One language or two?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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: