An exceptional object poem by Christopher James

I have to admit I’m a fan of object poems, especially those that take a seemingly insignificant item and invest it with personal meaning. This process often involves a so-called “poetic leap” from the object to the experience.

In this respect, Christopher James’ recent object poem on And Other Poems (see here) is exceptional for several reasons. First of all, it doesn’t make one but several leaps, all of which are successful. And then the object in question convincingly comes to life. And then it gradually gives up further mysteries and details as the poem progresses.

Such a layering of elements is extremely difficult to achieve in an object poem, but the result is terrific depth and a delicious degree of nuance. Recommended reading that will lift you out of this grim, grim set of current circumstances...!

My poetry books of the year

My poetry books of the year will lodge in my head. Every now and then, I’ll experience something that reminds me of one of their lines or poems, and I’ll reach for them, and then I’ll linger, and the book in question will lead a second life beyond the shelves in my study, being tasted every few days for a couple of months before returning to those shelves. And then the cycle will begin again.

What’s more, I won’t yet have read several of my poetry books of the year, as they’ll be slow-burners that a trusted friend will recommend or I’ll encounter on the shelves of a second hand bookshop, flick through a few pages and reach for my wallet.

And then there are my other poetry books of the year, the ones I thought weren’t much cop when I read them in 2020, but which will reach out and hit me/hug me/renew me if I’m lucky enough to be around in 2030.

These are my poetry books of the year. Sorry if yours isn't on the list.

A lost year...?

Is 2020 a lost year? I’ve seen this mournful term on several occasions recently in the media and even being invoked by poets. However, I’m convinced it’s a misnomer and can only lead us down a dead end.

Of course, my above comment isn’t intended to trivialise the fact that countless people have lost everything in 2020, while it’s also clear we’ve all missed out on experiences this year. Nevertheless, one of the things that poetry teaches us is that time is never lost or wasted. 

Fallow periods in our poetry lives are necessary. Through our writing, we soon learn that the genre doesn’t require or even benefit from our spending eight hours a day sitting at a desk. In fact, it encourages us to live and let ideas percolate through our subconscious in the meantime.

Beyond our writing, it’s worth adopting a similar approach to our days, using the patience that poetry given us. As a consequence of having pressed the pause button these past few months, certain projects will have lost significance. Others, on the other hand, will have unexpectedly become crucial. Our priorities will have shifted and we’ll be in a better position to face the rest of our lives. In other words, however we view it, 2020 is in no shape or form a lost year.

Submission

I loathe the act of translating from one language to another. Where many find creativity, I only encounter the frustration of insurmountable challenges, especially when a word possesses two connotations in the original text and one or three (or two different ones) in the new one. What’s more, I know I’m not alone in this respect. One of the most popular posts on this blog, for instance, from 2009, is titled Traduttore, Tradittore or Translator, Traitor.

However, today’s thoughts aren’t concentrated on translation per se. Instead, the afore-mentioned problem is a point of departure for a questioning of our use of the word submission in poetry. If we look up any major dictionary, this term has two main meanings in English, as in the following example:

1.

the action of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.

2.

the action of presenting a proposal, application, or other document for consideration or judgement.

As a consequence, in English at least, I’m unable to imagine the second definition without a small part of my mind recalling the first one. The two are inextricably linked and cannot be separated because they co-exist.

Going back to my initial explanation of the nightmare of translation: this word cannot be considered if we don’t accept the sociolinguistic ramifications of both its potential meanings. These, by coincidence, don’t exist in Spanish in the same way (in which language there are actually other, subtly different connotations), so a translator either way could never transmit the full load of the word in question.

But let's cut to the chase: I’m always uncomfortable with the mention of a submission when referring to poetry journals and publishers. I’m personally incapable of shaking off the implication of being subjugated, of submitting myself to judgement, of yielding to a superior force or will, especially if it’s being invoked in the context of artistic creation.

Why can’t we just use contribution?

The Best U.K. Poetry Blogs of 2020

Poetry blogs have taken on special significance in 2020. As mentioned in my previous post on Rogue Strands, time might well have speeded up this year in many respects, but many people have also had that very same time weighing on their hands as a consequence of isolation, both in mental and physical terms.

In other words, poetry blogs have provided their readers with longer reads than social media posts, all alongside more substantial content. They offer us the chance to remember we’re not alone in the midst of this pandemic, together with the reassurance that there are other people whose experiences mirror ours.

This year’s list of The Best U.K. Poetry Blogs 2020 comes, as usual, with the caveat of being incomplete and subjective, but it also includes several newcomers, some of whom have been blogging for years but have only appeared on my limited radar this time around. Let’s start with them…

- Julie Mellor’s blog, chatty, intimate, yet wide-reaching and with an excellent eye for poetry.

- Ama Bolton’s barleybooks, creativity personified.

- Hilary Menos’ blog, intermittent posts but with thought-provoking content.

- Charlotte Gann's blog, a chronicle of her personal journey that implicitly reaches out to all of us.

- Elizabeth Rimmer’s Burned Thumb blog, packed with generosity, news, poems and a personal touch.

And now for the old-timers (sic)….

- Mat Riches’ Wear The Fox Hat, an idiosyncratic, insightful poetry blog...

- Matthew Paul’s blog, packed with wise and wry observations on poetry.

- Richie McCaffery’s The Lyrical Aye, a personal, sometimes ironic, sometimes acerbic view of the poetry world.

- Chris Edgoose’ Wood Bee Poet, in-depth poetry criticism.

- Sue Ibrahim’s My Natural World, what it says on the tin: a personal view of nature and life.

- Liz Lefroy’s I buy a new washer, so good it’s been turned into a book!

- Tim Love’s litrefs, a scientific yet hugely human view of poetry.

- Martyn Crucefix’s blog, critical rigour and thought-provoking views of contemporary poetry.

- Charles Boyle’s Sonofabook, still different, still dedicated to the genre.

- Abegail Morley’s Poetry Shed, original work from guest poets, plus reviews and news.

- Josephine Corcoran’s blog, a personal poetry journal that reaches out and touches on opportunities, events and news in the poetry world.

- John Foggin’s cobweb, honesty, human warmth and a love of poetry.

- Robin Houghton’s blog, generous, personal and warm. Just the ticket for a tough year like this.

- Clarissa Aykroyd’sThe Stone and the Star, different, curious, always exploring poetry, just like the person who writes it.

- Anthony Wilson’s blog, understandably riven with personal grief this year, but also heaving with life.  

- Emma Lee’s blog, a tireless promotor of poetry whose blog shines a light of countless aspects of the genre that deserve more attention.

- Sheenagh Pugh’s Good God! There’s writing on both sides of that paper! Reviews and views with an excellent critical eye.

- Matt Merritt’s Polyolbion, wise words on the poetry world and beyond.

- Caroline Gill’s blog, a personal poetry diary.

- Helena Nelson’s HappenStance Press blog, nuff said.

- Angela Topping’s blog, excellent written poetry blog, all in the context of the world around us.

- Roy Marshall’s blog, news and original poetry.

And that’s the end of the 2020 list, with a quick mention that I’d love to welcome the return next year of the likes of excellent bloggers such as Clare Best, Giles Turnbull, Katy Evans-Bush, John Field, Paul Stephenson and Maria Taylor.

Oh, and one annual reminder; as mentioned in previous years, I do know that grim feeling of reading through a list, coming to the end and realising you’re not there, so I can only apologise if I’ve missed you out. As one individual reader, I can’t keep up with everyone, and I’d be very grateful for any additional blogs that readers might like to add in the comments that follow this post…

Time is speeding up

It seems to be a widely acknowledged fact that time has been speeding up over the last few years in current affairs and newsfeeds, especially in terms of how quickly one major story is replaced by another (often on puropose, so as to bury bad news quickly!).This effect has also been noticeable in the poetry world, meaning that every magazine issue, new collection or review has a shorter time in the sun.

However, the pandemic seems to have accelerated that process even more. Zoom launches pile up, one on top of another, while social media races ever more quickly onwards, spitting out promotional posts, mini-reviews and quotes as it goes. Attention spans appear to shrink on a daily basis; books sink without trace. 

In normal circumstances, a collection would still be very much alive six months after coming out. Right now, I've spotted several friends bemoaning the fact that their 2020 publications have already vanished from view.

In this context, it's important to pause, take a deep breath and keep subscribing to print-based journals with a greater time lag and thus a longer life, while also forcing ourselves to read more substantial texts online such as essays and blog reviews instead of scrolling through Twitter. Poets will thank us for doing so, while in purely selfish terms we won't miss out on stuff that would otherwise pass us by. Most of all, we might slow down and actually take the time to snaffle a poem properly, read it, re-read it and read it again...

For us all, Hilary Menos' Human Tissue

There’s a strong argument that the most universal literature is actually rooted in specifics rather than in the evocation of abstracts. According to this theory, universality is found in an individual set of circumstances that’s portrayed with such skill and empathy as to ramify far beyond the limits of its immediate context, moving its readers, no matter whether they themselves have undergone such an experience. Hilary Menos’ new pamphlet, Human Tissue (Smith-Doorstep, 2020) provides us with an excellent example of how to implement this idea.

As stated in the introduction by Hugo Williams (who has suffered from kidney disease himself), this pamphlet takes a family’s story as its point of departure. Menos’ son, who suffered from kidney failure, received a transplant, aged 17, of one of his mother’s kidneys. Two years later, the son had a rejection episode and the transplanted kidney had to be removed, thus meaning he had to go back on dialysis.

The aforementioned events are moving in themselves, of course, but would initially seem most of interest to other sufferers of kidney disease or to their family members. The poet’s skill lies in her ability to transcend those supposed limitations via implicit ruminations on faith, mortality, family and love, all anchored in this concrete narrative.

The nature of faith, for instance, is explored via the pagan figure of The Mud Man, a tree stump that lies at the bottom of the family’s garden and is invoked from the beginning of the pamphlet, as in these closing lines from the first poem:

…The Mud Man looks at me through struck flint eyes
and mirrors a requiem for you, for us all,
through broken slate teeth.

These words hint that more conventional religion has preceded The Mud Man in the narrator’s life, as invoked via the mention of a Christian-infused requiem, while also indicating to the reader that the forthcoming story isn’t just about the patient but about us all.

Love, expressed through familial relations, is consequently a pivotal theme throughout the book, as in the opening lines to Admission:

Lying on the hospital bed late at night
with the cannula in my arm starting to sting
and a bag shoving fluids into me at a rate
that tightens my wedding ring

I write a letter to you, at home with our son,
and bury it deep in my notebook
between special diets and test results and plans
where only you would look

just in case anything goes wrong…

This poem offers us a tremendous example of Hilary Menos’ gift for using physical, often everyday detail, layering it and accumulating its effect, so as to reach out towards a vision that reflects back on to its readers. It doesn’t just evoke the process of giving a kidney, but speaks to anyone who’s been alone, afraid, in hospital and missing their loved ones.  In other words, while we might not have gone through this specific experience, we are so moved by its poetic transformation that we are invited to ruminate on our own versions and visions of love.

Such a ravaging context, however, never leads Menos down the path of melodrama. Instead, it enables her to delve deeply into another of her concerns, one that runs through all her collections: the strained yet vital relationship between the human and natural worlds, If this theme was already present in the pamphlet’s first piece, it culminates in the closing lines to its final poem, Sloe Gin, as follows…

…Time matures the thing. At least, adds distance.
I sit at the kitchen table, trying to make sense

and pouring a shot of sweet liquor into a glass.
The filtered magenta, sharp and unctuous,

reminds me of sour plum, of undergrowth,
the scrub, the blackthorn and the hard path.

In this poem, perfectly cadenced metre is set against unsettling doubts, while the transformative quality of human hand is present via the liquor that has been created from fruit and undeniably changed. Nevertheless, it’s then undercut by the realisation that the darker side of nature can never be ignored and forms an inevitable part of our journey through life.

What’s more universal than the above thought?! And it’s achieved through the telling of everyday incidents! Hilary Menos’ pamphlet connects with readers, launching them into the poet’s life, then catapulting them into another fresh vision of their own world. This is the epitome of what poetry can grant us. Human Tissue is thoroughly recommended.