The New Political Poetry?

The recent ruckus at the UK’s Poetry Society has so far seen plenty of finger-pointing, gun-jumping, side-taking (but which sides? and who’s on them?), as yet unsubstantiated rumours of some supposedly shady goings-on, high profile resignations, and a(nother) quite funny rehash of one particularly reiterable scene from epic war film Downfall. Business as usual in poetry-biz-land, then.

Something that’s also been bandied about is the idea that the Poetry Society would be better off doing away with Poetry Review. Of course, I would never suggest that many, indeed most of the more fervent supporters of this idea are of an ilk that reacts very, very badly to repeat rejection slips. But I will say that one of the main, if not the reason I continue to be a paid-up member of the Society is to get my quarterly subscription to what has always been a thoughtful, provocative, entertaining, infuriating, but above all engaging magazine.

Yeah right, Ben, you would say that – you’ve got a poem in the latest issue! Ah yes, so I have. Well, shoot me down. Tell me it’s exactly the same as every poem that Poetry Review has ever published; bourgeois, nice & safe, formal pillar of mediocrity that it is. Then send me a copy of a real magazine, with avant-garde stuff that boggles the mind in its self-reflexive boundary-pushing, i.e. its brave disregard for not only sense and musicality, but also for the reader, who’s fast giving up on trying to wrestle something, anything from the brave new spattered word-shrapnel. Amen.

Now the cutting edge trend-vaulters have gone (or as ever, are one step ahead on the road to nowhere, scrolling down to the comments box) and I’ve stopped madly addressing myself, let me tell you that, truly, there’s some great stuff in the latest PR. New poems from Jamie McKendrick, Philip Gross, Daljit Nagra, Adam Thorpe; fascinating political letters to Crane, Milton and Shelley from John Burnside, Gwyneth Lewis and Neil Rollinson; reviews of Duhig, Cope, McDonald and others, including a round-up of debutants. The series of poems by David Harsent for the World Wildlife Fund, commissioned to accompany photographs as part of the ecological campaign Fragile Beauty, are especially compelling in their subtle, dark, questing arguments, as is the Centrefold perspective on Harsent’s work to date by poet-critic Sean O’Brien. Well worth a read.

And before I nip off to sort a nightcap, here’s a link to Dan Wyke’s blog, who kindly asked if he could feature my stab at translating Eugenio Montale’s “Il Balcone”. Needless to say I can’t speak Italian (back when I wrote the piece I worked from a mixture of literal translations and existing versions to first get a feel for the poem, before attempting to make my own), so I’m chuffed to have the poem praised by someone who can, and who’s also a talented poet in his own right. Check out his debut, Waiting for the Sky to Fall, to see what I mean.

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Chris Morris's Four Lions

There can be weeks when I find very little to engage on BBC2's The Review Show (formerly Newsnight Review, though the name change seems to have accompanied nothing more than the sickly new colour scheme of its redesigned set), so it was a pleasant surprise to see Chris Morris, Britain's foremost satirist and creator of series The Day Today (1994) and Brass Eye (1997), featured on the show this week, having finished his latest project, a darkly comic film about a bunch of hapless, amateur terrorists based in Sheffield.

I'd almost forgotten about the movie, having last read about Morris's current project when I stumbled across a letter, "The absurd world of Martin Amis", in the Guardian a few years back, in which Morris takes the bestselling author to task for "prowling the thickets of his research [into Islam and terrorism] like a demented flasher".

But as Morris's first film, and given his reputation for dealing with difficult topics (such as drugs, war, paedophilia, and AIDS) with biting satire, sharp observations and prickly wit, Four Lions promises to be impressive. In the meantime, I'm returning to DVDs and online clips from Morris's previous work, particularly the excellent The Day Today. For those who haven't seen it, here from the fifth episode of that series is Morris's rebarbative newsreader character at full tilt, deliberately sparking off a war after an unlikely peace accord in order to capitalise on the ensuing pandemonium with up-to-the-minute news coverage, invasive, sensationalist footage, and even (later in the episode) marketing a CD titled 'Our War', including pop songs inappropriately set to war footage.

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Just One Question: Simon Armitage and Glyn Maxwell

With the Hay Festival in full swing the Guardian have devised an interesting little article that I guess must appear in one of the paper's supplements today (almost always reading the Guardian online means I've pretty much forgotten the format of the thing). The gist of it is as follows: one 'sharp and intelligent mind' from the festival asks another just one question, and the responses (as indeed the questions) vary from the insightful and illuminating to the downright ridiculous and hilarious. See Will Self's question to Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire on the ancient aurochs of Chatsworth, for example.

Anyway, here's poet and novelist Simon Armitage showing his northern roots, questioning fellow poet Glyn Maxwell:

Armitage: Q. Where's that 20 quid I loaned you in Reykjavik?

Maxwell: A. I put it all on Londoners one day electing Boris Johnson to run their city. We're millionaires, man.

Sad but true. What bookie would've given any less than million-to-one odds on such an occurrence back in '94? Mind you, I suppose John Major was PM...


NB. In other news, my critical perspective of Simon Armitage's work is now up on the British Council's Contemporary Writers database. Find it here.

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Thumbscrew

It’s partly just me being selfish, but I’m slightly gutted that I arrived on the poetry scene (have I arrived? or am I about to? I’m not really sure…) and, unless I’d been precociously intelligent, by extension on planet earth, too late to enjoy a subscription to Tim Kendall’s wonderful magazine, Thumbscrew.

The mag ran from 1994 until (from what I can gather) 2002, and in that time carved itself a niche in publishing often excellent and sometimes refreshingly unusual and off-kilter poetry, but most of all, in mocking the hype, soundbytes and absurdities that often surround poetry, poets and their reputations / egos. I’ve been reading the issues uploaded on the wonderful resource that is poetrymagazines.org.uk recently, and absolutely love what must have once been the near-legendary ‘Odds and Ends’ section. Here’s a smattering of pieces drawn from it:


Beware the Blurb

“Vendler is arguing for a depoliticisation of [North] that robs it of much of its power to provoke as well as merely to reassure; and it is a measure of Heaney’s stature that he thrives on being read in just such a provoked or provocative way” (David Wheatley, TES, 20 November 1998).

“It is a measure of Heaney’s stature that he thrives on being read in such a provocative way” (blurb, paperback edition of Helen Vendler’s Seamus Heaney).


Don’t Forget your Gaviscon

Always keen to prove its intellectual credentials, the Poetry Society has devised a new gimmick. For just £17.50, you can book a meal in their café, cooked by a “seriously good poet”. Michael Donaghy cooks Mexican, Sarah Maguire cooks French, Mimi Khalvati cooks Iranian. There is an additional charge for stopping the chefs reading their poems.


Say No to Strangers

The Poetry Society Website offers good advice for inviting poets to your school. (The best advice, you’d have thought, would be not to invite them at all.) Poets, it proclaims, “are not to be left alone with groups of children”. “Ask if your poet is insured”. “Our advice to poets would be to refuse to take any unsupervised session, as we would not be able to support them adequately if a case were brought against them for anything that took place in that situation”. The risks are obvious: if left unsupervised, the poets might start reading their “poems” to impressionable youngsters.


The letters section, as you might imagine given the above, was equally lively and entertaining.


So my question is this: what has rushed in to fill Thumbscrew’s gap since it folded nearly six years ago? What magazine is cutting poetic ‘gods’, ridiculous book blurbs and the flexing of egos down to size these days? Only a small press magazine could get away with such hilarious, semi-serious banter and discussion (that is, as much as I enjoy the publication, I don’t think Poetry Review’s letters pages or wide and varied readership would quite suit it!) The blogs and forums do a good job of poking fun where and when it’s needed, I suppose, but it’d be nice to see a mag capable of balancing good poetry (Thumbscrew published plenty of that, including Muldoon, Greenlaw, Harsent and Redgrove) with intelligent humour and deft severity in its reviews, features (read this one on Armitage's poetic career) and other prose.

Well, I live in hope. In the meantime, why not wander along and read the archived Thumbscrew issues on poetrymagazines.org? Link’s here.

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Deck the Halls

As a treat for Wasteland readers (I use the term very loosely), here's a "festive" poem before I sign off and stop blogging until the New Year. Contrary to the poem's sentiments, I'm not entirely opposed to Christmas - I love the way in which it oftens brings family and friends closer together, and how a time for giving and receiving is beneficial in ways far beyond the material. It is, as with many things, a wonderful celebration that has sadly been misappropriated and consequently misguided by consumerism. And Cliff Richard. But enough complaining, and enough of the obvious. This poetic snippet of semi-fact semi-fiction comes with best wishes for the festive period, and for a happy and successful 2008.


Under Pressure


I remember that night
as if I were knocking back pints
in the Frog and Parrot now –

telling me how your tosser
of a boss had laid you off
for reasons as unclear

as my buying a piss-weak
pint of Carling
instead of some decent, local beer.

Both of us in the mood to get trashed –
you for the obvious, me for my festive
and utterly pathetic

melancholic afflictions
(it is totally down to my character
but I still blame the holiday jingles)

and so, perhaps unsurprisingly,
when I come, after five or so rounds,
to put some jukebox music on

I can’t bear the thought
of John and Yoko,
Wizzard, Slade or even Mike Oldfield,

so I plump for Freddie and Queen’s best;
an altruistic act I accept as we
pour over the wine list.

Why can’t we give ourselves
one more chance?

Why can’t we give love
that one more chance?

This is our last dance.
This is ourselves.

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The Poetry Business faces cutbacks

I happened upon news of local funding cutbacks to The Poetry Business from Jane Holland's Raw Light; let's hope this isn't a trend.

THE POETRY BUSINESS - PLEASE ACT!

The Poetry Business has had its local authority funding withdrawn for the next three years. As from April 2007, NO literature organisation within the borough of Kirklees now receives any grant aid from the Council.

This is in spite of Culture and Leisure Services' stated aim 'to create a portfolio of partners which represent a good spread of art forms; a good spread of creative work with communities of interest; and a strong creative infrastructure'.

Writer Simon Armitage, who has close links with Huddersfield, called the move 'shortsighted' (Huddersfield Daily Examiner 21.7.07).

Twelve years ago, Ian McMillan, writer and broadcaster and a great supporter of literature, named Huddersfield 'the Poetry Capital of England'. Through its work with poets, the Poetry Business is now a flagship organisation both as publisher of Smith/Doorstop Books and the magazine The North, and as a promoter of poetry in the area, with our regular Writing Days and other help for local writers.
To many the name 'Huddersfield' is synonymous with poetry, and this is due mainly to the work of the Poetry Business.

What this means

Already we have had to make many cuts in our services, and that must continue. We are still supported by Arts Council England, but the Kirklees grant was nearly 40% of our total funding. This comes as a great blow.
But it's not just the lack of money that concerns us (all Authorities are having to make cuts to services - we appreciate that); it's the lack of belief that what we do benefits the borough in many ways. Two years ago they called on us to become 'creative partners' - their term, not ours. Hollow words.

How you can help:

… Write (by letter or email) to complain about the decision to withdraw our grant.
… A Kirklees Council spokesman is quoted in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner on 21.7.07: 'The Poetry Business Š is now not working as effectively as other applicants to contribute to the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the district.' If you live, work, study, etc., here, or you visit the borough, can you let Kirklees know your opinion of this statement.
… People to write to:
o The Arts & Creative Economy team (adele.poppleton@kirklees.gov.uk);
o Director of Regeneration (ken.gillespie@kirklees.gov.uk);
o Councillor Smaje (elizabeth.smaje@kirklees.gov.uk);
o Chief Executive (rob.vincent@kirklees.gov.uk).
o Kirklees MC, Civic Centre III, Market Street, Huddersfield HD1 1WG.
o The Huddersfield Daily Examiner (editor@examiner.co.uk)
… PLEASE ALSO forward this on to any other people who may be interested.
… This isn't an appeal for donations. But if you can support us in other ways such as taking out a subscription to The North, or buying our books, we'd both benefit. Many thanks to all the people who have already responded to us.

The letter below is one which is winging its way to all of the above local government officials:


Dear Sir/Madam,

I am hugely disappointed to hear that The Poetry Business is having its local authority funding cut, something which I understand to make up a significant portion of its overall funding. For local and national arts, as well as poetry's continued growth and development, this is a huge blow. As a reviewer for this year's excellent Latitude Festival and its extremely successful Poetry Arena (http://www.latitudefestival.co.uk/news), I can testify to the fact that poetry is growing rapidly in popularity year on year, among all age groups and ethnicities, and that the funding of projects and organisations like The Poetry Business must continue to ensure further growth and developments within the art form.

Furthermore, it must be stressed that without The Poetry Business, many luminous talents would not have received the support and necessary aid to help develop their early writing careers: most notably the excellent poet, novelist and playwright Simon Armitage, but also in more recent years, poets such as Daljit Nagra, whose first pamphlet Oh My Rub!, published by the Poetry Business's press Smith/Doorstop, helped to ensure him a book deal with Faber and Faber, and confirm him as one of our most interesting and valuable new writers. Without the much needed local authority funding that The Poetry Business requires, then, the running of such a press and the annual Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition will be sadly, but undoubtedly, restricted. And that's not even to mention The Poetry Business's editing and publication of The North, one of this country's most important literary magazines.

I implore you, then, to reconsider the decision that has been made, and to take on board everything that I have said. The Poetry Business is, and has been for many years, a vital part of the discovery and publication of talented writers from across the UK. Without it, the growth and development of poetry in this country with undoubtedly be hindered.

Yours faithfully,


Ben Wilkinson

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