Lyrics as poetry and poetry as lyrics

Many U.K. poets seem to take it as read that lyrics aren't poems and poems aren't lyrics. They dig their heels in over this distinction.

Such an argument would appear ridiculous in Spain, where songwriters publish collections of poetry and set many poems to music. A simple search of major Spanish poets on YouTube offers up many gems (especially Lorca and Alberti, etc), but perhaps my favourite is this one:



Luis Garcia Montero's poem led to Quique Gonzalez's song. Here are both of them, feeding off each other, lyrics as poetry and poetry as lyrics.

I feel decent singer-songwriters are marginalised in the U.K., while mainstream lyrics do tend to be trite, factors which lead to a belief that the two genres are somehow separate. In fact, the tools of both trades are shared: for example, Lennon and McCartney knew and used their metrics well, as do many contemporary writers for major groups. The main problem is the colossal dumbing down of popular music in Britain, blinding so many poets to the terrific collaborative possibilites that exist.

Guardian First Book Award

Readers of this blog will be aware that I really enjoyed Siân Hughes' The Missing when I read it earlier this year. Well, having already been nominated for the Forward Prize (First Collection), it's now the only poetry collection to have made the Guardian First Book Award longlist. Great news!

Dan Wyke

Some poets explode onto the scene, others just disappear.

Dan Wyke was a poet whose work I encountered in many small mags back in the mid-1990s. I identified with much of what he was trying to do and was thus delighted when he won a Gregory in 1999. Wyke's work might have been uneven, but it displayed a real spark. He was the featured poet for Staple 59 and brought out a pamphlet with Waterloo in 2004. Extracts from it can be found here. Further poems, meanwhile, are up at the Poetry Library site.

I've tried to get hold of a copy of his pamphlet from Waterloo, but they haven't yet replied to my repeated e-mails (sigh!). In his intro to the Staple selection Wyke mentioned that Waterloo also hoped to publish his first full collection, but nothing seems to have appeared.

What's happened since? All I know is that I've ceased to find Dan Wyke's poetry in the magazines I read. Has he given up on poetry? Has poetry given up on him? Is a terrific first full collection on its way? I'd love to find out!

Spanish poetry in translation

Over at the Poets on Fire forum, there's currently an unusual thread about the difficulties that are involved in translating Spanish poetry for a U.K. readership.

My own view of translating poetry is perhaps best summed up by my last post on the subject.

Julio Cortázar, what a voice!

Some poets' voices don't seem to fit their work, others' don't meet our own expectations, but Julio Cortázar added hugely to his poems when reading them aloud.

Not theatrical, just completely and uniquely Cortázar, his Argentinian accent formed a partnership with the words that lifts them off the page. Here's a link to an original recording that shows what I mean:



A suitable soundtrack to another glorious British summer!

The Forward Shortlist - just one more question

Back from a fortnight with my in-laws in Ubeda, I've seen the Forward Shortlist has come out. Others have already written excellently about it and very much along the lines of my own thoughts - Rob Mackenzie and Matt Merritt among them - but I'd like to ask just one more question.

How many print runs have there been of each of the shortlisted first collections?

Most of them probably haven't got beyond their first printing, unlike Andrew Philip's sadly ignored "The Ambulance Box", which is currently on its third run and still counting. This prize seems more and more disconnected from the pulse of U.K. poetry, just like the big publishers whose miniscule lists it tends to champion.

Review: The Missing, by Siân Hughes

For once, a collection outdoes its blurb - as mentioned in a previous post, "The Missing" is an exceptional book in the context of contemporary U.K. poetry.

Siân Hughes' subject matters in "The Missing" are signposted from the start. Her lost third child and the end of a relationship are themes that run though the book. "The Send-Off", for example, is a superb poem and a winner of the Arvon Prize. Its value lies in peeling layer after layer off a story, telling it through details, encouraging us to explore and identify ourselves with it. This last point is a key success - Siân Hughes engages us incredibly well.

What's more, by "us" I mean the general reader. "The Missing" is accessible but also innovative in its treatment of issues that are relevant to all our lives. It doesn't dumb anything down, yet its appeal is wide.

In general, Siân Hughes uses idiomatic patterns excellently, as in "Fidelity". Everyday language is followed by everyday language, lulling us and thus increasing the impact of the ending. Achieving such an effect is a dangerous tightrope for the poet, far more difficult to handle than linguistic fireworks, so there are inevitably a few slips. I do feel, for instance, that "What If", a list poem, is just too inevitable from the outset. Nevertheless, the collection contains many gems, acutely observed poems that build up line after line. For this reason, I can't bring myself to quote any of them here. Just a turn of phrase or couplet would never do them justice. Not a head-turning poet, Siân Hughes grafts meticulously to get our attention, thus keeping it and keeping it.

I'm not going to rehash the question of why Siân Hughes wasn't signed up by one of the big guns in U.K. publishing, given her accessibility and obvious marketing potential, but I can't resist making one last point: the PBS Choice must be jawdroppingly good if The Missing is only a Recommendation. For me at least, "The Missing" is my Choice for 2009 so far, not just my Recommendation.