The letters H, v., and O are central to Harrison's poetry. "H" in
the play "The Big H," and many of Harrison's poems on language and
class, stands for dropped aitches--missed rungs in his "ladder of
aspiration," and for the chain of association he makes from the
[h]owl of the Leeds City coat of arms to Herod, H-block, H-bomb,
and Hiroshima. "H" is also celebrated in its absence, in loving
reaffirmations of the bonds of dialect, class, and family. The
verses/versus of Harrison's most controversial piece, "v.," are
echoed in the "v-signs" and other invective of the angry
dispossessed to whom his polyphonic writing gives a voice. "V" also
stands for victory--the dearly-bought victories of wars, explored
with the concomitant themes of imperialism and political
propaganda. The black O haunts Harrison's work. The abyss; the
nothingness of death, the extinction of personality, of art, of
languages, of species, perhaps even of humankind; is figured in
black burn-out circles, pits, mines, and empty skies. Its obverse
is another O, where life is affirmed--the acting circle of
Harrison's theatre work. Lucid and trenchant, Byrne's study is now
the benchmark for students of Harrison's work.
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