Secondhand books

There's an excellent article by Wayne Gooderman up at the Guardian Books Blog at the moment, titled "The secret stories of book inscriptions".

I've always preferred secondhand books to new ones. The pages have a lived-in feel, while hints of previous existences often appear in them, such as train tickets or postcards, once used as bookmarks, enabling the imagination to speculate.

However, as Gooderman's article points out, the most intriguing aspect of secondhand books is often the bespoke dedications that we encounter in them, leading us towards stories beyond those told by the texts that follow. I personally find the dedications from grandparents to grandchildren the most poignant ones when I'm searching in charity shops for books for my son. These discards of adolescence are charged with the concentrated expression of love by elderly people. I invariably buy them because books, like people, deserve a second shot at love.

The Rialto Issue 70

I managed to pick up my contributor's copy of Issue 70 of The Rialto during my recent trip to the U.K., and have been paying it close attention.

Apart from the wide-ranging batch of young poets in Nathan Hamilton's feature, I was particularly taken with three poems by Hannah Lowe that combine strong narrative, vivid language and endings that don't just satisfy but open out beyond, qualities which make quoting from them an irrelevance. I'd never heard of Lowe before, but I'll certainly be looking out for her work from now on.

This is an excellent example of how the best literary magazines, such as The Rialto, can help us seek out new voices to feed our hunger for great poetry!

Writing in Spanish

Blogging's had to take a back seat to life these past few weeks, as work and family drove me through December and the festivities.

However, I'm now back home and refreshed enough to play with new challenges. A number of Spanish friends have been urging me for years to write in Spanish, discussions of my poetry being limited by their poor knowledge of English. This has led me to write a few Spanish versions (never translations) of my poems over the last few days. Just for fun. But with the wonderful consequence of viewing the originals afresh through the filter of a new sociolinguistic perspective.

I don't think I'll be publishing my work in Spanish anywhere soon. Apart from anything else, its poetics would be sniffed at by most on the Iberian peninsula. Nevertheless, I've encountered a game that I'm going to keep playing, letting reflections bounce back and forth, seeing how I can then enrich the originals.

Outsider

I've always felt something of an outsider, even when growing up in suburban Surrey, acutely aware that I would never fit the mould of a commuter once I reached adulthood. Maybe that's why I revel so in the the role of the only Brit in a small Spanish town.

Anyway, YouTube provides me with a chance to relive that time as a teenager when musical taste - so much the better if it displayed cheese and kitsch - was a way of expressing a rejection of my social surroundings. Here's one such example of my love for obscure 80s disco. Kon Kan were terrific of their ilk, and this is one of their best tracks...

Review: Miming Happiness, by Allison McVety

I thoroughly enjoyed Allison McVety's first full collection, The Night Trotsky Came to Stay, when it was published in 2007, so I was delighted to find she's just brought out a second book, Miming Happiness (Smith/Doorstep Books, 2010).

What's more, it didn't disappoint once I got hold of a copy. There's the same skilled management of a plethora of detail when dealing with histories, while family and relationships are also delicately portrayed. However, in Miming Happiness, McVety develops and deepens these interests, showing ever-greater technical and thematic assurance.

Starting with her treatment of histories through the observation of objects, scenes and anecdotes, it's clear that McVety has an excellent eye and ability to carry that through to the page, as in Backyards...

"The houses lean in on each other, thin
as undertakers, shouldering their slates...
...No one complains. In hallways debt rises
up the skirting boards and down the ginnel
the bogus queue to take their turn
at peeling Mrs Taylor from her pension."

The rendering of imagery is excellent, although I do feel this piece also highlights some inherent difficulties that I encounter at times as a reader of McVety: the poem is often generalised, as can be seen by the repeated plurals, while characters such as Mrs Taylor appear and disappear in something of a list. I don't feel involved. I admire Backyards, but it doesn't strike at my heart.

Unlike some of the more intimate poems in Miming Happiness. They're simply outstanding, as in Making a Show, which begins as follows...

"My mother wore a nightdress under her shroud
in the way I had once worn a vest
to school under a chrisom of blouse..."

This ability to draw out the proximity and distance between generations of a family is characteristic of Allison McVety at her best, and is reminiscent in this sense of the superb The Two Times I saw Your Penis from The Night Trotsky Came To Stay.

I'd like to finish this review with a quote from my favourite poem in Miming Happiness, titled In The Year of Splitting Up...

...Our storm
honed its leading edge, our bones stung
with the effort of not touching...

This piece uses beautiful language to move the reader. It's an example of why I very much recommend Allison McVety's new book. You'll find a heady mix of imagery and emotion to warm you through this bitter winter.

Launch of hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica

I've admired Matt Merritt's writing for several years, ever since I encountered his excellent Happenstance pamphlet, Making The Most Of The Light, followed by his first full collection, Troy Town.

This Sunday evening sees the launch of his second collection, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, published by Nine Arches Press, at Jam Cafe, 12 Heathcote Street, Nottingham. I'd love to get along, but finding myself in deepest Extremadura might be something of a handicap.

In any case, I'll certainly be getting hold of a copy as soon as possible. Michelle McGrane featured a number of poems from the book a couple of days ago and it looks terrific!

Other Lives

Dan Wyke has three of my poems up over at his Other Lives blog today - Extranjero, Dad On The M25 After Midnight and San Fairy Ann. With recent posts including pieces from the likes of Todd Swift, Helen Ivory and Michelle McGrane, there's plenty of intriguing poetry to be found there.