John Foggin's "Best of 2018" feature

Over at his Cobweb, John Foggin is currently running a "Best of 2018" feature. I'm delighted to report that not only has he chosen one of my poems, together with Kim Moore's comments on my work, but he's also paired me with Ian Parks, which is very much an honour. You can read the whole post for yourself here.

Kim Moore's Sunday Poem

Kim Moore's Sunday Poem is something of an institution on the U.K. poetry blogging scene. Every Sunday, she reports back on her week, ruminates on poetic issues of the day and then posts a piece by an invited poet alongside her comments on the poem in question. Via this feature, I've discovered a number of exciting new poets and/or been alerted to the publication of new publications that I just had to purchase. In other words, Kim's posts are great but can be dangerous for your wallet.

In the light of the above, I'm especially pleased to report that I'm this week's guest for Kim Moore's Sunday Poem with "Twenty Years Apart" from The Knives of Villalejo. You can read the poem, together with Kim's remarks on it, by following this link.

The Compass poetry magazine

New poetry e-zines seem to be springing up on a daily basis these days, just as others fall dormant after an initial burst of enthusiasm. This phenomenon reflects an unsettling and scary speeding-up of time. Verse appears and is then submerged far too quickly after having been crafted for months or years.

In such a context, it’s significant to encounter an e-zine that announces its first issue with the following declaration of editorial intent:

“..Last autumn the editors were chatting about poetry and the internet and it struck us that there didn’t appear to be a strong issue-based poetry magazine coming out of the UK, the web’s equivalent of some of the wonderful print magazines which we all enjoy. We very much hope that this site you are browsing fills that gap...” 

I’m referring to The Compass. A key point here is not only this ambitious statement but the fact that the people behind it (Lindsey Holland, Andrew Forster and Kim Moore) are significant figures in the U.K. poetry scene. Moreover, their work on Issue One of the magazine backs up their words.

The afore-mentioned issue is packed with excellent poems. Personal favourites include new pieces by Maria Taylor, Charlotte Gann and Jonathan Edwards, but there’s plenty more original, top-notch verse to explore. The reviews section, meanwhile, also opens up avenues for future reading with in-depth explorations of several intriguing collections.

In summary, The Compass is already a major addition to the U.K. poetry scene and looks like being around for a long time to come. I’ll certainly be reading every issue!

Driven repetition, Kim Moore's The Art of Falling

Take a long, deep breath when reaching for Kim Moore’s first full collection,  The Art of Falling (Seren 2015), because you’ll be tumbling with her from the first page onwards through her intoxicating verse.

Moore’s signature poetic technique is repetition. Her work is riven with it and driven by it. There are certain poems that even make explicit, conscious nods towards its use, such as “A Psalm for the Scaffolders”:

“…a psalm for the scaffolders

who fall with a harness on,

who have ten minutes to be rescued,

a psalm for the scaffolder who fell

into a clear area, a tube giving way,

that long. slow fall, a psalm for him,

who fell thirty feet and survived,

a psalm for the scaffolder

who saw him fall…”

Moore’s strengths in her employment of repetition are various. She repeats phrases with slight variations such as in the tense of a verb (“fall” and “fell”), which invites the reader to home in on those small changes. Meanwhile, the repeating of whole structures such as the poem’s title empowers the piece as an invocation. And then there’s the building of clauses in the continual use of “who”, generating a pace that combines with the afore-mentioned invocation to lend this poem a religious charge. In other words, form and content fuse superbly.

Poem after poem, repetition crops up:

“..a fall from grace, a fall from God,

to fall in love or to fall through the gap…”

“And if it be a horse…

…And if it be a swan…

…And if it be a tick…”

“A curse on the children…

…a curse on the boy…

…a curse on the class teacher…”

“And if you saw her…

…and if she set fire…

…and if she threw…”

“…as if one person can’t carry this with them

and be unchanged, as if I could speak seagull…”

And I could quote umpteen more. However, it’s important to underline that Moore is far from being a one-trick pony. There is variation in tone, of course, alongside a deft narrative touch, a gift for delicious turns of phrase and a fabulous ear, as befits a music teacher. Nevertheless, repetition rules for much of the book, creating the sensation of a relentless emotional thrust, charging onwards, seeking an authentic core.

In The Art of Falling, that core is to be found in “How I Abandoned My Body To His Keeping”, a sequence about  “a relationship marked by coercion and violence”. This sequence lies at the heart of the collection. I could highlight any one of several pieces for their power, for their capacity to move and affect, but a personal favourite is “His Name”. Here are the first four lines:

“Because they tried to make me say your name,

the shame and blame and frame of it,

the dirty little game of it, the dark and distant

heart of it, the cannot be a part of it…”

And there’s that repetition again, in Moore’s gorgeous use of the definite article. Of course, it’s even better in the context of the poem as a whole, but you’ll have to get hold of a copy of The Art of Falling to see what I mean. Just keep in mind that piece of advice I gave earlier: don’t forget to take a long, deep breath when snapping the spine.

Grace

In the light of a turbulent week for U.K. poetry, with far too many strops, spats and sulks going on via social media, it was incredibly refreshing to read Kim Moore's blog about having been shortlisted for the Michael Marks Awards and missing out on the prize itself. Her post was shot through with honesty and grace. You can read the piece in full here.

Kim Moore's If We Could Speak Like Wolves

Kim Moore's Smith/Doorstep pamphlet, If We Could Speak Like Wolves, was one of the most striking first books to appear in 2012 on the U.K. poetry scene. She writes with a very distinctive music, which is extremely unusual for a poet of such a young age, all within the framework of implicit narrative being driven through acute observation.

Michelle McGrane is featuring her verse today over at Peony Moon. There's an excellent selection up, giving an enticing flavour of the delights to be found inside If We Could Speak Like Wolves. It will be worthwhile following Kim Moore's poetic progress closely over the next few years. I'm intrigued as to just what avenues she might explore.