27 AUGUST 1994, Page 40

Research

Pressed to remember her, I dredge up stuff — Such stuff, unwilling bits of this and that, Trivia unearthed, washed clean in fragments, dumped Into a letter to have done with it.

When did I meet her? Where? Forty-two years Lie heavy on the page: I can't recall The words we spoke, but glumly paraphrase What passed between us, things he wants me to tell To help with his 'research'. Out of it all Emerge the outlines of too many facts, No substance, flavour, colour. Somewhere else The things that go beyond 'the poet's texts'.

Anthony Thwaite