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Note on children of the new forest 

This is a rather more oblique (read ‘obscure’) take on marital combat, to do with opposing sexual expectancies. In spite of all the good sex in a marriage, it doesn’t take a genius to notice that male and female approaches don’t perfectly dovetail quite as simply as our gender bits suggest they should. This piece mythologises, and for once I leave it open as to what ‘bulldozing up rain forests’ and so on might mean. Let my prudence here show how I might have dealt with Genesis at Up Marden, though I’m glad I didn’t: that piece was far more important. Tactful commentary, which is what this piece needs, from me at least, should merely imply things, sensitive to its subject. A poem is not a cadaver, to be tied up in a body bag. It has a backdoor by which its genie can escape. This piece must speak for more couples than one; it was first published in The New Statesman.

Alan Marshfield

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