Litterbug

2011-12-19T01:44:00.000-08:00

On Saturday I met with Clive Allen and Adrian Buckner in a cafe on the campus of Nottingham University. The meeting was one of our regular ones at which we bring a poem of our own to discuss and critique, and also, one by another poet. My poem by the 'other poet' was Shakespeare's poem beginning "Let the bird of loudest lay...". The poem in question, usually titled (though not by the author) "The Phoenix and the Turtle", has been one that I've re-read often in recent weeks and which I've been somewhat haunted by. You can read the poem here.

Part of the appeal of this poem is that it's enigmatic and unclear - one reads it as through a glass darkly. Compared to the other poems of WS, it has an unmodern quality: the session of birds and the allegorical figures hark back to Chaucer and the medieval period. But apart from its distance in time, the poem treats its subject matter obliquely, and has a number of puzzling lines. Much ink has been spilt over the possibility that it has coded Catholic sympathies, and there's a convincing theory that the two eponymous birds represent Roger and Anne Line, a married couple, Roman Catholics, who were separated when Roger was exiled for his beliefs, then died abroad. Anne was arrested for harbouring catholic priests and was hanged at Tyburn in 1601, the same year this poem was published. There are remarkable correspondences between this story and the poem; for example, the Lines were known to have taken a vow of celibacy within their marriage, and were childless; in the poem there's the puzzling lines:

Leaving no posterity:--
'Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.

as well as this:

Distance, and no space was seen
'Twixt the turtle and his queen;

"Distance and no space" is Euclid's definition of a line, something WS would have been aware of from his schoolbook geometry. Despite these correspondences, the evidence is not conclusive, and there are other theories, none of which are ever likely to be finally confirmed. While hauntingly beautiful, the poem remains elusive; were there contemporaries - a select few perhaps - to whom its coded messages were clear? Or are there no coded messages, but a deliberately elusive poem by a supremely skilled writer? Further, how many of us twenty-first century readers can enter the mind of renaissance England to read the poem as contemporaries would have read it? Have the intervening periods - The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Modernism, the age of science and technology - changed us so much that what we read now is analogous to a translation? I'm reminded, in all this, of a short piece of writing by by Jorge Luis Borges: "The Parable of Cervantes and The Quijote". The parable talks about how the opposition in Cervantes' novel was between "the unreal world of the books of chivalry and the ordinary, everyday world of sixteenth century Spain". The parable continues:

"They did not suspect that the years would smooth away that discord, they did not suspect that La Mancha and Montiel and the knight's lean figure would be, for posterity, no less poetic than the episodes of Sinbad or the vast geographies of Ariosto.

For in the beginning of literature is the myth, and in the end as well."

2011-12-15T01:12:00.001-08:00

"..for me, poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order of the mind. It is radical, by which I don't mean that it is either leftwing or rightwing, but that it works at the roots of thinking. It goes lower than rhetoric, lower than conversation, lower than logic, right down to the very faint honest voice at the bottom of the skull. You can hear that voice in a letter written by the 16th‑century poet Thomas Wyatt to his son: "No doubt in any thing you do, if you ask yourself or examine the thing for yourself afore you do it, you shall find, if it be evil, a repining against it. My son, for our Lord's love, keep well that repining …"

Alice Oswald, on why she withdrew from the TS Eliot Prize.

To read the full article, click here

2011-12-14T05:44:00.000-08:00

"Assent" magazine, published by the university of Derby has just published a review of "Variations on Painting a Room", written by the Reviews Editor, Julia Gaze. It's a print magazine, so the review's not available online as yet. Ms. Gaze, like Ian Seed in his review, focuses on The Book of Random Access, and it's becoming clear to me that, at least in readers' eyes (which is what counts) that section of the book is the most significant. What's interesting to me is that it's the part of the book which I wrote most quickly - at a rate of about one prose poem every two days. I also wrote it while my mind was largely on other things, during a busy domestic and professional period of my life. I typed and wrote the poems during brief breaks at my desk at work, while sitting at the front of a class (I train IT staff), while waiting to pick my kids up from various places, and while doing the washing up, gardening and cleaning. I've discussed a similar aspect of this work elsewhere on this blog, but it still fascinates me, the creative process. Having the conscious miind distracted in some way seems almost a requirement of artistic production.

R.I.P. Christopher Logue

2011-12-14T05:32:00.000-08:00

I've blogged about Logue in the past, and the "Cold Calls" section of his Iliad has been reviewed on Litter. Of course, now he's passed away, that version will never be complete, but, as I've said before, it seems appropriate for our post-modern condition that our age's translation of Homer should be fragmentary and incomplete.

2011-12-13T01:08:00.000-08:00

I've been having an interesting discussion over at the blog of Canadian writer Conrad DiDiodato. The discussion started with the following quote, on Conrad's blog, from Eliot weinberger:

"The United States doesn’t have the class of literary supplements that you find in Spain and many other countries… Criticism, in the United States, has been reduced to ‘recommendations’, which arrive through reviews, blogs and Twitter. Prizes have become the standard validation of literary merit. I can’t think of a single American critic to whom one can turn in search of ideas …" (read the full quote here)

We then discussed the high quality of reviews and essays in the French press, and I introduced Conrad to Pierre Assouline's blog. We do have the TLS and the London Review of Books, which, although they're pretty conservative, do carry quality critical writing. But in the broadsheets, reviews of poetry, at least, are largely reduced to ‘recommendations’, witness this recent 'review' in The Guardian. The blogosphere seems to be the place for a wider range and more in-depth discussion of poetry. But even here, there's a problem; namely, that in the age of Facebook and Twitter, poets are very likely to know each other, if not personally, then virtually. On-line communications lends itself, indeed, possibly requires, comforting compliments and regular praise, to keep communication flowing with someone you've never met; or, conversely, unrestrained, anonymous venom. Neither of these things are conducive to objective, disinterested critique. Maybe we need more critics who are not poets, and therefore untrestrained by the need to butter up publishers and other poets. But such people are rare; maybe it just needs a bit more courage and objectivity from poet-critics.

2011-12-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

Some poems and photographs in tribute to Theodore Enslin, by fellow poets and friends Ed Baker, David Giannini, and John Phillips, as well as a poem by the poet himself. In addition, there is also a link to a brief obituary (and an excerpt from same) and a recording of Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 18, No. 2, which Theodore Enslin requested be played in lieu of a memorial service or other type of observance.

All available here.

2011-12-09T14:33:00.000-08:00

Stride magazine's Editor's Picks 2011 includes my "Variations on Painting a Room" - along with lots of other good stuff. I'm very pleased. Thanks to Rupert Loydell.

Review - The Best British Poetry 2011

2011-12-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

...this anthology [implies] that contemporary poetry is a single homogeneous entity. In reality, it isn't; there is a division between the poetry of, say, Carol Ann Duffy and that of Maggie O'Sullivan, and it's not just due to official acceptance or funding of one over the other; it's to do with the philosophies and assumptions which underlie the poetry; put simply, Duffy and O'Sullivan have different notions about what poetry is. Such divisions are intrinsic to the post-modern nature of poetry in the twenty-first century. To deny that there are 'schools' or movements in poetry, and instead to assert that it's all one, (and that the finest work will somehow rise to the top - as 'the best' tag implies) is to deny the very energies which drive much poetic production.

To read the complete review, click here

The Flying Goose, December 13th

2011-11-29T01:20:00.000-08:00

Emily Hasler, Shaun Belcher, J. T. Welsch, & Adrian Slatcher

Brought to you by the Nottingham Poetry Series
& Nottingham Trent University

Entry is free, but donations (£3 suggested) are welcome.

December 13, 7:30 pm at

The Flying Goose Café
Beeston High Road
NG9 1EH.

The café sells tea, coffee, snacks, and cake.
Followed by an open reading: please feel free to bring a
poem for this winter evening

Smartarse

2011-11-26T13:35:00.000-08:00

an anthology edited by Rupert Loydell, pub. The Knives Forks and Spoons Press. ISBN: 978-1-97812-50-7. £9

On the back cover of this book, the editor, Rupert Loydell, explains the title:

"The poetry I want at the moment is smartarse: a whirlwind mix of comedy, fiction, collage, free association, confession, bravado, parataxis and storytelling. It uses or may use experimental or linguistically innovative techniques, be rooted in modernism or postmodernism, but maybe not so that you as a reader would notice."

In his introduction, Nicholas Rombes, expert on punk and professor of poetry at the University of Detroit Mercy, says: "Rupert Loydell ran the term by me in 2010, and without even having to think about it, I knew what it meant." Rombes cites the influence of the internet on young USA writers, which, he claims, has resulted in a "renewed attention to the vernacular", which, Rombes continues, involves attention to "the way people talk - their voices and language, and the rhythm and texture of their words, mediated through all manner of digital technologies".

Loydell has assembled fifteen writers who, as he sees it, embody the principles above. Whether they do or not, as a mirror of Loydell's current taste, this is certainly a lively mix, and the poets as a whole, are not lacking in "attitude" or irony. No-one here takes themselves too seriously. I liked this anthology. Loydell’s candid admission that the book is filled with poetry that he just happens to like is refreshing.

To read the rest of the review,click HERE.

The Honicknowle Book of the Dead

2011-11-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

The Honicknowle Book of the Dead by Kenny Knight

(Shearsman books), 106pp, £8.95 / $16 ISBN 9781848610170

In this book the world of suburban Plymouth is transfigured by the the imagination in a stream of anecdote, wit and invention reminiscent of the New York school. Kenny Knight's seemingly artless poems in fact combine a number of techniques that require considerable skill from the poet, and which achieve their effects without being in any way intrusive.

To read the rest of the review, click HERE

Theodore Enslin 1925-2011

2011-11-24T05:33:00.000-08:00

The given,
which has concerned us,
no longer strikes so deep.
Age is more adventurous:
That is its gift to us, and from us.
We might almost wish
that it were not so.
Old age is poised --
rarely takes that last flight
above the peaks
that youth tried to scale
in vain.

from "The Weather Within"

I was sorry to hear the news that Enslin passed away last weekend. I have blogged about him previously, and, as I said then, I admired him enormously. He went his own way, in an American tradition of independence, and his later work, analogous to musical composition, is outside of any fashion or trend, and is quite unlike anything else being written right now. His last book will be published posthumously by Skysill Press.

'Violets' by C.J. Allen

2011-11-17T14:37:00.000-08:00

New pamphlet by C.J. Allen now available from Derbyshire's very own Templar Poetry. Buy the collection here.

Poets on the Great Recession

2011-11-14T11:40:00.000-08:00

I was asked to contribute to "Poets on the Great Recession", a project run by the redoubtable Eileen Tabios.

Here's my contribution.

More on the Pistol Tree Poems

2011-11-13T12:02:00.001-08:00

Peter Hughes dropped me an email commenting on the pieces quoted below. This is what he said:

"I thought you might be interested to know something more about the passages you quoted. Leonardo da Vinci makes several appearances in the sequence, usually in non-obvious ways! So Len is there, experimenting with form & the random, dropping bits of molten lead into water, & seeing what happens. He recorded his thoughts in his notebooks, & the 'prawn' was something he saw in one of the shapes. He dropped them from just above the surface of the water: a height of just one inch (or pollice - 'thumb' & 'inch' in Italian). I got most of my details from Charles Nicholl's biography of Leonardo. Plus a few old art books. His fondness for bright red or pink leggings is also documented!

Simon & I gestured towards the deaths or anniversaries of a few musicians. The buccaneer loons' in that passage by Simon belonged to John Martyn, someone we both admired, who died at the end of January 2009. Some of Martyn's lyrics appear elsewhere.

The title - The Pistol Tree Poems - comes from a mishearing of "epistolary poems' on a dodgy phone line between the UK & Italy."

London Poems and Pistol Tree Poems

2011-11-13T03:02:00.000-08:00

Last week I acquired "City State - New London Poetry" from Penned in the Margins, and last night I sat down and opened the book at random. This is what I read:

"when Pan the only dead god lost his long life
savings and took solace in his mortal position
started drinking cursing Wall Street took a breadknife
to Camberwell Green with a bag of those onions
little gaunt white bought a bag of Camberwell Green
and told himself the most Capricious joke
(look I'm dead!) took out his knife from the skein
of his crosshatched loins had an Arcadian smoke
he devised a new cogito fit for his state
it was ravenous drinking not thinking the first antic
verb really he was 'on' Camberwell Green far too alone
to imagine a field not Arcadian lush not a slick
of poured concrete does Pan have to moan
like a goat with his sibiliants spittling the screen
in panic from Wall Street to Camberwell Green?"

This is by one Ben Borek. I loved the verbal energy and musicality of this piece, the use of line-breaks ('his long life/savings') and the way it doesn't pause for breath, so that the scene it describes is half-hidden behind the wordplay. This poem manages to update the classical, not by heavy-handed juxtapositions with the present'-day, but by dropping in key words (Pan, Arcadian, panic, cogito) into a disjointed an fast-moving set of contemporary references. The poem is part of what could be described as a sonnet sequence, and they're all of this quality. I haven't investigated the rest of the anthology, but this is a good start.

I also acquired a copy of "The Pistol Tree Poems" by Peter Hughes and Simon Marsh. I'd seen some of these poems on Great Works, and enjoyed them, but wasn't sure what I'd make of a whole book-full. The poems alternate between the two poets, and each one is a response to the previous poem. Such exercises can end up being rather self-indulgent, but this one is saved by the skill of the two poets, as well as its humour and irreverence. I'm very much enjoying reading the poems at random, though whether I'll get to read all of them I don't know. Surrealism never really took hold in British poetry (with a few exceptions), but there's always been a strong tradition of nonsense poetry, from the rantings of Pistol to the poems of Edward Lear and Lewis Carol to the lyrics of John Lennon and Syd Barret. These poems are in that line:

"& as the Omniscient Mussel mused
On Len's pink tights & bristles
it recalled blobs of molten lead
dropped from a height of one thumb..."

(poem 51)

The above is from Peter Hughes, who has a slightly different tone to Simon Marsh, who tends to be more formal and lyrical:

"I can't pick out a single tune
he's slap looped
strut and pranced
in buccaneer loons
a deep wail syllable drawn
from his heart's clutter..."

(poem 52)

The poems are epistolary (excuse the pun) and drawn from the everyday:

"so tomorrow it's off to King's Lynn
1 to fit tow bar
2 to have Great Aunt Maisie splayed
3 investigate suede wall-art"

The poems manage some acerbic comments on current affairs ("...your internet history available
to entire herds of minor government voyeurs..."), but at the moment I'm enjoying reading it for the fun of it, and I'm sure I'll enjoy dipping into it for a long time:

"as many had foretold
aliens landed on Dartmoor
in teapots formed from many-coloured lights
& early Hillage solos"

2011-11-12T05:24:00.000-08:00

Skysill Press has a nice new website. Click here to see it.

2011-11-01T10:21:00.001-07:00

Leafe Press poet CJ Allen has a new collection - "Violets" - out soon with publisher Templar Poetry. He is also featured on the "Poet a Month" slot for November on the Derbyshire Libraries blog, which you can read here.

Paris!

2011-10-31T05:22:00.000-07:00

Last time I was in Paris I was alone, so I spent my spare time mooching around the bookshops of the Latin Quarter. This time, with my wife and teenage daughter, it was a bit different. I found myself mooching instead around the textile and dressmaking shops of the Place St. Pierre in Montmartre, and having lunch in the cafe featured in "Amelie". This last attraction is a typically and admirably
French phenomenon; tourists flock from far and wide, as we did, because of the movie connection, but cafe is run with complete indifference to it all. Sure, there are pictures of the movie and Amelie table covers, but it's still a rough-and-ready bistro serving very good, cheap meals, and catering for the locals.

During our visit to Paris we were also lucky enough to be able to take in the Stein exhibition at the swanky Grand Palais museum. They've gathered together the paintings originally collected by Gertrude Stein, her brother Leo and sister sister-in-law Sara, so you get to see some of the greatest paintings of the first half of the twentieth century. But if you're interested in Gertrude Stein the writer, as I am, then it's a bonus, as there are home movie clips of Gertrude at her sister's Le Corbusier home, and of her reading from "Tender Buttons". I hadn't realised how many artist's had painted her portrait; in addition to the famous Picasso portrait. I also hadn't quite realised how, in her "Autobiography of Alice B Toklas" Stein had bigged up her own role in the formation of the famous salons at the Rue de Fleurus, to the chagrin of her brother Leo, and others. Such is the benefit of being a writer; there's always the possibility of creating your own myth, which then becomes almost impossible for anyone to undo.

Carrie Etter: The Son

2011-10-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

pub. Oystercatcher Press

There are times when a poet who is skilled in modernist techniques and the use of abstraction in poetry feels the need, due to the circumstances of his or her life, to tackle a personal subject, or at least one that deals with emotion and with the basic humanity that is common to us all. When this happens the results can be powerful. Carrie Etter's pamphlet "The Son" represents such a moment. The poems centre around a child who appears to have been given up for adoption; a sensitive subject, and one that could, in the wrong hands, result in sentimentality. But there's no fear of that with an accomplished practitioner like Etter. The collection consists of a series of prose poems, entitled "Imagined Sons", numbered 1-12. Interspersed with the prose poems are four poems called "A Birthmother's Catechism" with a question and response format:

How did you let him go?

With black ink and legalese.

How did you let him go?

It'd be another year before I could vote.

These short responses are in a laconic American tradition; their deadpan understatement conveying much more than any overblown cry of emotion could:

How did you let him go?

Who hangs a birdhouse from a sapling?

What a great line that is: expressing self-doubt and fragility in practical, workmanlike terms. The "Imagined Sons" poems are short dream-like stories, which hit exactly the right note, as suppressed emotion resurfaces in our dreams. There's a surrealist element to these stories, with a motif of a young man, familiar, but out-of-reach, the repetition of which builds up a powerful sense of longing.

The first and last poems - both in the catechism form - link the personal loss to the public loss of the 9/11 attacks. It's a risk, but it works, due in part to the understated nature of the poems; in fact, it succeeds in universalising an experience that might otherwise be intensely personal.

2011-10-27T02:06:00.000-07:00

The Shindig in Leicester this week has been reported on by other bloggers, and everyone's commented on the strength of the open-mic slot. I must have listened to around thirty poets read that evening, and every one was worth listening to. It's interesting that, according to Kathleen Bell, one of the De Montfort Creative Writing team who have done so much to engender these type of events in Leicester, that the open-mic standard has improved as time has gone on, as less experienced poets have learned from the more experienced ones. To me, the whole phenomenon says a great deal about the contemporary poetry scene. Poetry is a participation sport; most readers are also writers of poetry, and the whole scene is democratic and unhierarchical. But this is not to say that standards have to be driven down to the lowest common denominator; there's no reason why that should happen, and the evidence of the Leicester readings is quite the opposite, with people generally trying to raise their game to keep up with others. Despite attempts by initiatives like The Forward Prize and now the Salt Best British Poetry (more on that one later), to establish canons and hierarchies, it seems that, at the cutting edge, the poetry scene is open, participatory and supportive. Long may it stay that way!

Simon Perril's Nitrate: the video

2011-10-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

Simon Perril's 'Nitrate' (Salt Publishing) is a "meditation upon the birth of the moving picture". Here's the video to go with it:

New Work on Litter

2011-07-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Poetry

Martin Stannard
A Poem in tribute to the late Paul Violi

Geraldine Monk
A Poem from her new book 'Lobe Scarps & Finials'

Mark Goodwin
Two tributes to Geraldine Monk

Reviews

of books by Julie Lumsden, Eileen Tabios and Aidan Semmens

Click here to read

Review - 'A Stone Dog' by Aidan Semmens

2011-07-16T01:40:00.000-07:00

published by Shearsman books, 90pp, £8.95 / $15, ISBN 9781848611658

If I were a tutor on creative writing course (an unlikely scenario) I'd advise young poets to stop writng for twenty years or so, then, after having some experience of life and wide reading, to take up the craft again. It seems to have beneficial effects. George Oppen famously gave up poetry for political activism for twenty-six years, and a number of poets I'm in touch with have taken life-sized sabbaticals: Ed Baker, for one, and the excellent Alisdair Paterson for another. And now we have Aidan Semmens, who has been working as a journalist and leading a normal life for a few decades, but who has now returned to writing and publishing poetry. Semmens was at Cambridge in the 70s - he won the 1978 Chancellor's Medal for an English Poem at Cambridge - and for a while edited Perfect Bound, the magazine associated with the Cambridge school and the British Poetry Revival. He then lived in the north-east, where he was involved with with the Morden Tower readings and was a friend of Barry MacSweeney and Richard Cadell.

To read the rest of the review, click here.

Review: Lumsden and Tabios

2011-07-11T06:51:00.000-07:00

True Crime by Julie Lumsden (Shoestring Press), £5.00, ISBN: 978 1 907356 38 4

Silk Egg by Eileen Tabios (Shearsman Books), £9.95 / $17 ISBN 9781848611436

These two books are, on the surface, dissimilar; Tabios writing out of a post-modern, post-colonial milieu, Lumsden writing in what seems a more conservative mode. But the apparent differences are deceptive. Both books are ironic, economic with language, and concerned to present a subversive account of an accepted discourse.

Julie Lumsden is a writer I've admired for a long time, and was in fact, one of the first writers to be published by Leafe. This short pamphlet is exemplary in its concision and economy, delivering a series of monologues and brief, acerbic observations. Much mainstream poetry, combines monologue and lyric, but achieves neither mode successfully. Lumsden's monologues are dramatic in the way that Browning's were; Lumsden is a playwright for stage and theatre, and it shows. The opening sequence of ten poems tells the story of Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. and it does so from the viewpoint of the characters involved - The Best Friend, the Witness, the Hangman etc. The Hangman, speaking of the woman he's hanged before Ruth Ellis:

No one wept through the night for
Mrs Christofi, or broke through a police cordon...

...Let's put it this way, she
wasn't the sort of woman

men apologise to with roses.
She was older, not much of a looker.

Typically, this implies so much more than it says. The rest of the pamphlet has a similar cutting edge:

I'll stop when I'm ready, stop
driving to poetry events in suburban libraries
wondering if Frank is dead,
and if there's a poem in it.

What this pamphlet does is create a convincing world, peopled by believable characters, then draws the reader into it. A skillful thing to do.

Eileen Tabios is a renowned Filipino-American poet, publisher, editor and intellectual, and this is her first, long-overdue, UK publication, from the ever-reliable Shearsman Books. If all novels were like the ones in this book, I'd read a lot more of them.There are seven 'novels' here, each chapter of which consists of a short prose-poem, often just a couple of sentences, and each novel is a distiliation of the essential elements which could make up a real novel. I was won over on encountering these lines:

He moved into her gift, woke each morning to soft warm
lucidity, and agreed as regards the irrelevance of ribbons.

The understated sensuouness of that last line is superb. Each novel is an unfinished narrative, a set of fragments, for which the reader can supply completion, or, alternatively, they could just enjoy the phrasing, imagery and the sense of mystery each piece invokes. At one level, this book is a satire on contemporary novels, with each of the ten novels being a precis of a certain type. Thus, "Opium-Centred Lace", is - parody is too strong, and not the right word - is the ghost or shadow of a novel that might be a travelogue with some sort of love interest. But the language has a light touch and is too lyrical to be a straightforward satire:

The cafe was owned by the grandaughter of Romanian
gypsies...

Living a good life, someone once whispered in a
childhood schoolyard, is one conclusion to a grave secret.

In "Silk Egg" there is the most-modern notion of appropriating the contemporary realist novel, and the element of parody; but what ultimately appeals about this book is the delicate lyricism.

Men at Risk from Modern Poetry

2011-07-08T01:09:00.000-07:00

Researchers have found that men who read difficult modern poetry - from Wallace Stevens to JH Prynne - struggle with relationships. It seems that such men become disillusioned with everyday conversations. Findings suggest that the poetry gives men unrealistic expectations about the complexity of daily language. According to one expert: "Men in particular, can find that the language their wives and families use is lacking in the exciting conundrums, non-sequiturs and thrilling blind-alleys of poetic diction. This can lead to them drifting out of relationships to join groups of like-minded individuals who can comprehend such verbal intricacies". Doctors recommend a gradual transfer of reading to simpler poetry - such as that published by Faber and Faber - with the ultimate aim of being able to survive on a diet of light romantic novels. "We believe such a course will help men to return to normal linguistic usage."

(source: McUniversity, Donaldstown, USA)

2011-07-03T13:51:00.000-07:00

Carlo Gébler complains (see my post below) of the "the atrophy of community (writers have never been more marginal and their enterprise more quixotic and ridiculous)". He can't be talking about the poetry world, in which post-modern conditions have rendered traditional hierarchies meaningless, and in which writing and publishing is a shared, communal activity. As for his parenthetical aside; I think the aim of every writer should be to become quixotic and ridiculous.

2011-07-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

Ian Seed reviews 'Variations on Painting a Room' on Stride.

2011-06-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

"...for on top of the abolition of the Net Book Agreement, all sorts of other deleterious developments have worsened the lot of writers (at least in these islands) over the last fifteen years, among which, and in no particular order, are the following: the rise of branding; the enslavement of publishers to media endorsement by celebrity presenters; the obsession with the physical appearance of writers which in turn has meant publishers demand ever younger, ever more photogenic authors; the decline of the editor in publishing houses in order to save money; the abandonment by publishers of the idea that writers have lifelong careers and that given the right support over a lengthy period they can develop; the failure of payment for literary endeavour either to keep pace with inflation or to reflect the actual amount of labour involved in literary production; the atrophy of community (writers have never been more marginal and their enterprise more quixotic and ridiculous); and, finally, the eclipse of literary forms that once helped writers to survive, such as the short story, especially the short story broadcast on radio."

Carlo Gébler

All's Well That Ends Well

2011-06-27T07:45:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to see a play at The Globe for years, so I was looking forward to it, and the weather yesterday was perfect. But, to be honest, I'd been expecting a museum-type experience; interesting, but not of the here and now. It turns out I was wrong: what I saw on Sunday was a vibrant piece of theatre; with the high level of audience interaction making it seem like a participation event. I have a problem with theatre when it re-creates movies or novels; when it tries to be real in the way that a movie does. But the audience at The Globe can't ignore the fact that the actors are people like them, pretending to be someone else; and that adds a whole dimension to the experience. The audience is part of the play. It strikes me that The Globe has more in common with theatres of the last fifty years or so than it does to the proscenium-arch theatre of Victorian days and earlier. In his book "1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare", James Shapiro writes, "Shakespeare didn’t write ‘as if from another planet,’ as Coleridge put it: he wrote for the Globe; it wasn’t in his mind’s eye, or even on the page, but in the aptly named theater where his plays came to life and mattered". Seems about right to me.

...but then again, Bertram in "All' Well That Ends Well" is a self-centred young man, inconsiderate, impulsive and exasperated by the demands made on him. He's not good, but he's not especially bad; just ordinary, which is the hardest character for any dramatist to create. Whatever type of theatre - proscenium arch, in-the-round, promenade, or with contemporary or period settings and dress, Bertram is a character audiences will recognise and identify with. And that's to do with the ability of the dramatist to create, or re-create a character in the minds of his / her audience, independent of any specific staging.

Of course, it's not possible to completely recreate the Elizabethan experience. Their world was in many ways, strange and remote from ours: that Juliet, Cleopatra and Rosalind were all played by boys, seems very weird. It was a time when church attendance was compulsory, and catholicism illegal. No-one questioned the notion that it was fun to see live animals torn to pieces, or that it was right that those convicted of certain crimes be tortured to death in public. We don't know how the plays were acted, but, as the acting styles of Gielgud and Olivier already seem dated, it's possible that Elizabethan acting would have seemed very strange to a 21st century observer. But I enjoyed getting as close as I could to the experience of an Elizabethan playgoer, and I'm convinced now - if I wasn't totally before - that The Globe is much more than a museum-piece.

POSTSCRIPT: These lines from "All's Well..." - on the transience of poltical power - really struck me. Spoken by the King of France :

"For we are old, and on our quick'st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of time
Steals ere we can effect them."

Lobe Scarps & Finials by Geraldine Monk

2011-06-13T07:37:00.001-07:00

Lobe Scarps & Finials by Geraldine Monk
£8.95 / $14.50. 104 pages

Leafe Press are excited to announce the publication of the latest collection by Geraldine Monk. This new book features the controversial "A Nocturnall Upon S Lucies Day", a newly revised "Raccoon" and three new sequences: "Glow in the Darklunar Calendar", "Print & Pin" and "Poppyheads".

The book is available on Amazon, but it would help Leafe Press if you bought it directly from us via our website.

Geraldine Monk was born in Blackburn, Lancashire in 1952. Since first being published in the 1970s she has published a series of major collections of poetry and numerous chapbooks. Her writing has appeared extensively in the both the UK and the USA. As an extension to her activities in poetry she collaborates with many musicians including Martin Archer, Charlie Collins and Julie Tippetts. A collection of essays on her poetry, The Salt Companion to Geraldine Monk was brought out in 2007 by Salt Publishing.

‘Monk is more attuned to the physical heft of words than any other poet working in English today’

Simon Turner, Horizon Review

"Monk’s latest collection shows a continuing foray into the alchemy of language and a reclamation of the visceral soundscapes of loss and celebration...the poems can seem little miracles of construction."

Chris Emery, Jacket Magazine on "Noctivagations"

“Geraldine Monk’s poetry activates words, makes them events rather than hollow vessels for received understanding. They play, clash, spark and rub up against one another in unpredictable ways with unforeseen consequences.”

Julian Cowley, The Wire

2011-05-31T03:46:00.000-07:00

Some wonderful new work on Litter:

Stephen Bett, Anne Kind, Dan O'Donnell-Smith, Tom Lowenstein and Mark Goodwin

Madrid Protests

2011-05-25T11:12:00.000-07:00

It's my first visit to Madrid, I don't speak Spanish, and I'm only here on a five-day business trip, so I can't claim to be any kind of expert. I'm only reporting what I see. I'd heard vaguely about the Spanish protests, but I was unprepared for the scenes when I emerged from the Puerta del Sol underground and into the square. It's a complete take-over by mainly young people - students I guess - and they're clearly here for a long stay. Tents, sleeping bags, stoves, kitchens and, according to a newspaper report "canteens, daycare, pharmacy, press centre and other facilities...". The picture above gives you an idea of the banners, mainly in Spanish, but I saw several in English with the message - shown in the picture above - saying ""People of Europe, Rise Up". It's quite staggering.

A large area of central Madrid has been taken over, not just the Puerta del Sol. Lots of other smaller squares are full of (mainly young) people who seem to have occupied them on a semi-permanent basis. The gatherings look like sit-ins , reminiscent of the 60s and 70s. And there are smaller gropus every now and then, sometimes gathered round someone making a speech, sometimes in animated conversation. And there are makeshift signs and placards everywhere.

There was a heavy police presence around the government buildings - one was the Finance Ministry, I think - around Puerta del Sol, but in the main the protests seem relatively unpoliced - something inconceivable in London.

On the late train back to Tres Cantos, the town I'm working in, three women in their 50s and 60s and a young woman spotted that we were foreigners - I was with three colleagues, two Dutch, one English - and they moved seats to speak to us about the situation: "What do you think of the protests?" "It's very important what's happening here." The two older women spoke in Spanish and the younger one interpreted. They asked about the student protests in Britain, asking "did the students attain their demands" (to which we had to say, sadly, "not yet"). They were keen to point out that the in Spain "it's not just students, it's everyone".

This is all I know at the moment, but, in the face of an almost total news blackout, I'd thought I'd at least give my limited eye-witness account. These demonstrators clearly see the "austerity measures" being inflicted on Spain as part of the same programme that's inflicting them on Britain, Ireland, Greece and other countries. That's why they're saying "People of Europe, Rise Up".

And that's why it's not in the news.

Madrid Protests

2011-05-25T11:11:00.001-07:00

Madrid Protests

2011-05-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Puerta del Sol, Madrid

2011-05-25T11:08:00.000-07:00

2011-05-12T05:22:00.000-07:00

In the novel 'Mr Palomar' by Italo Calvino, there is an episode in which the eponymous hero visits a Zen meditation garden - the Ryoanji in Tokyo - where he tries to meditate on the sand and rocks which are meant to invoke a feeling peace and oneness:

"[Mr Palomar] allows the indefinable harmony that links the elements of the picture gradually to pervade him.

Or, rather, he tries to imagine these things as they would be felt by someone who could concentrate on looking at the Zen garden in solitude and silence. Because - we had forgotten to say - Mr Palomar is crammed on the platform in the midst of hundreds of visitors, who jostle him on every side...

...What does he see? He sees the human race in the era of great numbers, which extends in a crowd, level, but still made up of distinct individualities, like the sea of grains of sand that submerges the surface of the world..."

I like that expression "the era of great numbers", which captures the combination of magnificence and banality that characterises our experience of living in an overpopulated world. If you're wondering where this is heading, well, first I just want to say what a wonderful piece of work "Mr Palomar" is: I've recently read this short novel, which reads like a set of prose poems, and which I'd love to be able to read in the original Italian. Secondly, the "the era of great numbers" aptly describes the poetry world, and probably the world of most other artforms, at least in The West. The number of poets and the volume of poetry they produce is overwhelming. But I don't take the high-modernist approach that it's too much, that the masses have usurped the citadel, and that the days when a few members of the elect dispensed poetry to the public was better (note: that's a tongue-in-cheek caricature). If you keep an open mind, you can enjoy the constant delights and surprises that crop up all the time - tinged with the regret that you're never going to get it all. A small sample of poetry arrives on my doormat or inbox at a steady rate. These are a few books I'm very much enjoying at the moment:

in arcadia by Alisdair Paterson (Oystercatcher)
Play. Pause - Words to Three Musics by David Kennedy (Cherry on the Top)
Shod by Mark Goodwin (Nine Arches)
Silk Egg by Eileen R Tabios (Shearsman)
A Stone Dog by Aidan Semmens (Shearsman)
Shifting Registers by Ian Seed
When the blue light falls 2 by Carol Watts (Oystercatcher)

All of these are excellent, and I hope to get round to writing short reviews of at least some of them; in the meantime I'm enjoying their variety and range - one benefit at least of living in "the era of great numbers".

2011-04-23T03:03:00.001-07:00

And while I'm blowing my own trumpet, here's a link to a review of my Bonnefoy translation by Peter Hughes. It's on the PBS website. Click here.

Thank you Peter.

Variations on Painting a Room: Poems 2000-2010

2011-04-20T13:31:00.000-07:00

Warning: Contains Severe Self-Promotion!!!

Now available from SKYSILL PRESS:

Alan Baker, Variations on Painting a Room: Poems 2000-2010

Variations on Painting a Room brings together ten years of small press publications by Alan Baker, together with two uncollected sequences, "The Book of Random Access" and "Everyday Songs".

It's available on Amazon, but it would help the publisher if you bought it direct from them: Skysill Press

Lee Harwood:

Elizabeth Bishop wrote "The three qualities I admire in the poetry I like best are: Accuracy, Spontaneity, Mystery". These are the qualities I find in Alan Baker's poems. The precise particulars that create a very real, clear and believable writing, a willingness to take risks, and an awareness that what matters is not to be found in the obvious but in the half glimpsed, half said, half understood. Equally admirable are the ambitions for what writing can possibly do. Right from the first prose poem in "Not Bondi Beach" to the long poem "A Lull" in that same book, "The Cardiac Diaries" in his "Hotel February" collection, and on to the larger sequences such as "The Book of Random Access", Baker spreads out an awareness of the working moving world, and its politics, around him, around all of us.

Todd Swift:

Baker represents an alternative ("other") British poetry tradition, and poetics, that, often quietly, in the so-called margins of a mainstream, continues to do excellent work. His work ...turns the British lyric subtly, and offers new angles on how a line may be shaped, or allowed to spin off in another direction.

Rupert Loydell: (on "The Book of Random Access")

'[It] is the recording of people's memories.' I don't think so. 'It's only a piece of make believe': the narrator says so, later on. And yet, and yet ... Of course these fantastic texts are made up, are just randomly accessed words assembled on the page, each section under a black and white hexagram. But they are subtle, delicate (but tough) evocations of the confused lives we live, seemingly confessional outpourings, full of surprising and alarming images and insights. These texts work by luring the reader in, by being so transparent that we believe them. The details and declamations entwine themselves into sense, the everyday phrases bump and jostle themselves into a momentary order that offers teaching and insight. There is no ego here, no polemic or rant, just an intersection and gathering of lived moments, each under the spotlight for a brief moment of time. 'Let's sit down at the table together and talk softly into the night'. Okay, let's. Perhaps you will read to me, grant me random access to your world.

More on ED

2011-04-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

In 1896, Lavinia Dickinson, sister of Emily, took the stand as witness and plaintiff in a court case against Mabel Loomis Todd, the editor of E.D.s first three books, and long-term mistress of her brother, Austin. Lavinia, while not quite as withdrawn as her sister, was nevertheless a reclusive character, not given to leaving home much in later years. Like her sister, she was regarded as strange by the Amherst townsfolk; in one authenticated story, local children came to sing for the Dickinsons, but were asked to do so downstairs, while the two sisters listened, unseen, from an upstairs room. So how did Lavinia cope with the very public arena of a court-room? To quote Lyndall Gordon's biography:

"Her junior counsel, Henry Field, remembered Miss Vinnie 'distinctly' in after years when he himself had become a judge. He'd feared cross-examination might confuse her. 'But not at all. On the witness stand she appeared perfectly natural and composed, not in the least bit disconcerted by an array of opposing counsel and a Court-room filled with curious spectators'."

In fact, Miss Vinnie put on an impressive and assured display, with not a small amount of guile, and she won her case - about the disputed ownership of a strip of land - despite having, on a purely factual basis, the weaker case. To me, this is interesting as it lends weight to the increasingly-held opinion that Emily Dickinson's withdrawal from the world was not due to diffidence or timidity - attributes absent from the accounts of those who actually met her - but was a conscious decision that the independence (from social and marital expectations) provided by seclusion in her father's house was necessary to allow her to practice her chosen profession of poet. Just as Lavinia impressed on the witness stand, so Emily impressed those who met her with her wit and verbal intelligence; often leaving them feeling upstaged and shaken; as was the case with T W Higginson, who famously declared 'I have never met anyone who drained my nerve power so much'. Many reasons for ED's seclusion have been suggested; but while there may have been contributory factors - medical or psychological perhaps - it does seem that artistic independence may have been the primary one.

Eigner and Dickinson

2011-04-07T07:37:00.001-07:00

I've been much-inspired lately by the poetry of Larry Eigner and Emily Dickinson. After my incursions into digitized cut-and-paste techniques, these two poets take me back to the basic materials of pen, paper, typewriter; and in Eigner's case, the poetry of immediate perception.
The work of both these writers is also resistant to print and publication; in Dickinon's case because almost all her poetry came down to us hand-written, with no authorised print version, and in Eigner's case, because his disability meant that he produced text using a typewriter with great difficulty; his typescripts, with their positioning of text and his corrections and annotations, are arguably the most authentic representations of his poems. Yet the manuscripts of both of these poets are hard to see; in Eigner's case, his big Collected from Stanford University Press is set in Courier, and is doesn't consist of scanned originals. In the case of Dickinson, her handmade fascicle booklets are available in fascimile, but at a cost - around 300 pounds; but why aren't the originals of her poems available on the web? There are a few, if you look for them, but why haven't the been scanned and made available as a public resource? Why can't we buy selections of her work with the original manuscripts alongside, as you can with Blake? It's incredible that, one hundred and twenty five years after her death, Dickinson's work is not out of copyright. As Dickinson scholar Betsa Erkkila puts it "[The Dickinson papers] are now owned collectively by Harvard University and Amherst college, where access to and circulation of her writing are vigorously policed and controlled. If you want to quote from or publish the work of Dickinson, you must ask for the privilege and pay the price." All of which is ironic, when the poet herself said:

Publication - is the Auction
Of the Mind of Man -

Napolean in Rags

2011-04-06T02:57:00.001-07:00

I was driving up the M1 last week, and, for old times' sake, I put on a CD of Bob Dylan's 'Highway 61 Revisited. It's hard not to feel a surge of adrenalin at the crescendos of 'Like a Rolling Stone', especially as I was a fervent Dylan fan in my younger days. The song features a contextless narrator / singer addressing a female subject who seems to have been socially privileged, but who has been brought low and forced into homelessness. The music and lyrics invite the listener to join in the triumphalism of the singer, who revels in the subject's downfall. But as soon as this invitation is mentally declined, you realise how extraordinarily vindictive this song is. It's a sustained attack: 'How does it feel?' .i.e. 'I feel bad; I want to know that you feel bad too, and I think you deserve to'. And the song goes on long enough to make it seem obssessive in its malice.

This judgemental streak seemed to increase in Dylan's work from that period on, and can be found in other songs like 'Positively 4th Street' ('you've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend'); it also looks forward to the ultimate judgements during his conversion to fire and brimstone Christianity. What's lacking in these songs, and, one could argue, in Dylan's work generally, is self-awareness on the part of the singing persona: the singer is infallible, but the subject is judged and condemned. Nowhere in Dylan's work will you find the painful self-criticism of John Lennon's first two solo albums.

It may be due to this lack of self-knowledge on Dylan's part that I found his autobiography - the loftily-titled 'Chronicles' - impossible to read. Or rather, I read it compulsively, but when I put the book down, I didn't feel like picking it up again (and didn't even finish volume one). 'Chronicles' presents a man who believes in his 'destiny' - a concept I find hard to accept. Dylan even uses at one point the phrase 'my destiny had become manifest'. As an echo of the notorious doctrine of 'Manifest Destiny', which justified the US colonisation of the American West and its brutal campaigns against the Native Americans, this phrase shows remarkable insensitivity and ignorance on the writer's part.

States of Independence, Leicester

2011-03-03T01:44:00.000-08:00

INDEPENDENT PRESS DAY

Clephan Building, De Montfort University, Oxford Street, Leicester

10.30am – 4.30pm, Saturday 19th March 2011

Stalls from dozens of independent publishers.

Workshops, readings and book launches.

Independent presses from across the region (and some from around the country) will be on site, together with many regional writers whose work is published by large and small independent publishers. Join us for an hour or two or the whole day.

Open to all and free of charge

States of Independence is one day - and free - book and spoken word festival at De Montfort University in Leicester, celebrating independent publishing and independent writing. The full programme is on www.statesofindependence.co.uk. There are stalls from many independent publishers and a programme with events for all tastes. Join us for an hour or all day. No need for tickets, simply turn up. There are more than sixty writers from the region presenting, reading, launching, discussing

The programme includes:

Surgeries with a literary agent; a talk on the 1950s; Hearing Voices magazine launch; a session on publishing poetry; on artists' books; panels of writers reading; crime fiction; an introduction to anarchism; creative writing from DMU, writing about sex; fiction in performance; Asian writing; the first reading from the East Midlands Book Award; eBooks; poetry reading; speculative fiction; celebrating The Coffee House; graphic novels; how to access money (or not); short stories; Word! in performance; young adult fiction; Irish publishing; The Moomins and philosophy; words and music; editing a literary magazine.

Leafe Press poets C.J. Allen and Ernesto Priego, who will be reading from their work. Mark Goodwin will be reading from his book 'Shod' which has been shortlisted for the East Mids Book Award, and Skysill Press will host a reading by Alan Baker, launching his new collection.

States of Independence is organised by Five Leaves Publications in Nottingham and De Montfort Creative Writing Team

Ross Bradshaw
Five Leaves Publications
PO Box 8786
Nottingham
NG1 9AW
Note new number: 0115 9895465
Out of office: 0115 9693597
info@fiveleaves.co.uk
www.fiveleaves.co.uk
www.fiveleavespublications.blogspot.com

Stone Girl E-Pic by Ed Baker

2011-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

Ed Baker's new book, Stone Girl E-Pic, is now published, and available for sale at Amazon, or on the Leafe Press website (via Paypal). I have to say (immodestly, as publisher) that it's a fine artefact, and a snip at £15.95 (inc. postage). It's large format (almost a foot high and 8.5 inches wide) and it's a fascimile of Ed's original typescript (yes, he typed 500 or so pages on a manual typewriter) including artwork - sometimes full page. The artwork had to be in B&W due to cost contraints, but Ed's a fine draftsman, so it still works (and in any case, many of the drawings were conceived in B&W). Here's the write-up from the Leafe site:

Leafe Press are excited to announce the publication of this major work by American poet and artist Ed Baker. This is a large format book, which includes visual artwork. "Stone Girl E-Pic" is a remarkable visual and minimalist poem, in which Baker's drawings are integrated with, and indeed, form part of, the poem itself. Baker is "in that stream of & flows with" the Objectivist and the Black Mountain poets, and is part of a circle of poets that includes Cid Corman and Theodore Enslin.

"...here is work that manages to retain all the elements and yet make contemporary Vispo look very empty, leaving the reader to look for the essentials of a more tradition-based visual poetry: a minimalism that matters and the most purely 'concrete' art that ever illustrated text. Writing that cuts to the bone, iconoclastic and original, and a 'Stone Girl' art sprung out of the lines themselves. Writing and art on Baker's terms."

Conrad DiDiodato

2011-02-14T05:10:00.000-08:00

The never-ending search for the personality of W. Shakespeare continues apace; "never-ending" because there's not enough surviving evidence for us to know anything about his personal life or views - and it's apparent that there never will be - and because there'll always be people who will continue trying regardless. The latest hapless attempt is by our old friend Don Paterson, who has just published a book on Shakespeare's sonnets; a subject he was woefully ill-equipped to tackle - as this review illustrates - but which, of course, didn't stop him.

To quote Alistair Fowler's review: "[Paterson's approach] leads him to revive a Victorian idea of the Sonnets as literal autobiography. 'The Sonnets have to be read as a narrative of the progress of love.' Yes, but what kind of love? Homosexual, of course..."

or, as Paterson puts it in his precise scholarly language:

"Oh come on, people. The guy’s in love with a bloke."

This seems a case of imposing a contemporary sensibility onto the very different one prevailing four hundred years ago. After reading the review of Paterson's book. I looked up the introduction to the Oxford Complete Sonnets and Poems. The editor and Cambridge scholar Colin Burrow, had this to say:

"Twentieth century language for describing sexual behaviour (and even our tendency to prioritize sex as a leading human drive) does not fit the behaviour, or (which is all we have) the representations of behaviour of late sixteenth century males.... Does the sequence describe a homoerotic attachment which is physically consummated? Does it indicate that Shakespeare was a homosexual? ...these are the wrong questions to ask: the poems flirt with, but refuse to be fixed in settings, and they wonder about the boundaries between sexual desire, love and admiration.They are also the wrong sort of question to put to poems of this period. The 'thous' and 'yous' of the poem's address resist these fixities: they skate across time, addressing now an initimate audience of one, now the reader directly, and at other points they speak out to future ages. "Shakespeare's homosexuality" is a readerly fiction, generated by a desire to read narrative coherence into a loosely associated group of poems: the poems present a multiplicity of structural patterns and overlapping groups and semi-sequences. To fix their sexuality is to seek to lock them in, where most, perhaps, they seek to be free."

2011-02-13T08:06:00.001-08:00

Hello. I've been away from this blog lately, setting myself up on Facebook. I now realise that when people say "blogging is dead" what they mean is that social networking sites have taken over some of the things that people used blogs for; namely, making contacts, chatting and arranging nights out. But the blogosphere is still the place to go for anything more substantial than a few sentences, and, one could argue, freed from the need for small talk, appears to have become a more substantial place altogether.

2010-12-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

À propos my previous post on the complete withdrawal of state funding from the Humanities in UK Higher Education:

"This scholar, author of inumerable books, spent a good part of the second half of her life fighting to save the Humanities...she brought home the point, again and again, and in all media willing to hold out a microphone to her, that ancient languages were the basis of contemporary ideas, not only those of democracy but the very sense of what it means to be human, and that every “honnête homme” had to study that field to some degree."

Pierre Joris on the Hellenist & Greek scholar, Jacqueline de Romilly who has just passed away aged 97. The complete post is here.

2010-12-17T03:38:00.000-08:00

A Christmas present from Litter:

New work by Kathleen Bell, Adrian Buckner, Peter Dent, Rupert Loydell, Matt Merritt, Simon Perril and John Welch, plus a review of Kelvin Corcoran's new book.

2010-12-17T03:12:00.000-08:00

I was privileged to be a guest reader at the Leicester launch of Matt Merrit's new collection, along with Marilyn Ricci and Malcolm Dewhirst. The event was held at The Looking Glass, a bar on the outskirts of Leciester city centre with a basement room complete with bar and small stage.

One of the pleasures of being involved in the poetry world is the sense of community which you feel at events like this, which was friendly and supportive. I don't have much experience of open-mic events, and I have heard bad reports, but this one was high quality, and included a contribtion from the excellent Mark Goodwin. Matt Merritt himself read very well, despite a cold, and I was glad to acquire a copy of his collection, which is full of measured, crafted verse, and which I'll try and review or have reviewed. In the meantime, here's a sample (the full poem is posted on Litter):

from 'Kilter'

...Silly to still be writing the same thing
years on, yet room, surely,
to hazard a different ending? Not happier,
maybe, but briefer and with better dialogue.

Read every book starting from the back
or work both ways towards the centre.
Be surprised by twists of plot or character

innovative use of unreliable narrators.
Live side by side with worse surprises.
Imagine a darkness that contains every colour.
Not everything that happens to you is fascinating.

2010-12-17T03:04:00.000-08:00

First, remove all state funding from the humanities, and 50% from other subjects, creating a free market for Higher Education services. Then, invite your friends and business associates to the party:

"One of the world's largest publishers, Pearson, looks set to be given degree-awarding powers, as the government seeks to open up the university sector to more private providers" (BBC).

See more detail here.

Leicester Shindig!

2010-12-09T02:44:00.001-08:00

Monday 13th December 2010
The Looking Glass, 68-70 Braunstone Gate, Leicester

Readings from 7.30pm - FREE ENTRY

This is the Leicester launch of Matt Merritt's second collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

With readings from Matt Merritt & special guest poets:
Alan Baker (yes, it is I), Marilyn Ricci and Malcolm Dewhirst.

Matt Merritt’s second collection of poetry, published in November 2010, is hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica. His debut full collection, Troy Town, was published byArrowhead Press in 2008, and a chapbook, Making The Most Of The Light, by HappenStance in 2005. He studied history at Newcastle University and counts Anglo-Saxon and medieval Welsh poetry among his influences, as well as the likes of R.S.Thomas, Ted Hughes and John Ash. He was born in Leicester and lives nearby, works as a wildlife journalist, is an editor of Poets On Fire, and blogs at http://polyolbion.blogspot.com.

Marilyn Ricci began to write seriously about fifteen years ago. It’s no good asking her to stop now, it’s compulsive. Her work has appeared in anthologies and many small press magazines. Her pamphlet: Rebuilding a Number 39 was published by Happenstance Press in 2008.

Alan Baker founded Leafe Press in 2000 and is now co-editor. He's edited Litter magazine since 2005. He has published several short collections, and has a new book forthcoming from Skysill Press: "Variations on Painting a Room: Poems 2000-2010".

Malcolm Dewhirst - A poet, writer and filmmaker based in Tamworth who is project director of Polesworth’s Poets Trail. Malcolm’s poetry has been published in magazines and anthologies; he is working on his first collection of poems. His films include Pollysworda and the film poem Yell!

Open mic slots also available, please sign up on the door.

2010-12-07T01:43:00.000-08:00

John Bloomberg-Rissman's "Flux, Clot and Froth" is now avaiable in book form. This is what I said about this epic work-in-progress back in January 2010:

"My Leafe Press henchman John Bloomberg-Rissman has just completed 'Flux, Clot & Froth' (FCF) part 2 of his on-going project, of which 'No Sounds of my Own Making' was part one. FCF, published on John's blog, would run to around 800 pages in book form. The work is an exercise in sampling, that is, borrowing text from other writers - or people in general - to make a kind of boundless poetry that interfaces with all aspects of contemporary life, via the texts that document it. It's an epic project - just check out the list of names he's borrowed from - but it's at the same time a light-hearted (and affectionate) spoof of the epic works of High Modernism. The whole project is called Zeitgeist Spam. Long may it continue!"

Well, here it is at last:

MERITAGE PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT

Meritage Press is delighted to announce its latest poetry release with a SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER!

Flux, Clot & Froth, Vol. 1
Poems by John Bloomberg-Rissman
ISBN-13: 978-0-9794119-9-1
Price: $29.00
Pages: 714

Flux, Clot & Froth, Vol. 2
Apparatus to Poems in Vol. 1 by John Bloomberg-Rissman
ISBN-13: 978-0-9826493-0-5
Price: $21.00
Pages: 242

Meritage Press Book Page: http://meritagepress.com/flux-clot-froth.htm

Meritage Press is pleased to release Flux, Clot & Froth by John Bloomberg-Rissman, a two-volume project comprised of poems in Volume 1 and "Apparatus" or Notes to Poems in Volume 2. To celebrate this unique project, Meritage Press is offering a SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER with discounted pricing (see further below for details).

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: On 23 Nov 08, John Bloomberg-Rissman finished transforming his crazy stacks of later 20th- and early 21st-century Anglophone literature into organized shelves. Looking at those shelves, he decided to "unpack" them through a longish poem: "Find something from the 1st book on the 1st shelf. Follow that with something from the 1st book on the 2nd shelf. Etc etc. Intersperse whatever I like from whatever source appeals to me. Intersperse a number of Autopoetic recursions. Form: hay(na)ku. I expect this to go on for several months.” Several became many, and the result is an epic-length mixtape composed of thousands of algorithmically/intuitively-derived fully annotated oft-mangled bits of écriture/parole. Truman Capote once famously said of Jack Kerouac’s work, “This isn’t writing, it’s typing.” Had he lived he would have said of Flux, Clot & Froth, “This isn’t typing, it’s cutnpaste.” But, as Heinrich Heine (or Ferenc Molnár?) is reputed to have replied on his deathbed when asked if he wanted last rites, “Nah. Whether or not he exists, God will forgive me. It’s his job.” Volume 1 contains the poem. Volume 2 contains 2,700+ notes which source the approximately 4,000 texts Bloomberg-Rissman sampled.

ADVANCE WORDS Include:

“At the heart of infinity is the accumulative event. John Bloomberg-Rissman, poet of mixmastery, dis-complicates a vastness of textonality, meticulously cites each source, then honors the poundage of forebears by locating a fresh, consistently revealing work, flush with ripening seeds. Flux, Clot & Froth accomplishes with specificity a surprisingly large, clear, deeply felt ceremony of the new poem that gleams across patens that protect and honor poetic roots, both past and current. The poem earns traction by unearthing the connections among a dizzying array of source material to discover a transcendent work. Unhesitatingly brilliant, Flux, Clot & Froth speaks beyond itself as testament to a rigorous and unparalleled synthesis of attention and humility.”
—Sheila E. Murphy

“An extreme example of what I’ve elsewhere called “othering” or, borrowing the phrase from John Cage, “writing through,” Bloomberg-Rissman’s Flux, Clot & Froth is a 700+ page magnum opus constructed (almost) entirely from words or sounds appropriated from 1000 other writers. That this is done without any sacrifice of coherence or feeling or intelligence & in a voice that remains unified & “personal” throughout is a testament to the communal nature of language & thought of which our individualities are a crucial if sometimes questioned part. While Bloomberg-Rissman is not alone in the pursuit of such an outcome, his beautifully wrought & linked three-line stanzas & other groupings present what may well remain a milestone of a new communal poetics.”
—Jerome Rothenberg

SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER:
Both volumes of Flux, Clot & Froth are now available for a combined price of $40.00, a 20% discount from regular retail price of $50.00. As part of this offer, there will be free shipping & handling (a $7.50 value) within the United States. To order, send a check made out to "Meritage Press" to

E. Tabios / Meritage
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574

This SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER will be good through Jan. 15, 2011.

For more information, including on international orders: MeritagePress@aol.com

STUDENT PROTESTS: Sinister New Element

2010-12-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

Police believe a new and sinister protest movement has aligned itself with student demonstrators. Senior officers believe that the inscrutable, white-clad protesters who have been sighted in every British city prove that greater surveillance powers are required by police. A Home Office spokesperson said "they have appeared in large numbers in the last ten days; their presence is provocative, and they have an uncanny ability to melt into the background when the things get heated. We have not yet ruled out possible links to Al Qaida..." (contd. p94)

Roy Fisher in Nottingham

2010-11-04T13:04:00.000-07:00

The Flying Goose is a small venue, but even so, to fill it to the point of having to turn people away - which happened last Thursday, is quite something. The draw was veteran British poet Roy Fisher, thought his co-reader, Matthew Welton helped by pulling in students from his creative writing course.

First, Matthew Welton. I don't like to crudely categorize Welton's poetry - but I will, for those who've never encountered it; it's influenced by Wallace Stevens and by process-driven poetry such as that of John Cage, and it combines lyricism with text-generation techniques; a lot of his poetic constructions are based on numbering systems. Anyway, it's very good. Welton read his entire set from memory; an impressive feat, though puzzling to me, as the gesture seemed at odds with the post-modern thrust of his poetry. On the other hand, it did add a performative aspect to the reading. Is reading from memory a conservative, anti-radical act? Is it denying Derridian notions of the primacy of writing? Interesting questions which probably should be discussed here, if one had time...

All but two of the poems read by Roy Fisher were from his new collection 'Standard Midland'; this was nice to see, as, aged eighty, he's not looking back, but concerned with the here and now. He opened with the very funny poem 'The Poetry Promise' - a send-up of the quality assurance platitudes we see everywhere. Fisher may be a little frail now, physically, but his mind is as sharp as ever; a number of other poems were dryly humorous; but not all: he read some poems made out of the close observation and description for which he's admired. August Kleinzhaler has described Fisher's poetry as 'devoid of charm' - as Kleinzhaler is a big admirer of Fisher, I take this to mean that he likes the way Fisher never uses ornamentation, doesn't employ verbal effects for their own sake. During the reading I was struck by how direct Fisher's language is, and how - no matter how abstruse it gets - is always based on language you would hear in everyday conversation. When Matt Merritt says that Fisher is 'willing to use whatever subject matter, and whatever tools, come to hand', I think he's right in the sense that Fisher doesn't strive for anything beyond what's needed to do the job; and his poetry therefore is about as grounded in the real world as poetry can be.

My review of Roy Fisher's Collected is on Litter, and there's a good article on him by Robert Sheppard here.

2010-11-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

The Beeston International Poetry Festival was a big success in the sense that the - admittedly small - venues filled up nicely, and in one case sold out. We heard poetry read in French, Greek and Spanish, and saw poets from half-a-dozen countries. The organiser was John Lucas; though John was ably assisted by David Belbin, Sue Dymoke and Sam Ward, John is the man who's able to conjure a poetry festival out of nothing and make it work. It's amazing what you can do without the internet; John doesn't use a computer, and wouldn't know how to send an email.

Last Tuesday saw a Leafe Press event; Leafe poets CJ Allen and Ernesto Priego read along with Faber poet and scholar Paul Binding. CJ (Clive) Allen has developed into a reader with a certain gravitas that doesn't at all distract from the humour of his poems, but does foreground their more serious concerns. Clive read from his Leafe selected poems, as well as work from the excellent collection 'Lemonade'. Ernesto Priego read poems from his three collections mainly in the English they were written in, though he did read one poem in Spanish. Ernesto also talked about the influence of Octavio Paz on contemporary Mexican poets. The fact that we sold a number of copies of Ernesto's book, and had some positive comments about the reading attested to its success. Paul Binding, multi-lingual scholar, expert on - among other things - Scandinavian literature, and Faber-published poet, gave an excellent reading; sadly, none of Paul's books were for sale - his Shoestring collection having sold out. Though he has an awe-inspiring CV, Paul proved to be very approachable and friendly. I'm currently reading his memoir of post-war Germany, St. Martin's Ride, which I'd recommend to anyone who wants to understand contemporary Europe, and Germany in particular.

End of Report. Next, I'll report on the Roy Fisher / Matthew Welton reading, but I can say that it ended the festival on a high.

2010-10-23T15:03:00.000-07:00

This week saw two excellent readings at the Flying Goose. On Tuesday, Deborah Tyler-Bennett, Andy Croft, N.S. Thompson, Mike Wilson gave an entertaining reading, with plenty of good left-wing politics. Thursday was even better, and featured Alan Dent, Vassilis Pavlides and Andrew Sant. Pavlides was an excellent reader, and read poems by Cavafy and Seferis with the opening lines in Greek. Dent read poems in French by Aragon, Prevert and Francis Combes, then read in English for his second set. Poltics was well in evidence here too, with Pavlides discussing Greek politics and its effects on poetry, and Dent talking about communism and French poetry. Australian Andrew Sant was witty and engaging, and all-in-all, it was a great evening.

There is a Facebook page for the festival, it's here.

And for the full programme, click here.

Next up, C.J. Allen, Ernesto Priego and Paul Binding. Tuesday 26th October, 7pm. Flying Goose Cafe, 33 Chilwell Road, Beeston, Nottingham, NG9 1EH.

They say you can't judge a book by its cover...

2010-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

...but can you judge it by its title? This question occurred to me at a reading in a library in Nottingham at the weekend. On a table arrayed with poetry books - presumably for National Poetry Day - I spotted "Taking off Emily Dickinson's Clothes" by the feted American poet Billy Collins. Would the contents of the book be as crass as the title, I wondered? I'll never know, as I've read enough of Collins' poetry not to want to subject myself to any more, but I could guess. I can understand why Collins would wish to associate himself with Dickinson, as her poetry scaled the very summit of poetic achievement, while his saunters around the base of the foothills glancing longingly but ironically at the heights. The title of the book foregrounds Dickinson's assumed lack of sexual experience, contrasting it with Collins' own (presumably) ampler knowledge, and implying that what that buttoned-up spinster needed was a man like him to... it also implies that Collins is generally more sophisticated, not just sexually, but poetically and personally. I reflected, on the bus home after the reading, that although the title of Collins' book is smart-arse, supercilious, sexist and presumptious, it's main attribute is in fact vanity. I further mused on the notion that there is perhaps no person in the world as vain as a writer who, at some profound level, is compensating for the yawning gap between his public recognition and his actual achievement; the opposite in fact, of what Dickinson experienced during her lifetime.

2010-10-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

This blog has been scant lately, as I've been working hard at earning a living, and travelling around - London, Prague, Bracknell. Last Thursday I met Ernesto Priego for the first time in London. We found a pub which I swear I haven't been in for about 20 years - 'The Hole in the Wall' under the railway arches opposite Waterloo station. I'm glad to report it hasn't changed a bit, and still serves Young's bitter. Not only is Ernesto an erudite scholar and a fine multi-lingual poet, but - even more impressively - he's also a member of the Campaign for Real Ale. I hope to introduce him to the delights of the Castle Rock brewery when he visits Nottingham in a couple of weeks.

The Present Day - Ernesto Priego

2010-10-17T09:17:00.001-07:00

Click here for details of how to acquire this book.

This is a sequence of poems on contemporary Mexico through the voice of a Mexican living abroad, a commentary on Octavio Paz's chapter 'The Present Day' in 'The Labyrinth of Solitude' and a meditation on the passage of time and the ways in which it's viewed differently in different cultures. The writer lives in London, and the poems reference his beloved English literature, including Dickens and Shakespeare. Don't expect an easy read - it requires work from the reader - but equally, don't expect impenetrability; Priego writes an English - though some short passages are in Spanish - of remarkable simplicity and clarity.

Here's what Ed Baker had to say on reading this book:

"I wasn't sure what to expect especially after first (re) reading Paz's
The Present Day chapter out of The Labyrinth of Solitude...
thought/feared, maybe, trickery and gimmickery

but
was pleasantly surprised... Ernesto's humanity shines through

I appreciate the form that these pieces have taken and the absence of
(most) punctuation

he lets the lines do their own "punctuate" breathing where 'things'
work ... they REALLY do their job

I like his method.... needs be that a few of the pieces have several
images competing unnecessarily nothing major to detract fr4om his thrusts

anyway

I ain't no critic.... the entire book held my attention... and I read
it straight through without a single pee-break!

I also think that production-wise this is a clean presentation/print
job. Good type-font selection..."

Beeston International Poetry Festival.

2010-09-26T13:54:00.000-07:00

Held in Beeston, Nottingham, October 16th-28th 2010. Poets from Africa, Asia, Australia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the USA and Leeds.

Saturday 16th October.
Opening Party with music from the Tony Elwell Trio and readings by Derrick Buttress, Sue Dymoke and Sarah Jackson. nibbles and paybar. The Commercial Inn, Wollaton Road. £6.00

Monday 18th October.
Sheila Smith will be launching her new collection, Woman Surprised by a Young Boy. 1-2pm
Cavendish Lodge in Devonshire Avenue.

Tuesday 19th October.
Smokestack Press present Andy Croft, N.S. Johnson, Deborah Tyler-Bennett and Mike Wilson. 7-9pm, Flying Goose cafe, 33 Chilwell Road.

Wednesday 19th October.
Kathryn Daszkiewicz and Cathy Grindrod. 7-8.30pm, Beeston Library.

Thursday 21st October.
John Lucas and Sam Ward read poems by John Clare and other poets in the Clare tradition. 1-2pm Artworks, 86-88 Chilwell Road.

Thursday 21st October.
Alan Dent, Vassilis Pavlides and Andrew Sant. 7-9pm Flying Goose cafe, 33 Chilwell Road.

----------------------------
Saturday 23rd October and Sunday 24th October. Literary Events at Nottingham Contemporary. Free to all. See LeftLion or NC for details.
----------------------------

Monday 25th October.
Rosie Garner. 1--2pm, Cavendish Lodge in Devonshire Avenue.

Tuesday 26th October.
Leafe Press presents C.J. Allen, Paul Binding and Ernesto Priego. 7-9pm Flying Goose cafe, 33 Chilwell Road. !!!!!!!!

Wednesday 27th October.
Michael Schmidt and Gregory Woods, 7-8.30pm, Beeston Library.

Thursday 28th October.
Mahendra Solanki. 1-2pm Artworks, 86-88 Chilwell Road.

Thursday 28th October.
Roy Fisher and Matthew Welton. 7-9pm Flying Goose cafe, 33 Chilwell Road. !!!!!!!!

FREE ADMISSION to all lunchtime readings at Bookwise and Artworks
£3.00 ADMISSION to all evening events at Beeston Library and Flying Goose cafe

Roy Fisher in Nottingham 28.10

2010-09-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

I've been reading Roy Fisher's new collection, and very much enjoying it. Fisher is a master, and, at
eighty, writes like someone who has nothing to prove. There is some moving poetry in this collection; there's also the trademark wit, and the spare, undorned language Fisher is famous for. You get a feeling that he enjoys practising his craft.

So, I was excited to learn that Fisher is reading at my local poetry cafe; the Flying Goose, in Beeston, on 28th October. The reading is part of a two-week Beeston International Poetry Festival, organised single-handedly by the redoubtable John Lucas. I'll post more details on the festival shortly, but one of the events is a launch of Ernesto Priego's new Leafe Press book, combined with a reading by Leafe poet C.J. Allen.

2010-09-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

With the demise of the traditional pub, the cafe seems set to take over as a venue for communal activities, a more hopeful alternative to the ubiquitous bouncers-and-shots production-line bars that fill our city centres. The Jam Cafe in Nottingham's arty Hockley District is a great venue, and tonight it hosted an evening of poetry and a little music - see the Nottingham Shindig post below. It was nice to meet Simon Turner at last, and to get a copy of his new book (more on that later), and to hear some well-delivered readings. There was a book stall run by Nine Arches Press, and even the open-mic readings were of a reasonable standard. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly. I hope readings continue there, and I'll certainly be back. My only criticism of the event was that it was a little too long - a consequence, I guess, of combining open-mic with a formal reading - which meant I had to dash off early without saying goodbye.

2010-09-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

the straw which comes apart

by Ivano Fermini.

An excellent publication from Oystercatcher Press. This pamphlet contains translations of poems by Italian poet Ivano Fermini (1948-2004) by poet and translator Ian Seed. The text includes the Italian original, which must have been tricky to translate, requiring a good knowledge of the language. At first reading, the poems are baffling, but appealing. Fermini reads like Tom Raworth, but with less Pop Art and more surrealism. However, there are, as Ian Seed pointed out to me, connections within the poems which reveal themselves gadually. Here's the poem 'carnival':

carnival

on the horizon not even
was I mute but you held the pearls
and they gather around a thunderclap
the small eagle will carry the rags
sea
I haven't added up the waves
only fire with eyes the headstones
passing among men
the tears with a great rise and fall

*

I feel nothing but minced
air and strawberries
inside my eye
the confusion of furrows
packed with iron
up to the cone which hangs them
even we didn't trample on
the smile
which at the swing of the pendulum
I pulled back into my belly
a land of dead
carefully begins and it's fire
more than - the hands having been torn from the body -
I don't know the clouds

Ian Seed says:

"in 'carneval' the connections [are], by association, between 'pearls', 'sea/waves', 'headstones' ( perhaps the towering waves?) and 'the tears with a great rise and fall'.

I was so fascinated by Fermini because of the mixture of intense lyricism and disturbing qualities, and all the tenous connections. "

Interesting work, and well worth a visit to Oystercatcher's site (and a click on the Payal buttons).

Nottingham Shindig!

2010-09-10T03:52:00.000-07:00

Nine Arches Press & LeftLion Magazine present...

Sunday 19th September 2010 from 7pm onwards
At Jam Cafe, 12 Heathcote Street, Nottingham NG1 3AA

FREE ENTRY. Sign up for open mic on the door.

The first ever Nottingham Shindig! - join Nine Arches Press for open mic readings and special guest poets Wayne Burrows, Roz Goddard, Éireann Lorsung and Simon Turner.

Wayne Burrows' first collection Marginalia appeared from Peterloo Poets in 2001, and his second appeared from Shoestring Press in 2009. His work has featured in the British Council anthologies New Writing 12 and NW15, as well as the Forward anthology for 2002 and many magazines and anthologies. He is editor of Staple magazine and currently lives in Nottingham.

Roz Goddard’s fourth poetry collection is The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems. She is a former poet-laureate for Birmingham. Her poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She runs writing workshops and courses, including for the Arvon Foundation and mentors individual writers. She is currently studying for an MPhil in writing at Glamorgan University.

Éireann Lorsung is the author of Music for Landing Planes By (Milkweed Editions, 2007) and Projet Linguistique (forthcoming, Milkweed Editions). Her poems appear widely in magazines and in two recent anthologies. Prior to coming to the UK, she lived in Italy and France. She is the organiser of the Nottingham Poetry Series.

Simon Turner was born in Birmingham in 1981 and his first collection, You Are Here, was published in 2007. Difficult Second Album is his second collection, launched by Nine Arches Press in April 2010. With George Ttoouli, he co-edits Gists and Piths, a blog dedicated to the publication and discussion of contemporary poetry. He lives and works in Warwickshire.

2010-09-03T07:48:00.000-07:00

I've been inolved with an interesting discussion on Steven Waling's blog, Brando's Hat, which started on Todd Swift's blog, specifically, on his post on Seamus Heaney, quoted below. Waling asked the question "[why do] different people ... appreciate different things". The discussion then revolved around why some people prefer innovative poetry, others more conventional poetry. I was accused by Steven of thinking myself "better than" readers of mainstream poetry because I said that enjoyment of innovative / experimental / avant-garde type poetry was a sign of increasing reader sophistication. I stand by that position, and I don't think it implies a value-judgement. I argued that innovative poetry vs conventional poetry was analagous to modern jazz vs standard pop music. some things are an acquired taste, and to acquire a taste is to become more sophisticated. An appreciation of standard pop music doesn't need to be acquired, as it's the dominant form in our culture; we absorb it from an early age. For the same reason, one could argue, an appreciation of more conventional poetry, such as Heaney's also doesn't need to be acquired; that doesn't mean it's better or worse, just that it's the dominant form. I don't know whether my argument is right, but it's an interesting line of thought. Maybe the best way to appreciate any poetry is to approach it with a completely open mind. That's difficult to do, of course, but we need to try. Maybe afficionados of innovative poetry (or, in Andrew Duncan's phrase, "art poetry") - and I include myself here - may have to re-acquire the taste for more conventional poetry to perhaps discover insights they didn't realise were there.

2010-08-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

"They resonate with their intent. They telegraph their import, even, paradoxically, their modesty. How many poems about Virgil, about the underworld, do we need? How many carts, wagons, bails of hay, can any one reader stomach?"

Todd Swift on Seamus Heaney. Read the full post here.

New from Leafe Press

2010-08-24T07:07:00.001-07:00

2nd NOTICE OF MODIFICATIONS TO TEXT OF PROPOSED REGULATIONS

John Bloomberg-Rissman

This is an adaptation of a manual from the State of California's Department of Correction and Rehabilitations. It outlines the officially-sanctioned techniques and standards for carrying out a state execution.

In the words of the author:

"The above is the cover of a brand new publication, which clearly puts paid to the Conceptual Writing/Flarf debate of this past spring, as well as the eternal ephemeral distinction between SoQ and Post-Avant. Not to mention that people can no longer say that philosophy missed its chance.

It IS NOW available from Laughing / Ouch / Cube / Publications, an occasional imprint of Leafe Press. You'll learn more about some crucial stuff, like how we kill people here in Cali, than you ever wanted to know, which is good for you, like some kind of vitamin. You'll be highly amused. "

R.I.P. Edwin Morgan

2010-08-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

A poet I admired for his variety, for his lack of regard for finding his own "voice" and for the sense that the writing of poems was, for him, a making of something; a craft.

Blue Toboggans

scarves for the apaches
wet gloves for snowballs
whoops for white clouds
and blue toboggans

stamping for a tingle
lamps for four o'clock
steamed glass for buses
and blue toboggans

tuning-forks for Wenceslas
white fogs for Prestwick
mince pies for eventide
and blue toboggans

TV for the lonely
a long haul to Heaven
a shilling for the gas
and blue toboggans

Thou Shalt Not Comment

2010-08-09T14:32:00.000-07:00

Ron Silliman is no longer allowing comments on his blog. Before I go on, I must say that I think Silliman's blog is a superb resource; a fantastic list of links almost daily, and Ron's own posts always have something interesting and insightful to say. I like his poetry too.

As for the banning of comments, of course, Silliman has has every right to do what he's done; however, it does change the nature of his widely influential site from a democratic forum to a cultural authority and arbiter of taste. In fact, I've always understood Silliman (the public figure that is - nothing personal) to be an old-fashioned American patrician figure, despite his counter-culture credentials. I guess it's the old story of poacher-turned-gamekeeper. My view of Silliman changed after his response to the brilliant spoof anthology containing the names of 4,000 avant-garde poets over machine-generated poems. Silliman publicly threatened the college-students who produced this with financially ruinous legal action, to protect his 'brand': 'Ron silliman the author'; the very notion that LANGUAGE poetry has sought to undermine. They shalt not take his name in vain!

The removal of comments from Silliman's site is in response to offensive comments about the work of some younger poets he's promoting. Destructive commentators are a problem on public forums, I agree; but it is possible to edit the worst ones out, which Silliman has told us he's done in the past. Personally, I'd prefer to risk offense than shut down critical comment altogether.

Joseph Massey, one of the poets who's flaming by commenters led to the decision, seems to have reacted very sensibly to situation, witness his comment on poet Jessica Smith's blog:

"While the comments — most of them — are irritating, they wouldn’t — couldn’t! — stop me from writing. The work is the work and has nothing at all to do with its reception. The noise is disruptive but pretty transparent — and I’m already over it."

2010-08-03T16:07:00.000-07:00

Just back from a week languishing on the shores of the Adriatic, Croatia to be exact. Sun, sea and sand (or at least rocks). One of the books I took with me was "War Music" Christopher Logue's celebrated versions of the Iliad. This has been reviewed on Litter. Logue makes skillful use of anachronisms to situate the concerns of the protagonists in a zone which encompasses our own concerns (as does Kelvin Corcoran's version of the Paris / Helen story, as noted here). Logue's verse isn't particularly innovative, being mainly a series of variations on iambic pentameter, but he has a good ear, and the immediacy of the poem, and it's pacing, is just right. Logue provides a sonorous rhetoric for his bombastic boy's-own heroes which still manages to convince as realistic speech:

My wedded Illians -
Cool Dardan North, dear Ida, dearest south;
And you who come from Lycia and Cyprus:
I reign with understanding for you all.
Trojan Antenor, being eldest, shall speak first.
Our question is:
How can we win this war?

'And I reply', Antenor says,
'How can we lose it?'

This translation is one for our times; the Trojan Anchises' description of the Greeks could be applied to certain parties on the contemporary scene, though I leave you, dear reader, to choose which ones:

They are a swarm of lawless malcontents
Hatched from the slag we cast five centuries ago,
Tied to the whim of their disgusting gods,
Knowing no quietude until they take
All quiet from the world. Ambitious, driven, thieves.
Our speech like footless crockery in their mouths.
Their way of life, perpetual war.
Inspired by violence, compelled by hate,
Peace is a crime to them, and offers of diplomacy
Like giving strawberries to a dog.

Logue is in his mid-eighties now, and it looks unlikely that he'll translate the whole poem; but it seems appropriate for our post-modern condition that our age's translation of Homer should be fragmentary and incomplete.

2010-07-24T05:44:00.001-07:00

Kelvin Corcoran has started a new press (or, rather, revived an old one): his Gratton Street Irregulars intends to specialise in pamphlets, with current ones by Nathan Thompson (lately of Litter) and Ralph Hawkins.

Click here.

I also hadn't realised that Andrew Duncan now has a blog - using it to continue his Angel Exhaust musings - full of articles and reviews written with his usual panache. Click here.

2010-07-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

There's an excellent review of Abdellatif Laâbi's "Fragments of a forgotten genesis" on Shadowtrain. Poet and translator Ian Seed does the book justice. Thank you Ian.

Salt in the Wound

2010-07-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Salt Publishing is in trouble again, and has renewed its "just one book" campaign; I’ll be buying a book or two to support it, as its back catalogue is excellent and I'd hate to see it all disappear. But I don’t feel hopeful. Salt has always been stridently pro-market and has enthusiastically embraced the corporate model; but asking people to invest in your business as an altruistic act requires something different; a writers' / readers' cooperative perhaps, or even just a supporter / subscriber arrangement like the one Reality Street uses.

I hope Salt survives, but I believe that the corporate model they’ve adopted doesn't work for poetry; accountants don't like it, which is why OUP jettisoned its poetry list. The publishing of contemporary poetry is not viable without subsidy, whether it be public or private. As a business, you produce products that people want (or can be persuaded to want) or you go bust; you need products that sell in bulk, and since the end of the UK’s Net Book Agreement (whereby book prices were fixed, enabling publishers to subsidize work that sold in small quantities), there’s been no place for poetry (and much else) in commercial publishing. How long would Bloodaxe and Carcanet survive if their public funding was removed? Not long.

As our millionaire rulers roll back public spending and the Big Society has us all working longer hours for less pay and fewer rights, Salt won't be the only poetry publisher to suffer. Maybe the only publishers left will be self-funded micro-publishers. In the UK brewing industry craft-beer is now almost exclusively produced by micro breweries. In a sense, that means the big boys have won, but at least you CAN still buy craft-brewed beer. The same might happen in the poetry world. We can only hope that the micro-publishers keep poetry-publishing alive until (if?) times get better.

2010-07-19T14:42:00.000-07:00

I've been reading the poetry of Larry Eigner this last week or two. John BR kindly sent me two of his books: a Selected Poems, and "readiness/enough/depends/on" his last collection published shortly before his death. John has just bought Eigner's monumental Collected Poems, which reproduces his original typescripts, which is why he could send me books. I don't know why I haven't paid Eigner much attention in the past; I've been missing out in a big way. I started reading these poems aware of Eigner's disability, but I soon forgot that, as the poems are universal. Eigner reminds me of Joanne Kyger; the latter's Buddhist acts of attention being mirrored in Eigner's diary-entry observations of exactly what he sees. But more than that, both poetries give us poems of thought, that is, the poems that re-enact a thought process, mirroring the way the process evolves and simulating the spontaneous associations of thought. I have found some these poems profoundly moving. But they're also intellectually exciting. Eigner has been a huge influence on the LANGUAGE poets, I guess due to his foregrounding of the text, and isolation of words as units partly due to their placement on the page. He also pursues the no-ideas-but-in-things" notion to the nth degree.

I suppose Eigner's disability provided a constraining mechanism in the same way that a strict poetic form does; the sparseness of his text necessitated by the slow and painstaking way in which they were put onto paper. It’s interesting that in one sense Eigner’s work is very-modern(ist), in another his poems are tied to their mode of production, in which the typed and scrawled page is as much part of the work as the scroll in a classical Chinese picture-poem.

2010-07-14T14:59:00.001-07:00

Exciting times at Leafe Press! John and I have been working hard to bring a multi-national cast of poets to your attention. We have books forthcoming from the following poets:

Ed Baker - Stone Girl (a 500-page poem)
Ernesto Priego - The Present Day
Tom Beckett - Exposures

Add to this a new book from Jean Vengua and Alistair Noon's translation of Mandelstam; not to mention our very own John BR...

This is a lot of work for two part-time enthusiasts, so this list will take us well into 2011.

2010-07-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

Check out Litter for new work by Jane Commane, Nathan Thompson and Kelvin Corcoran. Soon to be followed by more, including Mexican Ernesto Priego and New Zealander Ian Britton.

2010-06-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

I've just purchased the latest book from Skysill Press, this time "Gospel Earth" by North Carolina poet Jeffery Beam. I bought the hardback edition, beautifully put together and with nice cover artwork (by Laura Frankstone). Like the previous Skysill book from Jess Mynes, this one is also driven by "the urge to produce the irreducible poem". Many of the poems are one-liners - a form Beam has made a study of:

ENTERING NO EXIT

Another field cloudless sky becomes a revolution.

Many of the others are short haiku-like poems. but these are no mere syllable-counting metaphors, but poems of depth and a certain mystery:

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Bees sense crowshadow across dry pavement

I am pilgrim on this vegetable earth

I like that. I don't really know why; I just like it. A lot of the poems strike me in that way - "irreducible", I suppose; concentrated, and often needing to be re-read and slowly absorbed by the reader, like a mini-meditation, a Zen Koan:

A LITTLE BOOK OF ST. FRANCIS

What whispered place from visions spring always springness

Some of this poetry, especially a sequence called "The Green Man", reminds me of Ronald Johnston. But in fact, the influences are wide and fully acknowledged; Beam cites

"the spiritual literature and folk traditions of the East & West - Japan, India, China, Korea & Malaysia - the Dao, the I Ching, canny Biblical fragments, the Desert Hermits, Gnosticism, Sufism, Ancient Greek poets & philosophers, the French and Spanish Surrealists, the Symbolists & Decadents, Shape Note Songs,bluegrass & African-American gospel music, women's poetry throughout time, Native American poetry, & the poets of the contemporary small poem movement in America & Britain - particularly..."

Beam then goes on to name ninety-five poets across cultures and centuries. The first section of the book, "A Gathering of Voices" is a sequence of short quotes from some of those poets. I like this inclusiveness and sense that the poetry is part of a continuum spanning various human civilizations.

I can't do this book justice in a brief blog post, and I hope to review it properly at some point (promises, promises) but for now I'd just say it's recommended.

2010-06-24T13:39:00.000-07:00

The previous post is in response to similar pictures at the blogs of John Bloomberg-Rissman and Richard Lopez. We have a household rule that my poetry books are restricted to one room, and we operate a strict one-in, one-out policy for books (though I often flout it). In the shelves on the left in the top photo, the books are two rows deep, which makes it rather difficult to find stuff. Note the family photos and other objects on the shelves: my books don't have any privileges (like shelves to themselves).

My Bookshelves

2010-06-24T13:37:00.001-07:00

2010-06-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

My wife and I went to the cinema last night to see The Four Lions. I'd recommend the film, it's funny, though quite disturbing after things take a sinister turn half-way through. The film supports the view that many people in this country subscribe to: that the British-born terrorists of July 7th 2005 and other attacks, were not part of some disciplined, global terrorist network, but were in fact inadequate, misguided buffoons, susceptible to propaganda, and unaware of the enormity of their actions.

2010-06-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

A Delightful Old Tradition

Once upon a time, British poets were chaps who'd 'come down' from Oxford and gone straight to their Oxbridge contacts in London to arrange to have their slim collections published. These collections were then read by the vulgar masses (or was it, rather, by other Oxbridge graduates?). Sadly, those days are over. Its interesting though, to know that the old ways still persist in some of Britain's quainter tourist enclaves: that there's still a post called "Oxford Professor of Poetry", and that it has just been filled by a certain Professor Geoffrey Hill (78). In continuation of a delightful old tradition, Prof Hill is paid a 'stipend' to deliver a 'Creweian Oration' every other year, and to speak in a sonorous voice in an oak-panelled 'lecture theatre' once a term.

2010-06-11T03:39:00.000-07:00

Good new poem from C.J.Allen published online by Red Ceilings. Click on the cover image above to see it.

2010-06-09T10:59:00.000-07:00

Belated report on Drew Milne's reading

Tuesday 18th May
Centre for Creative Collaboration, Acton Street WC1

Milne read from three groups of texts, the first being architectural in both layout on the page, and in content (i.e. they were 'about' architecture) and which appeared to be constructed from other texts. He preceded the reading by playing a recording of well-known architects discussing their work; the recording was spliced to make a sort of audio-collage. This was very effective, and set the tone for the rest of the performance (which is what it was, rather than a 'reading'): no lyric 'I' in sight, constructed texts and a reader who sat throughout and dispensed with anecdotes and small talk. The effect was very different to most poetry readings I attend, which are usually conventional, and in which the poet is expected to put his or her personality on show. With Milne, you were given a sense of poetry as a medium made from existing materials, and as something which is an "addition to the world" (to quote WS Graham) rather than a comment on it or a story about it. It struck me that Cambridge-style poetry like Milne's, or J.H. Prynne's would be better appreciated by most people as a performance-text, rather than something you would sit down and read in the conventional sense.

2010-06-09T06:54:00.000-07:00

A new book from Martin Stannard is available here:

http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=36590601

This is early poetry repackaged. I have the original in an artist's large format book with illustrations etc. You don't really see that sort of thing anymore, what with standardised technology.

2010-06-06T11:10:00.000-07:00

My daughter introduced me to the music of the English guitarist John Renbourn, whose work she'd been studying for her degree; last night we went to see him perform in a small bar in Nottingham. Renbourn is sixty-six years old, but that doesn't seem to have dimmed his virtuosity, or his friendliness and good humour. It was a privilege to be in such intimate surroundings - around forty or fifty people - and to hear over two hours of spellbinding music from just one man and his acoustic guitar. He played everything from delta blues to ragtime to Celtic folk, and included the three old English songs shown in this clip:

2010-05-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

This looks good, and it includes Leafe poet CJ Allen, and Litter poet Mark Goodwin:

Companion Stones: an exhibition of 12 sculptures designed by poets and artists of the Peak District, each bearing directions to the future.

The exhibition continues until mid July when the sculptures will be transferred to the moorlands, each as a companion to a Derbyshire Guide Stoop.

Read more at www.companionstones.org.uk.

2010-05-24T01:22:00.000-07:00

I was sorry to read that Peter Philpott is planning to run down Great Works; that magazine has been a real encouragement to me and to many others. But, of course, like a lot of presses and magazines, it's run by one person, and dependent on their energy and enthusiasms. Philpott comments that:

"contemporary avant-gardish poetry as a social/cultural institution has evolved into something that is best dealt with by younger, hipper, cooler etc etc persons and coteries (eg Openned), especially with access to academic networks and status. A 1990s hobbyist accumulation of homepages will probably put people off rather than involve them."

He may be right, but I think he's being very hard on himself and his sites; his modernpoetry.org is a excellent project - a great place for anyone who wants to gain access to innovative poetry. His statement also rather contradicts what he said recently about how poetry needs to to have a life outside of Academia. But maybe he's just accepting the inevitable. It's certainly true though newer ventures like Openned, Intercapillary Space and Gists and Piths generally involve reading series, and are collaborative in nature, which is encouraging, as I think the whole of contemporary, innovative poetry, is one big collaborative project.

Read Philpott's full blog post here.

Peter Gizzi reading in London

2010-05-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 18th May
Centre for Creative Collaboration, Acton Street WC1

The space was nice: white-walled, with art installations around the place. Peter Gizzi read from "Some Values of Landscape and Weather" - I think most of the pieces were from this book, and I don't believe he read from anything earlier - "The Outernationale" and some new work. Both the readers were allowed a good length of time; I think it was around 40 minutes each - so that I had to dash off at the end and catch my train.

Like his work generally, his reading was balanced between a knowing, modernist approach, and an acknowledgment of the audience, and of the personal element of his work. He was an engaging, slightly nervous reader (which improved the delivery) and he gave a little background to some of the poems, which was useful. I learned, for example, that "Overtakelessness" - the title of one of his poems - is a term coined by Emily Dickinson to denote a quality that deceased people have, and that the title of a poem in the "A History of the Lyric" sequence, "Objects in the mirror are closer than the appear" is the text on a sticker found next to the wing mirror in American cars. I also learned that the poem "A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me" was inspired by the work of the artist Jess Collins - the long-term partner of poet Robert Duncan. Collins used to buy amateur paintings and "improve" them, and Gizzi commented (tongue-in-cheek I believe) that the text he was improving in this poem was "The New York Times".

Gizzi read the whole of several long sequences, including the following:

Homer's Anger
A Panic That Can Still Come Upon Me
A History of the Lyric

I found that Gizzi's American accent gave a different rhythm to the poems from the one I'd assigned when reading them myself. In fact, I mistakenly thought of American accents generally as 'flat' compared to British, giving a more quantitative measure to poetry; but Gizzi's reading wasn't like that at all, with stresses and rising and falling intonation very much in evidence.

It was nice also to find that Gizzi was friendly and approachable, and generally seemed like a nice guy. One of the good things about being a poetry buff is that the artists you admire aren't on some distant stage or surrounded by security; you can just introduce yourself to them and start chatting.

Please note: Drew Milne, the Cambridge-based poet read with Gizzi; he gave an excellent performance which I'll write about separately.

2010-05-17T12:52:00.001-07:00

The poem below came out of my visits to the Joseph Wright paintings in Derby; the municipal art gallery in Derby has around twenty-five paintings by the artist, including the one shown below. They must be worth millions. The gallery doesn't even have its own entrance; you get in round the back of the library. I go occasionally during my lunch-break, and I'm often the only person in the room; like a private viewing, which is quite a privilege.

2010-05-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

Joseph Wright

A lamp in a darkened room
picks out a folk memory

I know where the the mills were,
and the ironworks, the union banners,
a river that runs underground now,
the labour of children

*

Tax concessions and flexible labour
open up this town. The world is waiting,
crowded into Cromford Mills:
building workers from Poland and Croatia,
maids from the Philippines, competitive rates of pay.

Open up this town.

Arkwright, trailing smoke and sparks,
steps into Arcadia with engines and workers,
mills and ironworks, incidental light

*

Mechanics of perception,
a white canvas, ghosts
stalking the geographical wonders,
the great coaching inns fetching trade
along the routes of industry,
a Grand National Trades Union
a layered perception flowing underground,
science of hope, mechanics
of a new society.

Somewhere, the notion of a better life,
a river, a town, its ghosts,
a geography of common wealth,
if we could only find it.

I had a notion that
layered experience lay in this town,
lamp in a darkened room.

*

A notion of light
and mechanics of perception,
layered geography, ghosts
of past masters, open up a route
through the Derwent valley,
past the mills and forges
to landscapes of feeling,
alchemy of craft and enlightened views.
Under a dark outcrop an earthstopper
works by lamplight.
In the library of a great house
a philosopher is giving "that Lecture on the Orrery
in which a lamp is put in place of the Sun"
to work the motion
of light, swaying
through the minds of the people,
and gravity, in perfect balance,
energy, to pump the mills,
coal, smoke, sparks
strange machines in the lit air
of Derby's workshops, in place
of handwork “these cotton mills, seven
stories high and filled
with inhabitants, remind me
of a first-rate man of war,
and when they are lighted up
on a dark night look
most luminously beautiful”

*

Cars cross St. Mary's Bridge, office workers
lie in the sun at lunchtime, the mill
inhabits a silence, two girls
are dazzled by an ingot's glow

The crags of Derbyshire darken,
landowners pose for portraits, and the friends
of a young artist, his writers and poets,
are young still, in perfect balance,
with gravity, mechanics, the construction
of strange machines
out of canvas and painted light,
most luminously beautiful,
first-rate, and filled with inhabitants.

*

(Joseph Wright of Derby, lived 1734-1797)

Copyright © Alan Baker

2010-05-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

I've decided to head down to London on Tuesday for the Peter Gizzi reading. I'll arrive at St Pancras around 3.30pm and intend to allow myself the luxury of an hour or two in the British Library. Then the reading, followed by the 9.30pm train arriving home somtime after midnight. I'm sure it'll be worth it; I've been re-reading Gizzi's collection "The Outernationale" this weekend, and it's wonderful poetry. Why the poetry itself isn't sufficient, and I need to see the man in the flesh I don't know. But why not? He's over here for a limited time, and you could do worse with your time than seek out the best poets of the day.

I'll give a full report.

2010-05-14T01:41:00.000-07:00

The fact that a Lib-Dem/Conservative coalition has given us the most left-wing government we could possibly have had out of the recent General Election shows what the Labour Party has become. We had a choice between conservative, neo-conservative (New Labour) and centrist. At least the worst excesses of a Tory government may be offset by Lib-Dem protests.And there are other Reasons To Be Cheerful:

The coalition agreement promises, among other things, to:

Scrap the ID card scheme, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database.
End the detention of children for immigration purposes.
End the retention of innocent people’s DNA on the DNA database.
Defend trial by jury.

Maybe we won't turn into a Police State after all, which we surely would have done had New Labour won a majority.

2010-05-12T13:09:00.000-07:00

"Now look here Clegg, I'll want my room cleaned, my shoes polished and the toothpaste squeezed onto my brush in the mornings...."

An old British tradition: Fagging

2010-05-12T13:03:00.000-07:00

Good new work from Ed Baker, in a publication by by The Red Ceiling Press in New Mills, Derbyshire. Just down the road from here. It's called DE:SIRE

R.I.P David Chaloner

2010-05-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

THE SITUATION

we have lost our sense of ease and are gaining
a tact that is almost becoming

they employ restraint against the trick of illusion
releasing "it wasn't meant to end this way" and
"the entire situation has become odious"

we are quite calm and working well within our limits
which have no distinction there is much to be done
and although we don't know where we are we make a place

David Chaloner, 1944-2010

Peter Gizzi

2010-05-08T02:28:00.000-07:00

US poet Peter Gizzi is over in the UK, reading at the following venues. If I'd known earlier I would have tried to get to Monday's reading at Warwick. As it is, I may try to make the London one.

University of Warwick
Monday 10 May @ 3 p.m. with Michael Heller
WHERE: The Chaplaincy

University of East Anglia
Wednesday 12 May @ 7 p.m.
WHERE: Arts 2.51

Cambridge University
Friday 14 May @ 8 p.m. with Jimmy Cummins
WHERE: Bowett Room, Queens’ College

University of Sussex
Monday 17 May @ 5 p.m.
WHERE: Arts A 155

Royal Holloway Poetics Research Group

Tuesday 18 May @ 7 p.m. with Drew Milne
WHERE: Centre for Creative Collaboration, 16 Acton Street, London WC1

2010-05-04T12:51:00.000-07:00

I've been browsing Ernesto Priego's manuscript "The Present Day"for his forthcoming Leafe Press publication; the book is a critical response to a chapter of that title in Octavio Paz's classic book on Mexican culture "The Labyrinth of Solitude". I'm looking forward to Ernesto's book being in print with us, and reading the ms makes me wish I had more time to devote to publishing and promoting good poetry. Ernesto's poem is amix of politics, poetry and philosophy in unadorned language - mainly English, some Spanish:

Here & now
I was going

to write
a poem.

I needed
as always

an image.

Unfortunately
what I want

is copyrighted.

Ernesto Priego

May Day!

2010-05-01T09:09:00.000-07:00

You that in love find luck and abundance
And live in lust and joyful jollity,
Arise for shame, do away your sluggardy!
Arise I say, do May some observance!
Let me in bed lie dreaming in mischance,
Let me remember the haps has most unhappy
That me betide in May most commonly,
As one whom love list little to advance.
Sepham said true that my nativity
Mischanced was with the ruler of the May:
He guessed of that I prove the verity.
In May my wealth and eke my life I say
Have stood so oft in such perplexity.
Rejoice! Let me dream of your felicity.

Thomas Wyatt c. 1538

2010-04-30T04:09:00.000-07:00

T.S. Eliot has a massive reputation that extends beyond poetry afficionados and into the larger world. Reading Adam Fieled's article, and re-reading Eliot's work recently, I can't help thinking that rarely has such a big reputation been built on so slender an achievement. I do value much of Eliot's poetry, and I wouldn't like to be without such poems as Prufrock, Ash Wednesday and Marina. But there are many other twentieth century poets whose work seems much more substantial, and some of Eliot's work, like the Sweeney poems, seems rather dated now. The concept of "The Waste Land" entered the popular imagination in the same way that the concept of "Waiting for Godot" did; but "The Waste Land" was co-authored with Ezra Pound, and, re-reading "Four Quartets" I can't help thinking that that poem would have benefited from Pound's red pen.

"The Four Quartets" has some striking images, and some fine passages, which are deservingly well-known: the passage with the thrush, the children and the pool in sunlight (forgive the paraphrase) in "Burnt Norton", or the opening of "The Dry Salvages":

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
is a strong brown god...

But much of the poem reads like a long-winded sermon, with way too much verbiage. "The Dry Salvages", following the passage just quoted, descends into line after line of this type of thing:

I have said before
That the past experience revived in the meaning
Is not the experience of one life only
But of many generations - not forgetting
Something that is probably quite ineffable...

I can't be persuaded that this is skillful writing; that last line reminds me of the unintentional bathos in some of Wordsorth's late poetry. Overall "The Four Quartets" reads like a series of
striking images and short, pleasing passages - usually when the poet uses concrete imagery - padded out with long sections that are simply verbose and badly written; including the version of Dante in "Little Gidding" which makes a mockery of Dante's fast moving and snappy dialogue. Is this a heresy? Or is Eliot's reputation not what it was in academia or elsewhere?

**

I re-read "Four Quartets" at the same time as re-reading Beckett's "Worstword Ho" - a piece written much later, but about the same length, and the contrast was marked. Beckett's poem espouses an outlook that's unredeemably bleak - no consummating final image ("the fire and the rose are one") for him; and yet, "Worstword Ho" is not depressing to read: the language is innovatory, and the poem, paradoxically, feels like a celebration of language, and thereby of human endeavour.

2010-04-29T12:58:00.001-07:00

Discussing the way fairy tales have moved in and out of oral culture over time, Marine Warner cites the medieval story of Saint Dympna, which provided an archetype for a whole category of tales:

"this is a story which enjoyed a wide circulation in different languages and was directed at audiences of different social registers and occupations, from the tavern to the parish church. The migration, from the vernacular to Latin and back again, itself casts doubt on glib distinctions between high and low culture."

I mention this mainly to highlight that last point. I'd been reading an article on The Argotist by Adam Fieled: Century XX After Four Quartets. This article claims that T.S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" is the high-water mark of twentieth century poetry in English, and that nothing that came after measures up to it; a proposition so absurd that I'm still not sure it isn't a joke. Field's argument hinges around the notion that Eliot's poem is an example of "High Art", and that the motley crew of American poets who came after failed to achieve this level. What are we to make of such an argument? We could remind Fieled that the playhouses of Elizabethan England were regarded as vulgar entertainment by contemporaries. Plays were barely regarded as literature, and Ben Jonson was roundly mocked for publishing his collected plays in book form. Fieled would no doubt regard these plays as the highest of High Art. As for "The Four Quartets", more on that dreary sermon in a later post.