Relevance vs Irrelevance

If a poet believes they're being sidelined or deemed irrelevant by supposed gatekeepers, they might feel tempted to rail against the perceived slights in public, wailing into a vacuum, trying to punch up or out, but only landing on their own jaw.

I'd suggest they might well be better off putting their grievances to one side, using their time to write stuff that's actually relevant to a potential readership...!

A game of poetic Chinese whispers

I've reviewed Anna Crowe's translation of Pedro Serrano's The Conjurer for The Friday Poem. Here's the opening paragraph...

The act of translation involves the need to resolve ambiguities or ambivalences that were intentionally left open in the original, just as it forces the loss of connotations that cannot be replaced on a like-for-like basis. For some translators, this process is drenched in frustration, but for others, it’s a creative challenge, the chance to generate a new entity that simultaneously does its utmost to respect the source. And on this occasion, we’re lucky to find that Anna Crowe is the translator of Pedro Serrano’s new collection, The Conjurer (Arc Publications, 2024) as her method firmly falls into the second category. Crowe’s considerable experience in translating the likes of Joan Margarit (from Catalan) and Juan Forcano (from Castilian Spanish), both also published by Arc, is here brought to bear on a selection from Pedro Serrano’s three published collections in Mexican Spanish...

If you'd like to read the review in full, it's available via this link.

A poem from Martin Ferguson's Stone Age Howl

I'm delighted to be able to showcase today a poem from Martin Ferguson's latest pamphlet, Stone Age Howl (Dreich Press, 2024).

The poem I've chosen is titled ‘Fugitives’. It's especially interesting because of its delicate layers, starting with the title, which seems to refer to the protagonists but also hints at the passing of time itself, a theme’s that’s pivotal to the poem as a whole. A mention of grandparents nods at the passing of a generational baton, as encapsulated by the children’s use of rusted, ageing skates. And then there’s the filter of memory: this poem takes place in the past and the narrator’s perspective is of an adult who’s no longer a child. It’s an implicit invitation for us to reflect on our own lives, the specific rendered universal. I hope you enjoy it...

Fugitives

Small window in the winter
of English winters, when we knew
that conditions chance aligned,
to hold the weight of our escapes.

And we knew the place,
that the ice would not wait,
we made the trip to silvered field,
we tied them on, ready to wield

those heavy blunted clunking clogs,
would make us feel as high as sprites,
the brown old leather ankle boots,
their metal blades with flecked rust bites

had seen better snowbound seasons
on our grandparents' quick heels.
Back upon the glaze, animals transformed,
how they still could dance and reel

make our growing bones buzz and sing,
and race and speed on frozen range,
then we were their ghosts–
Souls flying free over flooded plains.

(First published in The Poetry Village 2020)

Relearning the collection

When putting a manuscript together, a poet and their editor (if such an entity still exists!) work together on synergies, grouping and flow, on how poems establish dialogues with each other on the page. However, once the book's been published and the poet starts giving readings from it, a whole new process begins, in which they have to relearn the collection from the perspective of different audiences. 

What do I mean by this term? Well, I'm referring firstly to finding out which poems work in public and which fall flat, which work on the page but not when read aloud. And secondly, there's the question of how to introduce them: not too much, not too little, not a paraphrasing or spoiling of the poem as a whole but just enough information to facilitate entry when the audience hears it for the first time.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I reckon this process takes me about ten readings to master from every new book before I reach a sweet spot. And even then, I find myself tweaking my set according to the make-up of the audience, while it's also important never to get bored or stuck in a rut of always reading the same poems, though two or three so-called signature pieces simply have to be included!

The aim, of course, is to launch the poems on umpteen new journeys inside other people's minds, thus encouraging them to purchase the book and carry those poems off with them afterwards, turning listeners into readers. And readers are worth their weight in gold for any poet!

Three readings in the next few days...

Right, so a heads-up in case you can make any of the three readings I've got coming up in the next few days...

...the first one is at Faversham Literary Festival on Saturday, though the issue is that their website currently says my event has sold out (see here). Then I'll be the guest poet for the South Downs Poetry Festival in Chichester on Wednesday (see here), followed by a reading in Cowden Pound on Thursday, as per the following poster. It would be great to see you at any of these events. And if you make it along, please do come up and introduce yourself...!

The use of abstract nouns in contemporary poetry

First off, the point of departure for this post is the premise that no part of language should be off-limits or banned for poets. Writing is tough enough without forsaking a chunk of the toolbox.

However, there are a few lexical elements that seem fraught with danger. One obvious example is adverbs, which CW tutors are notoriously wary of their students employing. I actually (sic) love them!

Another is the use of abstract nouns, which feel far more troublesome to my mind. Why? Well, because they can mean so many things to so many individuals, social groups and nationalities, even within a single language. Let’s take the example of freedom. Its connotations would be hugely different for a Remainer or a Brexiteer, for instance! When a poet uses this word, they lose control over the effects that their choice of language may have on the reader.

And of course, once we get into the art of translation, this problem deepens even further. For example, la democracia in Spanish necessarily becomes democracy in English. But its baggage for a Spaniard who lived through la transición a la democracia (following Franco’s dictatorship) is very different from its multitude of meanings for certain English speakers from specific points in the political spectrum (need I say more?!). This is one key reason why translating an abstract-heavy poem is a huge ask.

So where am I headed? Towards two main conclusions. The first is that I’m very uncomfortable with poems packed with abstract nouns that all lead to so many potential ramifications beyond the poet’s own interpretations of them. And secondly, there’s definitely an opportunity for poets to play with those very issues within a poem, though I do feel the focus is best placed on exploring a limited set of abstracts in one go. Too many, and the reader inevitably becomes disorientated.

But that’s enough of my opinions. What about yours? What’s your approach to the use of abstract nouns in contemporary poetry…?

Forthcoming on Cortázar...

My article on Julio Cortázar's poetry is forthcoming in Issue Three of the Madrid Review, out on 14th February...