Reading the layers

I am beyond thrilled with the new review of 'Occupation', by Barbara Smith, up at Todd Swift's 'Eyewear'.

I would enjoy the review if it were about someone else's book; it is a real pleasure to see such attentive reading; the sort of reader I am sure every poet wants.

It made me think about layers; writing them and reading them. I'm aware of writing on three levels: the surface level, which I am aware some readers will stay at; the first sub-text level, which I hope most readers will find and understand; and the deepest level where I may plant allusions, connections and references that I expect only a rare reader to follow.

Once a poem is published, it is out there and I have no rights or expectations about how it is read - so each level in the poem has to be satisfying to me in some way. If someone appreciates a poem at the surface level and goes no deeper, then so be it, I am content that the poem had something to say to them, even if it is not as much as it could say.

When someone reads as well as Barbara did for this review though - it is a real gift and literally priceless.

Snow days

Three days after most of the snowfall and we've had no wind so every tiny twig has its burden of snow. This picture is an old railway cutting I walk most days - it is so pretty at the moment it doesn't look real - but more than the prettiness, the quality of the silence is like no other time. It makes me realise how much sound there usually is - even away from roads and people.

Yule

All the blessings of the season to everyone, and a wonderful year to come.


Living Yule

I was there, when men squatted on haunches
to chip flint and weave webs of belief
from seasons and circles of death and growth.
The stink of boar-grease stiffening my braid
and blue whorls whispering under my skin
offered hope that darkness could end.

I put on homespun robes and tonsured my head
to walk the years when dogma stalked faith;
smoothing old ways and old faces to new shapes,
nudging builders to find safe spaces in stone arches.
Heedless of changed names for the turns of the year,
I watched the ploughman bury cakes for first cut,
crooned the song of seasons round to seed-time.

I’ve paced the years’ life and I am still here to die
ever again. Hide me beneath plastic and tinsel,
dress me in red, fatten my cheeks, disinfect my story;
the scent of old circles clings to the shade of man.

Books of the year

It's that time when newspapers, radio stations et al ask various talking heads to nominate their books of the year. There is a far better alternative for poets at Michelle McGrane's blog Peony Moon.

Michelle has asked poets to suggest their three favourite poetry books (published in 2009) and she has had such a great response that it is running to eight posts. It is a real delight and education to see what others are reading and enjoying, and such a treat to see small presses getting a fair proportion of recommendations. It's also disheartening, in a way, to see my wish-list grow to such a length that I'll never catch up with it.

It is terribly hard to choose just three and, for my own choices, I decided to choose very quickly. I knew that if I took more time I would never reach a decision but would vacillate between the many books I have bought, borrowed and enjoyed this year. I chose those books that came to mind as soon as the question was asked and those I have gone back to again and again to read poems that have stayed with me.

My choices:
The Clockwork Gift by Claire Crowther (Shearsman Books)
I love The Clockwork Gift for its fresh language and startling leaps of imagination. Claire's writing is controlled and crafted but her over-arching theme of grandmothers is approached from every angle possible as well as from angles I wouldn't have dreamt of. I am really thrilled for her to see it feature in so many poets' 'best three'; at times the poetry made me exclaim out loud in delight at its leaps and twists and turns.

Bundle o’Tinder by Rose Kelleher (Waywiser Press)
Bundle o’Tinder is a collection that could be labelled as formalist - but for me, that doesn't come close to describing it. Rose's skill in meter and rhyme is formidable, and leaves me in awe, but if anyone thinks that received form is restricting or formulaic, get this book and be astonished at what can be done. She has a light touch and and quirky sensibility as well as craft; her language is sinuous and delightful (in the true sense of the word), and she demonstrates a truly original imagination.

Chora New and Selected poems by Nigel McLoughlin (Templar Poetry)
I have to admit that I hesitated before naming this one: not because of any lack in the book itself but because Nigel was my course leader on my MA and is my PhD supervisor and I am aware that choosing his book could look like sycophancy. I only hesitated briefly though because I don't see any sense in not recommending a good book because of what some unseen reader might think - and I did choose to do the MA at Gloucestershire because I liked Nigel's work so liking this book isn't really surprising.
If I had to pick just one quality to describe Chora, it would be musicality; Nigel's use of sound is superb and often leaves me envious. He ranges across a variety of themes but his relationship to landscape and his delight in humanity (especially family) is ever present. The joy in language and its possibilities is always evident in the poems and the images memorable. There is a touch of magic - of the bog-dancer - throughout this book and it draws me back time and time again.

There are so many more books I could have chosen - but have no second thoughts about choosing, and recommending, any one of these three.

Graduation, Derwent and beyond

I graduated last Thursday so I now have an M.A. with distinction! This is not what I expected when I started the course: my previous formal education is quite scant and I don't have a first degree or even 'A' levels. I started the MA because I had been working at my poetry on my own for a few years and was getting a few journal publications but felt I was plateau-ing and wanted some input to shift up a gear. I was also attracted to this particular MA because it is Creative and Critical Writing and I felt the critical writing part might fill in some gaps for me in essay writing, reviewing etc. I wasn't sure how I would cope with the more academic parts but I do quite a bit of bid-writing, reports and so on at work so thought at least I could put something together that would read reasonably well even if it only scraped through.

What I didn't expect was just how much I would love every minute of it. I am so glad that I did part-time; full-time would have been over much too quickly for me. So, because I have been enjoying myself too much to stop, I have started a PhD and if anyone is looking at MA courses I can heartily recommend University of Gloucestershire (course leader is Nigel McLoughlin).

After I'd done the formal cap-and-gown graduation thing, I also had to go to the prize giving as I had won the Bible Society (heh!) post-graduate creative writing prize. This was for poetry or prose rewriting of a bible story and - while we were assured it didn't have to be pro-bible - I didn't expect mine to be favoured. I always loathed the Abraham and Isaac story (man almost cuts his son's throat to prove his faith) and this was my take on it:

Sarah talks to the Social Worker

If I’d known what he was thinking
I’d never have let him go.
Some Father-Son time, he said.
A bit of quality time, me and my son
and the mountain, he said.

No, I didn’t throw him out
straight away; I didn’t know
what happened. Isaac was quiet,
started bed-wetting.
I thought it was bullying at school,
maybe, or worry about tests.

When the nightmares started,
I couldn’t understand what he meant.
I wondered if thugs had moved
into the area, worried about knives
and gangs.

Once I understood,
his father’s bags were packed
and on the doorstep before
he got home from work.

He’s got a nerve to complain
about supervised visits.
He isn’t the one left holding
a screaming child
whose nights are sharp
with the raised knife, the gleam
in his father’s eye, the blood
of that poor lamb.

It seems odd to me, a self-confessed heathen, to get a bible society prize, but I was delighted to get the cheque that came with it as it allowed me to go to Derwent Poetry Festival without worrying about the cost.

I had planned to go to Derwent anyway, and was reading there, but the extra cash meant I could stay somewhere nice (where Byron once stayed and scratched a poem on a windowpane). I drove up the day after graduation and was happy to see Pat Winslow read on the first evening as well as seeing the Templar pamphlet presentations.
The next day was full of poetry. The setting at Matlock Bath is lovely and I wished I'd had more time off booked to stay there a bit longer so I could walk and explore the area. The venue, in a restored cotton mill (now a shopping centre and museum) was quirky and just right. I really enjoyed all the pamphlet competition winners' readings: Paul Maddern, David Morley, Nuala Ní Chonchúir and Dawn Wood and came home with all the pamphlets to read. Each one of them is a worthy winner; I had only heard David Morley read before and was so pleased to be introduced to the work of the other three. As well as these, other highlights for me were Jane Wier's reading from Walking the Block and the evening reading from Nigel McLoughlin and Maggie O’Dwyer . I have heard Nigel before, of course, but always enjoy his readings - his latest book, Chora is amongst my current favourites. I didn't know Maggie O'Dwyer's work though, and was delighted to discover it (and another pamphlet added to the pile by my bed).

I was very sorry that I couldn't stay for the Sunday readings as there were poets there I would really like to have heard such as Angela Cleland and Katrina Naomi but I had to get back before the kennels closed at lunchtime to collect the golden boy.

Tuesday was another poetry day as I was reading as guest at Jacqui Rowe's 'Poetry Bites': the venue was lovely and very full with an audience who were warm and attentive (and I sold a couple of books). I usually enjoy driving at night but the storms on the motorway coming home were pretty bad and I had to battle the wind to keep the car in a straight line.

So, a full, tiring, but thoroughly wonderful few days. I'm back to the day-job now but the saturation in poetry helped my dry spell and I wrote a poem I'm quite pleased with after the weekend. I have written other things recently, but this is the first for a while where it has felt right instead of laboured and awkward.

I really must try and update this more often....


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Eye, eye, I

Your eye is no eye but an exit wound

This line is from 'Phantom', Don Paterson's elegy for Michael Donaghy in his new collection 'Rain'

It is occupying my thoughts a great deal and hearing the line, in thought, rather than reading it on the page inevitably foregrounds the connection between eye and I, which sets off further layers of meaning to turn over and prod at.

Last time I fixated on a line of poetry this way, it was John Burnside's No-one invents an absence (From the book 'Gift Songs'); it is slippery to think about and the more I thought about it, the more amorphous it became. It sqautted in my hind brain like a toad in a cellar for about 4 months and I couldn't think about anything else but it did generate a series of poems.

But I need time to think; I am in the middle of a round of funding bid writing at work and that tends to get in the way of poetry as it takes language in a different direction. When work is demanding in other ways - for instance working with a very challenging group of young people - it doesn't get in the way of poetry even though it is absorbing and draining. But bid-writing, I suppose because it is writing rather than verbal, seems to suck up my words like a black hole. I could do with taking some time off but have leave booked for other things (Derwent Poetry Festival, reading at Poetry Bites, graduation day for my MA). I also have interviews to get done for Iota, papers I need to write for conferences and journals, and work to do towards a new litfest I'm involved in next spring.

Your eye is no eye but an exit wound is demanding my focus and attention and I know from experience that I need to listen so I will have to book some evenings: not take work home, unplug the phone and hope for no family crises or demands.

Busy poetry times

Time slips away far too quickly; weeks and months just slide by when I'm not looking. There have been busy poetry times though, which is always good. Last week was Cheltenham Literature Festival and it somehow snuck up on me because I was horrifically busy at work so I didn't get any tickets before it started;I also couldn't spare the time to take any time off to go to daytime events. This isn't a big deal though,as what I most like to get to is the free 'poetry cafe' in the afternoons and I got to all five of them.

So - Monday was Sonia Hendy-Isaac and Polly Clark; Tuesday was Claire Pollard and Joe Dunthorne promoting the 'Voice Recognition' anthology; Wednesday was to have been Nigel McLoughlin and Imtiaz Dharker but Imtiaz Dharker had to pull out and I was delighted to be asked to substitute. I read in the Poetry Cafe last year and enjoy it: the audience are attentive and serious about poetry and it's always nice to get the book into the festival bookshop. As it was a 'bonus' reading, I gave my corona - Lïr - its first public outing. It went well, I think, and I appreciated the chance to try it out.
Thursday was George Szirtes and Roddy Lumsden (who was substituting for an unwell Peter Porter) and Friday was Don Paterson and Owen Sheers. I bought a number of books, some of which I haven't had time to open yet but am loving Paterson's 'Rain' and Szirtes's 'The Burning of the Books'

This week I've been up to Liverpool to read at The Dead Good Poets Society. I stayed with Colin Watts and his wife in their lovely home and enjoyed reading to a small (but attentive and perfectly formed) audience. I've never been to Liverpool before so had a tourist morning before I drove home and was glad to have seen the Liver Birds and Albert dock.

My reading and thinking continues as I try to solidify my PhD direction. I am deep into Arthur Koestler's' The Act of Creation and finding connections with all sorts of other things I've read as well as finding the first stirrings of poem sparks from it (glory be!)