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The Power of a Narrative: The Menendez Brothers

Gurleen is a first year English student at Kings College London. Alongside academic work, she is passionate about the arts, including painting, playing the piano, reading, and video editing. She also enjoys playwriting and as of 2023, was listed as a nationally ranked playwright for the National Theatre. She is also dedicated to animal welfare and has recently rescued and adopted a stray kitten. Due to her interest in the legal system and criminal justice, she is also considering pursuing a career in law following her English degree.

The Power of a Narrative: The Menendez Brothers

True crime is a billion-dollar industry, from TV shows, podcasts and books. The darkest and most horrifying stories seem to compel and captivate public consciousness, from following along the narrative like a real-life mystery, to understanding why someone chose to commit the crimes they did. However, over the decades, as well as an increased interest in true crime, there has also simultaneously been an increase in the change of public perception of what constitutes as justice, consequently unravelling important social issues and resulting in social movements.

One of the most recent and largest calls from criminal justice which some of you may be familiar with, is that of The Menendez Brothers. Lyle and Erik Menendez are two brothers who, on the night of August 20th 1989, shot their parents, Jose and Kitty Menendez, to death in their Beverley Hills house and have been incarcerated since 1990. However, in recent years, there has been a growing social movement to free the brothers. Although their case is a well-known American true crime story, its impact has reached far beyond the United States, where increasingly growing numbers of people across the globe are learning about their story in an effort to recognise the truth. This blog post explores how Lyle and Erik’s story and case has been misrepresented in certain aspects of the media and the inconsistencies presented within the criminal justice system.

Back to the 90s

At the time of the murders, Joseph Lyle Menendez and Erik Galen Menendez were 21 and 18 respectively. They maintained the story that the murders were a mob hit, possibly by the mafia until their eventual arrest in March 1990. The media spun the narrative that both Lyle and Erik were ‘spoiled greedy rich kids’ until their trial in 1993 which uncovered a far different version of the truth than what was currently being portrayed. Both brothers proclaimed that they had suffered physical, emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of their parents for the entirety of their lives, as well as sexual abuse, Lyle from the ages of six to eight, and Erik, from the ages of six to a few weeks before the killings. The brothers were very reluctant to give up this information due to their embarrassment and to not wanting to tarnish their family name, as well as the stigma surrounding sexual abuse, both brothers feeling their story would not be believed.

On the days leading up to the murder and in the moments before, ominous threats and extreme tension lead to the brothers believing they were going to be killed by the parents, resulting in them acting first and killing them in self-defence.

In the first trial however, the prosecution instead claimed the boys killed to inherit their parents’ $14 million fortune. The trial ended in a hung jury where the jurors were unable to unanimously agree on a decision, which subsequently resulted in a much more restricted and bias second trial, where a limited amount of the vast evidence of sexual abuse the boys suffered, was allowed to be admitted, resulting in Lyle and Erik being convicted of first-degree murder in 1996, and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since then, Lyle and Erik have continued to state that they killed in self-defence and have been described as ‘model prisoners’, working to rehabilitate themselves, as well as being an asset to the prison community they live in.

Monsters

The Menendez Brothers’ case has resulted in numerous TV shows, podcasts and books being written, some in an effort to shed light on the truths of the case, and others simply for profit and sensationalised story telling. In September of 2024, a TV series named ‘Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story’ was released on Netflix, something which many of you may be aware of. The series, far from being a ‘true crime documentary’, seemed to be a Hollywoodized version of events filled with misconceptions and lies spun by second-rate producer Ryan Murphy, with the role of Lyle being undertaken by Nicholas Alexander-Chavez, and Erik by Cooper Koch. The series seems to have been created purely for the purpose of entertainment, rather than one which could help to further illuminate truth.

For example, one portrayal in the show, is that of some incestuous fantasy, where Murphy has depicted the brothers as being involved with each other, which is not only disgustingly hurtful, but also a completely false narrative. Another main point of criticism is the portrayal of Lyle as a whole, who is seen as being a hot-headed, rude liar, with anger and profanity issues when in fact, there is clear-cut evidence of Lyle’s kindness and care towards children and animals, as well as members of his family stating that they have never even heard him raise his voice. As part of Lyle’s Disciplinary Record, it is stated that in his 36 years in incarceration, he has not been in a single fight, and ‘in 1997, had to be moved from the General Population to the Special Needs Yard because he wouldn’t fight back when attacked’. Lyle was also portrayed as someone who could ‘move a jury’ because he had practiced crying, shown from a scene displaying his phone conversations with a woman called Norma Novelli who took advantage of Lyle in his vulnerable state, by publishing a book along with audio tapes she recorded of him without his knowledge or consent. However, this line of wording was also another fabrication, where in reality, Lyle stated how he was actually going be himself and wanted the jury to see the pain involved in his past. Both Lyle and Erik were also portrayed as swearing and shouting at their lawyers, Jill Lansing and Leslie Abramson respectively, when once again, in reality, both brothers adored their attorneys. Lyle referred to his lawyer with the adoring nickname ‘Jilly’, and Erik begged the court to allow Leslie to remain as his lawyer for the second trial, in fear that he could not testify without her.

It appears that Murphy’s source material for ‘Monster’s’, was those full of lies and bias, with Murphy admitting he used old Vanity Fair articles written by reporter Dominick Dunne (who openly hated the brothers) and also stating that he had not once contacted any other family members or the brothers themselves to gain material for the show, only reinforcing that the series, whilst drawing in an audience, was filled with inaccuracies and slander.

Documenting the Truth

Following the ’Monsters’ series, a documentary directed by Alejandro Hartman was subsequently released onto Netflix which gave a much less dramatized version of events, including allowing viewers the chance to hear both brother’s own voices, stating their thoughts with the current way their case is progressing. This documentary was far more realistic and informative, given that not only the brothers’ own voices were heard, but also family members, and those involved in the case at the time, such as jurors. The documentary is clear-cut and although does not include every minute piece of evidence, such as the more recent discoveries of new evidence supporting the case, it overall is much more factual and compelling, clearly made with the attempt to display the truth rather than for ratings.

Since both the documentary and the series, an increasing number of people have become more aware of the case, with many speaking up about the ‘Monster’s show’s misrepresentation of the brothers and many more speaking about how the series led them to uncover the real truths about the case and the documentary, to discover further truths.

This also poses the question about how relevant and influential the media is when it comes to criminal justice. Justice should be delivered for the sake of justice where it should not take sensationalised TV shows and millions of voices to raise awareness to those in power who should have enough decency and sense of morality to set right a wrong. Although ‘Monsters’ has raised awareness for the case, there is a difference between a ‘true crime’ which delivers facts and an inaccurate and controversial show created for ratings. It is these very stereotypes portrayed in the shows that causes a population of people to still question Lyle and Erik’s story, as well as the stories of many other sexual abuse survivors.

The Truth in Print

After reading the book ‘The Menendez Murders’ by journalist Robert Rand, it is clear to see however, that not all media is negative media. Rand is a journalist who has commendably continued in his coverage of the case back from 1989. His book was an incredibly insightful and comprehensive read about the facts of what occurred and exactly the type of media in which opinions should be formed upon. Rand’s book covers both trials, as well as interviews with witnesses put on the stand and also introduces the new evidence: a letter written by Erik to his cousin Andy Cano referencing what can be understood as the abuse and also the words of a former Menudo (a famous Puerto Rican boy band formed in 1977) member, who came forward to state how he too was raped on several occasions by Jose Menendez in the ‘Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed’ documentary.

Rand’s book was clearly well researched and his first accounts of speaking with the brothers, (still being a loyal friend of theirs to this day) as well as speaking with family members and his account of the events that occurred, is truly fascinating.

Alongside Rand’s book, I also read ‘Hung Jury’, by Hazel Thornton, a juror for Erik Menendez during the first trial. Her story of what happened behind closed doors during events such as jury deliberations was truly captivating and it was especially intriguing to see how the minds of other jurors during the trial worked, as well as compare other’s beliefs and opinions. One key element that was introduced into jury deliberations was as to whether Erik Menendez was gay, and therefore, could have made up his entire defines of sexual abuse based on previous homosexual relationships. Although he is not, Thornton describes this issue as something of upmost importance to some jurors, however, she herself stated that even if he was gay, his sexuality should play no part on whether he was molested as a child, and she is correct, for being gay does not mean you are lying about abuse taking place, and your sexuality should not be such a controversial point of conversation.

Overall, her book is not only an incredibly unique and powerful insight into the case as a juror, but also a factual and interesting perspective of her situation, making one feel like they are almost there with her. The book also contains both psychological and legal commentaries made by experts analysing sections of the book and Thornton’s viewpoints which make for a further interesting read, allowing one to fully delve into and understand her mindset.

The Tale of Two Systems

Lyle, now 57, and Erik, now 54, are currently awaiting a resentencing hearing that has been pushed back several times, but is currently set for May 13th and 14th 2025, and also a hearing set for June 13th 2025 which could result in clemency should they not be eligible for resentencing, either of which analysing could finally result in their freedom after over 36 years, 22 years of which were spent incarcerated separately, a decision clearly made without a shred of humanity. It seems incredible to think that, despite their efforts at rehabilitation alongside having no prior history of violence and being under the age of 26 at the time (which makes you eligible for parole under California law), the brothers have still remained incarcerated.

Gypsy Rose Blanchard is an American woman who pled guilty to second degree murder after her boyfriend murdered her mother due to her mother’s abuse. However, she was not only given just a 10-year sentence, but also only carried out 8 years of that sentence before being released. This is not to compare the stories or the crimes, however, it displays the notion of lack of consistency in the criminal justice system and essentially injustice as a whole.

Rose Blanchard stated that she felt as if could not escape because she had been programmed to think that way and thought no one would believe her, the very same belief that both Lyle and Erik held, however, where Rose-Blanchard was understood, Lyle and Erik were ridiculed.

To pose another extreme, Jefferey Dhamer was an American serial killer and sex offender who murdered 17 young men between the years of 1978 and 1991. His other offences included necrophilia and cannibalism. After his arrest and hearing, he was sentenced to fifteen consecutive life terms, which would essentially constitute to life in prison without the possibly of parole, the same sentence that Lyle and Erik received; as Lyle Menendez himself said:

‘We ended up with the same sentence as a serial killer. And every day we watched people get parole, and 34 years later, Erik and I are still watching’.

Despite some of the population disbelieving Lyle and Erik’s story still to this day, this legally constitutes as unjust. Why are the sentences between Rose-Blanchard and The Menendez Brothers so different? Is it because of gender? Or is it because of a socially progressive society that is more willing to understand the psychological impacts of trauma victims now, leading to their belief of being unable to escape and resorting to killing more comprehensible? Why are Dhamer’s and The Menendez brother’s sentences so similar? Is it because the system is somehow able to group together a serial killer, sex offender and cannibal and two young boys who were afraid of their lives after suffering years of abuse, into the same category?

While I am not condoning murder, to me, the lack of empathy, humanity and the sentence seems absolutely incredulous. As Erik Menendez himself said:

‘I’m not saying what I did was right or justifiable. I needed to go to prison. But place another child in my life and see what happens. I felt it was either my life or my parents’ life’.

Behind Bars

Whilst incarcerated, both brothers have worked tirelessly in the efforts to rehabilitate themselves whilst simultaneously help other inmates. Lyle Menendez has graduated from the University of California, Irvine with his Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology, and has created four new programs within the prison to help transform prison life, including: The Greenspace Project, Rehabilitation through Beautification, Adverse Childhood Experience and Rehabilitation and Youth Life without the Possibility of Parole Ally, as well as creating and writing the WIRE Bulletin, which helps the Inmate Advisory Council relay matters to the inmate population and helping in projects supporting service dogs, like the Guide Dogs of America program.

Whilst incarcerated, Erik has similarly worked hard on his rehabilitation as well as helping others – he has earned his Associated Degree in Sociology, earned his Certificate in Proficiency in American Sign Language and has also been accepted into the University of California, Irvine. He has also created five new programs within the prison including: The Life are and Hospice Connection Program, Victim Impact and Victim Empathy for Vulnerable Populations, Twelve Step and Meditation Class, Insight and Meditations Workshops and The Starlight Peace Project.

All of these initiatives were conceived whilst both Lyle and Erik had no hope of being released from prison, clearly displaying the notion that they are not the cold-blooded killers that the some of the media and prosecution tried to paint, but genuinely honest and caring individuals.

Not a single one of these successes has been portrayed by ‘Monsters’, displaying how the show, compared to factual accounts of Rand and Thornton, exists as a sensationalised drama that not only hinder progress for the brothers, but hinders the progress and truth of sexual abuse victims as a whole.

Their story is more than just a drama and while their case has been exploited and certain truths been buried and twisted, their voices and the voices of sexual abuse survivors deserve to be heard.

I encourage you to learn the true facts about the case by watching their testimonies and reading Rand’s and Thornton’s novels to form opinions, rather than judging through the lens of a popular dramatized version of events created for a show. Justice cannot be determined by TV ratings, and the truth cannot and should not be written to fit an idealised script – how many others have suffered because of this very narrative?

As Rand has stated in his book:

‘Nothing should ever give you a free pass to kill your parents. But if there are mitigating circumstances – as there clearly were in this case – the resolution should be manslaughter and not murder. Because we live in a more enlightened, more compassionate society, the time has come to seriously consider releasing Erik and Lyle from prison’.

March 8th 2025 marked exactly 36 years since the brothers have been incarcerated. Despite the fabrications in some media, there surely is enough truth in others, as well as the brothers’ own words, to consider release? As Erik has stated in Hartman’s documentary, ‘Not speaking out doesn’t help anyone’, and as Lyle stated, ‘For the first time I feel like it’s a conversation where people now can understand and believe.’

Let the truth stand as the truth.

 

Information in the blog post referenced numerous sources including:

The Menendez Trial on Court TV

Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story

The Menendez Brothers documentary

Menendez + Menudo: Boys Betrayed

The Menendez Murders by Robert Rand

Hung Jury: Diary of a Menendez Juror by Hazel Thornton

ABC News

NBC Los Angeles

Daily Mail

The Guardian

 

Written by Gurleen Dhiman 

Categories
Life writing, Creative writing and Performance

Portfolio of Poetry – Sìana L. Baker

Sìana Baker is a second year undergraduate English student at King’s College. She enjoys twentieth-century poetry, philosophy, literary theory and modern film.

I have been writing poetry, quite literally, since I learned what it was. I’ve actually been writing stories since before I could write – I used to love the Simpsons, so I would draw pictures accompanied by horizontal lines of broken zig-zags (like in the newspapers in the cartoon) and rehearse ‘reading’ the story for my reception class. My writing has always been everywhere: any English schoolwork was hung on my bedroom wall and on the walls at school and my diary, no matter where it was or at what age, always had poetry in it.

But I am not a prodigy. I wasn’t writing symphonies at seven or solving the fifth postulate, I was born in Lincolnshire trying to deal with my mother. My poetry was never that good and still isn’t where I would like it to be, but I am slowly learning.

Of all the pressures in my life, I never want poetry to be one. I want to be effortlessly good at it: I want to write poetry like I walk to school, like I tell the right person I love them or like I get over a cold; because I want to, because it is good for me and because I would be half the person without it. Pressure does not make me a diamond, it makes me a wreck. Hence, all my poetry is written in one go, in twenty minutes and never edited. I like leaving the trance behind and going about my day, or to bed; I like having something to look back on in a few months when my writing is better and being able to love what is bad and good about it.

I am raw and messy person. I can quite confidently say that it is my favourite thing about myself; I love not caring (if it’s ethical) and the comfort that gives other people to want to be themselves, or in reassuring them that things really don’t matter as much as people might suggest. I am shamelessly ragged and I like my poetry to be the same way, for myself and for the people that might see it on my social media, because I hate the idea that everything in art, and everything in social media, has to be curated as a masterpiece. I am not a masterpiece and neither is my writing and we both love ourselves endlessly for that.

I hope you enjoy!

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Contemporary Insights

Literature meets ‘Magik’, A research into Occultism and trying to understand the genre.

I would like to dedicate this post to my uncle Karl Stone, thank you for being my inspiration and sparking my interests towards this wonderful, inquisitive genre. There are a million questions I wish I could ask you about your work, but these will have to wait. Until then, I hope you have found the answers to the questions you were looking for to do with this weird and wonderful genre and we hope to make you proud with a complete ninth book.

Occultism is defined by the Oxford University Press as ‘supernatural, mystical or magical beliefs, practices or phenomena.’ The word comes from the Latin Occultare meaning ‘secrete’.

With reference to the definition above, this genre of literature is no short of a secret. It isn’t everyday you hear of people reading a book belonging to the genre of Occultism, which is often viewed as a sub-category to the supernatural or fantasy categories. For context, my uncle was an author who wrote under the penname ‘Karl Stone’. During his career, he published 8 books, with his most popular titled ‘The Moonchild of Yesod: A Grimoire of Occult Hyperchemistry, or Typhonian Sex Magick’, which was published in 2012 with only 418 copies available to purchase. Stone numbered each of the 418 copies and signed them to create authenticity and ensure that those who purchased the book would receive original copies, not duplicated ones. I was 6 years old at the time the book was published, and widely unaware of the literary mind field that Occultism was and that my uncle was a cornerstone of its writing. I always knew that whatever it was, he had a passion for it, and he was good at it.

Sadly in 2019, he passed away leaving one incomplete book. By this point I was 14 and left with more questions than ever surrounding the genre of his writing. As my passion for literature grew, I longed more than ever to be able to speak to him about his works. The questions I wanted to ask him were ones I could no longer ask, and I made it my goal to take matters into my own hands and research this mysterious, hidden part of literature – drawing light on a subject he dedicated his career to. Now that I am at KCL, it only feels right that granted the opportunity to write about something, I choose to write about him, honouring his legacy and shining light on a genre which shifts the perspective of the world into one that leaves you questioning everything from the moment you engage with it.

I am choosing to focus on The Moonchild of Yesod described as ‘a grimoire of Occult Hyper chemistry… for the use of the practicing Occultist and Hyper chemists.’[1]. My first point of call when I began my research was to find out what a ‘hyper chemist’ was and the sort of things they practice. However, I was left disappointed when I did not get a clear answer from Google. ‘What is the job of a hyper chemist?’ provided no insight into the type I figured my uncle would write about, as it was obvious that this was not just a reference to a regular pharmaceutical chemistry. Stone was viewed as a ‘hyper chemist of the Trans-Himalayan system’ to his audience who compared him to other renowned authors in the filed such as Madame Blavatsyky, a Russian American mystic; Aleister Crowley, an English Occultist and Kenneth Grant, an English ceremonial magician who was an advocate of the Thelematic religion.

The religion of ‘Thelema’ was ‘a pre-Christian witchcraft religion’[2] which I assumed would have influenced my uncle to incorporate the theme of witchcraft and religion if Grant was his muse. As I began de-constructing the title, ‘Yesod’ is found in Jewish Philosophy. It comes from a node found in the Kabbalistic Tree of Life and referencing the base. The symbol of ‘Yesod’ can be found incorporated in Stone’s book where he makes references to it, for example, “The yesodic sphere is the landscape of illusion and glamour, it is the play of Lila, the world of appearances (sattwa, essence, kalas, substance or tincture) which composes the structure of the four qabalistic worlds.”[3], “To the qabalist, the Tree of Life is a living dynamic metaphysical template which indicates the relationship between God (YHVH) and Man (Adam Kadmon).”[4]. Spiritually, it is connected to the moon and unlocks a realm of spirituality and the subconscious, hence the title ‘The Moonchild’. I personally imagine he chose this title because the Moonchild in question is awakening into this world of spirituality. This could perhaps reflect on how my uncle felt when he first delved into the realm of occultism, as a new child within this obscure literary genre. It would have been interesting to know his reasoning for the title and whether this interpretation is correct. However, based on how invested he used to be in his work, perhaps it is.

The community surrounding Occultism is relatively small, and it is not easy to find one that you can become part of. Overall, the genre lacks exposure to the public due to the nature of articulate knowledge needed and the extent of research one must conduct. Those who delve into Occultism normally have a background or interest in witchcraft, supernatural beliefs, conspiracies, religion or herbal medicinal practices. Existing communities tend to stay hidden as most members practice Occultism as a lifestyle or profession. Occultism is all about gaining an awareness of a world that goes beyond human life form and accepting that there are other entities and  supernatural elements combined with scientific elements, which people find difficult to commit to.

As for the reviews, The Moonchild of Yesod is rated a 4.55 on Goodreads, with majority of readers having a deep understanding of the genre itself. A review posted on the 30th of December wrote “This is a scholarly work that I recommend for intermediate to advanced students”[5]. Jordan Fitzgerald also went on to say, “Karl Stone will be known as one of the trailblazers of the occult avant-garde of this century.”[6]. To see such positive appraisal for my uncle was something that made me quite emotional and part of me hopes that he was able to read these reviews and be made aware of the impact his writing had on the Occultist community.

One user, named ‘C’, rated the book 2 stars, saying how he was ‘Trying to be Kenneth Grant’.[7] However, I think with a genre such as this one, it is difficult to try and impersonate a previous author because of the nature of the research and compilation that goes into producing a book like The Moonchild of Yesod. Rather than a case of ‘trying to be’, Stone wanted to show how Grant’s work inspired him, and other critiques have said to use Grant’s work as a starting point to educate as a ‘beginners guide’ to understanding The Moonchild.

From this experience, I know my research into Occultism is yet to finish as it has only just begun. As my relationship with literature continues to grow throughout my degree, my research will hopefully broaden, and I will develop a greater and in-depth understanding of the books Karl Stone has written and the ones that lay beyond. I highly encourage anyone reading to research the genre for yourself and form your own opinion towards it. The world of Occultism is one which keeps on giving and I would hope that my uncle is aware of how successful his input to the genre was.

As of 2025, my family and I are hoping to get in touch with authors and Occultist professionals to work on his incomplete manuscripts and publish his last book to add to the collection he accumulated. I know this is something he would have wanted, and the manuscript will be in good hands.

Written by Natalia Georgopoulos

 

[1] Transmutation Publishing. (2018). The Moonchild of Yesod by Karl Stone. [online] Available at: https://www.transmutationpublishing.com/inventory/moonchild-yesod-karl-stone/ [Accessed 25 Feb. 2025].

[2] White, E.D. (2018). Wicca | History & Beliefs. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Wicca.

[3] Stone, K. (1AD). The Moonchild of Yesod: A Grimore of Occult Hyperchemistry, or Typhonian Sex Magick. United Kingdom: The Imaginary Book Co, p. 31.

[4] Stone, K. (1AD). The Moonchild of Yesod: A Grimore of Occult Hyperchemistry, or Typhonian Sex Magick. United Kingdom: The Imaginary Book Co, p. 39.

[5] Jordan Fitzgerald, December 2015 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15763429-the-moonchild-of-yesod

[6] ibid

[7] C, January 2025 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15763429-the-moonchild-of-yesod

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Cultural Production and the Organisation of Knowledge Insights Interviews

Digging Deep: An Interview with James Metcalf on Churchyard Poetics

PhD student Lai Yan Wong interviews Dr James Metcalf about his monograph Churchyard Poetics: Landscape, Labour, and the Legacy of Genre (Oxford University Press, 2025), and his journey from PhD to publication. A former KCL alumnus, James is now a Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Manchester, where his research explores poetry, affect, labour, gender, and sexuality.  

Unearthing the Churchyard’s Layers 

The ambition of this book is to recover the churchyard as the troubled centre of eighteenth-century poetry. (p. 1) 

Lai Yan Wong (LW): What led you to focus on churchyards as a space for understanding literature and history? 

James Metcalf (JM): My introduction to the work of poets we now know as the ‘graveyard school’ – Thomas Parnell, Robert Blair, Edward Young, Thomas Gray – was through epigraphs in the Gothic novels of Ann Radcliffe. She quoted passages of their poems, and others of the mid-eighteenth century, at the beginnings of chapters – partly, I think, to coordinate the novel’s evolving mood. These are quite moody poems: melancholy, often alarmingly visceral in their attention to the mortal body, and to varying degrees didactic. I thought then, and I still think, that at the level of tone and style, these are intriguingly unsettled poems; and their inclusion in Radcliffe’s novels, like their uptake by Romantic poets including Charlotte Smith, John Clare, and William Wordsworth, speaks to a cultural afterlife that tries to come to terms with the strained feelings these poems strive at once to express and contain. 

LW: Many of us are familiar with Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, but your book brings in poets like Mary Leapor, Ann Yearsley, Charlotte Smith, and John Clare. What’s exciting or unexpected about the way they write about churchyards? 

JM: If, as I described them above, ‘graveyard poems’ like Gray’s Elegy are at some level uneasy, they nevertheless attempt to control their unease: for Gray, that control is exerted through a pastoral retrospection that, while expressing a melancholy measure of grief, reflects on the limited lives of the buried poor as aesthetically and morally proper – they are forgotten and unmarked in the churchyard, but at least they aren’t corrupted by the world beyond its enclosure. This is simplifying the case quite a bit, and I explain in the book that such a disciplined containment of difficult political realities is neither easy nor straightforward for Gray. The contrast is a useful provocation, though, because Leapor, Yearsley, Smith, and Clare cannot or do not attempt to contain those difficult realities. From outside the borders of the ‘graveyard school’, these poets can take up its terrain for different purposes, including those of political complaint. 

Pulling back the curtain of ‘graveyard poetry’ makes the churchyard newly visible as a social landscape with its own history. (p. 18) 

LW: Why is the distinction between ‘graveyard’ and ‘churchyard’ important, and how does it shift our reading of eighteenth-century poetry? 

JM: As a rough shorthand, a churchyard is a kind of graveyard, but a graveyard is not a kind of churchyard – because (the obvious reason) it doesn’t have a church. By the eighteenth century in Britain there were different types of burial ground, including nondenominational (or at least not solely Anglican) graveyards, setting a precedent for the nineteenth-century cemetery. The reason the churchyard remains so prominent in the culture of the time, including in its poetry, is that it was the oldest and most established place of burial – and not only of burial: historians have documented just how much cultural life took place in churchyards, including markets, games, fairs, and acts of justice. Given this historical and cultural priority, it seems important to recognise that poets use the word ‘churchyard’ in their work because this site is familiar and resonant, with a deep and complicated, often contested history of life and death across communities and over millennia. 

LW: Churchyard Poetics revisits traditional poetic genres such as georgic, pastoral, elegy, and topographical poetry. Could you give an example of how one of these genres is disrupted or reshaped in the poems you examine? 

JM: The presence of the churchyard in these poems pushes poetic genres to accommodate the challenging subjects of death and the suffering of bodies under duress. For example, Robert Blair’s long didactic poem The Grave is often read as an exemplary ‘graveyard poem’ for its gory fixation on the decaying corpse and its orthodox didacticism to lead a righteous life before it’s too late. I read the poem differently, as a kind of ‘churchyard georgic’, to highlight how its dying and dead bodies emerge in the poem as implements of work, icons of the hard life of labour, which means they cannot so easily be elevated by a religious imperative to look to the afterlife. This reading also reshapes georgic, which is a genre of agricultural didacticism exercised by its striving against death and decay – the recalcitrant elements of nature against which the labouring body contends. So, ‘churchyard georgic’ reconfigures both the churchyard poem and the georgic poem because it brings to the surface the difficult matter of the body that both traditions, in their different ways, try to overcome or set aside. 

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Insights

Commuting in London – by TOONI ALABI.

Tooni Alabi is a third-year English Literature student who has enjoyed her degree in the way it’s helped her explore different periods and a range of writings, thus shaping and re-shaping her perspective. Tooni is an avid reader of different genres and hopes to be an author one day. Her passion for reading has translated into a love for creative writing, and she desires to help others escape through her writing and bring them closer to God. 

The beep of the card or oyster. The mad dash through the barriers as your adrenaline pumps, in the rush to the platform, to serve at the altar. Slowly, it draws masses of people, and lures them into an inevitable synchronised dance, to experience the collision of multicultural London. The Underground acts as a skilful puppet master, yet it too is a slave to mankind. Every day is a reminder of its inescapable destiny to run up and down the same train tracks like an animal trapped in its cage. Carefully slotting millions of passengers into its various mouths, harbouring them in its digestive system, before finally spitting them out in places around the capital.

Today is just another day on the underground.

‘Kennington via Charring Cross leaves the platform in two minutes’ the omniscient voice announces over the tannoy

The frantic scuttle of commuter’s feet parodies each other, and we’re all puppets at the hands of the puppet master. We’re assigned different roles, as the tannoy evokes our brain into distinct responses. The choice to causally walk, and potentially run the risk of having to catch the next train, the fast walk and pray you don’t have to break into a run, because you would rather people weren’t watching you run, or you just run and guarantee your spot on the train. The tannoy has presented us with our options and we all participate in the game of the underground. You choose the fast walk, ducking in and out of those exiting the station, all obstacles to your goal, before finally doing quick jolt-like steps for the grand finale of a heroic jump into the carriage. A minute later the hiss of a closed door. The train begins to move, leaving blurred images of the casualties left behind. You already know how they feel. They’re left with marks to remember. The mixture of anger, frustration, and nonchalance. The truth is we all know how it feels to miss the train, and even more so to watch its slithering body race away from you. It successfully stirs up the memory of when you were left behind on your first day of nursery leaving you with the inevitable bitter gnawing of abandonment.

The thoughts of those who have failed the game’s first stage, quickly disappear and you settle into the next stage of the journey. The routine on the train is a response to Snapchat notifications, music and some light reading, the underground essentials if you want to survive the long commute. You find yourself thinking back on when you first became a devoted commuter, naively offering your money, which was inevitably swallowed at the moment of contact. You used to take in the sights of London, the merging of the city from the outskirts to the centre. But like everything in life that used to hold excitement and wonder, it burns bright like a comet or a falling star, before inevitably fading into the wasteland of lacklustre.

The screech and the jolts that come with the Northern line are familiar and comforting but may be a product of your desensitisation as it slides along the tracks. The train stops and starts as it makes its way closer to the centre of London, people getting in and out, adding and eliminating. Then the tunnel that establishes the entering into the Underground looms ominously, in the words of the psalmist King David ‘As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil’. Tunnels elicit two reactions nonchalance or hyperawareness. When you’ve been commuting for a while, tunnels are just the necessary points to help you get from A to B. However, tunnels experienced on the Northern line are a dark and noisy time machine. One moment you’re in the light, and the next moment you’re plunged into the valley of never-ending darkness, further perpetuated if the train has to wait for the signal. There are strange moments in the tunnel connecting Golders Green to Hampstead, where you see another train

straying off the track, a small glimpse into other people’s lives where you’re suddenly a voyeur. It’s two ships passing in the night and suddenly, they’re gone, making you think did you see that or is your imagination deciding to play tricks on you?

In moments like this, you take the opportunity to observe people on the train, knowing that London produces anti-social people. During the journey of racing to the heart of the capital, people are silent and glued to their phones, laptops, or music. To reinforce the need for silence the facial expressions say it all ‘Don’t talk to me otherwise we’re going to have a problem’. On the other hand, perhaps you embellish because not everyone is like that on the Underground, with the look of doom and gloom. The truth is that some people have an inviting facial expression and do acts of service by allowing someone else to take their seat. But, unfortunately, they’re rare because of the Underground’s unpredictable rhythms, the circumstances and the problems of different lives all seem to collide and, nobody feels like talking. We all resign into our separate worlds because it’s safer that way, it’s easier and, we don’t have to be social and interact. It’s the one place we can safely detach and as George Simmel put it adopt a Blasé attitude.

In philosophical moments like this, the Underground continues not waiting for your thoughts as it collects and releases passengers in a constant cycle. The carriages rush past like a game of Russian roulette or Tinder where we swipe right for the carriage we want. The countdown of stations begins, Tottenham Court Road, Leicester Square, Charring Cross and finally Embankment. The train releases you with a hiss reflecting its serpentine characteristics, to find yourself in the heart of another train’s digestive system, as it whisks you to the next stop. Temple. A congregation for Kings Students getting on or off the train. It appears like a relic stuck in time, its pillars decorated in red and white, as though it once held up a royal palace in its youth before the ravages of time crept in. The stairs hold that same withered look. The weight of the passenger’s footsteps that have broken its soul. Then as though being transported from the past to the present and future, you see the waters outside Temple gently ebb in a greeting, sparkling and dancing in the sunlight. Or rather a gloomy sinister warning awaiting you, with echoes of what lies beneath the surface. The strong pillars of London loom in the background the Shard, the Walkie-Talkie building and those that surround it as sentinels. The journey of the Underground leaves you with a piece of beauty at the end before you inevitably turn away.

As you return home you encounter the joys of rush hour, a maniacal battle. Passengers inevitably squished against the carriage doors, as though the train is bursting at the seams. You manage to get yourself on, watching final heroic leaps into the carriage, as you desperately pray that you can get off at your stop, the overwhelming feeling of claustrophobia. You try to block out rush hour. Passengers are slow as though they’re walking through a field of daisies. Passengers are ignorant of which platform they’re going to and, stand there as though they’re an emperor overlooking their vast empire and wealth causing you to do a frustrated manoeuvre. The escalator stairs fall like a waterfall, offering a temporary moment of peace. However, you observe some obstacles. Somebody leaves a huge gap, someone standing on the left-hand side blocking those that need to get past them urgently. At the end of the waterfall, you find your train nearly here. It arrives at the platform like a wounded soldier returning from battle, unable to withstand the onslaught of rush hour. You discover your reaction is to enter, drawn to it like moths are to light. Though some who have just arrived barge past you, or some are too slow and want you to be abandoned by the train. Finding a seat during rush hour is like gold and you take it outwitting your competitors who were too slow.

The train speeds and screeches under the weight of its eternal imprisonment, condemned like Atlas to uphold a part of the world. You find yourself back on the outskirts of London, the sun tucked away, as night covers the scene with intermittent glowing lights of the city. You leave the Underground games and it leaves you to your fate of what night brings.

By Tooni Alabi.