Tidying up around the house at the weekend, I resolved to start clearing the backlog of books to be read (it's not as if it's a chore, it's just that there's so little time at the moment) before actually buying anything new.
That was before I saw Amazon were suggesting I might like this. It's like they're monitoring my brainwaves or something.
PS. Just found this review of it. The CD is a real bonus.
Monday, 6 July 2009
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Ouroboros Review
Issue Three is out now - follow this link to have a good browse. I reckon that's as well presented an online journal as there is, and the content is good too. So far I've not started on the poetry itself, but Michelle McGrane's interview with John Siddique is a really good read.
Saturday, 4 July 2009
Cord power
The decline of the UK's corduroy industry is a major concern in these difficult economic times, but as you'll see from the photograph above, poets are fully alive to the threat and are already taking action. Rob Mackenzie (left), Andrew Philip (right) and myself were all sporting corduroy jackets at our recent reading at Word Power in Edinburgh - I can only imagine James Wood's was in the wash, forcing him to cut a more elegant figure instead.
Remember, by going out and buying just one piece of corduroy clothing now, you can help save an ancient and honorable British industry, and at the same time ensure that no poets will go naked this winter. And you really don't want to see that.
Thanks to Eddie Gibbons for the photo.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
Some reading
I'm going to blog about One in much more detail very soon, but in the meantime, I'm much indebted to James W Wood for the very kind comments in his blog piece here. I think he raises a lot of interesting points about the current poetry scene, but there's also an awful lot of good stuff to read elsewhere
I'm with him all the way about Tom Duddy's pamphlet, too. The Small Hours is a really superb piece of work, and deserves far more attention than it's so far had. Go and buy a copy now, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
Another site worth looking at is Echo From The Canyon. Poets writing about poetry books - what could be simpler?
I'm with him all the way about Tom Duddy's pamphlet, too. The Small Hours is a really superb piece of work, and deserves far more attention than it's so far had. Go and buy a copy now, and I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
Another site worth looking at is Echo From The Canyon. Poets writing about poetry books - what could be simpler?
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Ramblings
Shame that Happenstance didn't get the Michael Marks Award in the end, but it was still a hell of an achievement to have been shortlisted, just reward for Helena Nelson's tireless efforts. And Oystercatcher are a really interesting press too - if you trawl through their titles, there's plenty of good stuff, not least that Kelvin Corcoran pamphlet.
But it's too hot for serious thought today. I just came across this on the BBC news site (scroll down to the story at the bottom). There used to be a similar pub in Hay on Wye, just next to the bridge. I can't remember its name, but it was basically a front room, stacked high with newspapers, and a couple of barrels of beer and cider. Last time I was there, it had been modernised. Sad.
But it's too hot for serious thought today. I just came across this on the BBC news site (scroll down to the story at the bottom). There used to be a similar pub in Hay on Wye, just next to the bridge. I can't remember its name, but it was basically a front room, stacked high with newspapers, and a couple of barrels of beer and cider. Last time I was there, it had been modernised. Sad.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
Polyverse Poetry Festival: CAD to appear!
I've mentioned it before, but now Polyverse Poetry Festival has secured the new Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, for a reading, question-and-answer session, and book signing session on the evening of Saturday, July 25th.
The festival (which runs July 24th-26th) takes place at Loughborough University, and will also feature critically-acclaimed drama, readings by a large number of published poets, free workshops, and book signings, plus the opportunity to talk to publishers and editors.
I'll be reading (date and time to be confirmed), and I'm also running a workshop on Poetry and Place between 2pm and 4pm on the Sunday (26th).
Tickets are now on sale - £20 covers the whole festival, including all events and a workshop. Alternatively, you can buy a £10 ticket for Carol Ann Duffy and the Dreams of May show - both are included in the price.
All ticket enquiries should go to Helen Relf, on 01509 222 967, between 9am-5pm, or by e-mail to: h.l.relf@lboro.ac.uk
The festival (which runs July 24th-26th) takes place at Loughborough University, and will also feature critically-acclaimed drama, readings by a large number of published poets, free workshops, and book signings, plus the opportunity to talk to publishers and editors.
I'll be reading (date and time to be confirmed), and I'm also running a workshop on Poetry and Place between 2pm and 4pm on the Sunday (26th).
Tickets are now on sale - £20 covers the whole festival, including all events and a workshop. Alternatively, you can buy a £10 ticket for Carol Ann Duffy and the Dreams of May show - both are included in the price.
All ticket enquiries should go to Helen Relf, on 01509 222 967, between 9am-5pm, or by e-mail to: h.l.relf@lboro.ac.uk
Friday, 26 June 2009
Poetry sales boost
Just came across this piece while web browsing. I had my misgivings about various parts of the BBC Poetry Season, but it's good to see that it's had some effect.
Interesting, though, that the big sales boosts mentioned there all refer to dead poets - one of my slight gripes about the season might have been that there was relatively little on living, active poets. Still, if it means more people are reading George Mackay Brown, I'm all for it.
Interesting, though, that the big sales boosts mentioned there all refer to dead poets - one of my slight gripes about the season might have been that there was relatively little on living, active poets. Still, if it means more people are reading George Mackay Brown, I'm all for it.
Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Coren meets his match
Oh look! That nice Giles Coren (yes, the sensitive soul whose weekends are ruined by sub-editors who don't get his hilarious jokes, but who can't tell a stressed syllable from an unstressed), is at it again. This time it's poetry he's on about.
What's most disappointing is that when, once or twice, he touches upon an interesting angle, he quickly buries it under a load of badly argued (or not argued at all) generalisations. There are the usual lame attempts at humour, and thinly disguised sneering at anyone not fortunate enough to have enjoyed his own advantages (the most notable of which was a father with the right contacts in the media).
You'll have noticed that Mr Coren really gets my goat, and I was quite ready to explode into furious blogging action. Fortunately, a few minutes browsing revealed that Katy Evans-Bush has already posted a far more temperate, thoughtful and characteristically elegant response (see how she's used a bit of context in there, Giles? Try it sometime.). My only argument with Katy might be her description of him as a journalist. He's a bloke who writes in a newspaper, and that's quite different, I reckon.
Still, that does point up one of the newspaper industry's main problems nowadays - the fact that very often, 'name' columnists are outshone by high-quality bloggers out there. Read back through Katy's blog over the last six months (or however long), and you get a real idea of the vibrancy, range and relevance of poetry (and all sorts of contemporary literature, for that matter). Read back through his columns, and you get a real idea of his one interest - Giles Coren - which is why, in the end, he equates his not giving a toss about poetry with everybody else being similarly indifferent.
STOP PRESS: Just noticed that the chaps at Gists & Piths have picked up on it too. The comments are excellent. I think Jane Holland's dead right to point out that people not caring about poetry (we'd probably differ on how many people, and how much) is what liberates it to do things that other artforms often can't (that's what I meant about him failing to develop the interesting angles). Alan Baker, too, points out the usual bizarre inconsistency in newspaper coverage of poetry (poetry is dead and rubbish / poetry is the new rock 'n' roll), and also says the same sort of thing as I did - what exactly is the point of this type of column nowadays? And George Ttoouli hits the nail on the head, for me. As a writer, you might subscribe to Coren's views. As a reader, why would you care?
What's most disappointing is that when, once or twice, he touches upon an interesting angle, he quickly buries it under a load of badly argued (or not argued at all) generalisations. There are the usual lame attempts at humour, and thinly disguised sneering at anyone not fortunate enough to have enjoyed his own advantages (the most notable of which was a father with the right contacts in the media).
You'll have noticed that Mr Coren really gets my goat, and I was quite ready to explode into furious blogging action. Fortunately, a few minutes browsing revealed that Katy Evans-Bush has already posted a far more temperate, thoughtful and characteristically elegant response (see how she's used a bit of context in there, Giles? Try it sometime.). My only argument with Katy might be her description of him as a journalist. He's a bloke who writes in a newspaper, and that's quite different, I reckon.
Still, that does point up one of the newspaper industry's main problems nowadays - the fact that very often, 'name' columnists are outshone by high-quality bloggers out there. Read back through Katy's blog over the last six months (or however long), and you get a real idea of the vibrancy, range and relevance of poetry (and all sorts of contemporary literature, for that matter). Read back through his columns, and you get a real idea of his one interest - Giles Coren - which is why, in the end, he equates his not giving a toss about poetry with everybody else being similarly indifferent.
STOP PRESS: Just noticed that the chaps at Gists & Piths have picked up on it too. The comments are excellent. I think Jane Holland's dead right to point out that people not caring about poetry (we'd probably differ on how many people, and how much) is what liberates it to do things that other artforms often can't (that's what I meant about him failing to develop the interesting angles). Alan Baker, too, points out the usual bizarre inconsistency in newspaper coverage of poetry (poetry is dead and rubbish / poetry is the new rock 'n' roll), and also says the same sort of thing as I did - what exactly is the point of this type of column nowadays? And George Ttoouli hits the nail on the head, for me. As a writer, you might subscribe to Coren's views. As a reader, why would you care?
Cake corner
Martin Figura sent these photos of last week's The Birds and the Trees event at Norwich Arts Centre.There's Mark Cocker and Katrina Porteous reading (and looking suitably passionate and inspiring).
It won't surprise anyone who knows me well, though, that I'm pictured holding a large dish of cake (a lovely moist lemon, rosemary and olive oil confection that Helen Ivory had made). I'm pretty sure that was a second helping, too.
Wet my lips
Things have been so busy the last couple of weeks that I've done very little birding. It is a quiet time of year anyway (although autumn migration has already begun - how depressing is that?), but I was still starting to get withdrawal symptoms.
So, on the way home last night, I thought I'd go looking and listening for the Quail reported near Groby Fishing Lakes. They used to be a species that I heard regularly each summer, but one of the best sites for them locally is now an opencast mine, so it's become rather hit or miss. I thought that I'd probably have to return to the site last thing at night, or first thing in the morning, but reckoned it was worth giving it a try at 6.15 on a Tuesday evening, even with the A46 and A50 in full, noisy flow just a few hundred yards away.
I walked past the lakes (busy with anglers) and started up the public footpath towards Anstey, and stopped at a stile to get my bearings and check the map, when quite close at hand a male obligingly called, an utterly distinctive, three-note call traditionally rendered as "wet my lips".
Seeing the birds is a different matter, so I edged into the field, along the footpath, stopping now and then to look down the tractor tyre trails in the hope of seeing a Quail dashing across them. I didn't, so I tried imitating the call. That involved all sorts of experimentation that would have made me appear a lunatic to anyone passing by, so it was just as well there was no one else in sight. And I had some success, getting at least two birds to call back, except that the longer it went on and the dryer my lips got, the worse my calls became (trying it again this morning, I can't even get close). In the end, the Quail clearly concluded either that I was a particularly weak and feeble-minded member of their species, or more likely that I was an idiot in a striped t-shirt who should have known better. They fell silent, and I went home to wet my lips, with gallons of strong tea.
It all set me thinking about the way birdsong gets written down (generally, field guides try to approximate the rhythm above all else, I reckon), so I'll return to that subject sometime soon. There's another one for the growing backlog.
So, on the way home last night, I thought I'd go looking and listening for the Quail reported near Groby Fishing Lakes. They used to be a species that I heard regularly each summer, but one of the best sites for them locally is now an opencast mine, so it's become rather hit or miss. I thought that I'd probably have to return to the site last thing at night, or first thing in the morning, but reckoned it was worth giving it a try at 6.15 on a Tuesday evening, even with the A46 and A50 in full, noisy flow just a few hundred yards away.
I walked past the lakes (busy with anglers) and started up the public footpath towards Anstey, and stopped at a stile to get my bearings and check the map, when quite close at hand a male obligingly called, an utterly distinctive, three-note call traditionally rendered as "wet my lips".
Seeing the birds is a different matter, so I edged into the field, along the footpath, stopping now and then to look down the tractor tyre trails in the hope of seeing a Quail dashing across them. I didn't, so I tried imitating the call. That involved all sorts of experimentation that would have made me appear a lunatic to anyone passing by, so it was just as well there was no one else in sight. And I had some success, getting at least two birds to call back, except that the longer it went on and the dryer my lips got, the worse my calls became (trying it again this morning, I can't even get close). In the end, the Quail clearly concluded either that I was a particularly weak and feeble-minded member of their species, or more likely that I was an idiot in a striped t-shirt who should have known better. They fell silent, and I went home to wet my lips, with gallons of strong tea.
It all set me thinking about the way birdsong gets written down (generally, field guides try to approximate the rhythm above all else, I reckon), so I'll return to that subject sometime soon. There's another one for the growing backlog.
Monday, 22 June 2009
Northern (high)lights
Back to work today, after a wonderful weekend in Edinburgh. The reading at Word Power on Saturday, with James Wood, Rob Mackenzie and Andrew Philip, was an extremely enjoyable affair. As so often seems to happen, despite having made our choices wholly independently, the poems we read clustered round a couple of definite themes – an illustration of the poet as social barometer, as James suggested.
It was good to catch up with Helena Nelson, and to meet Eddie Gibbons and Colin Will there, the latter in full highland dress and unquestionably the most smartly dressed man I’ve ever seen at a reading, a consequence of him officiating at Kevin Cadwallender’s wedding the same day (apropos of nothing, Cadwallender is a fantastic surname, isn’t it?). It’s not like anyone else looked too shabby, either, but Colin raised the bar for the rest of us to try to follow. He's a fine bird poet, too, which always gets my vote.
Afterwards, Andy and Rob headed off to do two more readings, and James and I took a more leisurely tour of the city, taking in all manner of architectural and real ale delights, and talking poetry all the way. A huge amount of ground – both literal and literary – was covered, and great fun it was too.
On the way back home yesterday, it struck me that I’ve got umpteen unfinished blog posts that I really need to get cracking on this week. So, coming very soon, expect pieces on The Salt Companion To Lee Harwood and Not The Full Story: Six Interviews With Lee Harwood, an appreciation of the splendid ONE magazine (go and appreciate it yourself in the meantime, at great length), and much more. Claire Crowther and Siriol Troup’s new collections arrived at the weekend, so they’ll feature too, and there are a few other books I’ve been itching to write about. Oh, and there'll be a few thoughts on the poetry business itself, and on selling your collection, in the light of the outstanding success Andy and Rob have had (Andy is already on the third print run of The Ambulance Box - most 'name' poets would be more than a little proud of that).
It was good to catch up with Helena Nelson, and to meet Eddie Gibbons and Colin Will there, the latter in full highland dress and unquestionably the most smartly dressed man I’ve ever seen at a reading, a consequence of him officiating at Kevin Cadwallender’s wedding the same day (apropos of nothing, Cadwallender is a fantastic surname, isn’t it?). It’s not like anyone else looked too shabby, either, but Colin raised the bar for the rest of us to try to follow. He's a fine bird poet, too, which always gets my vote.
Afterwards, Andy and Rob headed off to do two more readings, and James and I took a more leisurely tour of the city, taking in all manner of architectural and real ale delights, and talking poetry all the way. A huge amount of ground – both literal and literary – was covered, and great fun it was too.
On the way back home yesterday, it struck me that I’ve got umpteen unfinished blog posts that I really need to get cracking on this week. So, coming very soon, expect pieces on The Salt Companion To Lee Harwood and Not The Full Story: Six Interviews With Lee Harwood, an appreciation of the splendid ONE magazine (go and appreciate it yourself in the meantime, at great length), and much more. Claire Crowther and Siriol Troup’s new collections arrived at the weekend, so they’ll feature too, and there are a few other books I’ve been itching to write about. Oh, and there'll be a few thoughts on the poetry business itself, and on selling your collection, in the light of the outstanding success Andy and Rob have had (Andy is already on the third print run of The Ambulance Box - most 'name' poets would be more than a little proud of that).
Thursday, 18 June 2009
Word Power!
Word Power, at 43-45 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, plays host to a free feast of poetry this Saturday lunchtime.
Starting at 12noon sharp, I'll be reading along with fellow HappenStancers James Wood, Andrew Philip and Rob Mackenzie.
Rob's chapbook, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance Press in 2005. His first collection, The Opposite of Cabbage, was published by Salt in March 2009.
Andrew has published two poetry pamphlets with HappenStance - Tonguefire and Andrew Philip: A Sampler. The Ambulance Box, his first full-length collection, was published in March by Salt.
James W Wood’s pamphlet, The Theory of Everything, was published by HappenStance in 2006, and Inextinguishable by Knucker Press in 2008.
More information is available by following the link, but all you really need to know is that all three are very fine poets (and if you've been reading here for any length of time, you'll know why). We'll all have books available to buy, of course, so drop in.
Starting at 12noon sharp, I'll be reading along with fellow HappenStancers James Wood, Andrew Philip and Rob Mackenzie.
Rob's chapbook, The Clown of Natural Sorrow, was published by HappenStance Press in 2005. His first collection, The Opposite of Cabbage, was published by Salt in March 2009.
Andrew has published two poetry pamphlets with HappenStance - Tonguefire and Andrew Philip: A Sampler. The Ambulance Box, his first full-length collection, was published in March by Salt.
James W Wood’s pamphlet, The Theory of Everything, was published by HappenStance in 2006, and Inextinguishable by Knucker Press in 2008.
More information is available by following the link, but all you really need to know is that all three are very fine poets (and if you've been reading here for any length of time, you'll know why). We'll all have books available to buy, of course, so drop in.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
The Birds and the Trees
On Sunday I read at Norwich Arts Centre as part of The Birds and the Trees, an event organised by Café Writers. The sun shone, the turnout was excellent, and it was all a lot of fun.
Unfortunately, Paul Farley was ill and unable to make it, which meant a bit of a last-minute rejig, so Katrina Porteous and myself read two 15-minute sets each in the afternoon, then, after a very nice picnic out in the garden, we read for about 10 minutes each before Mark Cocker’s talk. To finish off, there was a brief Q&A session.
I’d heard Katrina read on the radio, but she’s one of those poets who can still surprise you every time with the power of her performance, and the depth of her material. She was genuinely hypnotic at times, especially in the poems which involved Northumbrian dialect, and she was ably assisted by Martin Figura (who had organised the event) on one piece which required two voices.
Mark’s Birds Britannica is, as I’ve said on here before, one of my favourite books, but this time he wasn’t reading from it or from the equally highly-praised Crow Country. Instead, he turned his attention to trees. One of the things I like most about his writing is that it’s sort of telescopic – it zooms in on very fine details and back out again, and in doing so of course makes all sorts of unexpected connections – and that was much in evidence here. I’ve been thinking since about a lot of the things he mentioned, and I’ll write more about it and how it applies to poetry and birding over the next few weeks. Oh, and Robin Hood even got a mention, too, and you know how much I like anything to do with that particular legend.
Finally, it was lovely to meet all sorts of new people, including Michael Mackmin, Aoife Mannix, Katrina and Mark, of course, and last but certainly not least, Martin Figura and Helen Ivory, who very generously put me up. I hope I’ll have the chance to reciprocate sometime, perhaps later this year when Martin’s book comes out with Arrowhead.
My set-lists, for anyone interested, were:
The Creek
Sevenling (“High on the windward hills”)
Poem
Scorpio Over La Selva
Stoat
Troy Town
McNaught
The Memory of Water
At Gedney Hill
Hares In December
Ringing Redstarts
Paradise Tanager
Pinkfeet
Dotterel
Yellow Wagtails
Another
Gossamer
Another Bloody Poem About Birds
Raining, Craswall, Evening
Skylarking
Yellowhammers
The Meeting Place
Crash
Heaven
Knots
West Leicester Lullaby
Oh, and I did a bit of birding along the North Norfolk coast on the way back yesterday, but the wildlife was rather overshadowed by an absolutely incredible thunderstorm. I was lucky that I wasn't caught out in it, so could just enjoy a real spectacle.
Unfortunately, Paul Farley was ill and unable to make it, which meant a bit of a last-minute rejig, so Katrina Porteous and myself read two 15-minute sets each in the afternoon, then, after a very nice picnic out in the garden, we read for about 10 minutes each before Mark Cocker’s talk. To finish off, there was a brief Q&A session.
I’d heard Katrina read on the radio, but she’s one of those poets who can still surprise you every time with the power of her performance, and the depth of her material. She was genuinely hypnotic at times, especially in the poems which involved Northumbrian dialect, and she was ably assisted by Martin Figura (who had organised the event) on one piece which required two voices.
Mark’s Birds Britannica is, as I’ve said on here before, one of my favourite books, but this time he wasn’t reading from it or from the equally highly-praised Crow Country. Instead, he turned his attention to trees. One of the things I like most about his writing is that it’s sort of telescopic – it zooms in on very fine details and back out again, and in doing so of course makes all sorts of unexpected connections – and that was much in evidence here. I’ve been thinking since about a lot of the things he mentioned, and I’ll write more about it and how it applies to poetry and birding over the next few weeks. Oh, and Robin Hood even got a mention, too, and you know how much I like anything to do with that particular legend.
Finally, it was lovely to meet all sorts of new people, including Michael Mackmin, Aoife Mannix, Katrina and Mark, of course, and last but certainly not least, Martin Figura and Helen Ivory, who very generously put me up. I hope I’ll have the chance to reciprocate sometime, perhaps later this year when Martin’s book comes out with Arrowhead.
My set-lists, for anyone interested, were:
The Creek
Sevenling (“High on the windward hills”)
Poem
Scorpio Over La Selva
Stoat
Troy Town
McNaught
The Memory of Water
At Gedney Hill
Hares In December
Ringing Redstarts
Paradise Tanager
Pinkfeet
Dotterel
Yellow Wagtails
Another
Gossamer
Another Bloody Poem About Birds
Raining, Craswall, Evening
Skylarking
Yellowhammers
The Meeting Place
Crash
Heaven
Knots
West Leicester Lullaby
Oh, and I did a bit of birding along the North Norfolk coast on the way back yesterday, but the wildlife was rather overshadowed by an absolutely incredible thunderstorm. I was lucky that I wasn't caught out in it, so could just enjoy a real spectacle.
Monday, 15 June 2009
Keeping busy
Current reading
The Missing - Sian Hughes
Only just started, but it's excellent.
The Cut Of The Light - Jeremy Hooker
I'm still dipping in and out of this, and enjoying it a lot. His re-creation of landscape relies on cumulative effect, rather than memorable individual poems.
Collected Poems - Michael Donaghy
I've not read a great deal of his work in the past, but thought it was about time I checked him out more thoroughly. And I'm still undecided - when I like his work, I really like it, but when I don't, I really don't, if that makes sense.
Current listening
The Wanting Comes In Waves - The Decemberists
My favourite track off the awesome The Hazards Of Love album. Utter genius.
Underdog - Kasabian
I know, I know, derivative lad-rock, but I like it. They might even give Showaddywaddy a run for their money as Leicester's greatest musical exports.
Born In 69 - Rocket From The Crypt
I've just rediscovered their 1995 album Scream Dracula, Scream. It's great, and any track on which the backing vocals consist of "whooo...yeah" can't be bad.
The Missing - Sian Hughes
Only just started, but it's excellent.
The Cut Of The Light - Jeremy Hooker
I'm still dipping in and out of this, and enjoying it a lot. His re-creation of landscape relies on cumulative effect, rather than memorable individual poems.
Collected Poems - Michael Donaghy
I've not read a great deal of his work in the past, but thought it was about time I checked him out more thoroughly. And I'm still undecided - when I like his work, I really like it, but when I don't, I really don't, if that makes sense.
Current listening
The Wanting Comes In Waves - The Decemberists
My favourite track off the awesome The Hazards Of Love album. Utter genius.
Underdog - Kasabian
I know, I know, derivative lad-rock, but I like it. They might even give Showaddywaddy a run for their money as Leicester's greatest musical exports.
Born In 69 - Rocket From The Crypt
I've just rediscovered their 1995 album Scream Dracula, Scream. It's great, and any track on which the backing vocals consist of "whooo...yeah" can't be bad.
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Poetic Justice
US poet Annie Finch and UK poet Jane Holland have started the website Poetic Justice, which is described as "an activist website devoted to organizing actions for gender justice throughout the English-language poetry world". Follow the link to find out more...
Friday, 12 June 2009
Another reminder
Yes, yet another plug for this Sunday's reading at Norwich Arts Centre, along with poets Paul Farley and Katrina Porteous, and nature writer Mark Cocker. The Cafe Writers event starts at 3pm, with me and Katrina. Paul and Mark will read at 6.30pm.
Mark Cocker is the author of the wonderful Birds Britannica and Crow Country, Paul Farley you probably know all about (he popped up on A Poet's Guide To Britain this week), and Katrina Porteous is a voice familiar from the radio. I'll be reading a heavily nature-slanted set.
If you'd like to come along, bring a picnic. Drinks from the bar only until 11pm. Tickets for the first reading are £4, for the second £6, and for both, £8, and more details are here.
Mark Cocker is the author of the wonderful Birds Britannica and Crow Country, Paul Farley you probably know all about (he popped up on A Poet's Guide To Britain this week), and Katrina Porteous is a voice familiar from the radio. I'll be reading a heavily nature-slanted set.
If you'd like to come along, bring a picnic. Drinks from the bar only until 11pm. Tickets for the first reading are £4, for the second £6, and for both, £8, and more details are here.
Monday, 8 June 2009
Review: Rougher Yet, by Tim Wells
Donut Press, 2009, £10www.donutpress.co.uk
There’s a story, I think told by Simon Armitage, in which he turns up to do a reading at a school and is warned by the headmaster that “we don’t like poems with language in them”.
God knows what he’d make of Tim Wells, then, because Rougher Yet is crammed full to brimming with the stuff.
I don’t mean just the four-letter, Anglo-Saxon stuff, although there’s enough of that to frighten off any passing Ofsted inspector. No, it’s the way that Wells pulls off the trick – much attempted since Frank O’Hara, but a lot harder than it looks – of appearing to be noting down the stuff of everyday life as it happens.
In fact, even to say “noting down” is misleading, because it’s more like wandering down some high street in east London in that hour just after the shops close but before the pubs fill up, while Wells gives you a running commentary on his mobile.
But, and this is the crucial bit, the use of slang and colloquialisms always sounds natural. Perhaps that’s a consequence of Wells being a fine performance poet, but perhaps not – I tend to think a good poet is a good poet, full stop.
Whatever, I like the sound he makes. In London In Peace, “dippers fleece the crush”, while in Comin’ a Dance, “her bloke’s in a pony suit / and drek trainers”. There’s much more, but Wells trusts the reader to make of it what he will, the same as when he slips in snatches of patois and even Asian languages that reflect the intensely multicultural scenes he’s describing.
Where subject matter is concerned, it’s that vibrancy, that determination to celebrate life in all its dubious glory, that’s most appealing. A poem like Keep The Faith, celebrating the pleasures of his beloved reggae, ska and R&B, closes with the refreshingly unironic:
Nine-to-five drudgery,
Pain and heartbreak pounded out
On a powdered killing floor.
Fighting isn’t about hitting
it’s about getting hit.
This joy in my heart is the best revenge I have.
Music figures large, as do the delights of the greasy spoon caff, and if I have a complaint it’s that he’s so good at drawing significance and feeling out of seemingly mundane situations (you get the feeling that Wells knows that to write about London plainly and truthfully will inevitably touch on most things that matter) that one or two more self-consciously ‘serious’ pieces feel, well, self-conscious.
I’m going to undermine my own point, though, with the superb Now the Gate Fly. Here it is:
And what is left
when all this lust
sweats down to nothing?
A love, so subtle.
A love which has reached
its extreme. A love
become immaterial,
become the air
you breathe out
and I breathe in.
What’s that if not a serious, straightforward love poem? So, enjoy the humour, the tragedy, the absurdity and the poignancy (see closing poem There’s A Ghost In My House), and thank God Tim Wells isn’t afraid of a bit of language.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Norwich Cafe Writers Reading
Just another reminder that I'll be reading, along with poets Paul Farley and Katrina Porteous, and nature writer Mark Cocker, at Norwich Arts Centre next Sunday (June 14th).
The Cafe Writers event starts at 3pm, with me and Katrina, and after a suitable break for refreshments, Paul and Mark will read at 6.30pm.
There's a birding theme to the day, of course. Mark Cocker is the author of the wonderful Birds Britannica and Crow Country, so I'm looking forward to hearing him. I've seen Paul Farley talk about John Clare and read his own work before, and it was excellent, and Katrina Porteous is a voice familiar to me from the radio, so it promises to be a good day. My own set will be heavily weighted towards poems with a nature theme, too.
If you'd like to come along, bring a picnic (and your binoculars, if you like - you'd curse yourself if you missed a flyover Honey Buzzard, wouldn't you?). Drink from the bar only until 11pm. Tickets for the first reading are £4, for the second £6, and for both, £8, and more details are here.
The Cafe Writers event starts at 3pm, with me and Katrina, and after a suitable break for refreshments, Paul and Mark will read at 6.30pm.
There's a birding theme to the day, of course. Mark Cocker is the author of the wonderful Birds Britannica and Crow Country, so I'm looking forward to hearing him. I've seen Paul Farley talk about John Clare and read his own work before, and it was excellent, and Katrina Porteous is a voice familiar to me from the radio, so it promises to be a good day. My own set will be heavily weighted towards poems with a nature theme, too.
If you'd like to come along, bring a picnic (and your binoculars, if you like - you'd curse yourself if you missed a flyover Honey Buzzard, wouldn't you?). Drink from the bar only until 11pm. Tickets for the first reading are £4, for the second £6, and for both, £8, and more details are here.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Beowulf
Poets, eh? Never happy, are they? Having moaned for years about the lack of (serious) poetry programmes on TV, I’m now going to whinge that there’s too many for me to keep up with. The problem with the BBC’s Poetry Season is that it has coincided with the first decent spell of summer weather in about three years, the Cricket 20/20 World Cup, and Springwatch. OK, so I can try to catch up with things using iPlayer, but the download speeds are slow and if I’m not careful I just never get round to watching stuff.
It’s not a serious moan, but it would have been nice if they’d spread the programmes over a much longer period, I think.
But anyway, I’ll make the time to download and watch this week’s Poet’s Guide To Britain, which I was rather surprised to see was about Lynette Roberts. Pleasantly surprised, that is – I thought she was a bit too left-field to have made it on there. Good on Owen Sheers and BBC Wales for spreading the net a bit.
I did stay up, too, to watch Michael Wood’s programme about Beowulf. When I was a kid, Wood’s series and book In Search Of The Dark Ages played a big part in getting me interested in the Anglo-Saxon period. There then seemed to be a bit of a backlash against him (presumably on the grounds that he was making history too accessible), but I think that’s nonsense. His more recent book, In Search Of England, is really excellent, and I much prefer his take on the Anglo-Saxons to that of Simon Schama.
Highlights last night were Julian Glover’s one-man show of the poem (not sure I’d actually want to dress up as an Anglo-Saxon to hear it, mind you), and some of the more obscure byways he went down, such as the suggestion that the Black Shuck of East Anglian legend is none other than Grendel in another guise. Seamus Heaney was a bit underused, but on the whole it was good to see poetry and Anglo-Saxon history both getting a good crack of the whip, and Wood’s comments about the poem’s relevance today were spot-on. I’ll be re-reading Heaney’s translation soon.
It’s not a serious moan, but it would have been nice if they’d spread the programmes over a much longer period, I think.
But anyway, I’ll make the time to download and watch this week’s Poet’s Guide To Britain, which I was rather surprised to see was about Lynette Roberts. Pleasantly surprised, that is – I thought she was a bit too left-field to have made it on there. Good on Owen Sheers and BBC Wales for spreading the net a bit.
I did stay up, too, to watch Michael Wood’s programme about Beowulf. When I was a kid, Wood’s series and book In Search Of The Dark Ages played a big part in getting me interested in the Anglo-Saxon period. There then seemed to be a bit of a backlash against him (presumably on the grounds that he was making history too accessible), but I think that’s nonsense. His more recent book, In Search Of England, is really excellent, and I much prefer his take on the Anglo-Saxons to that of Simon Schama.
Highlights last night were Julian Glover’s one-man show of the poem (not sure I’d actually want to dress up as an Anglo-Saxon to hear it, mind you), and some of the more obscure byways he went down, such as the suggestion that the Black Shuck of East Anglian legend is none other than Grendel in another guise. Seamus Heaney was a bit underused, but on the whole it was good to see poetry and Anglo-Saxon history both getting a good crack of the whip, and Wood’s comments about the poem’s relevance today were spot-on. I’ll be re-reading Heaney’s translation soon.
Sunday, 31 May 2009
So Here We Are 21
Howzat!
You'll know if you're a regular reader of Polyolbion that birding and cricket are two of my passions. On a trip to Guernsey recently, I managed to combine the two in rather bizarre circumstances, seeing the island's only Fan-tailed Warblers (or Zitting Cistocolas, as they're now more colourfully known) at Port Soif against the backdrop of a match between Japan and Suriname. Yes, Japan and Suriname. Apparently, it was part of the ICC World League Division 7. And no offence to those two countries, but the birds were considerably more enthralling than the cricket.
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Recent listening
I've just been absolutely blown away by The Hazards Of Love, the latest album by US folk-rockers The Decemberists. It's a song cycle (that sounds SO much better than concept album) about...well, all the usual things that happen in folk songs, and the music ranges from sensitive, delicate finger-picking to unhinged heavy metal riffing. There's more than a hint of the Incredible String Band, Steeleye Span and my old darlings Fairport Convention too, and it's all utterly glorious.
I've also been enjoying The Liberty Of Norton Folgate, by Madness, which is far more than a nostalgic return to their early 80s heyday (not that I'd complain about that too much). With Mike Barson, always their best songwriter, on board, they go heavy on the Kinks' influence and create something genuinely contemporary. They've even talked about it being inspired by Ian Sinclair's books! A long way from Baggy Trousers. Or maybe not.
Friday, 29 May 2009
Tim Wells: Rougher Yet
I received Tim Wells' new book, Rougher Yet, in the post the other day, and a thing of beauty it is too, as is pretty much par for the course with Donut Press. I've had little time as yet to really get stuck into it, but when I have it's pretty much unputdownable (I can confirm that that is the correct spelling of a totally imaginary word).I'll be posting a proper review of it on here as soon as I've digested it properly, but I'll say now that Wells is one of those poets who makes what he does look deceptively easy. There are a lot of poets around nowadays who are touted as plugging straight into the language and rhythms of urban (and particularly London) life, but few do it quite as well as him. He's also someone who makes the old "does performance poetry work on the page and vice versa" debate look pretty redundant.I'm looking forward to reading more this week, preferably with a cold beer in my hand, now that summer seems to have arrived in earnest.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Review: The Ambulance Box, by Andrew Philip
Salt, 2009, £12.99Dotted throughout this memorable debut collection (in Salt’s now-familiar elegant hardback style) are a series of four very brief Hebridean Thumbnails.
The first reads simply (but very evocatively) “islands buried in the sky’s white sands”. And not only is it a good precursor of what is to follow, in terms of style, it’s also a good physical description of Andrew Philip’s poems. For ‘islands’, read ‘words’. For ‘sky’, read ‘page’.
Which is all a convoluted way of saying that Philip is a poet who writes just enough, and no more. Few of his poems appear dense, or try to pack too much in. Instead, they’re generally little archipelagos of words, a little bare and unadorned at first glance, but quickly giving up great riches of both sound and sense, and each with a subtly distinctive character.
Many of the best pieces concern Philip’s son, Aidan, who was born and died on the same day in 2005. There’s absolutely nothing inevitable about that, either – it’s all too easy to write honestly, but not terribly well, about such an emotionally devastating event.
But, to state the obvious (if you’ve read any of his poems), Philip does write very well. Here’s Lullaby, for example, in its entirety:
this is the arm that held you
this is the hand that cradled your cold feet
these are the ears that heard you
whimper and cough throughout your brush with light
this is the chest that warmed you
these are the eyes that caught your glimpse of life
this is the man you fathered -
his voided love, his writhen pride and grief
Now it’d be hard to be more emotionally honest than that, and yet at no time does it cross over into self-pity, or into asking the reader for sympathy. On the other hand, neither does it allow the very real tragedy to become a mere vehicle for the poetry – the shock of that line “this is the man you fathered” is a very quiet shock, and all the more effective for it.
Elsewhere, Scotland itself is a major concern, with Philip writing in Scots as well as English, but equally musically in both (The Meisure o a Nation was a particular favourite, with its surprising and sometimes funny juxtapositions). Sometimes, they cross over into each other, and you get memorable phrases such as “this caged / and blootered heart”.
Two of the poems from his HappenStance pamphlet Tonguefire (Man With A Dove On His Head and Tonguefire Night) appear here, and both, I think, demonstrate Philip’s very considerable poetic ambition. They’re genuinely mythological in their scope – that is, they conceal real truths within a fictional, perhaps even absurd, setting. That’s not an easy thing to do without looking ridiculous, or pompous, or both, which is probably why so few poets even try these days, but they’re right up there among the highlights here.
Finally, I hope I haven’t given the impression that, especially because of the subject matter, Philip’s poetry is unremittingly dark. Quite the opposite, in fact. He understands perfectly that loss and love are inextricably linked, and that neither can ever cancel out the other, and he conjures light seemingly from nowhere, from the debris and detritus of everyday life.
Nowhere is that better displayed than in In Praise Of Dust, a gorgeous love poem that (almost) closes the collection. It ends with:
On this of all days, let’s not forget
the facts:
from dust we are
to dust we are returning. In between
our substance is less certain:
a trick of chemistry
gospel
and perhaps the light
from the black lamp that burns beside our bed
falling on your
spirited breathing
muscle and skin.
That says more than I could ever hope to in a review. Go to Salt’s website, and buy this book and Rob Mackenzie’s now. You’ll be helping keep a very fine publisher afloat, but you’ll also be buying two of the collections (let alone debut collections) of the year.
EDIT: I've just noticed that the formatting has disappeared on that final extract. Apologies for that - I'm sure there's a way of getting it right, I just can't get it to happen just now!
Saturday, 23 May 2009
A Poet's Guide To Britain
I still haven't watched the Sylvia Plath programme on iPlayer, but I caught the repeat of this week's programme, about George Mackay Brown, on Thursday night, and enjoyed it. He's a poet I like a lot, although I've not read nearly enough of his work.
One thing I'd have liked to heard more about was how much his poetry owed to Old Norse. It's there in the compressed, pared-down nature of his writing, as they suggested, but his style also features, I think, his own version of kennings. Again, half an hour wasn't really enough to do the poet justice.
One thing I'd have liked to heard more about was how much his poetry owed to Old Norse. It's there in the compressed, pared-down nature of his writing, as they suggested, but his style also features, I think, his own version of kennings. Again, half an hour wasn't really enough to do the poet justice.
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