Poetry Birmingham

I'm pleased to report that I have a poem, titled Ordnance Survey, in Issue Two of Poetry Birmingham. This relatively new print-based journal is already building an impressive track record, with the likes of Alison Brackenbury, Gregory Leadbetter. Geraldine Clarkson, Abegail Morley and Oliver Comins, etc, etc, also featuring.

A whirlwind

Last week was a whirlwind, albeit a brilliant one, and I'm only just starting to recover!

The readings in Birmingham and Oxford went very well, thanks to the efforts of their organisers (Matt Nunn and Elaine Christie in Birmingham and Peter King in Oxford), while the Rogue Strands event in London was simply surreal from a selfish point of view.

Why surreal? Well, it provided me with an chance to sit down and listen to amazing poetry from some of the poets I most admire, one after the other, almost like a personal mix tape. What's more, it was gratifying to see a healthy audience who also seemed to enjoy themselves. Oh, and to top it all off, my co-organiser, Mat Riches, tells me we've raised almost 400 pounds for the Trussell Trust. The challenge now for all of us is to ensure that their incredible efforts won't be quite so necessary after 12th December...!

Readings in Birmingham, Oxford and London

This coming week promises to be pretty busy: I'll be reading at Poetry Bites in Birmingham on Tuesday 26th November, where I'm the featured poet, followed by a headline slot at Poetry at Pembroke in Oxford the next evening (Wednesday 27th November) and topped off by our second Rogue Strands poetry reading in London on Thursday 28th November. I'd love to see you if you could make it along to one of these terrific events!

A poem by Neil Elder

Over the past three weeks, I've been posting a poem by each of the poets who'll be reading at the Rogue Strands event on 28th November (see Facebook page here like always), and this is now the final instalment. I do hope that these varied poems not only provide something of a snapshot of the U.K. scene, but also that they whet your appetite for what promises to be a terrific evening of poetry.

Neil Elder's our man today. His work is characterised by its clarity, understatement, keen observation and subtle juxtapositions that encourage his readers to reach their own conclusions, and this piece is no exception. Details are gradually layered, building up to a terrific ending that reverberates back to the beginning. That's always a sign of a top-notch poem...!

Restructuring

It was obvious he’d gone.

Twenty minutes later he emerged;

a year older (and an inch shorter),

for every minute he’d been before the boss.

Never seen a man so reduced.

For an hour he stood and stared at the car park.

Something had left him;

none of us knew what words to offer his shell.

Then Shivali asked if he’d still sort the Lottery

and Dave wondered if an office would be free.

The following week

hushed conversations stopped

whenever he came into the tea-room.

Might as well have rung a bell.

He ate alone, untouchable.

Then his desk was empty,

though his screensaver still showed

a picture from the Christmas do;

dressed as an elf with Leanne on his knee,

he always liked a laugh.

Emails arrived with the words rationalise,

downturn and downsize.

It was like a damp we couldn’t stop from spreading

and it seeped from his department into ours.

Just now HR Jenny smiled at me;

my appointment's Thursday, half-past three.

(First published in Acumen)

A poem by Clarissa Aykroyd

The poets I most admire tend to be the ones that don't follow trends, that are in this for the long haul, that don't have any choice but to be in this, that plough their own furrow. Suffice to say, Clarissa Aykroyd is one of those poets, which is why I'm so happy she'll be reading with us on 28th November (see Facebook page, blah, blah...).

Her poem today is sinuous. It's written in clear-cut language yet it hints at contradiction, ambiguity and ambivalence, dropping clues into the mix, layering them like the plot of a thriller...

SEVENTEEN STEPS

This is the room. I am the client

who has waited for an hour.

The skull, the bullet holes, the files

are fading but the sound of footfalls

on the seventeen steps is clear.

This is the dream. I know

he can’t solve this, but I’m still here. 

(First published in Lighthouse)

A poem by Robin Houghton

I've long been a fan of Robin Houghton's poetry, which is why I'm very pleased she'll be reading with us at Rogue Strands on 28th November (see Facebook page here, etc, etc...). Moreover, today's poem provides us with an excellent example of what makes her work different.

This piece invokes thematic tensions - inner and outer, open and closed, animate and inanimate, city and country - and ramps them up via a subtle control of line endings and stanza breaks. All these qualities contribute to a deceptively profound, implicit meditation on life in one of the biggest capitals in the world...

30 St Mary Axe

Sun boots up from the ArcelorMittal

Orbit, swings a low arc to Wembley –

no place to hide when you're

this high.

The temperature inside is set fair. Inner

and outer airs kept apart. No-one

feels a draught or needs to breathe

in the city.

On rainy days you look from below

and it’s gone in a trick of the eye, enough

to tremble hearts, turn heads to check

for St Paul’s.

Its stories are etched from diamonds,

a thousand or more – its panes unable

to open, unlikely to break: strong

as a threat

so no-one inside may throw stones,

or listen for the honking of Barnacle geese

flying east in a V, or mistake the sky

for sea.

(An earlier version of this poem was first published in Brittle Star).

A poem by Rishi Dastidar

When we read any poem, it's informed by the poet's job (even if that job involves teaching poetry!), but sometimes their working environment is especially relevant. I would argue that this is definitely Rishi Dastidar's case.

One of our featured poets at the Rogue Strands reading on 28th November (see Facebook page here), Dastidar works as a copywriter, which means he firstly has an eye for register and sentence structure, along with a keen awareness of their effect on the reader (both of these qualities are present in his verse). However, I would also argue that his obligatorily corseted use of language in his working life leads him to shake off those shackles when writing poetry, playing with register, rules and norms so as to reinvent the everyday and mundane, so as to challenge our received expectations, as in the poem I'm featuring today...

New planet who dis?

of course poems that start ‘oh this was a dream’ are dull but honestly this was a better than average one in that i dreamt it 38 years ago and i still not only remember it but carry it with me like a good luck charm though once i tell you about it you’ll more likely think of it as an amulet of doom         anyway           i must have just watched 2001 and you know how fucked up that – and so our future – is i digress but i’m pretty sure the film triggered the dream though at this distance who knows or cares right?       anyway           there i am floating about not space walking space drifting space mooching space loitering oh hold on i’ve remembered what might be a contributory factor / input strand to this dream reading a book of disasters – hang on what was a book of disasters doing in a school library i mean was it a conscious attempt at priming us that violence mayhem fate and the unpredictable alliance between all 3 and the resulting random outputs are the only constant in life so get used to it kids –    anyway           in this book was an account of how on their return from space some cosmonauts were incinerated because the hatch on their capsule didn’t shut properly and of course i should go to wiki to tell you more but this isn’t that kinda poem and right now i’m kinda out of love with footnotes i mean how much baggage am i actually meant to carry on this whole living trip anyway           i’m space loitering space hanging about when i start falling falling not dramatically with a flourish arms waving that kinda thing no more like the proverbial i say proverbial he did actually drop one didn’t he? stone pebble that Galileo dropped next to the feather like that straight down spirit level down plumb line down lift shaft down oh maybe Towering Inferno is somewhere in this mix too remember all the flames up the lift shaft making Faye Dunaway’s eyebrows shoot up      anyway           the point is down i’m going down and i’m going and going still inside the space suit no rotating or piking or somersaulting just arrow ramrod cannonball whatever sonic boom through all the wispy hair bits of the atmosphere not slowing down even though i know the physics says i am and not burning up either just a white heat Michelin Man with a body hoover and grudge and on and on even though it makes it sound endlessly slow which it wasn’t because then there is a desert no canyon type thing arid not sandy and definitely a cactus and land without leaving a mark on the ground not a trace a thud on impact a sound not a dust mote an atom disturbed and i pop the visor on my suit and find i have become a coyote hyena a wolf                  what you want a moral too? fuck off

(First published in Visual Verse)