Toads revisited

Back in 2009, not long after having started Rogue Strands, I published a post titled "The Toad Work", in which I reflected on how my day job as an export manager and wine blender then fed into my poetry, on how writing was an escape valve that I kept separate from my work.

Much of that is still true, and events often remind me that working as a "professional poet" (teaching, leading workshops, etc) wouldn't suit me. Of course, I'm no less professional in my approach to my writing and in the readings I give than others who make their direct or indirect living from the genre. One emerging issue, meanwhile, is how poets who are scientists, workshop leaders, marketing managers, Creative Writing tutors, export managers, etc, etc, view each other.

In this context, I'm grateful to Mat Riches for pointing me in the direction of an article from The Guardian back in 2007. Written by singer Steven Adams, the piece reflects on his band's choice not to give up their day jobs, and you can read it here. How much of this could we extrapolate to the current poetry scene?

The scaffolding of a poem

I've blogged previously about my admiration for Maggie O'Farrell's verse back in the 1990s, long before she became famous as a novelist. As a consequence, I was drawn to her piece in The Guardian today, titled My Writing Day.

I find that ideas and sparks for poems actually come from being kept from the act of writing by other obligations, so it's very interesting to see that her experiences chime in with mine in that respect. Moreover, she also explains that her current prose writing is still influenced by poetry classes taught by Michael Donaghy some twenty years ago. One key point stands out

"...you will need scaffolding to build your writing inside but must remember to take it down at the end."

That quote has stuck in my mind. I'll be recalling it from now on whenever I rework a draft.

Inspiring and depressing

Kate Clanchy's recent feature in The Guardian, titled The Very Quiet Foreign Girls poetry group, was both inspiring and depressing.

The inspiring aspect was the way Clanchy described how she used poetry to help her disadvantaged pupils, demonstrating once more just how powerful verse can be as a positive influence on traumatised children. The depressing aspect was her point of comparison with a very different group that she had taught some years before:

"I had judged the Foyle and run the course back in 2006, and seven years on, the Foyle young poets group I had taught were scything through Oxbridge, publishing poetry pamphlets with Faber, writing for the national press, and all the time networking frantically. By mixing together this group of exceptionally talented youngsters – many of them privileged but a few definitely not – that course had forcefully changed most of their lives. I wanted some of that for our students: not just the poetry, but the sense of entitlement, and, yes, the networking too."

I have absolutely nothing against the Foyle Young Poets scheme, quite the opposite in fact, while I understand and share Clanchy's well-meaning argument. My concern is with the portrayal of that first group's achievements, with the implicit definition of success and the conception of poetry as a career that revolves around "networking frantically". Verse is a vocation, never a career.

English is not a trap

Michael Hofmann is one of the most interesting figures in the U.K. literary scene. As a consequence, I'm always on the look-out for features about him. They tend to provoke numerous thoughts on my part, so it was no surprise when I was deeply struck by his interview in The Guardian this week in which he states the following:

"English is basically a trap: class trap, dialect trap, feeling trap. It’s almost a language for spies, for people to find out what people are really thinking." 

As someone who speaks three languages and has lived in a non-English-speaking country for over twenty years, I couldn't disagree more. English itself isn't the trap. Instead, it's Hofmann's upbringing in a certain social environment that traps him. The interviewer mentions his RP tones, while also describing his boarding school and Oxbridge education.

In other words, Hofmann feels hemmed in by the English he associates with the society that he knows. Of course, this linguistic world view is hugely limited, as if the English language were restricted to how it is used at Winchester College and Cambridge University. In the interview, Hofmann also states the following when comparing German with English:

“I have come to be very fond of German again. There are reaches of simplicity that English cannot do without sounding ignorant and stupid. In English you always have to sound as if you are making an effort."

When attempting to generalise, he's actually comparing his specific experience of the two languages. For example, the English that is spoken in the playgrounds and pubs of my home town bears no resemblance to the language he describes. Nor does the English that's used in numerous other parts of the British Isles. And this is before invoking the English of other countries.

Language doesn't trap us. The burden of its social connotations form the real trap, and this is true of English, German, Spanish, French, etc, etc. Of course, the personal knowledge of an extra language is another trap: bilingualism enriches you in terms of the layers and texturing that you can encounter in both languages, yet it also means you are never quite at home in either. This is no fault of the languages themselves. It's down to the societies where we've experienced them.

Julia Copus in The Guardian

I've been catching up on my reading after a couple of weeks away, and especially enjoyed Julia Copus' feature in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago on "the joy of siblings". That might be a slightly naff editorial turn of phrase, yet the article is anything but, telling the story of her relationship with her brother and sister amid the collapse of their parents' marriage.

The piece is located in a section titled Life and Style, although it closes with Copus' poem, The Back Seat of my Mother's Car. I already knew and admired this poem, but its impact is greater here. What's more, casual readers (not just those who browse Guardian books) will have encountered excellent verse, all in the context of the preceding prose. This is just what's needed if poetry is going to attract new readers. A definite thumbs-up!

Larkin on Betjeman

As part of their extensive web archive, The Guardian provide an online version of Philip Larkin's 1959 review of John Betjeman's Collected Poems. It's well worth a look and you can read it here.

I often feel that such articles reveal as much about the reviewer as his subject, and this is no exception. Larkin implicitly defends many of his own poetic values when highlighting Betjeman's virtues. I was especially drawn to his explanation of the way he feels many critics misuse the term "nostalgia" when dealing with Betjeman (and Larkin):

"the quality in his poetry loosely called nostalgia is really that never-sleeping alertness to note the patina of time on things past which is the hall-mark of the mature writer"

This is superbly put. Of course, it inevitably dodges the constant interplay in both Larkin's and Betjeman's work between their yearning for "things past" and their critical view of "things present". All in all, Larkin's review is a terrific piece of unashamedly partial and passionate writing. I invariably end up comparing his view of British poetry and society in 1959 with how he might judge where we are in 2012, but that's a different blog post altogether...

Paul Farley article

There's an article by Paul Farley up on the Guardian website today as part of their "Once upon a life" series. The story of his first few months as an art student in London, it's interesting enough in itself, but takes on far more significance when read alongside his first collection, "The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You".

There are always arguments about the relationship between biographical detaila and literary texts, but in this case I certainly feel that my appreciation of Farley's book has been enriched by his article. I'd always loved the ferocious vivacity of his first collection and noticed a slow seep-away of this quality in subsequent volumes. I now understand the seismic shifts in his life that contributed to making "The Boy from the Chemist..." such a tremendous and unrepeatable jolt to the reader.

Questions...questions...

Today sees us back at The Guardian website once more, simply because there's a fascinating blog up by Jonathan Jones, titled "Why I never became a poet". His post explains how he was discouraged by a teenage encounter with a poetry editor, but the real interest is in the readers' comments. They cover a huge range and lead us towards questions...

...what makes some people persevere with writing poetry beyond an adolescent rush, while others give it up...?

...when offering our poetry for publication instead of keeping it private, are we being thick-skinned/narcissistic/generous/brave/artistic/arrogant (delete as appropriate)...?

Going back to the original post, I think the key point revolves around the idea of seeing onself as "A Poet". Fifteen years after I started writing verse with intent, I still feel intensely uncomfortable describing myself as such - it's a terrific conversation-stopper!

The Guardian's Christmas books

The Guardian have today published their standard late-November feature: a selection of literary luminaries have offered their Christmas picks from a whole raft of genres.

My interest was immediately centred on their poetry books. Many don't bother with verse, being producers and consumers of prose. However, Don Paterson's Rain is a popular choice if they do. This is an excellent book, so I'm sure it's not the only poetry collection they've read this year on the back of its winning the Forward Prize (while also consequently being a safe bet to recommend).

One or two writers do select something less obvious, but I again feel this is yet another missed chance to bring exciting and accessible new U.K. poetry to a wider audience.