Tag: simon armitage

Blog/

Roundup – current reading, events, Poet Laureate etc

I’m not sure where the month has gone – somewhere out the door together with the gardening, the yoga and the Spring days out, all of which have been on hold these last few weeks as I grapple with an inexplicable (literal) pain the bum, recently moved into my back. The joys of ageing! I promise I will never again be unsympathetic when hearing of anyone’s backache!

Anyway, I’m now at my standing desk, so please pass your most positive vibes to my ancient body as I compose a quick round-up of a few things I HAVE been doing.

wildnights-kim-addonizio

Currently reading

Kim Addonizio‘s Wild Nights (New & Selected) (Bloodaxe) which I picked up in Cork where I heard her read. I really enjoy her style: deadpan, ironic, dreamlike, much use of the colloquial, long lines of thought that take off at tangents but take you with them, wonderful variety of form and just enough opacity to intrigue the reader rather than exclude her. There’s something about the worlds she creates and inhabits that feels both foreign and familiar, and I find myself revelling in it.

Last month Mike Bartholomew-Biggs came down to Eastbourne’s Poetry Cafe event and read from his book Poems in the Case (Shoestring), and I’m now about half-way through. It’s a kind of whodunnit, combing traditional storytelling and poetry. I’m wracking my brain to think of the term – metatextual? metafication? – for the ‘story within a story’ form. For example, even some of the blurbs on the book cover refer not to this book, but to the work of the fictional characters within.

It’s a lot of fun and I love this kind of literary mashup. There are plenty of in-jokes and familiar tropes for readers who are themselves poets – the poetry residential, the amateur poet characters, the grand egos, simmering jealousies, publishing rivalries, concerns about authenticity and plagiarism. We read the poems written by the various characters, looking within them for clues. It’s a masterpiece of ventriloquy by Mike, who manages to create poems that could credibly have been written by a variety of different people. I haven’t got to the denouement yet so I’ve no spoilers to offer!

Events

Hastings Stanza got together with the Hastings Philharmonic Chamber Choir to present an evening of poetry and music. Orchestrated (see what I did there) by our own Antony Mair, the event was hugely enjoyable. None of us were quite sure how it would pan out, mainly because it had been instigated by the choir, and it was only a couple of days before when we found out what they would be singing. So we planned our contributions as ‘stand alone’ sets, each of us taking ‘change’ as our theme but interpreting it in our own ways. As it happened, the spoken sets worked really well interspersed with the music, which itself was wide ranging and challenging – from Hildegard of Bingen to Berio. We held it at The Beacon in Hastings, a lovely, intimate venue which is much more like someone’s living room than a concert hall. Afterwards we all agreed it was a great model – I’ve often pondered how to combine poetry with classical music and never come up with anything I was happy with. So this was a revelation.

I also made it to the Brighton launch of Finished Creatures which was one big turqoise social with excellent readings and a lotta lurve for editor Jan Heritage. Keep any eye out for further editions and reading windows.

On the writing front, I haven’t much felt like extended sitting, let alone getting my head around creative writing. But I have sent out a few more sweaty envelopes of ready-I-think-but-not-yet-sent poems (or something like that). I’ve also entered three (gulp) poetry pamphlet comps. I think this is all part of my 2019 resolution to send out more.

I suppose the big poetry news this month is our new Poet Laureate. When the Poetry Society polled their members back in the autumn, I’m pretty sure I made a case for Simon Armitage, who strikes me as someone who is both a literary big gun and also accessible, down to earth and committed to community engagement, the perfect to successor to Carol Ann in other words. But I suspected I was a bit behind the times. There was a lot of talk of how it ought to be a poet of colour, or another woman, or a woman poet of colour. I’ve always found the idea of positive discrimination somewhat problematic, and I know poets of colour who do so too – so much so that I even wonder if a few of those poets whose names were in the running (according to the media) may have discounted themselves (publicly or privately) because they didn’t want to be appointed on the ‘diversity ticket’. And before anyone says ‘but XYZ poet is at least as fine a poet as Simon Armitage’ that’s not really the point – the point is the waters had already been muddied by the suggestion that XYZ ‘ought’ to get the job because there ought to be a Poet Laureate who’s not white. Surely we all welcome any Poet Laureate who is enthusiastic about the role, uses it to connect more people to poetry and bring more poetry to more people, champions and supports poets of all backgrounds and all ages. Someone who carries on the amazing work done by Carol Ann Duffy – and incidentally I looked up the Guardian piece from 2009 when she became the PL and it’s a really interesting read –  apparently she’d been in the running a decade before, but declined. I wonder if in ten years’ time there’ll be less fuss made about how we need a poet of colour as PL. It will just happen.

Angst/

The poetry competition game

Compers NewsPerhaps that could be a poem title? Should I send it to the Poetry London comp, or is more of a Poetry on the Lake  sort of title? Could I get some kind of double meaning out of ‘game’ in order to make it a nature poem and would it appeal to Simon Armitage when judging the Rialto comp?

‘Games’ were fun things we did as kids, weren’t they? if you discount ‘games’ – that Wednesday afternoon ritual at secondary school that usually involved mud, cold and not being picked for the team. But now we have gaming. Gamesmanship. Game over. Not fun any more. Or is it?

If we decide to enter poetry competitions we could approach it as a game (ie a bit of fun). We give a go, and if we win it’s great – sometimes a cash prize, sometimes a prize giving event or publication. Or in the case of a big competition, career-enhancing. We don’t mind paying to enter because it’s a lot of work for judges and organisers. And besides, the entry fees are a way of giving something back to poetry – the promoters of competitions are usually publishers after all, or champions of poetry in some way.

Is there an alternative? In the wider world of ‘comping’, there are people who make a good living from competitions and win more iPads, Audis and holidays than they can cope with. Apparently the secret is to approach it systematically. Less beach cricket, more The Hunger Games. A serious comper will tell you it’s a waste of time NOT to approach it this way.

So is that also true of poetry competitions? I’ve read various posts about this – what makes for a competition-winning poem, what ‘due diligence’ should be done before entering a competition, whether you’ve got more chance in a smaller competition than a big one (not as obvious as it sounds!) Judges are often happy to give their side of it, either being helpful before the fact (Emma Lee has written a good article outlining exactly what she looks for when judging a competition) or in judge’s reports (which often tell is like it is – essential reading!) Personally, I find the shortlists and longlists (for those competitions that make them public) tell you a lot. I’m often amazed at some ‘big name’ poets entering competitions. And the sheer number of entries from some poets – either money’s no object or their strategy is spend big to win big…

I also read recently (can’t remember on whose blog – help me out, someone) that competition-winning poems don’t necessarily have a place in a pamphlet (and vice versa). I quite enjoy sometimes writing to a theme, but is writing ‘competition poems’ anathema to a poet working on a pamphlet or a collection? And yet that’s a bit of a broad judgement too –  look at Ian Duhig’s marvellous The Lammas Hireling, winning the National and then the title poem of a fine collection.

I came across this interesting piece by Jendi Reiter which, although it’s primarily to do with submitting to US journals and competitions, I still found useful. I rather like her reminder that if you enter competitions, “you’re going to get a lot more rejection than validation, and internalizing others’ opinions of your worth will lead to writers’ block or fearful, unoriginal writing.” I think this is one reason I’m so ambivalent about it. I’m not sure I can keep up a healthy attitude to writing poetry at the same time as entering comps. And yet part of me enjoys the game, and every now and then I can’t resist it.

Angst/

A literary lunch, a rejection and a Robert Frost mystery

Emerging from the fug of the common cold, what should greet me but a ‘no thanks’ notification from Ambit. It seemed like an automated/standard reply this time, so I think I have to give up on it for now. The last rejection I had from them felt more personal and encouraging.  I think three or four rejections in a row (can’t remember how many it’s been with Ambit, actually) from a mag is a fairly strong indicator that my stuff just isn’t their bag. (Unless I’ve had something published by them before, which is quite different.) So Ambit now joins the ‘probably not’ list. (If the list gets too long I may have to revise my strategy but at the moment it works fine!)

On the positive side, I had a very nice time on Tuesday at the Chelsea Arts Club where my lovely agent (for my non-fiction writing) was hosting a Christmas lunch for some of her authors. A great chance to meet other (far more successful) writers and get enthused about everything from space exploration to Norris McWhirter. Imagine my excitement to meet a fellow poet there by the name of Liz Dean. Liz told me she had a fair amount of work published a few years back, but other projects have taken her away from the poetry scene lately. We talked about magazines, submissions, pamphlets, the way forward and so forth. She made a suggestion which I found intriguing and came away thinking “Yes, I will do that in 2014…” We actually shook hands on it, so indeed I must do it! I won’t say any more now, but all will be revealed here in the fullness of time. Ha ha!

The news that Douglas Dunn has won the Queen’s Medal for poetry had me panicking that I’d not read a thing by him. Well, ‘panicking’ is probably too strong a word, but that general feeling of “oh no! here’s another famous poet I haven’t read or even heard of! what the bloody hell do I think I’m doing, noodling about writing poetry or even having the PRESUMPTION to call myself a sortofpoet when my knowledge of The Canon is so completely inadequate” – that kind of thing.

So partly in a knee-jerk reaction and partly because I needed to return Simon Armitage’s Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the Cordoroy Kid (many gems there) I went to the library and spent an hour or so with the one Dunn book they had which was The Year’s Afternoon (brilliant title poem you can read here). I took it away to read properly, and also a copy of Answering Back, an anthology of pairs of poems, one by a contemporary poet in response to one by a more established/dead one. Edited by Carol Ann Duffy. This looks really meaty and I know I’m going to enjoy it, just from looking at who is responding to who, for starters.

Arrived in the post last week was the latest edition of Rattle, from which I get my regular dose of American poetry and Poems With Titles That Are Quite Often Longer Than The Actual Poems Themselves And Every Word In The Title Is Capitalized (sic). Also by my bed is the Winter edition of Poetry Review which I’ve only skimmed through so far but noticed another enjoyable and cheeky nod to Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by woods’ – a poem by Kate Bingham called ‘Midnight’. In the last edition we had ‘Floating on Lake Windermere in a Stolen Boat’ by Sean Hewitt, a similar homage. Maybe it will be a recurring theme? Something to watch for!

Books/

T S Eliot shortlisted poetry collections – reviews

t s eliot prize collections 2012

t s eliot prize collections 2012

I confess haven’t read all the collections shortlisted for this year’s T S Eliot Prize. But I’ve trawled for informative reviews of each, in order to at least have an idea and also in anticipation of hearing all the poets read on Sunday evening at the Festival Hall. So here we go.

Sean Borodale Bee Journal  (Jonathan Cape) (Bees seem to be a hot topic at the moment. Does their essential yet potentially doomed role in the ecosystem give them extra poetic power?)  Giles Pitts’ review in Varsity makes me think I would enjoy this collection.

‘10th February: Dismantling the Comb’, for example, is a deeply moving account of bereavement, the poet shining light into the comb’s cells in a fruitless search for life: ‘It’s like the grain of a moon, a spoon-back of pale no one, / just the pail of an egg’s dry opal empty of hunger’.

Gillian Clarke Ice (Carcanet) – Stevie Davies in the Independent calls it ‘partly pastoral elegy, partly georgic’ and offers this assessment. 

In 1947, news of the ice-girl’s end aroused in the prescient young Gillian a sense of “her china inkwell emptied of its words,/ the groove for her pen like a shallow grave”.

Julia Copus The World’s Two Smallest Humans  (Faber & Faber) – reviewed in the Guardian by Kate Kellaway, who calls it a ‘remarkable collection’. She focuses in particular on the poem ‘Ghost’ which is printed in full at the end of the review, noting that the poet “avoids the first person and keeps a tight rein on emotion.”

SImon Armitage The Death of King Arthur  (Faber & Faber) – a gallant Kate Kellaway tackles this tome despiteadmitting initial reluctance (“When I studied Anglo-Saxon at university, I remember complaining that whenever I wasn’t sure of a word, it turned out to mean “spear”.”) She concedes, however, that Armitage “has a miraculous ability to make the past fresh, moving and urgent, not allowing legend to create distance.”  Personally I’m not sure how much I’d relish all those bloody battles, but perhaps I need to keep an open mind – if I’ve got the stomach for Julia Copus’s IVF poems then I can face anything. (For some reason, poems about pregnancy and childbirth make me queasy.)

Paul Farley The Dark Film (Picador) – despite Nicholas Pierpan’s excoriating review in Tower Poetry (is this the guy who critiqued my work both times I submitted stuff for the Poetry Society’s ‘Prescription’ service? I recognise the style!) I am interested to read this collection, if only to see if there’s more to it than Pierpan fancies. (For example, ‘Saturday Irons’ he dismisses with  “Are the final two lines tongue-in-cheek, or just bathetic? I honestly can’t tell; they don’t work either way.”)

Jorie Graham P L A C E (Carcanet) – is this is the front-runner, having already won the Forward Prize? Here’s Sean O’Brien’s review in the Guardian. Funnily enough I only heard of Jorie Graham recently, when I asked poet friend Lynne about American poetry, in which she’s pretty much steeped. Must explore.

Kathleen Jamie – The Overhaul  (Picador) – I was googling this to find a review and got sidetracked by a wonderful interview on the Scottish Review of Books. I like the sound of Kathleen Jamie, she comes across a bit like Don Paterson, all dry and matter-of-fact what’s-the-fuss-all-about. Must be a scottish thang. Anyway, here’s Maria Johnston’s review in the Guardian of what sounds like a fine collection.

Sharon Olds Stag’s Leap (Jonathan Cape) – my poet friend Charlotte lent me a copy of this to read a couple of months ago and there was something terrifyingly gripping about it – the story of a marriage break up in painful, masochistic detail. It gave me bad dreams – I suppose it played on my greatest nightmare, which would be to lose the love and fidelity of my husband. But here’s a wonderful video interview / profile on the PBS website where Sharon reads from the book and talks about her writing and her life. There’s a sympathy, acceptance and calmness about her that I nearly missed in the reading of Stag’s Leap.

Jacob Polley The Havocs (Picador) – so I click on the Guardian’s review of this collection and there’s a photo of a beekeeper – wtf! Anyway, Ben Wilkinson finds much to admire:

Tripping through assorted rhythms, sonnets, end-rhymed quatrains and the looping lines of its centrepiece, it is as formally vibrant as the luminous letters that adorn its cover….The Havocs may be an uneven collection that sometimes finds Polley treading water, but a handful of its poems are so moving and memorable you might just forgive him.

Deryn Rees-Jones Burying the Wren (Seren) – Carl Griffin in the Wales Arts Review suggests that this collection on ‘recollections and grief’ has its ‘fair share of poems that should have been buried with the wren’. Nevertheless he finds ‘ingenious images’ as well as ‘snatches of comedy and joy’ in her writing.