It seems so simple – and yet the options are, it appears, endless. What better thing to do, therefore, but to open the floor to the wider world? Let them all have their say. One person’s word is as good as another, no?
Well, maybe not, but I am content to let that concept wander away for now. In the meantime, allow me to present to you Lurgsy’s infamous London lines:
the —– crushed, blood thoughts regather:
roll to rivers in bad weather;
rushing forth to greet again
the field of my dear father’s grave
As for the mysterious second word (or, indeed, words) well, the choice is yours. I have provided a sprinkling of suggestions from the most eminent Lurgsy scholars (no prizes for guessing who put ‘ball-sack’ forward), though you are far from dissuaded from dipping your own toe in the great pond of poetic propositions. As I said, feel fight amongst yourselves. I look forward to entering the fray at a later date.
