Words Unlimited

Paul Muldoon & Don Paterson on Seamus Heaney

Talking, as I was in my last post, of getting back to words, I must write about a memorable poetry reading that I was lucky enough to catch last Saturday. I happened to be up in Manchester the day Paul Muldoon and Don Paterson were reading as part of the Manchester Literature Festival.

Seamus Heaney was to have read with Muldoon, and so this proved to be a moving event. Barely two weeks after Heaney’s death Paterson and Muldoon paid tribute, bringing the spirit of Seamus into the Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall.

Don Paterson prefaced his set by saying he made no apology for the sadness embedded in his choice of work. Clearly still in melancholy mood at Heaney’s passing, Paterson recalled the text message he’d received from another poet on hearing the news. It read: We’re on our own now. He’d had to agree, said Paterson, “it’s as if the head of the household has gone.” 

He then read with great affection a clutch of Heaney’s poems, including 'St Kevin and The Blackbird,' before moving on to reading his own recent and unpublished work – all sonnets. Paterson admitted he’d had a period of two years not writing poetry and that it is to Heaney’s work he turns when needs to be reminded of how poetry works.

Paul Muldoon also paid tribute to the influence Heaney had had on his own work by first reading a Heaney poem, then moving on to one of his own that, in some way, owed a debt to or had a corresponding image. 

As this reading was also part of the British and Irish Contemporary Poetry Conference, the audience was thick with poets, among them: David Wheatley, Kathleen Jamie, Deryn Rees-Jones, Helen Mort and Amanda Dalton.

There was much murmuring of agreement when Muldoon ended the evening by saying, “The spirit of Seamus will hang over us for a long time,” then, as if to prove the point, read Heaney’s ‘Harvest Bow’ with such tender pacing, particularly in the last stanza:

The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser—
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm.

Book of The Month - April 2013 - Kay Ryan

 

 

 The Best of It: New and Selected Poems by Kay Ryan is my stand-out book this month.  I first came across Ryan when she read at the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival a couple of years ago. United States Poet Laureate from 2008 – 2010, her work is quirky, aphoristic. These short poems with their short lines are deceptively simple.

In a Q&A session at Aldeburgh she talked about what poetry meant to her: 'A poem is a brief moment of clarity.' The effect of reading her work is to clear a space in the head, to sharpen a thought.

Asked about her subject matter Ryan said, ‘The mind itself.’ Ryan is a philosopher of the everyday, catching the epiphany in the ordinary. There are large thoughts in these small poems. She seems to watch the mind at work and catch the thought process in the fewest words; the very opposite of Jorie Graham’s academic digressions, which I also love, but for different reasons.

Ryan also plays with cliché, rehabilitating tired words in poems such as, ‘Bitter Pill,’ ‘No Rest for The Idle’ and ‘Nothing Ventured.’ But I particularly enjoyed the poems that draw on the imagery of the natural world. Ryan calls herself a 'nature exploiter.' She’s not a nature poet in the way of fellow American, Mary Oliver. For Oliver experience in the natural world, its imagery, brings a spiritual quality to a poem.   In a Ryan poem reference to natural phenomena is a way to reflect on down-to-earth human behaviours, as in, ‘Expectations,’  ‘Hailstorm’ and ‘The Edges of Time:’

Expectations

We expect rain

to animate this

creek: these rocks

to harbor gurgles,

these pebbles to

creep downstream

a little, those leaves

to circle in the

eddy, the stains

and gloss of wet.

The bed is ready

but no rain yet.

 

Hailstorm

Like a storm

of hornets, the

little white planets

layer and relayer

as they whip around

in their high orbits,

getting more and

more dense before

they crash against

our crust. A maelstrom

of ferocious little

fists and punches,

so hard to believe

once it's past.

 

The Edges of Time

It is at the edges
that time thins.
Time which had been
dense and viscous
as amber suspending
intentions like bees
unseizes them. A
humming begins,
apparently coming
from stacks of
put-off things or
just in back. A
racket of claims now,
as time flattens. A
glittering fan of things
competing to happen,
brilliant and urgent
as fish when seas
retreat.

Though clearly influenced by Emily Dickinson, this work is distinctively Ryan. I am pleased to have discovered another kind of philosophical American woman; she makes interesting reading alongside Jorie Graham and Mary Oliver.

Again at Aldeburgh, Ryan said that her aim was to: 'Never make you feel heavier. A poem animates you, your cells the space between your cells. It adds oxygen.'

Reading this collection is to breathe fresh literary air, to oxygenate thoughts.

 

Poetry On The Beach

 

I’m really looking forward to this coming weekend in Aldeburgh.

On Saturday 27 and Sunday 28 April poet Tamar Yoseloff will be writer-in-residence in the south lookout tower on Aldeburgh Beach. She plans to create a temporary reading room, a wall of words, an installation of found objects.

She’s invited poets to read with her on Saturday evening on the theme of the sea and I’m delighted to be one of those lucky poets.

This event is the latest in the programme of the Aldeburgh Beach South Lookout Project, devised by cultural entrepreneur, Caroline Wiseman

Last Chance To See

If you haven't already seen the exhibition, Formerly, at The Poetry Library in London, you've got until Sunday.

Why is it worth seeing? Aside from the excellent poems, photographs and support material it's a great example of how to 'commission' yourself. Poet Tamar Yoseloff set herself the challenge to respond to 14 photographs in 14 Sonnets. You can read the full story here

Do you always need to wait for inspiration to strike? How might you commission yourself to write a group of poems?

Honouring Dust

Formerly: An Exhibition of Disappearing London

If you’re down on the South Bank in London, it’s worth taking time to catch this exhibition of poems and photographs at the Poetry Library until 3 February 2013 – Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 8pm

Formerly is both a book and an exhibition. It’s a collaboration between poet Tamar Yoseloff and photographer Vici MacDonald. The book contains fourteen of Yoseloff’s poems, each a response to one of MacDonald’s photographs of derelict parts of London. The exhibition puts the book on the wall with enlargements of the words and images.

Since launching the book earlier this year, Yoseloff and MacDonald have revisited each of the locations to collect found objects – such as a cloth rose, a pair of black court shoes, a fragment of brick, a plastic dolphin - and to write up-to-date field notes, all on display. Some of the buildings have disappeared. In place of The Rose pub there is now a car wash.

Talking to MacDonald at the launch last week I was curious to know how her collection of images had begun: ‘As a child I'd get fascinated by doorways, shops, decaying industrial buildings, and "photograph" them with my eyes.’ At art school she started photographing for real and later, ‘when digital came in, I decided to concentrate on shop fronts, with a possible book in mind. I'd make special pilgrimages to places that looked interesting on the map. Or, locations would choose me, as I passed through them.’

Tamar Yoseloff had long admired MacDonald’s photographs, ‘like good poems, they focus on the minute but important details.’

By the time their collaborative project was conceived Yoseloff had plenty of images to choose from, ‘I trawled through hundreds she has taken over the years.’ MacDonald noticed that Yoseloff tended to respond to images that included text and sought more of those out for her to view. And so the process of trawling and selection went on.

Meanwhile, Yoseloff was considering poetic form, 'The sonnet seemed to be perfect – snapshot-sized, but also appropriate for elegy and commemoration.' With that in mind, they eventually settled on the fourteen images for each of which Yoseloff produced a poem. Her sonnets don’t obey all the rules, but as Don Paterson says in his 101 Sonnets, the basic requirement for the modern sonnet is those fourteen lines.

With images chosen and the constraints of form in place it’s still a tall order to ‘commission’ yourself to produce. ‘Narratives and characters suggested themselves as the poems developed,’ Yoseloff recalls.

Tamar Yoseloff at the launch reading 'The Rose.' Added to images and words was a soundscape devised by composer and electronic musician, Douglas Benford

The poems work well as a sequence, the effect is cumulative as words and phrases are repeated in changing contexts. The tone ranges from elegiac, such as in 'Formerly,' to a kind of resilient bravado in ‘Quickie Heel Bar.’ Poems and pictures work together to build atmosphere, character and history. To quote a phrase from ‘Formerly’ this is a project to ‘honour dust.’

Formerly is available in a limited edtion of 300 signed copies, price £8, from Hercules Editions

Reviewing The T S Eliot Prize Shortlist

It was a challenge to read and then to write about 10 collections of poetry in 10 days.  But exciting too, to be immersed in some of the best poetry published in the UK this year. A pressing deadline certainly focussed my attention. I could see why each of these books had earned its place on the list.

What a task the judges have to pick a winner from this line-up. You can read my review of them all, here. Which would you pick?

You can hear the shortlisted poets read from their collections on Sunday 13 January 2013 at the Royal Festival Hall. There's a discount off the ticket if you book by 30 November. Details, here.

T S Eliot Prize Shortlist Announed

Today, the Poetry Book Society announced the T S Eliot Prize shortlist. If you want to read a cross-section of contemporary poetry these ten books are a great place to start.

Unlike the Booker or Costa Prizes, the T S Eliot Prize is always judged by fellow practioners.

Chair, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy said that she and fellow judges, David Morley and Michael Longley were, "delighted with a shortlist which sparkles with energy, passion and freshness and which demonstrates the range and variety of poetry being published in the UK."

Simon Armitage The Death of King Arthur

Sean Borodale Bee Journal

Gillian Clarke Ice

Julia Copus The World's Two Smallest Humans

Paul Farley The Dark Film

Jorie Graham P L A C E

Kathleen Jamie The Overhaul

Sharon Olds Stag's Leap

Jacob Polley The Havocs

Deryn Rees-Jones Burying the Wren

All ten shortlisted poets will read on Sunday 13 January 2013 at the Royal Festival Hall, London. The winner will be presented with a cheque for £15,000 by T S Eliot's widow, Valerie Eliot, at a ceremony on Monday 14 January.

For more on the prize, including information for reading groups visit The Poetry Book Society website.

Poetry London - Frances Leviston & Michael Symmons Roberts

It’s always worth turning up for a Poetry London launch. They offer readings by some of the best contemporary poets as well as a glass of wine. All for free. I’m more than happy to buy the magazine! I was glad I made the effort a couple of Fridays ago, despite a wet and windy evening. The readers who stood out for me at this launch of the autumn issue, No 73, were Frances Leviston and Michael Symmons Roberts.

Leviston spoke of her work-in-progress, her second collection that explores ideas of disinformation. She read the title piece, ‘Disinformation.’ An unsettling poem, it interweaves sharply-observed details of the preparations for a children’s party with more disquieting images that emerge from the voice of radio news. Leviston is a cool, assured reader of her work. I’m looking forward to the new book for which, as yet, no publication date, but, I gather, ‘Disinformation’ will appear in the TLS sometime soon. Do look out for it.

Compelling in a different way was Michael Symmons Roberts. A former Head of Development for BBC Religion & Ethics, not surprisingly, many of his poems seem to be asking – what might be an ethical way to live? Novelist Jeanette Winterson has said of Symmons Roberts: 'He is a religious poet in a secular age. His work is about the connection between the things of the spirit and the things of the world… his work is about transcendence.'

Ideas around ethics and transcendence certainly lie in the larger resonances of the work but, initially, Symmons Roberts draws the listener in with his warm, almost matter-of-fact reading style and the startling, exact details of the ‘things of the world’ in the here-and-now; the world we’re all trying to comprehend, as with these lines from ‘Offset’: "Bad guards play poker in the vaults/where my subprime lies in a velvet bag/and nonperforming assests float in jars."

Symmons Roberts explained that ‘Offset’ - along with the other poems he read - is from his next book-length project: 150 poems each of 15 lines. Why? These are loosely based on the Psalms, of which there are 150. The Psalms reflect upon man’s relationship to God and cover the full range of human emotions. Symmons Roberts’s project seems to be to reflect on man’s relationship to the world – to his fellow man and to the natural world. His gaze is wide; although he looks the current financial crisis squarely in the eye, in ‘On Grace,’ he seems to suggest reasons for optimism:

October ripens under leaf-mould,

ancient limewashed walls grow warm

in late, slant sun. A deer halts in a field alone.

And we are not lost yet.

 

To write 150 poems of 15 lines each is a tight constraint for a writer to impose on himself but, on the evidence of the five he read, it becomes clear that the restriction allows him both to range wide but also to focus on the precise moment/insight. On the page the five poems each look quite different – interesting how many different forms 15 lines might take. Though reading at this autumn launch, these psalm-based poems appeared in the spring issue of Poetry London – worth getting the back issue. I’m looking forward to the full collection in spring 2013.

Other poets featured in the autumn issue include Canadian Karen Solie, pictured on the cover [above], Michael Longley, Gillian Allnutt, Daljit Nagra, Rosie Shepperd and the prize winners of the 2012 Poetry London competition. First prize went to Liz Berry. If you want to know what makes a winning poem, read judge Neil Astley's [Mr Bloodaxe] report which features along with an interview with Annie Freud and much more.

All Change For Aldeburgh Poetry Festival

Big changes this year for the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival - it's going to be bigger and will be largely based inland at Snape.

I wonder what will be lost and what will be gained? I've booked my tickets and I'm looking forward to finding out.

This film explains the changes and also why it's time to book tickets if you haven't already done so! More on the programme and booking, here.

 

HappenStance

Talking, as I was last week, of enthusiasm - those individuals who set up and run small poetry presses must have the enthusiasm and stamina of an Olympic marathon runner.

Ten days ago I attended Free Verse, the poetry book fair in London; an event which brought together over fifty small presses and publishers. After a happy day of browsing, I came away with a bag full of books, pamphlets and flyers. For the last ten days I’ve been sifting through the haul. 

Among the smaller imprints that stand out is HappenStance. Founded by poet Helena Nelson seven years ago and based in Scotland, the venture is dedicated to the publication of pamphlets.

HappenStance publications have a satisfying minimalism: creamy paper, with thoughtful and often a witty graphics on the cover. They are a wonderfully uncluttered way to sample 20 + poems by an individual whose work you might not have come across.

 

It’s not surprising that in 2010 HappenStance won the Michael Marks Publishers' Award. As well as the quality of the poetry, and the production, another thing that makes this enterprise stand out is it that, uniquely, it offers a subscription.

For £7.50 a year you get, among other things, a free pamphlet of your choice plus a chapter of the HappenStance story – invaluable insight into this kind of publishing. It seems that Helena Nelson, though she doesn't run a competition as other pamphlet publshers do, is a careful reader of submissions. For more on subscriptions and submissions visit the HappenStance website. 

Other presses that caught my eye include: Templar, Cinnamon, Like This Press, Stairwell Books, Valley Press and Pighog Press. Pighog has just launched, in conjunction with The Poetry School, a new pamphlet competition. Details here.

It was happenstance that I was able to make it to the book fair - I was to have been out of London that Saturday but things changed. If you weren’t able to attend Free Verse, the website is still live with a useful list of all the presses who had stalls that day with links to their websites. With just a click or two you’ll find access to some of the best poetry publishing enthusiasts.