Nakiketas and other poems

Nakiketas and other poems, May Sinclair’s first volume of poetry, which was her first published book, came out under a partial pseudonym, Julian Sinclair, in 1886. It contains three longer works and six shorter.

Nakiketas is an emotionally searing adaptation of the Katha Upanishad, where a proud and limited father, unused to criticism, wrathfully answers his son’s challenge, and condemns him to death. Nakiketas learns, ultimately with forgiveness and sadness, as he approaches his end, that the current gods will fade (implicitly, his father’s world and beliefs) and a simple greater truth be revealed.

Helen, the longest poem, details the life of a young woman and her friend Arthur from childhood. Helen’s family, like Sinclair’s own, is blighted by financial misfortune at the hands of a fraudster when she is a very young child. She and Arthur are parted. Arthur returns when they are grown to find her engaged to Emile, the very man who destroyed her family. They tussle over whether or not Emile has turned over a new leaf, and realise their love for one another, but too late.

Apollodorus, the last long work, is a richly metaphoric treatment of the progress of a bard’s journey of artistic discovery, symbolised in his stormy relationship with the poetic muse.

George Eliot celebrates the great writer with love and admiration, seeing her as a visionary; A Fable comically covers bias-validation; The Singer addresses the fecundity of the positive-negative dualism for the artist; Immortelle hopefully covers the tiny survival of the positive in a sea of negativity; Euthanasia gives perspective to what is really important; and Christapollo celebrates the bright flame of Shelley’s genius and his rare breadth of spirit.

May Sinclair’s importance in literary history has grown undeniable in recent times, but her superb poetry is still not sufficiently celebrated. Marrying the sensibility of a wordsmith with the intellect of a philosopher, she created a powerfully resonant, full-voiced style, already evident here at the very beginning of her career.