performance and the poem 115of Mary, and the tenacity and belief of Mary Magdalen. These
characteristics become confused in the presence of the woman
nearby who is ‘all rouge and polythene’ (p. 135 ). Invariably and
humorously in Durcan’s poem, the narrative comes to a romantic
anti-climax with the disappearance of his chance companion once
the curtain rises. A chance encounter with Michelle at a bus stop
leads to no acknowledgement, only a serene scrutiny as ‘if she had
never seen me before’ (p. 137 ). Building from the earlier use of
refrain as a heightening device, the evocation of Beckett at the close
becomes a desperate elegy to unrequited love: ‘There’s a beckett at
the gate, there’s a beckett / at the gate, Michelle’ (p. 138 ).
Scottish poet Don Paterson’s ‘The Last Waltz’ presents two
simultaneous narratives within a virtuoso display of poetic form.^36
Paterson’s poem shows how rules of rhyme are not necessarily
confi ning, but can create a form for elements of improvisation and
experiment. ‘The Last Waltz’ is written in terza rima, a form traced
to Dante’s Divine Comedy and dependent upon a strict interlocking
rhyming scheme of no determinate lineation. Within this framing,
Paterson explores through a monologue a history of World War
II combat in the Pacifi c interspersed with refl ections on a musical
tour by two jazz musicians in the late twentieth century. On one
level the poem performs as a palimpsest, superimposed upon the
latent histories in Borneo and Malaysia. As a counter against the
reader’s increasing sense of familiarity with rhyme, Paterson dis-
rupts the modality of our expectations with the insertions of brand
names, such as ‘SilkAir 777 ’, ghostly intertexts from songs such
as ‘And I feel fi ne’, unfamiliar icons such as ‘Padmasambhava’
(p. 35 ), the sage guru of tantric Buddhism, as well as a synthetic
alternative to quinine, ‘chloroquine’ (p. 36 ). Working within a
traditional form, Paterson is keen to strategically emphasise a fric-
tion between the intoxicating global travels of the two musicians
against the more restrictive yet also enabling closures of poetic
form.
In sketching the history of British involvement in the Pacifi c,
which is prefaced with references to ‘Blighty’ and ‘Dunkirk’
(p. 35 ), the speaker displays an alert awareness of nationalism,
nationhood and the advance of English as a global language.
He recalls their inability to play the correct anthemic song ‘that