A solitary truck ... euphonious assonance.

Talking of poetasters. I should note frankly that memories of my youthful experiences when working on an academic publisher’s poetry list were refashioned as Elegy from a Locked Drawer in my Sister Morphine (Salt 2008). This is how I recall the first day at the publisher's office and meeting the intimidating editorial team ...

    I took to him instantly. His name was Toby Freemartin, the editor's copy assistant and general progress chaser. Opposite him, seated across the aisle, was our office section leader, Desmond, a small, fussy, mild-featured copywriter who could, nonetheless, unsheathe kittenish claws to rake his victims with a lacerating wit.
    Toby made a long arm and boldly withdrew from my grasp the cloth-covered writing-case I had brought with me which bore my name. He untied the tapes and riffled through the thin sheaf of poems I had not dared to show the editor.
    'Audenian,' he sniffed, passing each sheet ponderously to Desmond.
    'Macspaunday without the audacity,' Desmond purringly demurred.
    They were both absolutely right, of course.
    Soon a spirited argument developed which centred on my indictment of a number of curious imprecisions which, in my own view, annoyingly marred Auden's phrasing; I was soon citing '... a solitary truck, the last of shunting in the Autumn ...' as a particularly glaring example of such infelicities. Their protests were silenced when I mentioned my great-uncle had been a locomotive engineman hauling French Sleeping Cars on the Continental Express for more than twenty years. He had shown me his railway company's pre-war Signals Manual, I said, which proved conclusively that shunting in sidings was not exclusively seasonal work.
    ' "During darkness, fog or falling snow," ' I quoted, ' "the trackloading in either direction must not exceed ten goods-wagons and a tail lamp must be placed on the last truck by a handsignalman." '
    My great-uncle and his Marxist footplateman agreed that Auden's phrase was ultimately meaningless, I assured them airily, and simply a case of seductive euphonious assonance.
    Toby and Desmond exchanged thoughtful glances.
    I think I must have succeeded in impressing them.