Fame in the poetry world

Fame in the poetry world has always been ephemeral. However, this shifting of trends has accelerated even more over the last few years, due to the internet in general and social media in particular. The flavour of the month has shifted to a week, day, hour and minute.

Here’s an example: back in the 1990s, Steven Blyth was a major figure in the poetry world. He was a Gregory Award winner with poems in all the top journals and a terrific first full collection, titled Baddy, which I still drop back into on a regular basis and will feature on Rogue Strands in the near future. Moreover, he also ran one of the best poetry mags around – Prop – where I discovered that there really were people writing in a similar aesthetic to myself.

Prop eventually ran out of steam, as did Blyth’s publisher, Peterloo Press. He’s since published with Shoestring and Smokestack, and continues to bring out high quality collections every few years, but he’s certainly not in fashion. Just try searching for him on Twitter, for instance.

When we’re feeling the online pressure of our peers’ relentless announcements of success after momentary success, Steven Blyth’s story is worth bearing in mind, not as an example of why it isn’t worth bothering with publication, but because he encapsulates a key reason why the opposite is true…

…thanks to his earlier books, Blyth has accumulated readers such as myself, readers who’ll keep his work alive and bring it to a new audience. If a poet garners a small band of appreciative followers, they’ve achieved something special, something they can treasure for the long haul. As is the internet’s wont, fame can do one, sharpish.

Writing poetry in silence?

I have to admit I'm always surprised when other poets tell me they write with music playing in the background. I find music imposes its own sounds, and doesn't allow the rhythm, cadence and melody of words to form in my head and then fall on to the page. In other words, I need silence to write poetry. What about you...?

A poem in Finished Creatures magazine

The last few years has seen the welcome emergence of a handful of print-based poetry magazines in the U.K., and now there's an additional name to add to that list: Finished Creatures.

Finished Creatures is one of the most startling new arrivals. Seldom have I seen such a stellar line-up for the first issue of a journal, which makes me even more pleased to have a poem in it myself. Moving on to the production values, meanwhile, they're top-notch, as is the typesetting and design. All in all, Jan Heritage, the editor, has done an amazing job, and I'll be keeping a close eye on the development of this exciting project over the coming months and years.

And this morning...

And this morning I sit and savour Tom Duddy's poems yet again, their quiet resonance, their unassuming ability to reveal human truths, their delicate merging of cadence and meaning, and I yearn yet again for new poems by him that can never come, and I celebrate yet again the book in my hands that means I can still sit and savour Tom Duddy's poems...

A poem in Coming and Going

I'm delighted to report that one of my poems, ’Dad on the M25 after midnight’, has been included in the new HappenStance anthology, Coming and Going. There'll be a more detailed post forthcoming once I get my hands on the copy that's anxiously waiting for me...

Mark Antony Owen's Subruria

Self-publication has long been a thing. Even the likes of Walt Whitman did it. However, the advent of the internet has facilitated the process even more, and a trickle has become a deluge, a deluge that often feels more therapeutic than artistic.

In the context of the above, I was especially surprised to discover Mark Antony Owen's poetry. His work displays a surefooted sense of cadence, hard-acquired technical knowledge of metre and a deft knack for narrative layering, accessibility combining with depth. It's also self-published.

Owen's made a conscious decision not to submit to journals or publishers. Instead, he's developed his own online project, titled Subruria, and it's well worth a browse.

A key issue is whether this choice is liberating, whether it enables him to fly on his own terms, finding a new audience via the freedom of the internet, or whether it's denying him editorial input, critical approval and access to readers who find their poets through more traditional means. Either way, his poetry's excellent, and I'll be following the development of Subruria with a keen eye.

A slanted journey, Charlotte Gann's Noir

There’s a poetry that doesn’t tackle difficult subjects head-on, preferring instead to seek out angles that might lend new perspectives. It’s not cowardly for doing so. In fact, its risk-taking is greater, as it doesn’t pulse out obvious messages. Instead, it prefers a far more subtle, more powerful and longer-lasting approach to its awkward themes, while also having to accept consequent critical misinterpretation will be rife.

One such example is Charlotte Gann’s Noir (HappenStance Press, 2016). The poet’s technique throughout this collection is to invite her readers to compare and contrast, and to use these reflections as a point of departure.

First off, there’s the title itself. It evokes and invokes a niche of writing and of cinema in which what’s left unsaid is often more significant than what is actually uttered. That niche, meanwhile, just like these poems, plays on our own fears, phobias and hang-ups via other peoples’ narratives.

The above, of course, are comparisons. Nevertheless, Gann’s technique really changes gear once we home in on the contrasts. Those afore-mentioned films and books are predominately written from a male perspective. Her collection, however, often portrays events from a female point of view, as in Love Poem:

…He buried this one years ago, churchyard

down the lane. Thick ankled and drunk she was.

Now she’s back, pupils huge in the moonlight.

He licks dry lips, lamp at the window.

Stabs his nib deep in the inkwell. His  new

young wife starts, cheeks paling, eyes watering.

Pauses at her stitch, but does not speak.

He’s taught her about interrupting.

This poem seems at first to describe a typical Film Noir scene, but its exploration of the dark is actually an exploration of gender roles. This man and woman are characters in an abusive relationship. Gann subverts her readers’ expectations, bringing the piece to a close with a shocking focus on the new young wife.

Throughout her collection, Charlotte Gann never leads us down a specific empathetic path that’s clearly marked. She doesn’t put emotions on display, while always ensuring she doesn't tell us what or how to feel. Her characters are allowed to act out their own stories because the poet trusts us to pick up the baton at that point. One such example is the ending to Corners:

...It's only after his late train pulls out,

and a passing friend, concerned, touches her

back gently, that she bends double on

the pavement outside the station, and cries out. 

Noir is not a one-dimensioned homage to cinema, nor is it a relentless series of similar scenes. It’s a textured, multi-layered, slanted journey through the depths of human relationships, never savouring the dark but fearing its connotations and consequences, seeking out a chink of light. If you don’t have a copy, get one. If you have a copy, why not read it again and see whether you agree with me…?