Words Unlimited

Book of the Month - January - Paul Klee: Making Visible

The exhibition at Tate Modern and accompanying catalogue proved to be wonderful reminders, at the start of the new year, that it’s crucial to get away from the computer, away from the current work-in-progress, to stand back and reflect. As I’ve said before, I always find it interesting to reflect on writing by observing a practitioner in another art form. 

The Klee exhibition’s arrangement in chronological order allows you to follow his creative curiosity – his production and his reflection on it. Sixteen rooms represent different phases. The works invite concentration and attention to detail as you follow the precision of Klee’s draughtsmanship and, increasingly, his developing sense of colour in subtle and delicious combinations. Then there are his experiments with technique that allow him to bring both his drawing and play with colour into new relationships.

All of this was stimulating and refreshing but the exhibition sineage and the catalogue also provided insight into how Klee worked. This body of ever-changing work was the result of Klee’s ability to negotiate the order and the chaos – both necessary to the creative process.

When I worked in the visual arts, often interviewing artists in their studio, I was struck by how many of the most successful creatives had orderly studios; they knew where everything was. This flies in the face of common assumptions that the obsessively ordered are too buttoned-up to be seriously creative. But, as Matthew Gale points out in his catalogue essay, ‘Carefully Ordered Confusion,’ for Klee his “reliance on systems allowed for improvisation.”

In what he called his Oeuvre Catalogue, Klee recorded completed works in chronological order. However, he apparently only listed the works that he believed said something about his growing knowledge of process and his development as an artist. This record allowed him to reflect back on his developing process, and to make rigorous selections for exhibitions. And, presumably, knowing he could track back he felt free to experiment and work with his intuition. This quote from one of the exhibition panels:

He also worked on several pieces at once. In order to do so, he had the studio set up in such a way that he could move between works, following the creative energy, not quite sure where any of these pieces would lead. Another quote from the exhibiton:

As he set off, Columbus-like, to follow a line, explore colour relationships, he might have started with an observation in nature but, as he said, the artist is not some kind of super camera: “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.”

This echoes with the work of a poet, or any imaginative writer, exploring a given image - what are its larger dimensions? What is standing behind/beneath that image, that thing in the world that has caught the attention?

A first move might be a description but then comes that leap into the dark, the exploration of what lies beyond the surface image. Klee’s quote put me in mind of my favourite quote from poet Mark Doty on his writing process, which ends with these words:"The world does not need another description from me."

Getting back to Klee’s cataloguing - I'm thinking it could be useful to catalogue poems as I write them – which worked? Which do I go back to revise? Which do I finally give up on and why? If nothing else having this ledger will remind of the drafts I've yet to go back to! And it could work well for 2014 as I've taken up the 52 challenge.

Yes, definitely feel better for that trip to Tate Modern.

T S Eliot Prize - How to Pick a Winner

I do love it that the T S Eliot readings mark the start of the literary year. Coming up on Sunday 12 January all 10 shortlisted poets will be reading at the Royal Festival Hall. If you only go to one poetry reading this year, why not make it this one?

Since October we at the poetry reading group [PRG] have been scrutinizing the shortlisted collections. We had our final meeting last week and came up with a short-short list consisting of, in no particular order: Robin Robertson, Helen Mort, Maurice Riordon, Michael Symmons Roberts, Anne Carson

 

We’ve been studying T S Eliot shortlists for 6 years and rarely predicted a winner. Could we make that list shorter? Okay, we got it down to 3:

Robin Robertson

Michael Symmons Roberts

Maurice Riordon

And if forced to pick one that seemed to rise above all the others we opted for Michael Symmons Roberts's collection, Drysalter.

Why? For the breadth of his vision, complexity of thought, his negotiation of form; for consistently producing poems that take your breath away and demand to be read again; for sustaining this over a book-length collection. These poems will last, they get better with each reading.

Having been so decisive we then backtracked and said that we thought the only thing we could be certain about was that this year's winner was likely to have an R in their name. See how tricky this prize malarkey is? Don't envy the judges.

I had the privilege of reviewing all 10 books for the Poetry Book Society, you can read what I think of the other nine, here.

More on the PRG and setting up a reading group, here.

 

On Poetry - Glyn Maxwell

A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to attend a Glyn Maxwell workshop. It was like no other workshop. He has a particular way of close reading a poem that leads into writing. This same approach is also in his wonderful book, On Poetry. 

I've just come across a series of interviews at Poetry East. Poetry East runs an impressive programme, coming up in January, Maurice Riordon.

Following a reading each writer is interviewed and videoed. All of these are well worth looking at, but for New Year poetry inspiration give yourself forty-minutes to sit back and listen to Maxwell.

 

 

A Poem a Week for 2014?

52 is an amazing challenge to write a poem a week throughout 2014.

It comes from poet Jo Bell, who describes herself as - Poet, boater, former archaeologist and director of the UK's National Poetry Day. Now the UK Canal Laureate for the Poetry Society and Canal and River Trust.

She describes 52 as "A weekly kick in the arse for your muse."

Start kicking, here.

Thank you, Jo!

Happy New Writing Year ...

What better way to start the year than with these wise words from the late and sorely missed Seamus Heaney:

 

“The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful …

to get a surge of inner life or inner supply

or unexpected sense of empowerment,

to be afloat, to be out of yourself."

 

So true. It comes from a piece in last Saturday's Guardian offering quotes from writers who have left us in 2013. In turn it seems to be culled from a 2009 interview with Heaney. Both pieces worth reading for New Year creative inspiration.