Finding Christopher Reid: a reading of ‘Death of a Barber’

Christopher Reid
is forced to concede,
whenever he gets the blues,
that he edited the letters of both Heaney and Hughes.
 
A man of letters. And with regards to Hughes and Heaney, Reid also edited their poems, when he managed Faber’s poetry list in the nineties. I was lucky enough to meet him wearing his teacher’s hat, on my one and only Arvon course.  But it’s his own poetry that is the centre of his achievements. Speaking personally, it’s given me more pleasure than that of the two famous H’s. In the Finding Poetry book group we read ‘The Late Sun’ (Faber, 2021), and I chose ‘Death of a Barber’ to introduce the collection. Handy, because it’s available online at this link:
 
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jan/19/the-late-sun-by-christopher-reid-review-masterly-light-and-shade
 
 
I think the poem exemplifies many of Reid’s characteristic qualities: it’s urbane and clear and touching; its language is accurate and musical.
 
Reid’s use of form is sometimes regular, sometimes, as in ‘Death of a Barber’, irregular, but he always very much honours the sound and measure of the words, including strong end-rhyme in this case (today/away, ages/cages, name/same, trim/him).  This poem honours everything about the words, in fact, including their origins, thus:
“as etymology tells us, / touch and tact are the same.”
 
Perhaps etymology, or related curiosity, can tell us something about other words in this poem, and enrich our reading of it. Let’s step through the poem, picking out some of the small felicities which give it Reid’s characteristic charm and grace. We might start with the title, which is simple and accurate, but also literary. It reminds us of ‘Death of a Salesman’, though not to the extent that we expect a close parallel.
 
“Not Mustafa”, the poem begins, and it’s an elegy for Mustafa. Mustafa is a popular name throughout the Moslem world, but especially in Turkey, and I guess this is a Turkish barber’s shop, in London. Mustafa is one of the nicknames of Muhammad, and means ‘preferred’ or ‘appointed’, which is apposite for this character, even if it’s a simple truth from outside the poem.
 
‘Titivating’ is an unusual word! But exactly right. Etymologically, it probably relates to ‘tidy’, which in turn relates to ‘timely’ (think: Time and tide wait for no man).  It’s dangerously close to ‘titillating’, especially in the context of  “intimate”, and “Almost a caress”.  Its use, and reading, demand care, like a cut-throat razor.  
 
In sum, the poem is a tribute, respectful of its subject, and of the poet/customer’s relation to him, as careful and attentive and efficient as the work of a good barber. All done with “professional gentleness”, which is a particularly lovely expression, it seems to me.
 
With the “victim of the virus” and the poet’s months of isolation,  the poem is certainly of its time, i.e., the time of the Covid pandemic, but I think its broader concerns are timeless: I read it, in part, as a celebration of multi-culturalism, as well as of traditional crafts. Mustafa has passed on his trade and his skill to his colleagues, who continue to offer haircuts just as “expert”. (And “luxurious” — perhaps, as with a feast from which “festooned” is derived, hot towels are involved.) Still, the poem ends as it begins, with Mustafa’s absence. The last cut is the deepest.