Month: June 2019

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New reading: Magma 74 and the Laureate’s Choice Anthology

Laureate's Choice Anthology and Magma 74

The new edition of Magma, edited by Benedict Newbery and Pauline Sewards, is dedicated to ‘work’, a subject close to my heart. It’s always puzzled me why there appears to be so little written about traditional (or otherwise) workplaces, given how many hours of many people’s lives are given over to work (in the sense of ‘earning a living’, although of course the Magma editors were hoping for plenty of poems about ‘work’ in its wider sense.)

Sarah Mnatzaganian‘s ‘Laying up’ appeared to me with its rich nautical vocabulary (‘…until our halves meet / and lie without stretch or slack, / my luff to your leech, head to your foot, / clew to your tack, throat to your peak’). I loved the evocation of a mass laying off (a subject I’ve tried to write about myself) by Fokkina McDonnell, ‘The empty hours’, with its matter-of-factness capturing the reality of having to stay dispassionate when tasked with an uncomfortable job (‘If we’d stayed at the Bridge Hotel, Kendal, staff / would have recognised us from last time, / would’ve made phone calls last night.’)  Steve Kendall‘s ‘Emotional Labour’ beautifully captures that feeling of doing what is essentially a meaningless job, with random rules and procedures (‘I must send it to whoever’s desk is equidistant from / the first addressee and Emma’), embroidering one’s thoughts with whatever it takes to make it through the day. I think my own poem comes under the category of ‘a bit offputting’, with its crossed out words and slightly odd title (‘Hospitality Management (Diploma) Enrol Now £2,400’). I hope it doesn’t put everyone off reading it though. I know I can be a bit impatient with this sort of thing, rather like my first thoughts about Shaun Carter‘s ‘<title> The office sound in broken code </title>’ – reading through broken code is a bit too close to home for me!

Magma‘s featured poet in this issue is Tom Sastry, who seems to be having a bit of a moment. He also pops up in The Laureate’s Choice Anthology (smith|doorstop), a selection of work chose by Carol Ann Duffy during her tenure as Poet Laureate. As a side note, I did first hear about the ‘Laureate’s Choice’ from Carol Ann when I was on a course with her and Gillian Clarke at Ty Newydd back in 2013. She asked me then (as well as a couple of others) to send her my pamphlet manuscript, for consideration. I didn’t really understand what it was about, but I sent her it anyway. Nothing came of it, but David Borrott, who was on the same course, made the cut. So when this anthology came through my door I was only a TINY BIT bitter!)

But back to Tom Sastry – his poems did rather jump out at me for their originality and intrigue. I loved ‘Difference’, a telling snapshot of a relationship running on parallel lines, the sadness of ‘The Office’ (‘You can bring the name of a bird/ in from the outside, if you like. You can bring its call/ on your ringtone…’ and the simple beauty of ‘Waking’ (‘I dreamt that we were older. It didn’t matter at all.’)

I enjoyed a huge number of the poems in this anthology. Just flicking through again I’m reminded of a few:  Yvonne Reddick‘s ‘The Bait’, Mark Pajak‘s ‘Spitting Distance’, David Borrott‘s ‘felicitous blending of figure and landscape’ and ‘Wolf Fell’, John Fennelly’s ‘Those flowers’.

The anthology doesn’t have a foreword, which is a shame, as I’d like to have read something by Carol Ann talking about the thinking behind the project and her selections. Some of the poets are clearly newcomers, whereas others I would describe as established already,  with full collections and awards to their name. It’s true that they were picked up over a five-year period – the first Laureate’s Choice collections were published in 2015. Nevertheless it makes for an interesting mix of work.

The Laureate’s Choice Anthology is available now from The Poetry Business, £10.

I’ll be reading (and possibly explaining a bit about my poem) at the London launch of Magma 74 on Thursday 6th July, 6.30pm at Exmouth Market, alongside many fine poets including Lorraine Mariner and Alison Brackenbury. Perhaps see you there?

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Look what I found! Virginia Woolf’s ‘A Writer’s Diary’

Virginia Woolf A Writer's Diary

… Fourth Impression (1965) with a foreword by Leonard Woolf. Hogarth Press! Original dust jacket bearing Vanessa Bell’s design!

I found it at Much Ado Books in Alfriston, well worth a visit if you’re ever in the area. It’s housed in a range of quirky buildings set back off the road in its own front garden. I did find the plethora of notices rather off-putting  (a number of which suggest one is guilty until proven innocent – PLEASE LEAVE LARGE BAGS AT THE COUNTER BEFORE GOING UPSTAIRS, PLEASE RESPECT OUR GARDEN etc) but I can only suppose this quiet, well-do-do village must have its fair share of book shop-lifters and vandals. What a shame.

much ado books alfriston

Anyway, I look forward to sharing extracts and thoughts on Woolf’s reading and writing process with you here from time to time.

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Currently reading: Kaminsky, Hickman

Ilya Kaminsky Deaf RepublicIlya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic came through the post from the Poetry Book Society, swathed in accolades. Looking at the title my first thought was of Raymond Antrobus’s The Perseverance, also a PBS Choice, but in fact the two books are very different animals. (I’m a bit sad I don’t have The Perseverance to hand as I gave it to a friend, so can only go on my memory of it.)

While The Perseverance struck me as intensely personal, focusing on the poet’s D/deaf experience and upbringing, Deaf Republic has the feel of a parable, or a Greek tragedy. It’s set during a war, in an occupied town, where the death of a child incites the townspeople to passive resistance which takes the form of feigned deafness. It’s met with brutal retaliation. We follow the fates of two protagonists as events escalate, while the townspeople grow increasingly divided. It’s a stark and bloody tale, made all the more sinister (for me anyway!) by the role of puppets. There’s a horrific dreamlike quality to much of the action. Reading the book felt like a similar experience to reading D M Thomas’s The White Hotel. 

Right from the opening poem ‘We Lived Happily during the War’ the reader is invited to examine their own conscience. Is this happening now, in our own society? How are we responding?

[…] I was

in my bed, around my bed America

was falling: invisible house by invisible house by invisible house–

I took a chair outside and watched the sun.

I found the closing poem ‘In a Time of Peace’ rather hammered home the point. But not enough to detract from the power of the book.

On another track entirely is my current ‘book at bedtime’, She-Merchants, Buccaneers and Gentlewomen: British Women in India by Katie Hickman. She tells the stories of women who left for a new life in India at a time when it must have been an absolutely extraordinary thing to do; the first accounts of such journeys date from as early as 1617. Clearly the sea journey alone must have tested the sturdiest resolve.

It is hard to imagine what resilience it must have taken to survive nineteen months at sea. […] Sea captains were reluctant to take female passengers at all and often confined them to the very lowest decks, where it was usual to house the terrified horses, dogs and other animals. Treated like so much livestock themselves, these early travellers were  obliged to endure living conditions in which there was little or no fresh air or light, and ceilings so low they were never able to stand upright. … in a feeble attempt to allow the air to circulate, women were forbidden to hang up blankets or linen as screens during the day. […] Trips onto the deck to breath some sea air or take some exercise, were often seriously limited, even forbidden by some captains.

I’m completely gripped by these female pioneers. Many of their stories are so fantastical they read like fiction. However, Maya Jasanoff in The Guardian has pointed out that plenty more well-rounded and scholarly books have told these women’s stories before, and claims that ‘She-Merchants’ “for all its good intentions, does for imperial history a bit what a package tour does for travel: it lets readers glimpse an ‘exotic’ location without requiring them to think too much about the people who actually live there.” Ouch. I’m still enjoying the book, but it’s useful to bear this opinion in mind.