Concentrating the mind

Many poets seem to think the genre is in decline due to the arrival of the digital age. Is this really the case?

The afore-mentioned writers argue that poetry requires a degree of concentration which is beyond readers who have been brought up in the digital age, whose attention is dissipated far too easily. Nevertheless, I'm not at all sure that concentration is dissipated as such. In fact, I'm convinced that we're forced to concentrate hugely these days so as to cope with the way information is transmitted to us.

The key change is that intensely flavoured morsels are being delivered to our screens on a regular basis. Their digestion required brief bursts of deep concentration but also entails ever-briefer attention spans.

I was attracted to poetry in my childhood precisely because I have a short attention span and can only concentrate for limited periods, albeit with great focus. I always found myself distracted when attempting to read long novels. However, with verse I was able to pick up a collection, open it at a page and gulp a poem down in five minutes - one of those intensely flavoured morsels that I discussed in the previous paragraph. Nowadays, teenagers could subsitute a screen for a page along similar lines.

In other words, my own argument is that the digital age could well actually lend itself to greater enjoyment of poetry ahead of novels, rather than having the opposite effect. All we've got to do is write verse that people want to read...!

Poetic fireworks

Ever since my years as an undergraduate, I've witnessed umpteen sterile arguments as to whether form should boss content or vice versa. In fact, I'm convinced that good poetry welds both together in the service of the finished verse.

Much the same is true of fireworks. By the use of the term fireworks, I'm referring to linguistic acrobatics. When a critic mentions that they feel those  fireworks are either missing or overdone in a poem, my interpretation is that they've encountered a lack of balance in the work - the degree to which linguistic acrobatics are employed shouldn't depend on minimalist dogma or the desire to show off verbal dexterity.

Instead, fireworks should be married to the verse. Successful poetry can be pared down to the bones or burst with exuberance. The art is in working out where to strike that balance in every poem we write.

Sphinx - a tribute

Over at Sphinx, the latest batch of pamphlet reviews is nearly complete. However, the main page carries the news that these are the last. Bearing in mind the important role that Sphinx has played in the rise of poetry chapbooks over the past few years, this is sad news, although it’s more than understandable. A quick summary of its feats soon tells us just how much time and work it must have taken up for Helena Nelson…

Sphinx started life as a paper-based publication back in 2006, a magazine dedicated to promoting poetry in pamphlet form. From 2010 onwards, it was solely published on the internet. At the beginning, it followed a typical route of one review per book. Nevertheless, its signature format of three pieces per pamphlet was adopted after Issue 10. The figures are huge: a total of 445 chapbooks have been dealt with via 864 reviews, most reviews getting 300-500 hits in the first couple of weeks alone.

I’ve been involved with the project on both sides on the fence. As a poet, I was delighted to receive critical coverage for my books from three different points of view, so Inventing Truth was reviewed by Richie McCaffery, Marcia Menter and Charlotte Gann.

As a reviewer, I really enjoyed the experience of encountering verse that I wouldn’t have read without Sphinx. There was a definite frisson every time a batch of chapbooks arrived.

I certainly learnt a lot: from the “Notes for reviewers” with its list of review clichés to be avoided (e.g. …a new voice…shows promise…deceptively simple…risk-taking…demotic…) to the editing process of each review, where any syntactic messes or semantic wobbles were sorted out. Moreover, the aim was always to strike a positive note: Criticism should be constructive. Please make it apparent this is a personal response, not Judgement Day.

One of my tenets is that a poet should also feel at home in prose, and doing reviews is a key part of that apprenticeship. In my own case, I needed to shake off academic essay writing. Sphinx helped tremendously!

There is at least still the solace that the reviews from Sphinx will remain online as a snapshot of UK poetry pamphlet publishing over the past eight years. What’s more, new features and articles will be added in the future. Already, there are historic interviews with Chris Hamilton-Emery (Salt), Num Stibbe (Sylph Editions) and Leona Carpenter (Mulfran), not to mention Peter Sansom on Twenty-Five Years of the Poetry Business. A new feature by Andrew Sclater on Stewed Rhubarb has also just been posted, so it may be that the demise of the reviews will make time and space for other kinds of writing.

For the moment, why not have a look at the archive? Be warned: you might well find yourself purchasing more chapbooks as a result!

Poets and their games

One could argue that poetry itself is a game. Many poems certainly play games with their readers, and poets often use games as a metaphor: Paul Farley's piece on Monopoly is a personal favourite. Other genres, meanwhile, also get involved: Julio Cortazar has a terrific novel called Rayuela (Hopscotch), which invites the reader to tackle it in one of two ways - as a linear progression from start to finish or by playing hopscotch, jumping from one chapter to another as per his instructions. The concept's brilliant, but the execution is better.

Very much in that tradition, Maria Taylor has an intriguing set of poetry bingo cards out from HappenStance Press. The website explains them as follows:

"These cards (essential apparatus for readings and festivals) will encourage completely the wrong sort of concentration, possibly even an inappropriate response (BINGO!).

The set of four different cards can also fulfil a useful slot in terms of entertaining postcards for poetry friends. A5 in size, they contain the key words on the back as well as plenty of space to scribble messages, poems or aphorisms.

In terms of extreme left-field writing, each card is a poem in itself."

I'd not only pay good money for the cards themselves (three quid, see the link here), but even better money to be in the audience while certain poets played with them!

Holiday viewing

I launched the film version of Tasting Notes back in October. If you didn't have the time (it only lasts for four minutes!) to view it back then, why not have a look over the festive period? What's more, it's a reminder of sunnier times and climes in the context of the storms that are battering the U.K. at the moment!

  Tasting Notes - a poetry film by Matthew Stewart from Matthew Stewart on Vimeo.

Poetry blogs of the year

Back at the end of 2012, I posted about my refusal to name my books of the year. This time round, I thought I'd make an exception, but concentrating on blogs instead of books. That is because 2013 has seen a real surge in poetry blogging and has been an excellent year for the medium, now settled into the perfect fit of its niche beyond Facebook and Twitter.

It's simultaneously difficult and easy to classify poetry blogs. For the sake of this feature, I'm going to place them in groups somewhat, but they don't limit their activity and often break out of any pigeonholing. What's more, I must underline the personal nature of what I'm writng - this doesn't aim to be a full list of U.K. poetry blogs. Instead, it's a snapshot of my personal preferences.

First off, I'll start with an absolute favourite: John Field's Poor Rude Lines. Throughout 2013, Field has concentrated on writing excellent reviews and general criticism of the U.K. poetry scene, with a specific slant on poetry in education. In other words, this is a type of blog that solely looks at other people's work. Moreover, Field was also appointed Guest Blogger at the Aldeburgh Festival, a key sign of just how far the medium has come and how significant his role has been.

Along similar lines, this year has seen the emergence of Gareth Prior's blog. It's packed with excellent articles and reviews, and 2014 should see its consolidation as a point of reference in the world of poetry blogging. Prior's writing is limpid and precise, and he discovers new poetry and new perspectives for his readers. What better recommendation can I give?!

A second grouping of outstanding blogs in 2013 might well include poets who blend their own news with reviews of others' work, original verse and comment on the poetry scene. Let's begin with the veterans: Matt Merritt's Polyolbion, Ben Wilkinson's Deconstructive Wasteland and Rob MacKenzie's Surroundings. They were among the blogs that inspired me to set off on the journey of Rogue Strands, and their content in 2013 has continued to be thought-provoking and full of insight. Among more recent newcomers in this kind of blog, meanwhile, I'd highlight Fiona Moore's Displacement and Maria Taylor's Commonplace.

Another set of blogs, which often blurs and blends with the previous one, is that of the poets who write something of a personal journal. There are many around, but my own favourite reads are Kim Moore, Roy Marshall and Robin Houghton, whose UK Poetry Gal is an extremely honest chronicle of publishing successes and failures - a chance to follow the rollercoaster that's ridden by emerging poets.

And then there are the blogs that focus on providing a space for poets to showcase their work. These play a very generous role. Chief among them are Michelle McGrane's Peony Moon, Josephine Corcoran's And Other Poems and Abegail Morley's The Poetry Shed.

On to a final batch - publishers' blogs. While some are merely marketing machines, others offer the reader a real understanding of life on the other side of the fence. Of course, I'm a fan of Helena Nelson's efforts at my publisher, Happenstance, but I'm also a regular reader of Charles Boyle's thoughts over at Sonofabook, while Todd Swift's views over at Eyewear are always worth a look.

All of the above blogs have lit up my poetic 2013 in very different ways. They enable me to feel part of a community. Far from being a comprehensive list, this is just a sampling of my own choices. I hope this post includss one or two that you might not yet know yourself. Drop into them and enjoy - poetry blogging has never been stronger thatn in 2013!

Anthony Wilson's lifesaving poems

Anthony Wilson is an excellent poet with direct experience of life-threatening illness. In that context, one of his online projects, titled Lifesaving poems, is especially relevant. He explains it as follows:

"I was struck by a remark of Seamus Heaney in an interview he gave some years ago now. He was musing on how many poems can affect the life of an individual across that person’s lifetime. Was it ten, he said, twenty, fifty, a hundred, or more? This is the question that has underpinned this pet project of mine since I began it in July 2009...

...My criteria were extremely basic.  Was the poem one I could recall having had an immediate experience with from the first moment I read it? In short, did I feel the poem was one I could do without?"

This is also the key to my own love of poetry - I often feel a collection is a success even if it just contains one single poem that engraves itself on me.

In his series of Lifesaving poems (which begins here), Wilson blogs on how each piece has struck home with him. It's personal, subjective and all the better for that.

Moreover, Wilson's range is extremely wide. He's introduced me to many wonderful poems that I'd never read, often by little-known poets. This is the catalogue of a life's reading. For example, one of my favourite posts is about Suzannah Amoore's An Upstairs Kitchen. It's a terrific chunk of verse by a poet who's disappeared from view, and I'm grateful to Wilson for having shown me the way to it.

Why don't you have a browse for yourself? There really are poems that can save your life.