Rogue Strands

Larkin's influence

2012-01-27T08:42:00.000-08:00

In the light of the recent publication of Philip Larkin's Complete Poems, it's interesting to note a changing attitude to his work among contemporary British poets.

Back in the 1990s, emerging figures rushed to reject his verse. For example, Bloodaxe's The New Poetry seemed very much a representative reaction against it. It appeared forever tainted by misogyny, lack of ambition, racism and an insular view of the world, representative of a Britain that was seen as being backward both in poetic and social terms.

In the last few years, however, a certain balance has started to be restored. Few would deny that Larkin's views on certain subjects were distasteful to say the least, but there does seem to be a growing awareness of how he played to the gallery and cultivated a persona, such as in his stage managed pretence that foreign poetry hadn't influenced him. As a consequence, his poems are shaking off the hubris. Their depth of ambition is being acknowledged beyond their simple facade.

This change is noticeable in the number of poets who mention him in interviews. Even if they do so with qualified disparagement, there's an implicit recognition of his importance. What's more, he's also quoted frequently without the poet in question fearing a pigeonholing of his/her poetics. For example, Allison McVety uses an extract from his work at the start of a section of Miming Happiness. In fact, she also quotes from Wallace Stevens elsewhere in the book, showing that both poets can be read alongside each other.

Well, I myself first fell in love with poetry thanks to Larkin's work. Even back then, I was aware of not sharing much of his world view, but I was captivated by the way he achieved new and precise clarity via a mastery of his particular poetics. His influence is still there in my work, albeit under layers of further reading and experience, just as I now spot him more and more often peeking out from under the stanzas of certain other contemporary British poets.

I'm not hinting at the take-off of some new "Movement", but I do have absolutely no doubt that a fresh perspective on Larkin is at work in parts of new, emerging U.K. poetry, not rejecting or kicking back against other influences in some insular way, but blending and enriching. These are exciting times!

Fito y los Fitipaldis

2012-01-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

Contemporary Spanish pop might be as frothy as Anglo-Saxon stuff for the most part, but there still seems to be a niche for certain groups and singers who manage to retain a degree of ambition within the boundaries of the genre. Fito y los Fitipaldis are one such group. Without being ground-breaking, they are extremely successful while also reaching beyond the most obvious stereotypes. This live version of Soldadito Marinero shows just how a great tune can also be combined with lyrics that tell a story.

Gerry Cambridge's Notes for Lighting a Fire

2012-01-19T00:47:00.000-08:00

Bearing in mind that Gerry Cambridge's Notes for Lighting a Fire has come out with HappenStance, who also publish my pamphlet, Inventing Truth, I suppose I must be biased when saying it's excellent. For that reason, I don't feel I can credibly write a full-blown review of it as such.

However, I will say I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Only HappenStance's second full collection, Notes for Lighting a Fire is first-off a gorgeous object to hold. There are top-notch production values involved in this hardback book, plus an elegant design. As would be expected, typsetting and proofreading are first rate.

The poetry itself really hits the mark for this reader: accessible yet with demanding resonances, Cambridge's craft is not obtrusive. His effects creep up, moving you imperceptibly at first, gathering strength and then hitting home. In that sense, the poems in this book very much lend themselves to the slow-burning, cumulative force of a full collection.

Nature is a key focus for Cambridge, yet it doesn't exist as some stand-alone concept to be revered. Instead, it plays a role in everyday lives, contextualised by other situations as in "Gorse in Middle Age", in which the smells and memories of a hillside of gorse are brought back to life for the narrator by the scent of the coconut butter that his partner puts on before bed.

In linguistic terms, meanwhile, Cambridge is playful in his use of register yet also coherent - every choice of word is deliberate, as in the following example from "Christmas Oranges":

"... the shades of pips
in the cool translucence -
the thrawn wee buggers, the embryos

lavish with thought of perpetual groves".

There's a juxtaposition of Scots, colloquial language, delicate physical description and abtract nouns here, all working in unison to create a terrific effect.

I could quote umpteen wonderful poems, but that would end up like a spoiler for a film. What's more, I started the post with a disclaimer that this wouldn't be an actual review,so why not get hold of a copy of Gerry Cambridge's Notes for Lighting a Fire and let the story unfold for yourself? You won't regret it.

Matt Merritt on Ink, Sweat and Tears

2012-01-16T11:04:00.000-08:00

Helen Ivory continues to publish all sorts of interesting stuff over at Ink, Sweat and Tears. Most recently, I've especially enjoyed Matt Merritt's terrific poem, Chirimoya. You can read it here. Merritt's piece chimes with my interest in food-related poetry, plus there's the inevitable Hispanic angle.

I still remember the first time I tried a chirimoya...it seemed almost alien, but was actually grown on the Granada coast, along with a wide range of tropical fruits that thrive in the microclimate down there. These days you can find it in shops all over Spain, as the fashion for tropical fruit reaches Iberia too.

Bilingual Borges

2012-01-11T14:32:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful to Kathy Bell for posting a link on Facebook to a fascinating resource that can be found here. It's the audio recording of Jorge Luis Borges' Norton lectures in 1967-68.

I very much recommend a listen, but with a decent pinch of salt: Borges is always provocative, especially in articles, lectures and interviews. He loves playing games, juxtaposing contradictory statements or leading us down blind alleys. They are his ways of challenging us, reflecting his view of the everyday as a labyrinth that he then extends into art. Critics and students of his work often snatch at some quote that seems to sum him up, quite forgetting how easy it is to find him apparently stating the opposite elsewhere. In other words, he's more of a stirrer than a teacher.

In this specific case, these audio files are also particularly interesting as a record of Borges' command of English. His bilingualism is a powerful element in his work - both Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon influences converge in Borges.

When he writes in Spanish, I'm very aware of English-language lexical structures and devices running through his syntax. When listening to his Norton lectures, I can feel Spanish-led thought feeding into how he expresses himself. This duality lends an extra texture and freshness to Borges' use of language, playing a significant role in making him so unique. Instead of diluting his command of language, Borges' bilingualism adds immeasurably to his writing.

Pen and paper

2012-01-03T12:32:00.000-08:00

When asked about their creative process, a growing number of poets seem to mention that they write verse directly onto a screen. We're not just talking teenagers here - many of them are from my generation or older.

I can't envisage myself ever doing so, not only due to the ritual of picking up a pen, looking at a blank page and feeling its crisp, smooth touch. Instead, my preference for paper is mainly practical: my work might take ages to come to physical fruition, more often than not preceded by lengthy conscious and unconscious thought processes, but the initial actual act of writing is a dash. I rush to get down ideas and turns of phrase before they escape, first taking one route, then another, doubling back or careering onwards, all of this in a burst of concentration that might only last a few minutes but forms the basis for the poem.

If I were writing directly onto a screen, the delete button would be far too accessible during that intense tumble. In fact, the final poem comes later (if at all!). Days or weeks afterwards, there's a slow-motion reenactment of the rush, something that would be impossible without pen and paper having been used in the first place. No matter how often you save a draft from a screen, no way can a string of saved files provide a complete "paper" trail.

Pen and paper give me a complete record of the drive that set me off, letting me back in to my poem's core. Via the afore-mentioned reenactment, I retrieve and discard an element, recall how and why I took a certain path, and above all find a new perspective that helps the piece come together as a whole. I can't imagine writing without these two tools, but so many other poets appear to be doing so. Another question might be how their poetry is changing as a consequence...

Sphinx, a new issue and a new website

2011-12-31T04:23:00.000-08:00

Sphinx has long been one of the few publications to focus on reviews of poetry pamphlets. Initially printed, it's been web-based for the last few issues under the auspices of the Happenstance Press website.

Issue 19 has just come out, but for the first time it's been launched as part of a new stand-alone website for Sphinx. You can find it here, and it's well worth a browse. There are reviews for many recent pamphlets, all within the established framework of three reviewers for each book, their pieces then juxtaposed and in implicit dialogue with each other. In this issue I tackle Charlotte Gann's intriguing chapbook from Pighog, The Long Woman. Once again, it's a thought-provoking process for me to compare and contrast my views with those of others.

The lives of second hand books

2011-12-21T07:49:00.000-08:00

I love the idea of the different lives that are led by books. Just we gain fresh perspectives from them, so our treatment of them casts fresh light on us. In fact, one of my poems from Inventing Truth, titled Last Chance, is a first-person monologue from the point of view of a second hand book at a jumble sale as it awaits a new owner or the fate of being recycled.

In a similar vein, some months ago I highlighted Wayne Gooderham's excellent Guardian feature about bespoke dedications that can be found in second hand books. Well, since then he's started a blog here for his collection of them. It's well worth a look...I can feel another poem coming on!

Alun Lewis on History

2011-12-14T14:21:00.000-08:00

I'm currently tackling and relishing Alun Lewis' Collected Poems, getting to grips with his heady mix of erudition and grit. I'll go into more detail about this excellent book at a later date, but for now a quote that struck me from his poem The Peasants...

"...Across scorched hills and trampled crops
The soldiers straggle by.
History staggers in their wake.
The peasants watch them die."

This reminds me so much of images from umpteen television news bulletins over the past few years, Lewis' lines echoing backwards and forwards through time.

Review: The Hiding Place, by Tom Duddy

2011-12-08T08:38:00.000-08:00

First things first, this book is terrific!

Let's start with some background info. The Hiding Place is Tom Duddy’s debut full collection. Published by Arlen House in Ireland, it was recently shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize for Poetry. This Prize is awarded annually to the writer of the best first collection published in the UK or Ireland in the preceding year.

Tom Duddy teaches Philosphy at the National University of Ireland, Galway, and his academic background is of immense interest in the context of The Hiding Place. Poets are often said to wear their erudition lightly, but Duddy goes far beyond that, exploiting it in idiosyncratic and immensely subtle ways, approaching life so as to understand it, metaphysics constantly filtered through the concrete, as in the following example from The Small Hours:

“A siren far out on the public road

breaks the circle of acid thought, and I turn

to find her pressed close, warm, palpable…”

The juxtaposition of “thought” and “palpable”, together with the play between them, is key to an understanding of Duddy’s poetics, as is the sense of public and private. Throughout this poem, as indeed throughout the whole collection, the poet is inviting us along with him.

The Hiding Place is shot through with a rare generosity towards the reader, capturing, transmitting and transmuting kernels that lie in Duddy’s mind. He casts new light on old scenes, thus enlightening us about our own lives. This is what I most treasure about poetry. It’s what lifts certain poets and poetry into a very special place.

The collection is also characterised by a delicate weighing of the effect of words. Their music is at first unassuming and then all the more powerful for this as their resonances build. I found myself rereading the poems over and over again. They were immediately accessible, but gave more and more with time in a cumulative effect. This extract from the title poem is an example of just what I mean:

“…Someone whose mind has been elsewhere

will have turned around and seen us

and stopped smiling and decided

that the time has come to wake us

to our fair share of the real...”

As can be seen above, Tom Duddy writes a poetry of the “mind” that’s rooted in the “real”. In no way limiting, this approach is in fact highly ambitious. What’s more, his achievements in this collection prove that the esoteric is not the only route to poetic depth. I can’t recommend The Hiding Place enough. Here’s hoping it finds an ever-increasing readership as the story of its exceptional qualities gradually comes out.

Last week

2011-11-29T07:26:00.001-08:00

Last week saw a 2-0 win for Aldershot Town over Maidenhead United, plus two terrific readings in London and Nottingham. In other words, I had a great trip!

I'm very grateful to Declan Ryan for organising the Days of Roses event in London last Thursday, where my personal highlight was Rory Waterman's reading of some excellent new work - I'm really looking forward to his first collection from Carcanet next year. In the meantime, however, I've made do with a copy of the New Poetries V anthology, which features a good selection of his poems.

As for Nottingham, meanwhile, thanks are due to Robin Vaughan-Williams for bringing it together. It was a great opportunity to meet up with a number of other Happenstance poets and see Helena Nelson read for the first time. "Enthralling" would be an understatement! Maria Taylor, who has a full collection forthcoming next year from Nine Arches Press, has posted a review of the evening on her blog here. I'm especially pleased with her remarks about my own slot:

It was great to hear Matthew again, as I so enjoyed his pamphlet ‘Inventing Truth.’ He has a deeply engaging style. He read his poem ‘Instructions for Coming Home’ at the beginning and end of his reading. The perspective altered when he mentioned at the end that the poem was written from the point of view of a widower, the preparation of a simple meal is given a certain gravity by the final line ‘Now confront the day, bite by bite.’

These readings have certainly given me the taste for more - I love the feeling of bringing Inventing Truth to life for an audience - and I hope to take part in further U.K. events in 2012.

Aldershot

2011-11-14T23:49:00.001-08:00

With a slightly seedy town centre that's populated by fewer and fewer squaddies, more and more boarded-up shops and numerous tattoo parlours, Aldershot might be synonymous with decay for many people. For me, however, it's very special, not because of the place itself, but because of the football club.

One of the league's perennial strugglers, almost always anchored in the old Division Four, Aldershot F.C. was my local team as a kid. From the day in 1984 that I persuaded my Dad to take me along to a friendly with Aberdeen (for whom a certain Alex Ferguson was the manager), I was hooked. The following year we got season tickets. It provided an outlet for suburban boredom and appealed to my sense of being an outsider - I revelled in being mocked by my Liverpool-supported classmates.

I then moved away to university. At that point, the club got into huge financial trouble and was taken over by a supposed teenage millionaire who turned out to be penniless. I followed the stories every day in the papers until the definitive news - in 1992 Aldershot F.C. went bust.

A few months later and the club had been reformed by its supporters as Aldershot Town F.C., starting in the lowest tier of non-league football. Soon afterwards, I moved to Spain. Ever since, I've followed the team's progress through the divisions until they finally made it back into the league. As a kid, I'd got to every single match, but I've had to get used to missing out on countless terrific occasions, forced to listen to radio commentary over the internet for the Play-Off final in Stoke, promotion in Torquay and then, worst of all, the cup tie with Manchester United last month. My teenage self would never have forgiven me!

My sense of being an ex-pat is intensified on such occasions. I've grown resigned to not seeing every match these days (I often only get to three or four a season), but one of the most important parts of my forthcoming trip to the U.K. is a visit to Aldershot for the 1st round F.A. Cup replay with Maidenhead United, all to take in the misted breath, the perfume of chips and tea, the supporters' frustration, rage and joy.

The following poem, taken from Inventing Truth, invokes a pivotal day when it really hit home to me that I was to become a visitor in this special atmosphere rather than a regular:

Last Season

It’s 3 p.m., a Saturday

in December 1990,

and Dad and I have reached our seats,

C8 and 9, the third row back,

in line with the penalty spot.

I’ve come here straight from the station

after two days at interview.

Now we win one-nil and we're through!

For the first time something other

than GOAL fills my mind as we score.

A Night of Happenstance in Nottingham

2011-11-08T07:53:00.000-08:00

Two days after Days of Roses in London, it's on to Nottingham, where I'll be participating in "A NIght of Happenstance" on Saturday 26th November. Organised by Robin Vaughan-Williams, this is a chance to take in readings by six poets from the Happenstance stable (Helena Nelson, D.A.Prince, Robin Vaughan-Williams, Marilyn Ricci, Ross Kightly and myself). The venue is Lee Rosy’s tea room, where we'll be starting at 7.30pm. Entrance £4/£3 (concs).

More details, plus background info about all the poets, can be found here on Robin's blog.

Days of Roses - Phoenix Night

2011-11-05T10:13:00.000-07:00

As promised, here are the details for my London reading (info on Nottingham to follow in the coming days). It's taking place at the Phoenix Artists Club, 104-110 Charing Cross Road, on Thursday 24th November, 6.30 p.m. for a 7 p.m. start.

I'll be appearing alongside Rory Waterman (also one of the editors of the excellent New Walk magazine), Dai George, Ira Lightman, James Goodman, Oli Hazzard, Preti Taneja, Rishi Dastidar, Robert Selby and Sophie Mayer. What's more, I gather we might be joined by a one or two terrific extra readers - news as and when I get it!

My reading will focus on a showcase of poems from Inventing Truth, and I'll be bringing a few copies with me just in case you fancy acquiring one on the night.

Two readings in November

2011-11-02T14:49:00.000-07:00

This November will see me heading back to the U.K. for a few days to give two readings alongside a whole host of excellent poets.

The first of these events (under the auspices of Days of Roses) will be taking place in London on Thursday 24th November, followed by a Happenstance reading in Nottingham a couple of days later. I'll be posting more details about venues and times, etc, in due course. I'm really looking forward to this trip, a great chance to meet up with old friends, put a face to more recent ones and pick up the piles of new poetry books and magazines that are waiting for me in Chichester!

Jack Little's introduction to Rocío Cerón and contemporary Mexican poetry

2011-10-29T08:19:00.000-07:00

Today sees a guest blogger, Jack Little, come to Rogue Strands. Jack lives in Mexico City, where he edits The Ofi Press magazine and manages the national cricket team of Mexico. This is his introduction to Rocío Cerón and contemporary Mexican poetry:

Since I moved to Mexico last year, I’ve met some wonderful, exciting and strange people. One of the wonderful ones was Mexican poeta Chilanga, Rocío Cerón whose work uses a multi disciplinary approach bringing poetry into dialogue with music, performance and visual images, taking participants on a multi sensory journey.

Rocío´s collaborations on works such as La mañana comienza muy tarde, Amérique/Urbana, Tiento and Imperio have melded the photography of Valentina Siniego and musical pieces of Enrico Chapela to bring echoes of common rhythms and rich images of life to her work. Seeing her perform is truly a wonderful adventure for the senses.

Perhaps my favourite of her works is the bilingual collection Empire, which explores the wars of ideas between nations, evidencing destruction and debris through the short and biting syllables. The struggle of agony and of lost names is explored in Nombre, her last poem of the book:

(…) Estoy sentado frente una ausencia (cuerpo / saliva / osamenta) que lleva promesa de estaciones. Su mirada son todas las palabras / pabellón del grito / que escriben, día a día, la historia de un Nombre.

Her work takes us takes us to death as our own starting point, it looks at the bleak and vast space of Mexico City with her millions upon millions of inhabitants: Rocío, Valerie Mejer, Luis Cortés Bagalló among many others burn bright the rich and deep wealth of poetry available in Mexico from the smells of the streets to the crashing colours of Mexico City’s night polluted sunset-dirt skies.

Rocío Cerón is an inspirational woman from a city where dark meets colour, light and music. You can read more about her latest work and projects here:

http://rocioceron.blogspot.com

Hearing Voices Issue 4

2011-10-15T07:05:00.001-07:00

Hearing Voices, run by Jonathan and Maria Taylor at Crystal Clear Creators, is a relatively new magazine for poetry and prose.

Issue 4 is being launched at The Western Pub in Leicester at 7.30 p.m. on Monday 24th October. I won't be able to make the event, but I'm delighted to have two poems in the magazine, my first publication since Inventing Truth came out in April this year. What's more, I'm excited to find myself in excellent company, alongside poets such as Alison Brackenbury, Helen Ivory, Todd Swift, Tony Williams, etc, etc, etc...

There really is a terrific array of work in Hearing Voices and I'll be reviewing it in due course. In the meantime, I suggest you get hold of a copy yourself - it provides a great insight into the most thriving facets of the U.K. poetry scene.

Terminology - mainstream or experimental?

2011-10-09T02:59:00.000-07:00

The mainstream is not the mainstream and the experimental is not the experimental.

The winners of this year's Forward Prize have just been announced, leading to an inevitable burst of praise and criticism, of labelling, grouping and tribalism. In the current climate of mentors and creative writing courses, this annual phenomenon makes it even more difficult yet even more important for poets to plough their own furrow.

I is a lie

2011-09-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

In her comment on my review of Paul Henry’s The Brittle Sea, Sheenagh Pugh linked to her excellent interview with him.

One very interesting point was their discussion of many readers’ failure to recognize that “I is a lie”. In fact, Henry mentioned that he had left certain strong poems out of the book due to this pitfall.

My own use of personae leads me to similar problems. I write from the point of departure of my surroundings, but the whole creative point of a poem is the way it takes off into fiction through the voice(s) of its character(s). While working in a vacuum where I was distanced from readers and editors, I felt sure that people implicitly understood the concept as soon as they approached a poem. In fact, the publication of my pamphlet led to several reviews which assumed autobiography at every turn. I was amazed!

The mere fact that I write poetry rooted in the everyday doesn’t mean that it’s factual or experience-based. This separation of the author and personae was drummed into me in my schooldays, so I find it frustrating that such misinterpretation is still rife, especially in poems that are set in recognisable contexts, as if accessible verse were a confessional diary.

Writing in the first person is important to me as a means of creating intimacy with my character(s). It forms a key component in my exploration of identity and belonging. I realise that this approach runs risks, but I’m more determined than ever to develop its potential. A strong cast lends extra texture to a book, something I’ll be keeping in mind as I work towards my first full collection.

Review: The Brittle Sea, by Paul Henry

2011-09-08T08:14:00.000-07:00

The best book I’ve read this month? This year? Just what do I mean by best? I don’t know. All I can say is that Paul Henry’s The Brittle Sea, New and Selected Poems (Seren 2010) has enthralled me.

On getting hold of a collection, I immediately glance at the back cover, ready to grimace at the blurb. In this case, however, it grabbed me with a quote and wouldn’t let go:

“Shall we stay or leave then, love?
It’s only the years moving inside us
and everything hurts in autumn.
Where shall we put them,
the years, in our new house?
the years we are moving out of?

I flicked straight to the poem, titled Sold. It’s tremendous. I was trying to write a poem on a similar theme at the time. I don’t think I’ll bother.

As I greedily continued reading, I noticed how Henry seems to combine Brian Patten’s exuberance with Hugo Williams' restraint in a delicate balancing act that’s all his own. The everyday is stirred into the lyrical with a transforming imaginative touch. What’s more, Henry’s thematic reach is wide, fatherhood featuring prominently. He’s particularly strong on the changes that take place in a paternal role as a child grows. Daylight Robbery, in which a father accompanies his seven-year-old son to a barber shop and sees an older boy emerge, ends as follows:

“Turning a corner
his hand slips from mine
like a final, forgotten strand
snipped from its lock.”

The above quote also shows three other qualities in Henry’s work: firstly, he’s excellent at gorgeous endings that close and then open out beyond. Secondly, there’s delicious aural patterning, intoxicating yet never cloying. Thirdly, compression leads to expansion, as every word is made to work like stink for its keep.

Paul Henry writes the type of poetry that made me fall in love with the genre and keeps me captivated. These poems make an immediate impact that resonates in the mind long afterwards. I could carry on quoting from them all day, as they’re littered with spectacular turns of phrase which never seem showy. However, that would keep you from the book itself. Why not get hold of a copy as soon as you can? You won’t be disappointed - I’ll be going back to The Brittle Sea for years to come.

The language of rock and pop?

2011-09-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Many Spanish friends regularly remark that most rock and pop music sounds far better in English than in Spanish. Are they right? If so, why? Leaving aside certain cultural inferiority complexes, there are important metrical keys to understanding the reasons.

A decent place to start might be translated versions of famous songs, such as hits by The Beatles. Their work does tend to be dreadful when sung in Spanish, even when the lyrics aren't clunkily reworked. Let's take the example of Yesterday and look at how it works...

"...now it looks as though they're here to stay..." That's written in trochees!

"...oh I believe in yesterday..." That's written in iambs!

In other words, just as stressed poetry doesn't work well in Spanish, so imposing Spanish lyrics on a song that originally used iambs and trochees is never going to sound natural. In the same way, translated nursery rhymes are also extremely dodgy (e.g. Old MacDonald had a farm is a series of trochees in itself!). Here's a link to a typically grim Spanish-language performance of Yesterday:

Nevertheless, I do believe it's easy to get too simplistic about this. Many Spanish groups have successfully fused elements of flamenco or rumba, etc, to their pop or rock, creating gorgeous lyrics that face no problems at all. Trouble mainly flares up when songs written for English lyrics are shoved into Spanish.

This is another example of translator..traitor and shows once more that it's impossible to reflect accurately the poetry or lyrics of English in Spanish and vice versa.

Days of Roses

2011-09-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

After a fortnight away in England, I'm now back in Extremadura just as our white grape must has started fermenting, a daily progression that I love to follow. Bit by bit, the wine peeks through and then reveals itself.

Getting home, meanwhile, has also enabled me to turn my attention to Rogue Strands and update it somewhat. Top of my list was the inclusion of Days of Roses on my blogroll. Declan Ryan's beady editorial eye is providing a steady stream of intriguing poetry over there and it's fast become one of the blogs I keep a closest eye on. Every few days he seems to showcase a new poet, and there's not a dud among them! Why not pop over there now and see what I mean?!

Interview on Polyolbion

2011-08-31T05:27:00.000-07:00

Over at his excellent Polyolbion blog, Matt Merritt has kindly published an extensive interview with me. Our discussion takes in bilingualism, syllabics, Happenstance Press, poets' fetishes and many things in between! To top it off, three poems from Inventing Truth are also posted at the end of the interview.

Review: Un invierno propio, by Luis García Montero

2011-08-13T03:45:00.000-07:00

Out of all contemporary Spanish poets, I've long thought that Luis García Montero has the greatest chance of finding a U.K. readership. This is largly thanks to his idiosyncratic blend of influences, ranging from Larra and Lorca to Auden (via Gil de Biedma), all topped off with his personal and literary experience of having reached adulthood just as the dictatorship was imploding and liberty exploding.

His latest book, Un invierno propio, very much confirms that impression. García Montero has always been associated with the so-called "poesía de la experiencia", yet his previous work was still littered with overt allusions to the Spanish literary canon, as if he felt obliged to prove his erudition in the face of accusations by his contemporaries of being overly "facile". In Un invierno propio, however, García Montero seems to be ever more comfortable with his personal, intimate yet direct voice. Many Spanish poets seem to disappear into their own esoteric ambitions with age, but García Montero is taking a far more exciting, opposite route: ignoring many critics' sniffiness, his poetic project is now unique in Spain in the depth that he achieves without a shred of pretentiousness.

One example of this new-found extra confidence can be found in the opening lines of Hay aviones que despegan desde ningún lugar y que aterrizan en ninguna parte:

"Nadie puede bañarse en lágrimas dos veces
en el mismo aeropuerto..."

"Nobody can bathe in tears twice
at the same airport..."

Both this begininng and the poem that follows stand alone as excellent verse. García Montero finds no need for overt allusion or quotation. Nevertheless, there are implicit nods to Ängel González and his Glosas a Heráclito, which contains my favourite lines in 20th Century Spanish poetry:

Nada es los mismo, nada
permanece.
Menos
la Historia y la morcilla de mi tierra:

se hacen las dos con sangre, se repiten.

Nothing is the same, nothing
remains.
Except
the History and black pudding of my homeland:

both are made with blood, they repeat.

In other words, García Montero provides the reader with two equally valid routes. The allusion's there but it isn't rubbed in our faces: unlike with much contemporary Spanish poetry, we aren't being made to feel we have to pass a test of our erudtion before the poet grants us access to his work.

Another example of García Montero's growing surefootedness, meanwhile, is in my favourite piece from the collection, titled La tristeza del mar cabe en un vaso de agua, in which his eschewing of fireworks brings with it a gorgeous, direct lyricism that I won't quote, because its simplicity would render it ridiculous in a limited quote. I recommend getting hold of the book, downing the poem in one and then going back to savour it, sip by sip.

In conclusion, if you've got a working knowledge of Spanish and feel like "taking on" contemporary Spanish poetry, Luis García Montero's Un invierno propio is a terrific point of departure. For me, it's his best book so far.

Paul Farley article

2011-08-07T08:41:00.001-07:00

There's an article by Paul Farley up on the Guardian website today as part of their "Once upon a life" series. The story of his first few months as an art student in London, it's interesting enough in itself, but takes on far more significance when read alongside his first collection, "The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You".

There are always arguments about the relationship between biographical detaila and literary texts, but in this case I certainly feel that my appreciation of Farley's book has been enriched by his article. I'd always loved the ferocious vivacity of his first collection and noticed a slow seep-away of this quality in subsequent volumes. I now understand the seismic shifts in his life that contributed to making "The Boy from the Chemist..." such a tremendous and unrepeatable jolt to the reader.

John Hollander's Rhyme's Reason

2011-08-01T09:19:00.001-07:00

As a student in the Lower Sixth, I finally plucked up the courage to show Richard Hoyes, my English teacher at Farnham College, my first fevered and feeble attempts at writing verse. His advice set me on my way, handing me a scrap of paper with "Rhyme's Reason by John Hollander" on it and telling me to get hold of a copy. It's been with me ever since.

Instead of encouraging me to attend local creative writing classes or giving me overblown praise for the rubbish I was churning out, Richard immediately realised that I needed to sit down and work out that writing poetry was a solitary and hugely self-taught occupation, to understand for myself how poetic form gives figurative sense to speech sound. "Rhyme's Reason" set me on my way. Even now, I vividly recall the light-bulb moment when I first read Hollander's examples, written in verse themselves...

"Trochées simply tumble on..."
"Iambic meter runs along like this..."
"Dactyl means finger in Greek..."

The book goes on to explain the mechanics of a poet's musical tools in great detail. Metre and form are both dealt with via practic examples. However, the key point is its target audience. Not aimed at students or critics, "Rhyme's Reason" is written by a poet for poets. I still thoroughly recommend it.

Inventing Truth on Days of Roses

2011-07-14T09:31:00.000-07:00

Three poems from Inventing Truth, my Happenstance pamphlet, are today being featured on Days of Roses, an excellent and relatively new blog that was born out of the London-based poetry, prose and music series of the same name.

Declan Ryan is behind the poetic side of things and has already showcased top-notch work from people such as Andrew Motion, Mark Waldron and Julian Stannard, plus a whole host of emerging voices. Days of Roses has already enabled me to discover several exciting poets I'll be looking out for over the next few years, and I thoroughly recommend it. Poems aren't just posted haphazardly - there's a very keen editorial eye at work.

The Overdrive Moment

2011-07-10T02:48:00.000-07:00

When writing poetry, I carry certain snippets with me, sparks that I aspire to creating. Many have been with me for years. Chief among them is one from Ted Hughes in his excellent introduction to to my battered OUP edition of Keith Douglas' Complete Poems (still one of my favourite books fifteen years later).

Hughes compares Keith Douglas to Elizabeth Bishop, highlighting several shared qualities such as the "subjective accompaniment to an...objective outlook", before homing in on a key difference:

"Comparing the two, it is surprising to find that...she knew nothing of that overdrive moment in Douglas, that effect of sudden foreshortening, the abrupt impatient short-cut where his seriousness opens and he arrives at the core of his inspiration..."

I still remember my first reading of that statement, a clear and consise explanation of what I relished most about Douglas' poetry and wanted to capture for myself. Even now, it's always at the forefront of my mind as I open my notebook.

Inventing Truth on Other Lives

2011-07-05T08:57:00.000-07:00

I'm grateful to Dan Wyke for featuring Inventing Truth on his Other Lives blog today. He's chosen Extranjero as a sample poem and you can read it here.

"Extranjero", of course, means "foreigner", and the piece deals with my linguistic development since reaching Extremadura. I initially aimed to shake off my English accent when speaking Spanish, but a few years later that achievement brought its own pitfalls!

Syllabics - an explanation

2011-07-02T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was intrigued by remarks made by Tim Love in his review of Inventing Truth, plus his exchange with Sheenagh Pugh in the comments section of the same article, about the use of syllabics in poetry. Love stated "it had to be pointed out to me that the poems are syllabics", while Pugh replied with "I have never, ever noticed that a poem was in syllabics before it was pointed out".

These statements run contrary to my own poetic methods and are thus terrific points of departure for an explanation of my use of syllabics:

I'm 100% convinced there's a subtle syllabic music that runs through English-language poetry and lyrics, lying just below the stresses, often drowned out by the heavier resonance of the latter. When writing poems I never need to count syllables - I instinctively notice and feel them. In other words, an iambic pentameter is a decasyllabic line at the same time. If you are counting stresses you are inevitably and implicitly counting syllables too, as stress patterns are made up of clustered syllables.

What's undeniable is that stresses are a key element to the rhythms of English, far more than in languages such as Spanish, in which metrics are always pure syllabics. By this I mean that any English-language poet writing in syllabics simply must also be aware of stresses. I find that syllabics enables me to play with anapests, iambs, dactyls and trochées within a musical framework, a game that inversely provides me with greater freedom to do so than in free verse, all because the whispering music of syllabics underpins them. Rather than ignoring stresses, I'm doing quite the opposite, using them to create and disrupt aural expectations, seeking to bring together musical effects and semantics.

Editors', readers' and other poets' reactions to my use of syllabics have always been split, in that roughly half have fallen into the Pugh-Love camp, unaware of my metrics until they were pointed out. A large number, however, have instinctively and immediately picked up on my technique.

I'd like to end this post by underlining that it's not meant to be some kind of defence of my poetic methods. Quite the reverse: I hope it provokes thought and I welcome comments below.

Ink Sweat & Tears Part 2

2011-07-01T08:11:00.000-07:00

Ink Sweat and Tears, now with Helen Ivory as sole editor, are currently featuring my poetry for the second time. On this occasion it's "Family Visit", a piece from Inventing Truth. While over there, why not delve into their treasure trove of contemporary verse?

Evangeline Paterson - the power of the media

2011-06-19T07:23:00.000-07:00

My first post on Rogue Strands was about the late Evangeline Paterson (see here), an excellent poet and editor. Her work has long been overlooked, but I still go back to it on a regular basis.

All of a sudden, there's been a huge spike in visitors to this blog over the last couple of days, and a quick glance at the stats showed that most were searching for Evangeline Paterson. Checking on Google, I soon found out out that Rob McGibbon has published an interview with Sarah Brown in The Daily Mail of all places, in which she recalls that her husband quoted from one of Paterson's poems, "A Wish for my Children", at Damilola Taylor's memorial service. It's just a mention in a lengthy piece, but hundreds of readers have obviously picked up on it.

I'm delighted that Evangeline Paterson is now receiving some overdue attention, and what's most encouraging is that even Daily Mail readers seem to keen to seek out poetry! But then a sense of ambivalence strikes me. Why is verse sidelined from most people's lives other than at momentous points? Just how much interest in poetry could the popular media generate if such latent curiosity is out there in their readership? Why don't they do so?

San Fairy Ann

2011-06-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

Do you know what it means?

The answer to that question, if you're U.K.-based, is probably generational. "San Fairy Ann" is an expression that was born out of a gap in the English language, so what are its origins and potential meanings?

British soldiers in World War One soon found out their French counterparts had a phrase that resembled "it doesn't matter" but that sounded much more satisfying, dismissing a problem out of hand. The expression was "Ça ne fait rien" and was anglicised into "San Fairy Ann". Google searches for the term often focus on this origin, labelling it "soldier slang". However, its use became far more widespread than that.

After the war, solders' return to civvy street meant that "San Fairy Ann" entered the general vernacular. For me it brings to mind my Nan's visits when I was a young child, as she shrugged off her own frailties. My parents, meanwhile, still come out with it on occasion. As for myself, I understand it but rarely use it. In other words, my family is an example of how an expression entered the language, took hold in a generation and then gradually slipped away, how English is constantly evolving and sifting words in an ongoing process of selection. We can treasure "San Fairy Ann" for all it represents in terms of personal and social histories, but also relish the continuing shared creativity which leads us towards new expressions on a daily basis.

"Inventing Truth", my Happenstance pamphlet, features the following poem:

San Fairy Ann

Wit amid blood and Belgian mud,
Nan invoked you daily. Your time
on our tongues and in dictionaries
might be running out, but I've passed
your syllables on to my son
in return for his slang from school.

Nostalgia

2011-06-02T07:36:00.000-07:00

Tim Love has posted a positive and thought-provoking review of Inventing truth on his Lit Refs Reviews blog, expressing doubts about my constant brevity and use of syllabics, yet also very much enjoying certain poems. He states that "they have the Larkinesque lift that gives the reader the escape velocity to be launched beyond the text."

I always relish reading his pieces, as they pull no punches and state clear views, enabling me to react and reassess my views of the poetry in question. In this case, of course, my feelings are intensified because he's dealing with my own book!

I was especially intrigued by his conviction that "nostalgia...comes through in many pieces." This led me to my dictionary in search of a definition:

"Sentimental yearning for a period of the past; wistful memory of an earlier time".

For me, the key words here are "sentimental" and "wistful" - one of my main aims is to avoid both in my treatment of the past and the U.K.. I'm all too aware that these feelings are typical in many ex-pats and I'm thus determined to dodge such a trap. What's more, I believe the added perspective of Spain casts an extra ambiguity and ambivalence over my memories, rather than lending them a rose-tinted hue. "Nostalgia" is the last word I'd use to describe my work!

This leaves me with a key doubt: why does Love invoke the term? In other words, I've discovered an intrinsic value to such a generously forthright review. I'll now reread Inventing truth in the light of his remarks. Whether I agree or disagree with his views of the book, they'll provide a wonderful basis for further thought. I'm extremely thankful to him!

New Walk Issue Two

2011-05-21T07:40:00.001-07:00

Despite far too many work commitments, I'm snatching time every now and then to read and write as much poetry as possible. At the top of the pending pile was Issue Two of New Walk magazine, where I was delighted to appear myself with three poems from Inventing Truth.

This second issue confirms that New Walk marks the first emergence for a long time of a major new player in printed poetry magazines in the U.K.. The editors continue their policy of juxtaposing contrasting yet equally valid approaches - for example, I encountered my poems alongside intriguing pieces by Carrie Etter - and seem set on reclaiming key ground for a successful outlet of this ilk.

In other words, New Walk is introducing little-known voices to a wider audience, while also providing a platform for more established poets to showcase new work. Dan Wyke, for instance, can be found exploring extremely interesting ground beyond his first collection with a poem titled School Fête. Alice Oswald, meanwhile, features with part of Memorial, her forthcoming book.

As for the reviews, they continue to draw attention to excellent new books, such as Matt Merritt's fine collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica.

All in all, what with its top-notch production values and terrific artwork, New Walk is now one of the poetry magazines I most enjoy. I certainly recommend you get hold of a copy!

First reviews for Inventing Truth

2011-05-17T08:04:00.000-07:00

The first reviews of a poet's first pamphlet are inevitably significant, so I was intrigued to read three of them all in one go over at the latest issue of Sphinx. Suffice to say, I'm grateful for such generous assessments of the book and am especially delighted to find that my poems have hit the spot with readers, as can be seen in the following extract from Richie McCaffery's piece:

"Inventing truth is a remarkable collection of pithy poems that open up to panoramas of love, family, regret and longing, and linger, flourishing in the mind long after reading."

I can't let a plug like that go begging, so here's a link to the Happenstance shop, where you can purchase a copy of Inventing Truth for yourself.

Review: The Hitcher, by Hannah Lowe

2011-05-02T08:32:00.000-07:00

I first encountered Hannah Lowe’s poems in The Rialto and was impressed by their combination of strong narrative drive, vivid language and endings that didn’t so much tie poems up as open out beyond them. When I later discovered that the same magazine’s publishing arm was bringing out a pamphlet of her work, titled "The Hitcher", I got hold of a copy.

The blurb on the back cover is impressive but daunting. In other words “immensely talented”, “wonderfully evocative”, “one of the most exciting new voices in British poetry” and “in brilliant command” all contrive to put the poet under some degree of pressure before her reader sets off.

Does Lowe deliver? Well, this chapbook finds her showcasing many of the qualities that first caught my eye, while also highlighting areas that need work. She’s capable of setting scenes deftly with language that draws precise sketches without straining for effect, as in the opening lines of “The Picnic”…

“We walk to the shadows of St James’s Park,
past blue deck chairs, paired like old friends,
under the flight of a frisbee, the wide oaks,
a fractious sky of tumbled light.”

However, her fondness for long lines sometimes leads to wordiness and overegging a good idea, as in “Dracula’s Bride”…

“Often she remembers the party at Hallowe’en,
the old gang in fancy dress, fake blood, fangs,
one guy painted totally green”.

In this case freedom is contaminated by flabbiness, of too many words not earning their keep and not becoming new, whereas at other times Lowe achieves terrific tensile rhythms. I have the impression that she’s feeling her way towards an exciting music that doesn’t always click as yet.

Her Anglo-American background, meanwhile, seems set to offer fertile poetic territory: Lowe views both the U.K. and the U.S. with the added edge of being something of an outsider in both countries, while her verse also feeds off both traditions. For example, her observations of life in London are exceptional, detached but involved.

And yet there’s a fair bit to pick holes in. To start with, I find it surprising that the proofreading of the pamphlet failed to pick up on two instances of mix-ups between “its” and “it’s”. This might seem nitpicking, but the poems in question were consequently ruined – their jarring errors yanked my attention away from the verse.

A more important question, however, is the repetitive nature of Lowe’s linguistic resources and voices: a confessional, autobiographical “I” runs through almost all this poetry. Delicious in a single poem, its cumulative effect over the course of the collection becomes over-rich and lacking in variety. As for images, well, in 23 poems I encountered…”fists hard as stones”, “You punched a window”, “the hole I punched in the door” and “when my brother put his fist through a window”. In other words, their initial element of surprise was quickly lost.

“The Hitcher” is a real mixed bag, flawed yet exciting. These poems look as if they’ve been written over a short, intense period in a tremendous initial burst of creativity. As Hannah Lowe moves beyond them towards a first full collection, it will be intriguing to see how her work develops. If she broadens her canvas while also tightening up her musical control, she could well live up to that blurb and maybe even surpass it.

Back in Extremadura

2011-04-22T10:45:00.000-07:00

So I'm back in Extremadura, having filled my tank to the brim with great poetry, people, conversation and beer (not necessarily in that order!). It might not be fair to pick out any highlights, but that won't stop me doing so.

Up in Edinburgh, meeting Helena Nelson for the first time was special. The evening summed up just why she's an excellent editor, as she listened to my reading before encouraging and challenging me in equal measure.

Thanks in no small measure to her advice, the Leicester Shindig went off extremely well. I felt very comfortable while reading and the audience were terrific. Best of all though, I was finally able to share a couple of pints with Matt Merritt and put a speaking voice to his poems. Gary Longden has posted a very positive review of the event here.

Launching Inventing Truth was a wonderful experience and has given me the taste for more. I intend to come over for a further set of readings in the U.K. this autumn and would be delighted to hear from any event organisers who might be able to fit me in!

Edinburgh launch and Leicester reading

2011-04-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

I'm heading down to Seville tomorrow morning to catch a flight over to the U.K., ready to enjoy a couple of days with my parents and then two extremely promising nights packed with poetry.

This coming Sunday (17th April) I'll be launching Inventing Truth in Edinburgh at "Poetry at the...", reading alongside Steven Waling and Ryan Van Winkle. The three of us should represent a pretty broad spectrum and range of poetic approaches, so I'm really looking forward to the evening and am grateful to Rob Mac for offering me the chance to take part. The venue is The Store (formerly the GRV), 35 Guthrie St, Edinburgh (just off Chambers St) from 7.45-9.45pm. Entry £4.00, concessions £3. What's more, I gather I'll even get the chance to meet Helena Nelson, my editor at Happenstance, for the first time!

Meanwhile, the following evening (Monday 18th April) should see me in Leicester. Nine Arches Press have kindly asked me to appear at their Shindig! with Matt Merritt, Maria Taylor and Kathleen Bell. I've long looked forward to hearing Matt read, so it's a real pleasure to participate in an event with him. The venue in this case is The Western on Western Road. Entry's free and proceedings are scheduled to begin at 7.30 p.m..

It would be great to meet any readers of this blog who could get to either event!

The cover

2011-04-03T06:48:00.000-07:00

This is the cover for Inventing truth. The wishbone image is drawn from a poem in the collection and reflects the tenuous, forking routes that hopes take through lives.

Inventing Truth

2011-04-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

Inventing Truth, my first pamphlet collection, is now available to buy for the princely sum of four pounds sterling from the Happenstance Press website here, where you can also read a sample poem.

Naturally, I'm absolutely delighted, while also very grateful to Helena Nelson, the editor at Happenstance, for all her help in bringing this book to publication. I'll be giving a couple of readings to launch Inventing Truth in the coming few weeks. More news to follow...

Hannah Lowe

2011-03-23T11:17:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in a previous post, Hannah Lowe's poems in Issue 70 of The Rialto really caught my eye, so I was interested to note that the same magazine's publishing arm have just brought out a pamphlet of her work, titled The Hitcher. That's another book to add to my lengthy shopping list! I'll be reporting back on it in due course, once I get the Prowein trade fair in Düsseldorf and other work commitments out of the way.

A title

2011-03-12T06:56:00.000-08:00

Not for a poem in this case, but for my forthcoming pamphlet collection with Happenstance Press.

I could have taken one of the poems and applied that title to the book itself, while I also had the option of selecting a catchy snippet or turn of phrase from the innards of a stanza. Instead, I went back to the poetics of my work and to the experiences that laid its foundations. In doing so, I was very much reminded of a quote by Julio Cortázar that struck me immensely on first reading it some fifteen years ago and that has stayed with me ever since:

"Supe que nunca llegaría a la verdad inventada...si me convencía de que país nuevo era vida nueva y que el amor se cambia como una camisa."

One possible translation might be as follows:

"I knew I'd never reach the invented truth...if I convinced myself that a new country was a new life and love is changed like a shirt."

Cortázar was referring to his move from Buenos Aires to Paris, to the fact that over the course of his journey between countries he remained the same person, just with the benefit of multiple perspectives, both on his origins and on his destination. I feel very much the same way when I write in both a U.K. and Spanish context.

But what is invented truth? Well, for me it's the grabbing of life, following by a transformation into poems. When writing the pamphlet, I've attempted to take so-called "experience" or "anecdote" and and turn it into verse, not fact, not fiction, not even faction, but poetry.

What's more, a key tool in the writing process is the manipulation of voice. Who is the "I" that runs through much of my book? In fact, a more pertinent question would be "who are the "I"s that run through it?" This playing with identities enables me to bounce poems between concave mirrors, distorting their points of departure so as to reach somewhere revealingly new.

In other words, my aim when writing poetry is to find myself "Inventing truth", my pamphlet's title.

Sphinx 16

2011-03-05T00:24:00.000-08:00

Sphinx 16 is now live at the Happenstance Press website. Specialising in reviews of pamphlet poetry, Sphinx provides us with a real feel for the current state of play for this format in the U.K. publishing world.

The current issue continues with the intriguing idea of giving us three different reviews for each chapbook, and includes pieces by myself on Matt Bryden's Night Porter and Hilary Menos' Wheelbarrow Farm. I'm always keen to have the chance to compare and contrast critical opinions on a book, so Sphinx offers an ideal opportuntiy. I very much recommend a look at the current issue and a trawl through its extensive online archive.

Tim Love's Lit Refs Blogs

2011-02-23T09:18:00.001-08:00

Tim Love has been publishing poetry on the U.K. magazine scene for a long time now. He currently has a pamphlet, titled Moving Parts, out with Happenstance, and I'm very much looking forward to getting hold of a copy.

For many years he's maintained his Lit Refs website, which he's now moving into a blog format. I thoroughly recommend a trawl through - there's an abundance of fascinating material both for novices and experienced readers and poets.

The new structure is set up in three strands: the main, most "bloggish" section, archived articles and archived reviews. Lit Refs has helped me on many occasions in the past, and this new format enables us to keep up with Love's constant updates. He's always subjective and forthright, which lends the blogs a real sense of an authentic perspective on U.K. poetry over the past few years and the present day. They are an excellent resource.

The editing process

2011-02-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

With the publication of my Happenstance pamphlet provisionally scheduled for April, I'm now immersed in revising drafts of the manuscript with Helena Nelson.

I've been looking forward to this process for a long time, but it's surpassing expectations, reinforcing my belief that a good editor improves a poet hugely. By this, I don't mean that poems are reinvented and cast into someone else's image. Instead, I'm referring to the way that I'm being helped to reassess my poems, stanzas, lines, words and syllables.

Editorial challenges force the poet to raise the bar. I find them an incredible stimulus, not only improving my existing poetry but laying the foundations for future work. From now on, all my new poems will have the points of reference and departure of Helena Nelson's contribution to this current manuscript. In this sense, I'm convinced that top-notch editing is an act of creative generosity. I now just hope my pamphlet returns that favour as best it can!

Amaral

2011-02-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

Amaral are one of Spain's most unashamedly popular and populist groups, but that doesn't stop them being several cuts above most of their Anglo-Saxon equivalents. This live performance of Perdóname from 2008 is an example of how they are capable of veering from excellence to kitsch and back again in a single song...

Review: hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, by Matt Merritt

2011-01-25T09:02:00.000-08:00

Nine Arches Press have recently brought out Matt Merritt’s second collection, titled hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, and I’ve been very much enjoying it these past few weeks.

While his previous books (Making The Most Of The Light and Troy Town) were extremely satisfying reads, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica reaches much further and should ensure that Merritt’s poetry gets the recognition it deserves. With this collection he’s fully establishing himself in a territory where few British poets move with assurance and imagination: history. As a university graduate in the subject, Merritt’s touch with his material is deft, but we’re not just talking about his dealing with public figures and events here. Natural and personal histories are evoked and their parallels with that afore-mentioned public aspect of history are underlined through subtle juxtaposition and recurring motifs, lifting poems way above mere academic interest.

For example, on a personal level “A Fixer-Upper” deals with an intimate setting. Written in the first person plural, it talks of “alternative versions of past/and future”, just as “Lyonesse” finds the narrator waiting in a café, “deep in conversation with myself,/finally getting on with my past…”. and "Halcyon" ends with “the past submerged, the future flown.”

In public terms, meanwhile, we encounter “Dreams From The Anchor Church”. A dramatic monologue in the voice of an Anglo-Saxon solitary, this poem talks of how the narrator “struck out with my face to the future/to find myself walking through the past.”

Merritt thus implicitly draws comparisons between different types of histories, showing us how the study of the subject opens up avenues of more personal understandings. These threads flourish as the collection moves on and are drawn together in several pieces such as from “Tesserae”, in which the contemporary narrator contemplates the history of a city and how it’s interwoven with the history of his life. The poem begins with…

“Having rewritten the past
a dozen times this morning,
I find myself at the museum
next to the Wall.
I haven’t been
since I was 10, but it’s still the
case that everything
happened a very long time ago…”

“Ambition” might be an overused word when discussing poetry, often mistakenly used as a synonym for “experimental”. However, in the case of hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica I do believe it’s applicable, specifically in the breadth and coherence of Merritt’s treatment of history, in the way he harnesses poetry’s transforming qualities to cast new light on age-old themes, enabling the reader to view the past from a different perspective so as to apply it to the present and future. All in all, this is an outstanding collection in the context of present-day U.K. poetry, and I thoroughly recommend it to the readers of Rogue Strands.

Secondhand books

2011-01-16T03:12:00.000-08:00

There's an excellent article by Wayne Gooderman up at the Guardian Books Blog at the moment, titled "The secret stories of book inscriptions".

I've always preferred secondhand books to new ones. The pages have a lived-in feel, while hints of previous existences often appear in them, such as train tickets or postcards, once used as bookmarks, enabling the imagination to speculate.

However, as Gooderman's article points out, the most intriguing aspect of secondhand books is often the bespoke dedications that we encounter in them, leading us towards stories beyond those told by the texts that follow. I personally find the dedications from grandparents to grandchildren the most poignant ones when I'm searching in charity shops for books for my son. These discards of adolescence are charged with the concentrated expression of love by elderly people. I invariably buy them because books, like people, deserve a second shot at love.

The Rialto Issue 70

2011-01-11T10:08:00.000-08:00

I managed to pick up my contributor's copy of Issue 70 of The Rialto during my recent trip to the U.K., and have been paying it close attention.

Apart from the wide-ranging batch of young poets in Nathan Hamilton's feature, I was particularly taken with three poems by Hannah Lowe that combine strong narrative, vivid language and endings that don't just satisfy but open out beyond, qualities which make quoting from them an irrelevance. I'd never heard of Lowe before, but I'll certainly be looking out for her work from now on.

This is an excellent example of how the best literary magazines, such as The Rialto, can help us seek out new voices to feed our hunger for great poetry!

Writing in Spanish

2011-01-06T08:29:00.000-08:00

Blogging's had to take a back seat to life these past few weeks, as work and family drove me through December and the festivities.

However, I'm now back home and refreshed enough to play with new challenges. A number of Spanish friends have been urging me for years to write in Spanish, discussions of my poetry being limited by their poor knowledge of English. This has led me to write a few Spanish versions (never translations) of my poems over the last few days. Just for fun. But with the wonderful consequence of viewing the originals afresh through the filter of a new sociolinguistic perspective.

I don't think I'll be publishing my work in Spanish anywhere soon. Apart from anything else, its poetics would be sniffed at by most on the Iberian peninsula. Nevertheless, I've encountered a game that I'm going to keep playing, letting reflections bounce back and forth, seeing how I can then enrich the originals.

Outsider

2010-12-08T01:18:00.000-08:00

I've always felt something of an outsider, even when growing up in suburban Surrey, acutely aware that I would never fit the mould of a commuter once I reached adulthood. Maybe that's why I revel so in the the role of the only Brit in a small Spanish town.

Anyway, YouTube provides me with a chance to relive that time as a teenager when musical taste - so much the better if it displayed cheese and kitsch - was a way of expressing a rejection of my social surroundings. Here's one such example of my love for obscure 80s disco. Kon Kan were terrific of their ilk, and this is one of their best tracks...

Review: Miming Happiness, by Allison McVety

2010-12-05T03:29:00.000-08:00

I thoroughly enjoyed Allison McVety's first full collection, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay, when it was published in 2007, so I was delighted to find she's just brought out a second book, Miming Happiness (Smith/Doorstep Books, 2010).

What's more, it didn't disappoint once I got hold of a copy. There's the same skilled management of a plethora of detail when dealing with histories, while family and relationships are also delicately portrayed. However, in Miming Happiness, McVety develops and deepens these interests, showing ever-greater technical and thematic assurance.

Starting with her treatment of histories through the observation of objects, scenes and anecdotes, it's clear that McVety has an excellent eye and ability to carry that through to the page, as in Backyards...

"The houses lean in on each other, thin
as undertakers, shouldering their slates...
...No one complains. In hallways debt rises
up the skirting boards and down the ginnel
the bogus queue to take their turn
at peeling Mrs Taylor from her pension."

The rendering of imagery is excellent, although I do feel this piece also highlights some inherent difficulties that I encounter at times as a reader of McVety: the poem is often generalised, as can be seen by the repeated plurals, while characters such as Mrs Taylor appear and disappear in something of a list. I don't feel involved. I admire Backyards, but it doesn't strike at my heart.

Unlike some of the more intimate poems in Miming Happiness. They're simply outstanding, as in Making a Show, which begins as follows...

"My mother wore a nightdress under her shroud
in the way I had once worn a vest
to school under a chrisom of blouse..."

This ability to draw out the proximity and distance between generations of a family is characteristic of Allison McVety at her best, and is reminiscent in this sense of the superb The Two Times I saw Your Penis from The Night Trotsky Came To Stay.

I'd like to finish this review with a quote from my favourite poem in Miming Happiness, titled In The Year of Splitting Up...

...Our storm
honed its leading edge, our bones stung
with the effort of not touching...

This piece uses beautiful language to move the reader. It's an example of why I very much recommend Allison McVety's new book. You'll find a heady mix of imagery and emotion to warm you through this bitter winter.

Launch of hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

2010-11-20T00:13:00.000-08:00

I've admired Matt Merritt's writing for several years, ever since I encountered his excellent Happenstance pamphlet, Making The Most Of The Light, followed by his first full collection, Troy Town.

This Sunday evening sees the launch of his second collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, published by Nine Arches Press, at Jam Cafe, 12 Heathcote Street, Nottingham. I'd love to get along, but finding myself in deepest Extremadura might be something of a handicap.

In any case, I'll certainly be getting hold of a copy as soon as possible. Michelle McGrane featured a number of poems from the book a couple of days ago and it looks terrific!

Other Lives

2010-11-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

Dan Wyke has three of my poems up over at his Other Lives blog today - Extranjero, Dad On The M25 After Midnight and San Fairy Ann. With recent posts including pieces from the likes of Todd Swift, Helen Ivory and Michelle McGrane, there's plenty of intriguing poetry to be found there.

Review: Birdhouse, by Anna Woodford

2010-11-14T08:15:00.000-08:00

Whenever the new issue of a magazine reaches my hands, I first flick through it, poem by poem, seeking “something” that might arrest me. On several occasions, poetry by Anna Woodford has done so. What’s more, her work has invariably followed through from that initial stab of pleasure.

For this reason I was delighted when Woodford won the Crawshaw Prize last year, which guaranteed the publication of her first full collection, Birdhouse, by Salt. It’s a heady read – all those poems that were individually exciting now become enthralling when lined up page after page. Woodford might be in love with language, but her poetry shows it’s a relationship of equals right from the collection’s dazzling opening lines…

“You fiddle with the catch
between my legs until my mouth
springs open…”

In other words, Birdhouse is a book that savours originality of language as a means of transmutation, rather than as an end in itself. There’s no sense of narcissistic revelling in a mastery of linguistic effects. Instead, Woodford harnesses them so as to free the reader, as in the following example from Scan…

…I think
of my heart, that has been
seconded – its old iamb
beating in the dark of my chest.

Anna Woodford doesn’t attempt rupture from previous poetries. In fact, she takes them and casts them in a new light. Just as the reader starts ticking boxes, she springs another surprise. For example, the typical poem that uses a photo as its launch pad – in this case, it’s Clipping, with a purposely drab beginning , as if in a knowing nod to the sub-genre…

September 30 1987. You are a picture
in the North Wales Echo…

Just as we’re sighing at Woodford’s supposed slip, she abruptly changes gear and we’re off…

…How carelessly you carry your son in your face.
I cannot bear to leave you to your ex-girlfriends
until I think of your mother: folding and unfolding
the clipping you sent home between lectures
before tucking it away with your childhood
cards in her heart’s solid dresser.

Terrific stuff! What’s more, Birdhouse is packed with poems of this quality. Anna Woodford has achieved something special with her first collection – a fusion of linguistic playfulness and thematic seriousness. Not hectoring, not lecturing, her poetic generosity launches the reader on countless flights. This is a book I’ll be reading for many years to come.

Review: New Walk Magazine Issue One

2010-11-06T07:38:00.000-07:00

In the current climate of e-zines and blogs, the launch of an ambitious, beautifully presented print-based poetry journal is a significant event in the U.K. poetry world.

As such, Issue One of New Walk magazine is arresting even at first glance. The artwork is excellent, implicitly exploring its own relationship with poetry, as in Claire Blyth's gorgeous back cover, while the layout of the poems invites the reader in, giving verse room to breathe on the page.

Edited by Rory Waterman, Nick Everett and Libby Peake at the University of Leicester, New Walk sets out its aims in the opening editorial:

"We want to reflect in our magazine as wide a range as possible of the ways in which contemporary poets respond to the challenges of freedom. This is why we are interested in modernist and experimental poetry but no less in so-called formalist poetry, which is not necessarily any more conservative nor any less daring in the freedoms it discovers".

The magazine's contents then set out to prove the editors' points, especially in terms of the precise order of poems. Contrasting poetic stances and methods are juxtaposed: Rob Mackenzie is alongside Andrew Motion, while Alison Brackenbury is followed by Peter Larkin. This editorial tightrope is successfully walked and provides a useful snapshot of a wide range of writing.

As would be expected from a magazine that boasts such a well-known line-up for Issue One (Hilary Menos, Matt Merritt, Grevel Lindop, Leontia Flynn, etc, etc...), the standard of writing is consistently high, but my personal favourite is Journey Home by Stephen Payne. This poem's achievement lies in enabling the reader to grasp a new truth that seems obvious once it's been revealed. That might sound cryptic, but you'll have to read the poem to see what I mean, as quotes would sell it short.

New Walk's reviews, meanwhile, further underline the magaine's editorial position: a whole gamut of poets are tackled, from Robin Robertson to Louis Simpson. Criticism isn't shirked, which leads to some uncomfortable reading, as in Nicholas Friedman's review of Mark Halliday's "No panic here". Rob Mackenzie has already discussed this review on his Surroundings blog, and I agree with much of what he states, as Friedman seems to knock Halliday for doing exactly what he intended! If this review were published in a stand-along context, I'd thus be very unsure of its value. However, in New Walk magazine, I do think it performs a useful function, implicitly encouraging the reader to consider and reconsider differing poetic stances.

The editors have done a terrific job with Issue One of New Walk. The magazine looks to have a very promising future on the U.K. poetry scene, especially if its delicate editorial balance is maintained, drawing together different poetic strands, comparing and contrasting them, showing how they can and should develop alongside each other.

La Orquesta Mondragón

2010-10-31T13:30:00.000-07:00

I should be blogging about all the excellent poetry I've read this weekend, but there's been such a glut that I'm still digesting it. Time for a trashy novel and some dodgy music, such as this 80s track from La Orquesta Mondragón, led by Javier Gurruchaga...

Ink Sweat & Tears

2010-10-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

I'm delighted to have a poem, Paco, Mum and Me, up at the excellent Ink Sweat & Tears today. While you're there, I thoroughly recommend you browse their archive - it's a treasure trove of top-notch poetry and prose.

Poetry in the media

2010-10-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

This week has encapsulated the media's treatment of poetry in several ways.

To start with, there was The Guardian's coverage of the Forward Prize. Sam Willets is a fine poet, but why was he singled out for a major feature prior to the awards ceremony? The answer could clearly be found in his former heroin addiction, which provided much-needed "human interest" for the journalist and newspaper readers. I feel this tabloid-driven slant devalues his excellent work. Meanwhile, Hilary Menos' actual winning of the First Collection Prize gained far fewer column inches.

And then there was Ted Hughes. Again. And Sylvia. Again. The Guardian titled one of their articles as follows: "Ted Hughes's final lines to Sylvia Plath bring closure to a tragic tale". That reference to a "tragic tale" is key to our understanding of the sub-editor's angle on this feature: the focus and draw originated in the tragedy of the couple's background story.

These are not just two examples of how poetry is used to provide colour for newspaper articles. In fact, they resonate further and perpetuate misconceptions among the general public. These features reinforce the stereotype of poets as a rare breed who lead atypical and often tragic lives. Many people are turned off both reading and writing the genre, feeling that poetry is consequently not for them.

I often find people taking a surreptitious fresh look at me after finding out I write verse, assessing me anew. A few have expressed surprise and mentioned that I don't look like a poet! Such articles don't help us to get rid of these caricatures.

Review: Hace Triste, by Jordi Virallonga

2010-10-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

A quick look at the labels that run down the right-hand side of this blog should provide any passing readers with the chance to catch up on Jordi Virallonga'a poetic background. This post will focus instead on Hace Triste (DVD Ediciones, 2010), his latest collection.

Hace Triste finds Virallonga covering familiar territory such as the intricacy of relationships, while also opening up to new subjects, such as the ageing process. The book's first poem, Azúcar Quemado, states his aim:

"no caer antes del duodécimo asalto"
"not to hit the canvas before the 12th round"

In other words, defiance, expressed via engagement with life. This engagement has long been a crucial feature of Virallonga's work, and is something that sets him apart from many contemporary Spanish poets. Reading Hace Triste, I'm reminded once more of what first drew me to his work: poetics that gain much of their power thanks to the interlinking of ideas and events, as in this example from Del Orden:

"Ordenas la rabia en el armario,
las risas en el album, el odio en los estantes,
las caricias con los tranquilizantes,
la venganza metida entre las faldas, el llanto
entre cortinas, en la puerta la basura
con recuerdos, con latas,
tu obsesión por reciclar"

"You tidy up anger in the wardrobe,
laughter in the album, hatred on shelves,
caresses with tranquilisers,
revenge slipped between skirts, teardrops
between curtains, rubbish at the door
with memories, with cans,
your obsession with recycling."

The use of this technique might seem commonplace to U.K. readers, but it's unusual in the context of contemporary Spanish poetry, as is Virallonga's use of register, which shows clear development and greater surefootedness in Hace Triste. He veers between formal language and colloquialisms, yet always postions himself firmly within a Spanish that exists beyond the page.

Again, U.K.-based readers might take this for granted. However, much poetry written in Spain seems to bear little correlation with the language that people use, esoteric verse being written with esoteric syntax.

Hace Triste perhaps lacks the seismic thematic drive that made Crónicas de Usura such a stand-out collection, but it's still an excellent book, an alternative vision of how verse in Spain could progress if the current generation of poets were to throw off the shackles of their idolised predecessors. Jordi Virallonga deserves to be read.

New Walk Magazine

2010-09-28T08:11:00.000-07:00

New Walk has just arrived on the U.K. poetry magazine scene. Based in Leicester and run by Rory Waterman and Nick Everett, its stated aim is to "publish some of the best poetry in English, by experimentalist poets, formalists, and everything between from all corners of the English-speaking world."

The editors certainly haven't made a bad start, with Issue One featuring Leontia Flynn, Tom Leonard, Andrew Motion, Alison Brackenbury, Mark Ford, David Mason, Christine McNeill, Timothy Murphy, Matt Merritt, Grevel Lindop and Hilary Menos, among others. I'll be reviewing it in the next few weeks on this blog.

I'm delighted to see a ambitious new print-based mag emerging on the U.K. poetry scene, and it'll be worth keeping a close eye on how New Walk develops. I've even got some poems coming up in Issue Two myself!

Treason

2010-09-18T06:07:00.000-07:00

If translators are traitors and poets are translators, then poets are traitors too. Would I be alone in thinking this is a good thing? In fact, I'm convinced that treason makes a poem authentic. It's the necessary process whereby verse is created.

Siân Hughes' The Missing wins the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize

2010-09-17T09:35:00.000-07:00

Great news yesterday that Siân Hughes' The Missing has won the Seamus Heaney Prize. I've never understood why this book didn't sweep the board at all the major awards last year, but it's clearly still gaining readers, a slow-burning hit.

Poetic prose

2010-09-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

"Poetic" is a term that's often applied to prose, but what does it mean?

Blurb-writers and critics use it as shorthand for the lyrical use of device, for musicality as expressed through sounds and rhythms. However, I feel this interpetation is slack journalese, perpetuating the public's misconceptions of poetry.

In fact, real poetic prose is the pared-down use of language, where each word works overtime for its keep. It's prose where there's a heightened awareness of the slightest nuance belonging to every lexical choice.

The compact, compressed nature of short stories lends itself more to this quality than a novel. Cortázar, Borges and Carver are all examples of writers who began with poetry and then excelled as short-story writers. As for myself, I love telling short stories in my poetry.

Poetry for this sutumn

2010-09-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

Lots of tasty morsels are coming up this autumn on the poetry reading front. My bank account might complain, but I'm determined to grab as many as possible.

I'm definitely going to be getting hold of a copy of Birdhouse, Anna Woodford's first full collection from Salt, which looks like being a real contender for major awards. Over at Nine Arches Press, meanwhile, November will see the publication of Matt Merritt's second collection, Hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica. It should consolidate his growing reputation. Finally, I'll try to stretch my budget to Allison McVety's Miming Happiness. I'm intrigued to see where she's taken her poetry since her excellent first book, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay. Other collections are sure to come to my attention over the next few weeks, but these have already made the list.

All in all, an autumn of terrific reading awaits!

Jordi Virallonga, Crónicas de Usura

2010-09-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

Regular readers of Rogue Strands might recall my post on Jordi Virallonga lsst year. He's the author of several excellent collections, but one stands out for me - Crónicas de Usura, one of the few books of contemporary Spanish poetry that could find a substantial readership in the U.K. if the translation were sensitively handled.

I've been seacrhing for clips of Virallonga reading his work for some time now, especially because his delivery demonstrates just how different he is from many other Iberian poets and their histrionics. Well, I've finally found a superb few minutes on YouTube. What's more, the poems are from the Crónicas de Usura collection, a real treat:

This August has seen the publication of Virallonga's new book, Hace Triste. The sample poems I've read are terrific. I've got a copy on order and will review it here in due course.

One language or two?

2010-08-26T08:03:00.001-07:00

Just back from my latest trip to West Sussex, I've been catching up on reading and have encountered a thought-provoking piece by Michael Hofmann in the Guardian in which he discusses the value for a poet of speaking a second language. The following quote is central to his argument:

"We think and are and have our being in, and in and out of languages – and where's the joy and the richness, if you don't even have two to rub together? If you don't have another language, you are condemned to occupy the same positions, the same phrases, all your life. It's harder to outwit yourself, harder to doubt yourself, in just one language. It's harder to play."

Reading this article, I immediately recalled Larkin's Paris Review interview and his statement "A writer can have only one language, if language is going to mean anything to him."

In my early years in deepest Spain I was the only foreigner in town. Before internet access and cheap telephone calls, I would often go for two or three months without talking to a native speaker of English.

That period of my life was key to my development as a poet. It firstly forced me to get writing if I wanted to find an English-language outlet, but it also then provided a counterpoint for my previous experiences back in Blighty. My views of U.K. society and the English language were challenged and enriched by my immersion in Spain and Spanish. Thanks, Michael Hofmann, for reflecting that idea so well!

Review: The Rain Diaries, by Rosie Garner

2010-08-01T10:17:00.000-07:00

The Rain Diaries (Salt, 2010) might be Rosie Garner’s first collection, but it’s a book that’s steeped in life and poetic graft.

The work of many years is on show here, as is demonstrated by blasts from the past such as Iron magazine on the acknowledgements page. The poetry itself, meanwhile, backs that impression up. Never showy or flash, it earns our attention with honesty. By this I don’t mean anecdote, nor am I using critical shorthand for confessional verse. I’m referring to the way The Rain Diaries deals with emotions and events unflinchingly and thus involves the reader.

In one section of the book, for example, Garner invites us to accompany her on a journey that starts with an idiosyncratic depiction of a child’s conception on a campsite in “How To Begin a Person”:

“Take a night where the canvas rips,
where something stumbles outside in the dark
and plastic chairs somersault in sheeting rain…”

She leads us through children’s growing pains and on to scenes where those initial characters seem to reappear in very different circumstances, as in “Cleave”:

"…And so, at the end of the marriage,
clinging to the axe that found the line of weakness,
the fool of a woman,
this idiot man."

The strength of this journey is that its contradictions, inherent melancholy and even celebrations are juxtaposed and sequenced in such a way that we travel with Garner throughout. Her poetic generosity enables us to share and therefore be enriched by these pieces.

However, The Rain Diaries doesn’t just focus on the personal. Its honesty also extends to its sketches of other characters. These depictions aren’t built on flimsy imagery. Instead, they build up via scrupulous observation and understanding of social workings. A excellent example of this is “Football on Vernon Park”, in which a coach observes his Under Eights. The poem ends as follows:

"…You can see, in their cool appraisal of their game,
their shrugging acceptance of missed goals,
like shadows standing behind them,
the men they’ll grow into.
He watches from the centre,
almost smiles, sees them now."

Garner doesn’t stand aloof from her subjects: this astute poetry works by sharing their perspectives and consequently helping us to do so too.

In summary, The Rain Diaries is a very good book that shows the benefits of working away at a first collection over a lengthy period. Experience, both of life and verse, runs through every page. Rosie Garner’s achievement lies in gifting it to her readers.

The warp of memory

2010-07-28T11:01:00.001-07:00

Looking over old notebooks last week (and cannibalising lots of stuff!), I was struck by how often I fail as a poet when events or places are too recent. I'm more and more convinced that the warp of memory plays a key role in creating poetry, in turning anecdotes and feelings into verse.

In fact, the creative process is unconsciously ongoing in my mind. I know that most of my best latest work has come about by returning months or years later to a failed poem. When rereading it, I suddenly glimpse the right route and wonder how I missed something so obvious when struggling with the same material in the past. That moment of realisation isn't "inspiration" as much as the point at which the unconscious becomes conscious and crystalises in poetry.

Solar farms

2010-07-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

I might love complaining about the heat in Extremadura, but I have to admit there are certain major plus points. As this article from the Guardian indicates, we're now home to the world's largest solar power station. In fact, numerous solar farms form an integral part of our regional landscape along with vines and olives groves.

The Rialto

2010-07-14T09:49:00.001-07:00

This morning's post brought the news that The Rialto have accepted one of my poems, Formica, for publication in Issue 70. I'm delighted to be appearing in Michael Mackmin's excellent magazine for the second time!

Review: Waiting for the Sky to Fall, by Dan Wyke

2010-07-10T11:11:00.000-07:00

You might recall my review last year of Dan Wyke’s excellent pamphlet, Scattering Ashes (2004). Well, Wyke finally has a full collection out from Waterloo Press, titled Waiting for the Sky to Fall, and it doesn’t disappoint.

All of his assets from the chapbook remain, while many of the most outstanding poems (see that afore-mentioned pamphlet review) are also carried over. However, these qualities are now even further concentrated, distilled and expanded.

Wyke has fully harnessed his gorgeous lyrical gifts - there are no fireworks for their own sake in Waiting for the Sky to Fall – as the poet approaches life so as to understand it rather than filtering it through some esoteric code. Whether dealing with Gazza, a dirty weekend or potatoes, accessibility is married to an ambitiously humanistic vision.

What’s more, Wyke’s risk-taking individuality enables him to stand out in the present-day morass of Creative Writing courses and renowned mentors. One key example of this is his treatment of abstract nouns. While most of his contemporaries run scared of their ramifications, Wyke grabs them, relishes their latent potential and wreaks according havoc with our expectations, as in this example from the collection’s title poem:

When the phone rings with the news, it is raining
or not; the heart stops,

the heart goes on; the same language
is no longer enough, though words come,

performing acrobatics on the tongue…

“Heart” is a pivotal word here, its repetition highlighting an inherent duality of meaning: physical and abstract. Interplay and tension are thus developed between the two, enabling us to reassess our own interpretations.

Furthermore, the above point is reinforced by the remark on the nature of language that follows. Rooted in the specifics of this situation, Wyke’s statement that “the same language/is no longer enough” broadens his perspective while also implicitly homing back in on that word again, “heart”.

In fact, I’d actually go as far as to highlight this extract as something approaching a statement of poetic progression. Specific experiences have led to Wyke’s recognition that he has to reach beyond lyricism. Those “acrobatics” are no longer enough: events have their consequences in verse, where they also earn transforming qualities.

There’s an enormous variety of tone, subject matter and versification in this book, yet it’s held together by a glue that many first collections lack - no matter which poem we choose to read, it could only have been written by Dan Wyke. In the current context of U.K. poetry, that’s a huge achievement.

In a just world, Waiting for the Sky to Fall would make all this year’s shortlists and carry off a gong or two from under major publishers’ noses. For the moment, I hope my review contributes in some small way to its finding the wide readership it deserves. This is the rare class of collection that can create an addiction to contemporary verse.

Acetre, music from Extremadura

2010-07-04T07:25:00.000-07:00

Forget about 40ºC, that's for lightweights - I've just measured 43ºC on my balcony!

At these temperatures my brain turns to mush and begs for trashy novels, dodgy computer games and viciously chilled lager, none of which come high up on my list of priorities in normal circumstances!

An Extremaduran summer offers few highlights, but open-air concerts in cool night air do prove an exception. Here's a clip from just such an evening. The band is called Acetre, one of the best groups in this region:

Review: The Sparks, by Ben Wilkinson

2010-06-23T12:09:00.000-07:00

The Sparks might be Ben Wilkinson’s first pamphlet, published as part of Tall Lighthouse’s Pilot Series, but this is a young poet showing his mastery of varied techniques rather than trying them on for size.

Wilkinson’s work is meticulously structured and layered, displaying great turns of phrase such as “the sudden void of shadows” or “the prayer-still street”, yet his language isn’t flashy. Every word is doing a job. There are hints at wide reading and multiple influences - Wilkinson has a growing reputation as a reviewer - but he manages to limit their intrusion by deftly subverting them into his poetics.

One of the main strengths of The Sparks is its terrific evocation of the tension between individuals and the social and physical hubris that surrounds them, as in this example from The Quiet:

I was drinking my way through a fifth pint of lager
and sparked up a fag as the tidemarks grew larger,
walked to the bar as the music grew louder

and noticed in minutes I’d clocked up two hours
when stumbling away from the urinal’s cowl
I turned to the exit to make for your house…

Our journey through the urban labyrinth certainly preoccupies Wilkinson, even impinging on settings beyond the city. Booze, fags (and more!) are images that reflect this jostling and come to the forefront once more in the pamphlet’s closing poem, Reflections…

…as we sat on the shingle drinking lukewarm
cans of lager. Not even my Zippo flame could
captivate the water’s oil-black darkness…

…Well, after I sparked that joint up, just then,
from where we were sitting I swear the ocean
was held like that for one hell of a second…

In The Sparks Ben Wilkinson stakes out a poetic territory, both in stylistic and thematic terms, yet there’s clearly even more to come over the next few years. Conor O’Callaghan, a fine poet himself, provides a key insight on the back cover, stating that Wilkinson is beginning “the difficult task of unlearning”. This excellent pamphlet demonstrates he’s already a fair way along that route. I look forward eagerly to his first full collection.

Lyrics in contemporary poetry

2010-06-20T07:39:00.000-07:00

Bearing in mind the ever-growing aural presence of lyrics in our daily lives, it's worth noting that more and more poems make use of them.

My current favourites include Matt Merritt's terrific I'm Your Man (from his Happenstance pamphlet, Making The Most Of The Light) with its references to Leonard Cohen, plus Maura Dooley's The Spoils (from Kissing A Bone), in which she invokes the singers and songs on the records that are being divided up by a separating couple.

As for myself, I've even alluded to a cheesy Paul Young song in a poem that might well find its way into my pamphlet. Dangerous territory indeed!

Congratulations to Happenstance

2010-06-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

This year's winner of The Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets is Happenstance. Here's a quote from the corresponding press release:

Ali Smith, Chair of the Judges, commented: "HappenStance proved outstanding in the elegance, thoughtfulness and clarity of their design, and the infectious interaction, open-mindedness and energy of their publishing ethos."

Terrific news and deserved recognition for Helena Nelson's work!

Review: In and Out of the Dark Wood, by Jeremy Page

2010-06-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Page is both an editor and a poet. This combination has served him well in his excellent new pamphlet, In and Out of the Dark Wood, recently published by Happenstance Press.

He pulls off a delicate trick: there are few fireworks in the pamphlet, an absence of obvious devices, wordplay or heavy musical patterning, yet this collection is far from being chopped-up prose. In fact, it's packed with terrific poetry.

Page builds an unobtrusive music that's intrinsically married to his semantics. Language grafts here, enabling us first to identify with scenarios and then to transform them into a new creative process in the context of our own lives. All this sounds slightly pompous and theoretical, but few poets achieve time and time again as he does in this book...

Being here

Here, on the garden bench in high summer
we can agree it's over while the kids indoors,
oblivious, carry on and bicker and half watch TV;
we can agree that, no, we never expected
things would turn out like this, and pour ourselves
another glass of wine; agree that this is
somewhere that we never meant to be,
that in high summer it's a cold and godless place.

This poem displays an extraordinary understandings of how effects are obtained. The melody of everyday language is heightened by subtle repetition, while the killer word is "somewhere" at the start of the penultimate line. It doesn't need to shout its status as a metaphor from the poetic rafters. Instead, Page allows its ramifications to creep up on us, us just as they did on the participants in the scene.

In and Out of the Dark Wood might seem an intensely sad collection in much of its subject matter: the slip of generations, the loss of memory and the aftermath of divorce. Nevertheless, it's also a celebration of Page's generosity of sentiment. Experiences and observations are shared with such an acute and playful eye, the editor-poet revelling in life even when pain abounds.

I thoroughly recommend In and Out of the Dark Wood, one of the most understated yet outstanding pamphlets to have been published so far this year. Jeremy Page writes poetry that's been carved from experience.

Escuela de Calor

2010-06-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

Once we get to mid-June, the sun becomes relentless in Extremadura. Daytime temperatures regularly reach well over 40ºC and you have to be brave/mad/an Englishman to venture out of the house between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m..

In that context, it's time to invoke Escuela de Calor, a gorgeous subversion of a summer song, Radio Futura and Santiago Auserón (aka Juan Perro) at their best...

Review: Parade The Fib, by Rhian Edwards

2010-06-03T09:03:00.000-07:00

I first encountered Rhian Edwards when we both read at a London Magazine launch a couple of years ago. She read her poems from memory with great intensity of feeling and rhythm yet managing to dodge theatricality. I later spotted some of her work in Stand and then got hold of a copy of Parade The Fib, her Tall Lighthouse pamphlet.

Parade The Fib might only contain fourteen pages, but it's packed with verve. Critical shorthand might put these down as "relationship" poems. However, that term doesn't do them justice...

"She wears her head
on the bone of her shoulder,
wraps his cold hand
in the skin of her own."

These pieces evoke scenes superbly, none better than in Marital Visit, the pamphlet's final piece. A slow-burning poem that defies quotation, it underlines the talent on show here.

Despite the publisher's references in the blurb to an "un-English sound" and "Celtic bass-line", Edwards' poetry relishes the music of British English with a delicate ear for its rhythms of speech, lyrically compacted. What's more, her treatment of the subject matter gives an implict nod towards Hugo Williams and Billy's Rain.

Once or twice, Edwards' linguistic drive and lack of inhibition lead to slips, like a rich sauce smothering a delicious steak...

"Tongues, once swaggered
with muscles of mirth, now flap
at the table, starved of all rapture".

Nevertheless, the overall impression is excellent: this is poetry in a contemporary idiom, dealing with relationships in a way that discovers them afresh. Poetic ambition and accessibility coexist in Parade The Fib.

I'll be intrigued to see how Rhian Edwards' work develops over the coming years. Will she sustain this intensity of tone and themes through a full collection or will she extend and deepen her range? Either way, she's a poet who's sure to find acclaim.

Poetry at the Hay Festival

2010-06-02T07:22:00.000-07:00

When reading the Guardian's feature on the Hay Festival yesterday, I was struck by the absence of poetry. Hay seems to verge on a denial of the genre's existence, as if active involvement with verse could marginalise the festival!

I was thus delighted to see in today's edition of the same paper that Simon Armitage used his appearance at Hay to make that very point:

"...he felt rather a lonely figure at this year's festival. "I wish there were more poetry events," he said. "There are more bodyguards here than there are poets."

Hay is terrifically popular with readers of novels, while access to such people in the context of a festival is just what poetry needs in its search for a larger audience. I very much look forward to seeing next year's programme in the light of Armitage's remarks.

Shanghai

2010-05-23T10:24:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the length of time that's passed since my last post - ten days in Shanghai took me out of circulation.

Travelling is a key part of my job and often becomes humdrum, especially when I'm visiting somewhere for the umpteenth time. However, this trip was different. Shanghai's an intoxicating city, a challenge to the senses, the emotions and preconceptions. Best of all, I was accompanied throughout by Chinese friends - a wonderful way to get under a city's skin. They welcomed me into their lives and helped me cast new light on my own.

I'm not one for writing travel poetry as such, but such experiences feed my poetry indirectly. I've returned with a refeshed view of my day-to-day life, with new counterpoints. It's time to pick up a pen once more.

The Michael Marks Publishers' Award

2010-05-12T10:34:00.000-07:00

Excellent news today that Happenstance Press, the publishers of my forthcoming pamphlet, have been nominated for The Michael Marks Publishers' Award for the second year running.

This award provides recognition for outstanding U.K. publishers of poetry in pamphlet form, based on their previous year's publishing programme. I'm delighted for Helena Nelson, Happenstance's editor. Here's wishing her luck for the awards ceremony on 16th June!

Marrying adjectives to nouns

2010-05-11T15:26:00.001-07:00

This match-making process is one of the toughest parts of writing poetry.

It often fails by being too forced in its attempted coupling or by following a path that's already too well-trodden. As a poet, I'm constantly wrestling with the task of marrying adjectives to nouns in a way that casts new light yet immediately sounds natural.

Nicola Barker on Englishness

2010-05-02T14:21:00.001-07:00

While reading an interview with Nicola Barker in today's Observer, I came across an interesting reflection on Englishness:

"Nobody loves England more than the people who don't actually have to live there. I love our inclusiveness. It's become very fashionable of late for people to witter on about what Englishness is, as if Englishness is in danger of disappearing. The English have always been a mongrel race and proud of it. We are everything and nothing."

Barker makes these remarks in the context of her childhood in South Africa. I find them especially relevant to my own writing, as exile is a double-edged sword: it provides an extra perspective and counterpoint, yet can easily lead to nostalgia for something that never existed.

Creative routes

2010-04-25T11:52:00.001-07:00

I noticed a great post by Jane Holland the other day over on Raw Light, reflecting on "The Creative Writing Generation".

Jane quotes an interesting review of Identity Parade that invokes this term, and I agree entirely with her comments. Let's take the example of myself: I'm sure I'd be far more widely published if I'd had a well-connected mentor or if I'd done the right Creative Writing M.A., while they might also have ironed out many of my clunky faults, saving me from many of my most time-consuming mistakes.

Nevertheless, I've always felt that such help might have indirectly endangered two things I treaure: the little idiosyncracy I've managed to develop and the particular path I've chosen to explore as my own. In other words, creative writing M.A.s and mentoring might have encouraged many excellent poets to emerge over the last few years, but there are still certain other advantages to working outside that environment.

I'm convinced such diversity is key to the future health of British poetry.

Becoming a Poet

2010-04-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

I noticed Faber & Faber's latest initiative the other day: a six-month course of thirty sessions to be run by their Academy with the aim of helping "students" as they work towards "becoming a poet".

My reaction started off as surprise at Faber's involvement in this idea, together with bemusement at their above-mentioned use of terminology in the promotional material. However, amazement soon followed when I saw the price - 3,500 quid! And I'd been led to believe there's no money in poetry...

Music for a rainy Saturday in Extremadura

2010-04-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

I often used to browse a second-hand record shop in West Street, Farnham. One afternoon I found the "Smells Like Truth" album on the discounted shelf and was captivated by its cover. As this track shows, the music didn't disappoint once I'd handed over my quid and got it home. "Arms of a Dream" is still a haunting track.

Mappings of the Plane by Gwen Harwood

2010-04-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

Gwen Harwood (1920-1995) was a key figure in 20th century Australian poetry. Carcanet/Fyfield brought out a U.K. edition of her selected poems, titled Mappings of the Plane, in 2009, and I managed to get my hands on a copy last month.

A first reading hinted at a series of poets rolled into one - lots of different voices and techniques all fused by one mind. This impression was confirmed by background information: Gwen Harwood was renowned for adopting multiple personas and pseudonyms, using them to try out new masks, perspectives and techniques.

Although Mappings of the Plane brings these different threads together under her name, there's still a sense of these varying tangents working their way through her poems. Add this to the inevitable development undertaken by any poet throughout their life and you can see why this Selected displays such a wide range of qualities.

This above-mentioned range means that no reader's going to be taken with the whole book. Instead, there are gems which glitter every few pages. I particularly enjoyed "In The Park", for example, and feel it's worth reading alongside Larkin's "Afternoons". The latter poem exquisitely observes young mothers, while the former moves under one's skin:

"...It's so sweet
to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive,"
she says to his departing smile. Then, nursing
the youngest child, sits staring at her feet.
To the wind she says "They have eaten me alive."

Placing this down-to-earth poem in the context of several explicitly metaphysical pieces, Harwood's variety becomes clear. In many poems she's unafraid of abstract nouns and imagery (many critics see her as a Romantic), often leaping from day-to-day contexts to concepts and then back again.

Something of her music reminds me of Keith Douglas, although her work is more slow-building than his. She doesn't manage the sudden acceleration and the rush of clarity that so characterise Douglas. Harwood's poems unwind more gradually, thus not lending themselves to outstanding quotes. Here, however, are the closing lines of "Nightfall", as it reaches high:

"...you turn
home with the child once quick
to mischief, grown to learn
what sorrows, in the end,
no words, no tears can mend."

Mappings of the Plane is the record of an exceptional poetic mind at work. Gwen Harwood deserves a wider U.K. readership for her poems, as all of us can find something to savour in them.

Capturing an experience

2010-04-10T06:16:00.000-07:00

I read a fascinating post over at Andrew Shield's blog the other day, in which he discusses Robin Robertson's poem, My Girls, from his collection titled The Wrecking Light.

Shields recognises the poem's dexterity at capturing a feeling and experience, yet feels it doesn't become an experience in itself, not seeing this as a defect but as a feature that identifies and distinguishes the piece from many others. I agree with him. In fact, this quality makes it unusual in Robertson's body of work.

What's more, I'm aware that I enjoyed My Girls far more than most of Robertson's poetry. I feel this is because in this poem he achieves something that is also my aim when I write: the depiction of an immediately recognisable experience in a specific and innovative way, thus enabling the reader to find a new insight into their own feelings.

Shields also makes a final, extremely interesting point in the light of my previous remarks: he feels that this kind of poetry is not liked by many contemporary poets or readers of poetry. I'm sure he's right, and would argue that it's fashionable to view such writing as unambitious.

I'm actually convinced that the opposite is true: capturing and transforming an event in this way demands incredible skill. Innovation becomes far more demanding yet also rewarding within the bounds of simplicity. I struggle to manage this every time I sit down to write poetry.

Sphinx 12

2010-04-07T11:05:00.000-07:00

Reviews tell us as much about their author as about the books they're assessing, something that's made even clearer than normal by Sphinx and its idiosyncratic format of providing three different reviews for each chapbook.

Snippets from Issue 12 are now up at the Happenstance site (including three reviews by myself), and they're well worth a look. Not only do we get varied perspectives on the books in question, but we also find an implicit dialogue and debate developing between the different reviews and reviewers. There are opinions which coincide, others which clash, others which cast fresh light on each other. Each review has been written in isolation, before all three are brought together for the first time in Sphinx.

This process must involve a huge amount of work for Helena Nelson, but a great deal of pleasure is generated for the reader.

Mark Haddon and Paul Farley

2010-04-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

Mark Haddon interviews Paul Farley in an excellent feature over at The Guardian website at the moment.

I've long been interested in the relationship between these two writers. Haddon is obviously renowned for his best-selling novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, which I thoroughly enjoyed. His follow-up to that book, meanwhile, was a collection of poetry, titled The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea, which convinced to a far lesser degree.

In features after its publication, Haddon mentioned Farley on several occasions, and the latter's stylistic and thematic influence on his verse is clear. What's more, Haddon's poetry seems laden with nods towards others, his linguistic virtuosity and great ear getting bogged down in some attempt to prove he can cut it as a poet.

As for Farley, I've already mentioned my admiration for him in previous posts on Rogue Strands. Nevertheless, seldom have I seen him provide such an insight into the mechanics of his creative process as in this article. Maybe he's been drawn out by the interviewer's clear admiration for his work. All in all, it's a fascinating piece.

New reading

2010-03-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks have seen me caught up in a succession of trade fairs. It's been hectic but endlessly fascinating. For example, I love listening to my Spanish colleagues dealing with other nationalities in English. Or rather in a new language that's derived from English, casting new light on it.

This context makes returning to poetry even more of a cleansing process than usual. Gwen Harwood's Mappings of the Plane's on my desk at the moment and I'll blog about her poems in due course, while a couple of extremely promising Happenstance pamphlets are also pending my attention.

The Plough Prize Awards

2010-03-08T10:58:00.000-08:00

The Plough Prize awards will be taking place this coming Saturday in Great Torrington. There'll be a slam, a free workshop and readings from the winners. I'll be reading my poem "Instructions For Coming Home", plus a short selection from my forthcoming Happenstance pamphlet if there's time.

From Torrington I'll be heading back to Sussex before a vicious schedule of two trade fairs in different countries in a week. First off will be the Prowein fair in Düsseldorf, followed directly by Alimentaria in Barcelona. Here's hoping the new vintages go down well!

A second language

2010-03-02T11:31:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful to Katy Evans-Bush over at the Poets On Fire forum for pointing me towards Don Share's recent post about bilingual poets in which he quotes Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill on this issue. She invokes inner war, displacement, anxiety, psychic pain, etc, etc...

My own experience is very different. I's important to start by clarifying terms: I'm not bilingual and never will be, in spite of spending fifteen years in a small Spanish town where I've been the only native English speaker for much of that time. I can't be, even though my Spanish is perfect, simply because I wasn't brought up as such. However, my immersion in a second language has led to a heightened awareness of nuances in English. Spanish has cast new light on the way English works, its nuts and bolts, its socio-cultual connotations, its means of expression. All this has made a huge contribution to my poetry.

My son, meanwhile, is completely bilingual. Again, clarification is useful at this stage. He's not just the son of an English bloke - he's as at home in English as he is in Spanish. The two languages complement each other and have never caused conflicts for him. He's simply more aware of his identity than most kids of his age. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill's plight seems to have more to do with her specific situation than with bilingualism in general.

Immersion in two languages, through bilingualism or second language acquisition, has the power to strengthen rather than dilute. The more counterpoints we have in life and poetry, the richer our perspectives become.

Translations as collaborations

2010-02-19T06:59:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I mentioned how Jorge Luis Borges collaborated on many of the translations of his work into English. In fact, my reading of his work has always been informed by comparisons between the originals and the English-language versions that he wrote with Norman Thomas di Giovanni.

However, I was unaware of the legal dispute that ensued following Borges' death and which has led to those collaborative translations, new works in their own right and incredible perspectives on Borges' creative processes, being taken out of print. This article from The Guardian provides some more background to the story.

Translations normally have a pretty short shelf life, but di Giovanni's work with Borges falls into a completely different category. I view it as fundamental for all readers of the Argentinian's prose and poetry, even in the original Spanish, bearing in mind the extra angle and often provocative light that these specific translations provide. There seems to be a constant dialogue between the English and the Spanish if you read them in tandem.

At least they're still available on the second-hand market, which is where I got hold of my copies. I thoroughly recommend them above the current (albeit very competent) Penguin Borges, simply because they're superb examples of translations as collaborations.

Alistair Maclean

2010-02-17T00:13:00.000-08:00

Dick Francis' death a few days ago has led to a number of reference in the press and blogs to Larkin's love of his work. However, my attention was drawn more to an article by John Crace in The Guardian, titled "How Dick Francis helped me through adolescence".

In my case the author in question was Alistair Maclean. I had sprinted through Blyton, etc, and started scavenging my parents' bookshelves for something even slightly more salacious yet not censored by them! I was already feeling the slow-building oppression of suburban Surrey and found an escape route in Maclean's thrillers.

I was pretty much immediately aware of the author's wonky attitude to women, paper-thin characterisation and clunky dialogue, but his overwhelming attribute for this teenage reader was pace. His books didn't let me switch off and drift, thus ensuring I didn't suspend my disbelief.

Even now, at times of stress, hangover or tiredness, I find myself turning to a Maclean novel, ready to read it through for the umpteenth time in the sure knowledge that it will lift me out of my immediate context. My writer's mindset finds it ever more difficult to read fiction, yet Maclean is still a refuge, a chance for me to rewind twenty years and shake off my acquired prejudices for a couple of hours.

Update to my Blog List

2010-02-10T07:25:00.000-08:00

I've updated my blog list today to reflect recent developments. Here's some background to a couple of blogs that have caught my eye and thus been included.

It's always good to welcome a new poetry blog to the U.K. scene, especially when it's written by a poet whose work I admire. Dan Wyke's Other Lives is still in its infancy, but it's definitely worth keeping an eye on. Dan's first full collection is being brought out by Waterloo in the coming months and I've a firm feeling it's going to be one of this year's most intriguing debuts.

Michelle McGrane's Peony Moon, meanwhile, has become an excellent resource for readers of British poetry, including reviews, interviews and snippets from forthcoming collections. A number of poets have come onto my radar thanks to her work. All this and she's not even based on these shores!

Valle-Inclán and his esperpento

2010-02-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936) was an exceptional playwright. In my opinion he surpassed Lorca in his theatrical craft and innovation.

So why isn't he renowned as such in the U.K.? A major reason is the difficulty involved in staging his plays: incredibly visual scenes are combined with stage directions that include everything from social comment to emotional and metaphysical reflections on characters! In other words, Valle-Inclán was bridging genres, creating works that lose something when read and something else when staged.

To the wider Spanish public, however, Valle-Inclán is synonymous with one word - el esperpento. What's more, he single-handedly changed its meaning. Originally an insult indicating a person or event's ridiculous nature, Valle-Inclán used the term to define a type of theatre and moreover a society, stating:

"El sentido trágico de la vida española sólo puede ofrecerse con una estética sistemáticamente deformada"

"The tragic sense of Spanish life can only be depicted with a systematically deformed aesthetic"

He developed el esperpento via plays such as Luces de Bohemia to such an extent that audiences and readers began to understand it as an interpretation (encompassed in a single word) of Spain's grotesque social structures and consequent tragic events. Its ramifications grew further following Valle-Inclán's death - the Civil War and Franco's dictatorship a tragic embodiment of el esperpento.

Even these days, my Spanish friends and colleagues bemoan el esperpento that's still played out on a regular basis in offices and homes all over the country. We all know what we mean when referring to the term. This is an incredible achievement on the part of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, a playwright who deserves far greater recognition in the English-speaking world.

Surroundings

2010-02-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

Sad news earlier this week that Rob Mackenzie is suspending activities on his Surroundings blog.

Surroundings has been one of the most interesting blogs on the U.K. poetry scene these past few years and is packed with reviews of collections and mags, comments on poetry news and links to lots of dodgy music videos such as the recent Neil Diamond season (I'm a closet fan too!). I thoroughly recommend a browse through its archive.