‘Incurable’

It is doubtful that you will know much about Lionel Johnson (1867-1902) unless you are particularly knowledgeable about Victorian Poets, Oscar Wilde & W.B Yeats. Occasionally his best known poem ‘The Dark Angel’ crops up in ‘decadent’ anthologies, where his despairing voice soars out of the darkness, ‘Lonely, unto the Lone, I go’….Culture is mainly driven by commerce and although countless books have already been written about Oscar Wilde, no doubt there will be countless more for as long as he continues to exert a fascination. Fashion demands an icon-recycle every decade, be it Bowie, Prince, Hendrix, Wilde and now again, we’ll have Edith Piaf, Coco Chanel, Frida Kahlo or Schiaparelli, it depends on trends. I’m waiting for Rimbaud and Genet to get their seasonal rediscovery. Unfortunately, by narrowing the perimeters of art, we lose character and different perspectives. Thank goodness James Baldwin just snuck in. Aleister Crowley is another who has been overexposed by too many biographers who truly believe that another book on ‘The Great Beast’ will be a revelation, ditto The Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and William Burroughs. It’s like baked beans every night for eternity.

Subculture tends to be more interesting and I don’t mean Patti Smith who has clothed herself as a Bohemian poet radical despite having establishment backing throughout her career. It depends on whether you wince or not at the thought of Robert Mapplethorpe who after exploiting the physicality of his models and boyfriends, many of whom had addiction and mental health issues kicked them out the door. I’d rather see ‘Paris is Burning’ than watch Madonna ‘Vogue’, it all depends on your perspective of authenticity. Nothing is ever just ‘entertainment’.

And so we return to Lionel Johnson, to whom I’ve dedicated myself for the last three years, from a feature in ‘Fortean Times’ to an essay in ‘Wormwood’ as a character in ‘The Greenwood Faun’ and now by editing a collection of his work for Strange Attractor, entitled: ‘Incurable.’ His poetry is exquisitely morbid, his story heart-breaking whilst his influence helped to shape one of the most fascinating yet tragic eras. Of his friends, Aubrey Beardsley has quite rightly been enshrined, Ernest Dowson, another ghostly versifier has been rediscovered, Lord Alfred Douglas has been vilified and the genius of W.B Yeats acclaimed but Lionel was allowed to slip away, absinthe glass in hand. It must also be remembered that as a teenager, he had the rare honour of having a volume of Walt Whitman thrown at him by a Welsh postmaster.