A different kind of celebrity

Mid-seventies, humble Ph.D. student,
Determined to collect every piece
Of evidence germane to my research,
I took the train from London which ended
In an empty, misty estuary
At the edge of nowhere to a city,
Isolated, without satellites and  
Losing its economic vocation.
 
The university library held
The aberrant, sought-after document,
Though the basis of that information
Was far from convincing. Libraries then
Were but putative treasure islands whose
Wealth was rarely catalogued in full.
 
The assistants and deputies were baffled
By my request. They insisted I see
The Librarian himself, who would know
And would be only too willing to help.
 
I was reluctant. That was not his job,
Which I thought was just a sinecure.
He was Britain's greatest living poet
And, in my own jaundiced view, the greatest
Of British poets since Thomas Hardy.
 
The journey had revived my memories
Of the estuary seen from a train
In his poem which, like a Canaletto,
Transformed the landscape he described.
 
In dress and manner, the Librarian
Seemed to search for invisibility.
Yet both were some thirty years out of date,
Making him quaintly noticeable-dark suit,
Spectacles of the austerity '40s.
A diffident, supplicatory greeting,
Almost an excuse for being there.
 
Strangely, he answered my questions,
Not only locating the document
But also giving it a provenance
Which I could never have suspected.
 
Incongruity was heightened in
A way that was totally expected.
His flow of words had the tough terseness,
Pertinence and order of the writer
Of great literature that he was.
 
Why was he so reticent and had he
Hidden himself away, spatially,
When he had everything to preen
And to pump out his chest for?
 
Perhaps he was writing the 'punk' poems
For his final collection whose gems
Were to entrance a new generation:
 
  'They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
   They may not mean to, but they do.
   They fill you with all the faults they had
   And add some extra, just for you.'
 
and
 
   'Sexual intercourse began
    In nineteen sixty three
    (Which was rather too late for me)
    Between the end of the Chatterly ban
    And the Beatles' first LP'
 
Could he have done this had he been
Flamboyant Phil, who would never, as he did,
Have turned down the formal invitation
To become Poet Laureate?
 
Anonymity could have been the best
Defence of his originality,
So escaping the imprisonment
Of dumbing down public expectation