I came across this nice podcast on the Poetry Society website and thought I’d share it – Jack Underwood talking to Maurice Riordan about his background, what got him into poetry, being a Faber New Poet, transitioning from pamphlet to full collection and so forth.
Now that I’m enjoying a brief work hiatus (book submission made yesterday, drum-roll please) I’m hoping to catch up on my reading. This morning I picked up Hill of Doors (Picador), Robin Robertson’s T S Eliot award-nominated collection, and was reminded of how much I enjoyed my first brief meander through when it was given to me by poet friend Antony.
There are two threads of poems running through the book, and ‘The Fishermen’s Farewell’ comes from the Scotland/memories thread. From the title you might expect something whimsical or ballad-like, an elegy for a lost way of life. For me, the poem has a mysterious beauty and a music about it, but the picture it paints is far from sentimental.
Just as I was umming and ahhing about doing a video blog post in which I would read something from Harry Man’s pamphlet ‘Lift’ (tall-lighthouse), I learn that it’s been awarded the Bridges of Struga Prize – part of the award being translation into Macedonian – golly!
I’ve really enjoyed ‘Lift’ – not least of all for the sci-fi element – I’m not sure if that adequately describes it – futuristic? Intriguing? Fresh? Witty? Anyway, it’s just one of those collections I read and think ‘blimey, I wish I’d written that’. ‘Lift’ is Harry’s first pamphlet and I’m so pleased for him that it’s done so well.
Anyway, video is off today, so audio will have to do it. Here’s my reading of one of the quieter poems in ‘Lift’, the poignant ‘telesue’.
I was just reading this post on Rebecca Gethin’s blog and from there followed a link to Hannah Silva’s blog, which led me to watch some videos of her performing. Hannah’s amazing ‘sound poetry’ made me think again about the Magma theme ‘the music of words’ – I hope the editors are planning to include something by her.
… and then the mesmeric ‘Threshold’ seems to push the boundaries of poetry to its limits. As someone in the comments suggested, it’s not dissimilar to what some composers have done with music, for example Berio’s Sequenza for Voice which I once heard/saw performed by the wonderful soprano Lesley Jane Rogers. It’s a stunning piece of music, and Mozart it ain’t.
Feels like a breath of fresh air to stumble on something like this and find myself challenged out of my poetic comfort zone.
It was a arts-studenty sort of scene last night at the Faber Social in London: a narrow basement room, concrete floor, a sweaty mix of music and conversation growing in volume, a parade of pretty, thin girls in dresses with cinched waists, ponytails and fifties make-up and fresh-looking lads with pale skins and serious glasses. 80% of the audience was probably under 26, judging by the slightly nonplussed reaction to poems about fatherhood and childcare by someone who looked like a student himself (Luke Wright). Meanwhile Ruth Padel held court on a table with various bright young things. Fascinating to watch the milling and mixing.
Luke Wright is very funny. As well as compering, he performed the last set and pulled the audience along with the sheer pace and energy of his poems – ‘The Drunk Train’ on its slow stagger back to Essex on a Saturday night, Wright’s imagined showdown with a sadistic French cop ‘Jean Claude Gendarme’ – fantastic.
Before Luke we’d had a set from Ruth Padel, who seemed slightly out of place in this company but the audience was quiet and respectful (a sure sign this was a serious poetry event, I guess). She read from a new work ‘The Mara Crossing’. I confess I struggled to engage with all the poems – they were quite long and dealt with big issues of migration, human rights and the environment, and Padel’s voice is warm but slight.
The performer whose name had attracted me to the event was Sam Riviere, whose 81 Austerities I love, or rather I should say I found compelling, even though some of the poems were actually repellant. Interestingly enough, his ‘double act’ last night with Joe Dunthorne was based on the theme ‘Battle’ and was concocted around the idea of two people meeting to collaborate on a poetic work, hating each other but at the same time not being able to let go.
The whole thing was brilliant. I took some video snippets but the visuals were just backs of heads, so here’s a 30 second audio extract of Joe Dunthorne reading, an imagined scene which refers to the fact that Sam Riviere’s poems have no punctuation or capitalisation…
I was inspired by Mark Hewitt’s performance of ‘expiry tbc‘ the other evening here in Lewes. It was actually a 3-person production featuring Peter Copley on live (and looped) cello, and wonderful lighting effects by Kristina Hjelm. I’d had the privilege of being in Mark’s workshopping group led by Mimi Khalvati earlier in the year, and he had brought along various versions of the text. But although some of the words were familiar, it was amazing how exciting and moving the whole package became with the addition of sound, light and staging. I’ve often fallen into the trap of thinking that performance poetry is mostly about shouting, rhyming and making the audience laugh. But this was something else entirely.
So I went back to my ‘3 voice canon’ poem – the one I sent to Magma for their theme ‘The music of words’ (still open for admissions, by the way) but was rejected, because they said they couldn’t see the connection between the stanzas, and I recorded it the way I envisage it being read. I used a bit of software called Audacity, in which it’s easy to record one track and layer copies of it over the top in a stagger. I was having so much fun I gave it four tracks in the end. So maybe I should re-title it ‘4-voice canon’?
I did it on one take, so I’m sure I could improve on it, although I don’t want to start putting on silly voices or making it over dramatic. Let me know what you think – thanks.
What a very sad loss. I think I’d be useless as an obituary writer, as anything I’ve tried writing about the death of Seamus Heaney just sounds crass or obvious. I don’t have anything new to add to what’s been said across the blogosphere, but I enjoyed listening to this short piece on Radio 4 ‘Last Word’, flagged up on Facebook by Josephine Corcoran (thank you).
I thought I would just read here one of my favourite of his poems, ‘Postscript’, from The Spirit Level (Faber, 1996).
What do you think about setting poetry to music? (As opposed to writing song lyrics, I suppose). Personally I rather baulk at the thought of something I’d written being given a tune. I worry that adding music doesn’t just create another layer to complement the words, but it has the capacity to alter them permanently, like putting a painting in a particular frame, it can get in the way of the personal response of the viewer/listener/reader.
Nevertheless in the hands of a skilful composer you could say music takes the words to another, higher level. I can think of a couple of choral pieces where the combination is glorious – The Lamb, John Tavener’s setting of William Blake’s poem for starters, and Stanford’s The Blue Bird, words by Mary Coleridge.
Yesterday I was in an all-day rehearsal with our choir, the Lewes Singers. We’re singing the services at Westminster Abbey next weekend. (Do come and hear us if you’re in London – all the times and details of what’s we’re singing are here.) I confess I’m not a church-goer, but Evensong is the most wonderful invention of the Anglican church. If you’ve never been to an Evensong in a British cathedral, please go some time if you can. It’s short, it follows the exact same format it has done for centuries, and there’s very little for the congregation to do but listen. History, tradition, beautiful music – a meditative experience.
One of my favourite parts of the service is the chanting of the Psalms. For a singer, psalms are one of the hardest things to get the hang of. You have to fit the words to the notes of the chant, observe the pauses and move to the next note precisely at the same time as one another. It’s intense and you can’t let your concentration slip. And the words of the Psalms are unpredictable – full of the earthy violence and passions of the Old Testament, sometimes very funny, always vivid. Sadly, it’s too easy for the psalms to sound rough around the edges, and there are some very boring chants. But done well, they are the most powerful thing you’ll ever encounter in a CofE service.
Thankfully in the Lewes Singers we have Nick (my husband, and the conductor) to write us our own chants. Lucky us! OK so I’m showing off a bit here. But listen to this and tell me it’s not exciting.
Very nice of Helen Ivory to take ‘Left’, for Ink, Sweat & Tears. It’s the closest thing to a love poem I’ve written, I think. Whether it was appreciated as such (by the person it’s about) it’s hard to say! It’s a poem I workshopped at our regular Mimi Khalvati group here in Lewes. I seem to recall Mimi describing it as ‘bonkers’ – tee hee.