When I was a child and adolescent in England in the nineteen fifties and early sixties, abstract art was taboo. So called modern artists were mocked by cartoonists in the tabloids, especially Picasso who had had the temerity of discovering cubism three decades before I was born. Unbelievable as it may now seem I read a news magazine article attacking Cezanne when I was in my late teens or early twenties. I felt an outsider at that time because I loved progressive art. I had met a number of progressive artists , including Picasso, before I was twenty, and knew that I was with them and not the tabloid fuddy duddies. But the old prejudice against modern art has scarred me, and when I rub and scrape raw paint into a rough wooden surface I sometimes suffer a pang of guilt because I am not painting a sweet landscape or making a detailed sketch. Sorry conscience, I paint what I paint because I love doing it my way; and the same rules apply to how I write my poems. Get over it.
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