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…?

Poem in the Glasgow Review of Books

I'm grateful to Sam Tongue, the poetry editor at the Glasgow Review of Books, for having chosen one of my most recent poems to be published today. You can read it here alongside new work by Mat Riches and Ralph Monday. I'd especially recommend Mat Riches' piece - apart from being a good friend, he also writes excellent poetry!

Elizabeth Bartlett's poetry

I’ve been putting off this post for months, all because I’m acutely aware that the format of a blog post means I can’t do the subject matter sufficient justice. As a consequence, I’ve decided to provide something of a point of departure for my readers in the hope that you’ll then pick up the baton.

Let’s cut to the chase: in the view of this blogger, Elizabeth Bartlett is one of the most remarkable poets to have emerged in the U.K. in the second half of the twentieth century.  

Why is she so little-known? Why is my copy of her new and selected poems, Two Women Dancing (Bloodaxe Books, 1995) a never-opened review copy with a little yellowed slip from the publisher still inside, plaintively stating “We would appreciate a copy of any review or mention you might give this book”? Why has there barely been any mention of her on Google since her death in 2008?

Numerous arguments can be put forward, some of them overlapping, none of them conclusive. First off is the old chestnut of her work not quite fitting into any group or school. It does contain elements of the aesthetic of the Movement, but her thematic scope and forthright attitude to emotion, alongside her acute approach to form (metrics hovering over every line like a ghost), mean that such comparisons fall short.

Several attempts, meanwhile, to shoehorn her poetry into labels of “working-class feminist” or “amateur poet” sell her writing short on every count. Firstly, her lightly-worn erudition underpins all her work. Secondly, her focus on female characters is her personal expression of the human and social condition rather than a political stance. What is true, however, is that Elizabeth Bartlett’s poetry would probably be far better known if she’d been a man.

At this point, having made a theoretical case, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty. What are the main themes in Bartlett’s poetry? Well, they range from taking the Mickey out of the (mainly male) poetry establishment to monologues in the voices of the social underclass via Bartlett’s professional experiences as an employee of the NHS, while also stopping off to pare back assigned roles in tortured love affairs.

Here are a couple of quotes as examples of the above. To start with, a startling opening to a startling poem, titled ’This Room’…

Since you took me by the hand

and led me to my mother’s unmade bed,

I have never got it right with men.

I remember the pale sun lighting up

the flowered wallpaper, the counterpane…

And here, in ’Stretch Marks’, she’s brilliant on those male poets…

…Mostly they teach, and some must be

fathers, but they have no stretch marks

on their smooth stomachs to prove it.

At least we know our children

are our own. They can never really

tell, but poems they can be sure of.

And in ’Quite a Day’, she takes on the voice of a young mother who’s being visited by a social worker:

You didn’t say you liked my house.

You just sat down, asking questions,

legs crossed at the ankles, removing

the toddler’s hands from your clip-board.

I had washed the coloured crayon marks

off the walls for you, and scrubbed

the rush matting so it smelled as sweet

as summertime in far away Norfolk,

and herded the cats into the garden

so they shouldn’t tear your tights…

Elizabeth Bartlett deserves a full-blown feature in a major journal, she deserves critical attention, she deserves wider recognition. I can’t manage any of that with this blog post. However, she also deserves readers and maybe, just maybe, I can gain her one or two. If you want to try, I thoroughly recommend that you start with Two Women Dancing. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.

Two poems at Wild Court

While in the midst of enjoying StAnza, I discovered the additional good news that two of my most recent poems had been published by Wild Court (you can read them here). This news was especially good because I've been following Wild Court since it launched and have long regarded it as one of the best web-based poetry journals in the U.K..

Rob Selby, the editor at Wild Court, has done an excellent job. He's curated a terrific collection of original work, essays and features, and I'd especially recommend a read of Liz Berry's recent poem, Highbury Park, which was published there a few days before my work appeared.