My short essay on Gerald Mangan's poetry is now up at Wild Court. You can read it in full by following this link, though here's a sample to whet your appetite...
Thirty-five years have passed since the publication of Waiting for the Storm. Will it remain the sum of Gerald Mangan’s poetic output? Is it sufficient to warrant a major reputation? Is Douglas Dunn in his endorsement justified in stating that “quite simply he is one of the best Scottish poets of his generation”...?
With the publication of his first full
collection, New Famous Phrases (Broken Sleep Books, 2025), Daniel Hinds has
confirmed that he’s very much an outlier among his contemporaries on the U.K.
poetry scene. In fact, many might label him ‘A Poet’s Poet’.
What does that term mean in the
context of Hinds’ writing? Well, to start with, there are numerous mentions of
other poets in this collection, often accompanied by quotes and references to
book titles. This indicates that its target audience is already poetry-savvy. New
Famous Phrases doesn’t feel like a suitable entry point for general readers
who believe poetry might not be for them. On many occasions, they’d be left to
wonder how much they were missing due to having no prior knowledge of all those
names. And even experienced readers of the genre are sometimes forced to guess
that their own deficits may be hindering the deciphering of a literary code.
But what about the poems themselves?
Well, to start with, the first letters of all their lines are capitalised. Apart
from providing a harder line ending, this decision is a signal of intent, a
pointer that they are not only anchored in the canon, but drinking from a very
specific set of its wells.
Throughout the collection, Hinds’ invocation
of the power of emblematic words is of special interest. He’s always aware of
their allusions, connotations and ramifications, as in the closing couplet to ‘The Fifth Season’…
We will stand in the sand and glass of
the broken
Timepiece and ask it to flow.
This poem offers us a terrific example
of Hinds’ method at its best, marrying tradition with contemporary concerns (about
climate change in this case), taking received notions and renewing them.
By taking a step back from everyday
experience and viewing it anew via an esoteric literary filter so as to understand
it better, he’s reminding us that other poetries are still possible in the
contemporary landscape. As such, New Famous Phrases is a courageous book.
It takes real guts for a poet to plough their own furrow in a first full
collection, and Daniel Hinds is to be congratulated on his achievement.
Judging by the social media feeds of many significant poets and prominent publishers, there seems to be a tacit admission that they both believe a full collection's commercial life pretty much comes to an end on the day it's launched. Or at most, the book's life is drawn out till the appearance of any reviews a few weeks or months down the line, never again to be mentioned in commercial terms.
This attitude is patently leading to a lack of medium-term sales. A full collection needs exposure over a period of time so as to enter into a potential reader's consciousness. From my own experience, for instance, I've witnessed the gradual growth of a vibe around a book if a continued effort is made to explain and sample it. I've personally sold over forty copies of Whatever You Do, Just Don't (HappenStance Press, 2023), my second full collection, so far this year, a major chunk of them via social media, even though the book is now eighteen months old. But the most striking thing is that this interest has also generated a synergy with my 2017 first full collection, The Knives of Villalejo, which has also contributed a further twenty copies to my sales figures.
The above-mentioned story leads me to believe that a full collection's commercial life is actually as long as the poet and/or publisher wish to make it. By immediately moving on to the next creative project, poets lose out on readers for their previous work. And by concentrating on driving a constant churn of new titles, publishers miss out on sales. Mind you, a further question in many cases might be whether their focus is more on funding than on shifting units.
In summary, readers are our lifeblood and we should never turn our backs on them. And in that same vein, (plug, plug, plug!), you can get hold of a signed copy of Whatever You Do, Just Don't by dropping me an email at the address that appears in my blogger profile! Thus contributing to prolonging its life even further! I look forward to hearing from you, etc, etc, etc...!
Pleasantly surprised to see my name on the cover of this gorgeous object. And the contents are excellent too...!
The second half of Siân Thomas' interview with me for the Poetry Bath podcast is now available for your listening pleasure! Here's the link - I hope you enjoy it!.
