Tuesday 14 January 2020

Making it big in poetry

Countless poets imagine on a daily or nightly basis (or both!) just what it would be like to make it big in poetry. They're convinced that they only need one major win or acceptance for their path to be cleared to stardom, for their arrival at some hidden inner sanctum to be declared.

In this context, let's imagine winning the Bridport, followed by the National Poetry Competition. How would it feel? How would life change? Would things be utterly transformed forever?

These aren't just questions to be thrown into a vacuum. They're issues that were faced head-on by Christopher James in an excellent post on his blog a couple of years ago (thanks to Mat Riches via Neil Elder for pointing me in its direction). You can read it here.

James has gone through the process of winning and has come out the other side. He tells his story beautifully, with self-awareness in spades and zero narcissism. Making it big in poetry is a fantasy that blurs our focus on the most important things: the reading and writing process itself, followed by a search for readers. Even if we just find one, we've discovered real success.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks. I don't recall seeing his blog-post before.

    I was impressed by his "England Underwater", and wondered why he wasn't better known. In my online write-up I noted that there is no pretentiousness in the book, no difficulty, and few poetical devices. The big matters of Love and Death barely figure. There's no crisis of Language, or of "Self". Maybe those are big enough reasons nowadays for not attracting attention. A shame.

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    1. Hi Tim. Thanks for commenting! The question of being better known is so relative, isn't it? There are several contemporary poets who might not be considered "famous" but who have a far more loyal following than certain renowned names.

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  2. Thanks, Matthew. I thint I've read all of Chris James' available poetry. I'm baffled as to why he is not as well known as any other poet around today. I think he's great, and the blog posts are well worth exploring too. The comment by Tim perhaps touches on some of the reasons why Christopher hasn't been propelled into the inner sanctum - but I suspect there are other, more nebulous matters like luck and politics, that deem who is 'in'. Anyway - he's in my Premier League.

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  3. Not sure why last comment was 'anonymous ' - it was by Mr - Neil Elder. Will need to see how I get name onto comments. Anyway - would not want anyone to think I was distancing myself from the comment!

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    1. No problem, Neil! Thanks for commenting. I feel the most important thing is that Christopher James is pressing on. Here's hoping he might even find one or two new readers on the back of this post!

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