Hannah Lowe

As mentioned in a previous post, Hannah Lowe's poems in Issue 70 of The Rialto really caught my eye, so I was interested to note that the same magazine's publishing arm have just brought out a pamphlet of her work, titled The Hitcher. That's another book to add to my lengthy shopping list! I'll be reporting back on it in due course, once I get the Prowein trade fair in Düsseldorf and other work commitments out of the way.

A title

Not for a poem in this case, but for my forthcoming pamphlet collection with Happenstance Press.

I could have taken one of the poems and applied that title to the book itself, while I also had the option of selecting a catchy snippet or turn of phrase from the innards of a stanza. Instead, I went back to the poetics of my work and to the experiences that laid its foundations. In doing so, I was very much reminded of a quote by Julio Cortázar that struck me immensely on first reading it some fifteen years ago and that has stayed with me ever since:

"Supe que nunca llegaría a la verdad inventada...si me convencía de que país nuevo era vida nueva y que el amor se cambia como una camisa."

One possible translation might be as follows:

"I knew I'd never reach the invented truth...if I convinced myself that a new country was a new life and love is changed like a shirt."

Cortázar was referring to his move from Buenos Aires to Paris, to the fact that over the course of his journey between countries he remained the same person, just with the benefit of multiple perspectives, both on his origins and on his destination. I feel very much the same way when I write in both a U.K. and Spanish context.

But what is invented truth? Well, for me it's the grabbing of life, following by a transformation into poems. When writing the pamphlet, I've attempted to take so-called "experience" or "anecdote" and and turn it into verse, not fact, not fiction, not even faction, but poetry.

What's more, a key tool in the writing process is the manipulation of voice. Who is the "I" that runs through much of my book? In fact, a more pertinent question would be "who are the "I"s that run through it?" This playing with identities enables me to bounce poems between concave mirrors, distorting their points of departure so as to reach somewhere revealingly new.

In other words, my aim when writing poetry is to find myself "Inventing truth", my pamphlet's title.

Sphinx 16

Sphinx 16 is now live at the Happenstance Press website. Specialising in reviews of pamphlet poetry, Sphinx provides us with a real feel for the current state of play for this format in the U.K. publishing world.

The current issue continues with the intriguing idea of giving us three different reviews for each chapbook, and includes pieces by myself on Matt Bryden's Night Porter and Hilary Menos' Wheelbarrow Farm. I'm always keen to have the chance to compare and contrast critical opinions on a book, so Sphinx offers an ideal opportuntiy. I very much recommend a look at the current issue and a trawl through its extensive online archive.

Tim Love's Lit Refs Blogs

Tim Love has been publishing poetry on the U.K. magazine scene for a long time now. He currently has a pamphlet, titled Moving Parts, out with Happenstance, and I'm very much looking forward to getting hold of a copy.

For many years he's maintained his Lit Refs website, which he's now moving into a blog format. I thoroughly recommend a trawl through - there's an abundance of fascinating material both for novices and experienced readers and poets.

The new structure is set up in three strands: the main, most "bloggish" section, archived articles and archived reviews. Lit Refs has helped me on many occasions in the past, and this new format enables us to keep up with Love's constant updates. He's always subjective and forthright, which lends the blogs a real sense of an authentic perspective on U.K. poetry over the past few years and the present day. They are an excellent resource.

The editing process

With the publication of my Happenstance pamphlet provisionally scheduled for April, I'm now immersed in revising drafts of the manuscript with Helena Nelson.

I've been looking forward to this process for a long time, but it's surpassing expectations, reinforcing my belief that a good editor improves a poet hugely. By this, I don't mean that poems are reinvented and cast into someone else's image. Instead, I'm referring to the way that I'm being helped to reassess my poems, stanzas, lines, words and syllables.

Editorial challenges force the poet to raise the bar. I find them an incredible stimulus, not only improving my existing poetry but laying the foundations for future work. From now on, all my new poems will have the points of reference and departure of Helena Nelson's contribution to this current manuscript. In this sense, I'm convinced that top-notch editing is an act of creative generosity. I now just hope my pamphlet returns that favour as best it can!

Amaral

Amaral are one of Spain's most unashamedly popular and populist groups, but that doesn't stop them being several cuts above most of their Anglo-Saxon equivalents. This live performance of Perdóname from 2008 is an example of how they are capable of veering from excellence to kitsch and back again in a single song...

Review: hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, by Matt Merritt

Nine Arches Press have recently brought out Matt Merritt’s second collection, titled hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica, and I’ve been very much enjoying it these past few weeks.

While his previous books (Making The Most Of The Light and Troy Town) were extremely satisfying reads, hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica reaches much further and should ensure that Merritt’s poetry gets the recognition it deserves. With this collection he’s fully establishing himself in a territory where few British poets move with assurance and imagination: history. As a university graduate in the subject, Merritt’s touch with his material is deft, but we’re not just talking about his dealing with public figures and events here. Natural and personal histories are evoked and their parallels with that afore-mentioned public aspect of history are underlined through subtle juxtaposition and recurring motifs, lifting poems way above mere academic interest.

For example, on a personal level “A Fixer-Upper” deals with an intimate setting. Written in the first person plural, it talks of “alternative versions of past/and future”, just as “Lyonesse” finds the narrator waiting in a café, “deep in conversation with myself,/finally getting on with my past…”. and "Halcyon" ends with “the past submerged, the future flown.”

In public terms, meanwhile, we encounter “Dreams From The Anchor Church”. A dramatic monologue in the voice of an Anglo-Saxon solitary, this poem talks of how the narrator “struck out with my face to the future/to find myself walking through the past.”

Merritt thus implicitly draws comparisons between different types of histories, showing us how the study of the subject opens up avenues of more personal understandings. These threads flourish as the collection moves on and are drawn together in several pieces such as from “Tesserae”, in which the contemporary narrator contemplates the history of a city and how it’s interwoven with the history of his life. The poem begins with…

“Having rewritten the past
a dozen times this morning,
I find myself at the museum
next to the Wall.
I haven’t been
since I was 10, but it’s still the
case that everything
happened a very long time ago…”

“Ambition” might be an overused word when discussing poetry, often mistakenly used as a synonym for “experimental”. However, in the case of hydrodaktulopsychicharmonica I do believe it’s applicable, specifically in the breadth and coherence of Merritt’s treatment of history, in the way he harnesses poetry’s transforming qualities to cast new light on age-old themes, enabling the reader to view the past from a different perspective so as to apply it to the present and future. All in all, this is an outstanding collection in the context of present-day U.K. poetry, and I thoroughly recommend it to the readers of Rogue Strands.