Poetry News Round Up: October 2013

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#NationalPoetryDay, 2013, 22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax, Adam Zeman, Allen Ginsberg, badger, badger cull, book, brain, British, Carol Ann Duffy, cortex, Daniel Radcliffe, Drysalter, Dylan Thomas, Environment Secretary, Fern Hill, film, For the Greek Spring, Forward Prize, Gregory Orr, interview, Kelvin Corcoran, Kill Your Darlings, Michael Symmons Roberst, National Poetry Day, neurology, news, October, Poet Laureate, poetry, politics, Prince Charles, Prince George, prose, reading, review, River Inside the River, satire, science, social media, temporal lobes, The Cordland Review, The Guardian, twitter, University of Exeter, video, water

One twelfth of a year’s worth of poetry news, no more, no less.

A study has revealed the neurological difference between poetry and prose.

So it’s true! Finally there is hard evidence that poetry really is, scientifically speaking, completely different to (better than) prose.

How so? Well, according to a University of Exeter study by Professor Adam Zeman, reading poetry activates the posterior cingulated cortex – a part of the brain associated with introspection – and the medial temporal lobes, which are used for memory storage. Poetry lights up your brain!

The Brain!
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © Image Editor]

And the effect is the same regardless of what poem you read. We know this for a fact because Zeman gave his subjects both “easy and difficult sonnets.”

Daniel Radcliffe “understands” poetry.

The headline says it all really.  In a recent interview about his portrayal of the poet Allen Ginsberg in the film Kill Your Darlings, Radcliffe said, and I quote:

“I don’t understand it as well as [Ginsberg], but I do understand poetry.”

Anyhow, the film is supposed to be ok. It’s out in the UK soon.

Filming Kill Your Darlings
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © ZhaoAngela]

The UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a poem in response to the badger cull.

She wasn’t around earlier this year to do typical poet laureate tasks like celebrating the birth of Prince George in verse (she was on holiday), but now Carol Ann Duffy has found an even better reason to put pen to paper – to satirise the government’s response to the failure of the recent badger cull.

The Environment Secretary infamously blamed the badgers themselves for the failed cull, saying “the badgers moved the goalposts.”

It’s all the badgers’ fault!
[Source: Flickr Creative Commons © hehaden]

Carol Ann Duffy used this quote as the basis for a 22 line poem about the coalition’s politics, called ’22 Reasons for the Bedroom Tax.’ She emailed the poem to The Guardian who promptly published it. Here’s an excerpt:

“Because the Badgers are moving the goalposts.
The Ferrets are bending the rules.
The Weasels are taking the hindmost.
The Otters are downing tools.”

It was National Poetry Day in the UK.

October 3 was that day of the year where poetry gets a teeny weeny bit more media coverage here in the UK.  The theme of the day was “water, water everywhere.”

A highlight this year was Prince Charles reciting Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas, which you can listen to here.

It was also a year in which the occasion was picked up quite a bit in social media, especially on Twitter where you can still catch up on users’ own poems and even videos using #NationalPoetryDay, such as this one.

October Awards

• The Forward Prize for Poetry 2013 was won by Michael Symmons Roberts for Drysalter, a book of 150 poems, each just 15 lines long.

October Book Releases

And finally, a small selection from the poetry books published during October:

• For the Greek Spring by Kelvin Corcoran. The Guardian says Corcoran “is a superbly skilled lyricist” who writes poetry in which “classical mythology meets modern ideals.”
• River Inside the River by Gregory Orr. The Cortland Review warns that “poems that are this charged with the cadences of mystical contemplation may not be everyone’s cup of tea.”

Book Review: West End Final by Hugo Williams

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A Pillow Book, actor, book, Boyd Tonkin, clown, comic, English, family, father, fatherhood, film, Grimaldi, Heavy Father, holiday, Hugh Williams, Hugo Williams, icon, John Field, Kielder, Kielder Water, Larkin, Leontia Flynn, matter of fact, mother, mountain, New York, pathetic, Peach, phone, Poems to My Mother, poetry, Poetry Book Society, Polly Clark, Poor Rude Lines, Profit and Loss, prosaic, review, Seamus Heaney, Slapstick, Someone's Girlfriend, son, straightforward, The Gotham, The Guardian, The Human Monster, The Independent, The Mouthful, TLS, Tony Harrison, Washing My Hands, West End Final, West End Twilight, WiFi

I have just spent a week on holiday with the family at Kielder Water.

Before we went, I checked the website for our lodge which said there was no WiFi or phone signal so I thought this might be a chance to sit down with a few poetry books in the evenings.

I rather optimistically brought five single-author collections with me. In the end, I managed to read two, West End Final by Hugo Williams and Profit and Loss by Leontia Flynn. I think I originally got both of these books via the Poetry Book Society.

First up is my review of West End Final, Hugo Williams’s tenth book of poetry. It’s the only book by Hugo Williams that I’ve read, although a long time ago I did used to read his wonderful column in the TLS so he at least feels like a familiar name!

West End Final
[Source: The Guardian]

My Review

West End Final has a strong lead character – Hugh Williams, the father of the poet, Hugo Williams. Hugh probably only appears in half the poems at most but his presence is felt like a colossus astride this book.

Hugh Williams was an actor in the early twentieth century. According to the sleeve notes of the book, he is now “as familiar and frequently depicted as Cézanne’s mountain.” Given this is Hugo Williams’s tenth collection, I’m guessing that means his father must have appeared in a fair few poems by now.

In West End Final the focus is on the similarities between father and son and on the unnerving way that Hugo feels he is becoming like his father. In ‘Heavy Father,’ he recounts his father’s incarnations as various screen icons and concludes:

“How he achieved the transformation
from juvenile lead to Heavy Father
without the use of wigs and make-up
is the great mystery
that is currently being revealed to me.”

I suppose this is a sentiment that many men could apply when thinking of themselves and their fathers.

Hugh Williams in the film The Human Monster
[Source: IMDb]

In ‘West End Twilight,’ Hugo describes his own appearance in the third-person, saying he looked “old-fashioned actorish” before telling us that:

“Ransacking old letters, he has raided the past
to imagine himself into his father’s life
and personality.”

Despite his frequent appearance in the poems, Hugo’s father can seem like a distant figure sometimes. I didn’t get the feeling theirs was an easy relationship. In some poems, Hugo reveals awkward moments such as his father’s dictatorial attitude to dinnertime in ‘The Mouthful.’

Hugo also writes several interesting poems about his mother, including the touching seven-part ‘Poems to My Mother,’ the centrepiece of which, ‘Someone’s Girlfriend,’ again focuses in on the father:

“Your father and I
were staying at the Gotham, but it wasn’t long
before we moved to the Devil, which was just as well,
I suppose, considering he was still married.”

The Peninsula Hotel in NYC, built in 1905 as The Gotham
[Source: Wikimedia Commons © Sergio Calleja]

The structure of West End Final is chronological and runs the extent of the author/narrator’s life. There are poems in here about school and bullying, right through to the effects of old age.

Hugo Williams’s style is straightforward and matter of fact. The sentences and ideas expressed are simple, readily understood. It’s the kind of style that when done well (think Philip Larkin) can result in the most sublime and memorable poetry.

So I’m sorry to report that Williams doesn’t reach such heights here. There are several poems in West End Final that I’m fond of, but none that I’m in awe of. A good example of what I mean is ‘Peach,’ the poem that opens the collection:

“It was almost impossible to get down.
That was the whole point.
We wanted to eat a peach somewhere interesting.
We wanted to dribble peach juice on the world.”

Beautifully, straightforwardly written, yes. But verging perhaps on the side of trite rather than sublime.

Peaches
[Source: Wikimedia Commons © Patrick Tregenza]

The same could be said of ‘A Pillow Book,’ a sequence of twelve poems written from the perspective of a man lying in bed and watching a woman get undressed. Again, I rather liked the prosaic style but felt he didn’t do enough with it:

“I’m not saying anything
until I see everything
you are wearing
lying in a heap on the floor.

Oh dear, that was your last
pair of pants.
What are you going to do?”

I feel a bit harsh quoting snippets of poems and trying to make them stand up as representative of the whole, but what else can you do in a review! In reality, both ‘Peach’ and ‘A Pillow Book’ are poems I am fond of as are many others in this collection. But they aren’t exceptional.

The poems in West End Final that perhaps get closest to greatness are some of the ones that focus on the father-son relationship (back to that father figure again). For this reason I likened Williams in my mind to those other chroniclers of the paternal figure, Seamus Heaney and Tony Harrison.

So to end with, I’ll pick out another of Williams’s poems on the subject of the father – one that’s called ‘Slapstick.’

This poem presents the father (and indeed the son) as comic, pathetic figures and so perhaps more human as a result. The father figure in this instance is the historic performer Grimaldi who is “constantly falling down drunk, / unable to express himself.” The son/narrator tells us:

“I found I had a flair
for parental caricature,
dressing up and spouting
nonsense at everyone.”

Joseph Grimaldi
[Source: Wikimedia Commons – out of copyright]

Five Words that describe this book: fatherhood, straightforward, prosaic, caring, honest.

Rating: 6/10

Stand Out Poems: ‘West End Twilight’; ‘Slapstick’; ‘Poems to My Mother’; ‘A Pillow Book’; ‘Washing My Hands’.

Killer line: “Of course, I could be wrong about this / and all that is really going on / is you, undressing, / getting read for bed.” (from ‘A Pillow Book’)

Other Opinions

Polly Clark, in The Guardian, comments that “Williams’s father makes many appearances, and it is clear that the poet is trying to wrestle himself free of a dominating influence,” and that at its best, his poetry is “a philosophical exploration of what it is to be a real person.”

Boyd Tonkin, in The Independent, thinks that “Williams’s tragi-comic family romance has never sounded deeper or subtler notes than it does in this play-list of a life through 38 poems, long and short, tart and tender.”

John Field, on Poor Rude Lines, says that “Williams’ eye is acute and his disarming economy concentrates the power of his words” and that “reading Williams is a candid, intimate, unsettling experience.”

If you enjoyed my review of West End Final, you might also enjoy my review of Northlight by Douglas Dunn or my review of The Dark Film by Paul Farley.

Poetry News Round Up: January 2013

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@pentametron, actor, Allen Ginsberg, American, auction, award, Barack Obama, BBC, BBC America, Beat poets, British, Carl Sandburg, Channel 4, Charles Cowden Clarke, Christian Ward, Christian Wiman, competition, Cuban, Daniel Radcliffe, Denis O'Driscoll, Disney, Disney Junior, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, film, fragment, gay, Go Giants, Helen Mort, Hispanic, Hong Kong, I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill, iambic pentameter, inauguration, Indian, Irish, Jacob Polley, Jayne Cortez, Keats, Kill Your Darlings, Leung Ping-kwan, magazine, Matt Smith, Michelle Dockery, Mumbai, Nick Laird, plagiarism, poetry, Poetry Foundation, Poetry magazine, police, president, Radio 4, Richard Blanco, Sandy Hook, Sharon Olds, The Deer, The Deer at Exmoor, The Havocs, The Stag's Leap, Tony Harrison, TS Eliot, TS Eliot Prize, TV, twitter, University of Illinois, v

Here, a little belatedly, but better late than never, is your news round up from January.

The big big story of January was the inauguration of the US president, Barack Obama. The Cuban-American Richard Blanco was chosen as the inauguration poet. He was the youngest, first Hispanic and first gay poet to speak at an inauguration. If nothing else, the occasion sparked a debate in the US on the purpose and relevance of poetry in modern life. The poem itself received mixed reviews. You can see a clip, read an excerpt, and link to more of Blanco’s poem’s here.

Daniel Radcliffe’s new film Kill Your Darlings premiered, to mainly positive reviews. Radcliffe plays the American Allen Ginsberg, whose development as a poet is charted in the film.

Christian Wiman announced that he would step down as editor of Poetry magazine, a post he’s fulfilled for over a decade. Poetry describes itself as “the oldest monthly devoted to verse in the English speaking world.” In October 2012, we reported on the magazine’s 100^th anniversary celebrations. The Poetry Foundation, which creates the magazine, has also just appointed a new president of its own.

A previously unknown poem by the American literary giant Carl Sandburg has been discovered by a volunteer researcher in the University of Illinois archives.

Disney announced that the well-known TV stars Matt Smith (from Doctor Who) and Michelle Dockery (from Downton Abbey) would be reading poetry on its Disney Junior channel. BBC America has posted some clips.

The story that we reported last month about 17 year old who wrote a poem that appeared to praise the Sandy Hook murderer continued to be a focus in the American press after the student was suspended. The Week has tried to offer a balanced appraisal of the situation.

There was controversy in the UK as the winner of a regional poetry competition was found to have copied his work from another poet. Christian Ward describes himself as “imaginative” but submitted a poem, ‘The Deer at Exmoor,’ that was uncannily similar to Helen Mort’s ‘The Deer.’ You can read both poems here.

Radio 4 announced that it would broadcast Tony Harrison’s poem V, which is seen as a landmark poem in the UK but is rarely heard publicly due to many and extreme list of expletives it contains. Channel 4 received criticism for broadcasting a film version of the poem back in 1987.

A fragment of the only handwritten poem by John Keats still in private hands has been put up for auction. After the poet’s death, his close friend Charles Cowden Clarke cut up a manuscript of the poem ‘I Stood Tiptoe Upon a Little Hill’ into thirteen pieces. This is one of those thirteen fragments.

Sharon Olds’s collection charting her divorce, The Stag’s Leap, won this year’s prestigious T S Eliot prize. I’m reading this book at the moment and I must say it’s well-deserved.

There was a plenty of attention given in India to a situation in Mumbai, where a police officer has written a controversial poem criticising protestors in Azad Maidan. Eventually the police apologised and initiated a probe. The officer has now apologised.

The latest Twitter sensation, @pentametron, is an automated account that retweets random user’s posts that they have unwittingly written in iambic pentameter and matches them into rhyming couplets. If you’re a Twitter fan you really must try this one out!

This month, we said goodbye to the Irish poet Denis O’Driscoll, the American poet Jayne Cortez, and the unpretentious but profound Hong Kong poet and intellectual Leung Ping-kwan.

Finally, here’s a selection of some of the newly published books from January. The Havocs by Jacob Polley sounds vibrant and humorous, while Go Giants by Nick Laird is playful and ambitious and promises to be his most accomplished collection yet. Meanwhile, the major publishing event this month was the release of The Letters of T S Eliot: Volume 4.

Poetry News Round Up: December 2012

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127 Hours, American, archaeology, arts centre, Auden, auditorium, award, Bannockburn, book, British, Byron Johnson, Carol Ann Duffy, education, film, French, Gerard Woodward, Guyanese, Hadrian, Idaho, James Dyson, James Franco, John Agard, Josephine Hart, Kathleen Jamie, lesbian, Life Saving: Why We Need Poetry, monument, news, Penelope Shuttle, philosophy, poetry, Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, Romans, Rome, San Francisco, Sandy Hook, school, Supreme Court, Sylvia Plath, The Seacunny, Yeats

Poetry News from the month of December, all shipshape and ready for action.

Probably the story that attracted the most attention this month was the news that a San Francisco high school senior was suspended after writing a poem which appeared to sympathise with the gunman of the Sandy Hook School massacre.  The case raises questions about literal interpretations of poetry and authorial voice.

In the UK, a new schools competition is being introduced to encourage teenagers to learn poetry by heart.  Students will be asked to memorise and perform a poem.  Some saw this as a deliberate riposte to James Dyson’s criticism of literature education and “French lesbian poetry,” which we reported on in November.

In Rome, there was an exciting archaeological find.  An ancient 900-seat arts centre, built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian, has been excavated.  The auditorium was built in 123 AD so people could listen to readings of poetry and philosophy.

James Franco, famous for the film 127 Hours, attracted plenty of coverage this month by announcing he is to publish a book of poems, though it’s not likely to come out until 2014.

Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie’s poem was chosen to be inscribed on woodwork and displayed at the newly restored Battle of Bannockburn monument.

The Guyana-born poet John Agard won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.  He is only the second black poet to win the award.

In December we bade farewell to the poet and former Idaho Supreme Court Justice Byron Johnson.

Finally, here is a quick look at some of the poetry books that were published in December.  The Seacunny by Gerard Woodward is considered to be eloquent, witty and beautiful.  Carol Ann Duffy has published a new selection of work by Sylvia Plath.  In Life Saving: Why We Need Poetry, Josephine Hart provides a beginner’s guide to the big guns that comprise the English canon, from Auden to Yeats.  There is also a New and Selected Poems of Penelope Shuttle.

Poetry News Round Up: November 2012

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Academy of American Poets, Amber Heard, American, Andrew Motion, Anne Evans, Arab Spring, art, autobiography, book, British, Canadian, Chinese, Coleridge, dissident, election, essay, film, First Person Sorrowful, French, gay, God, Jack Gilbert, Jacques Dupin, James Bond, James Dyson, Jane Yeh, Jonny Depp, Kathleen Jamie, Ko Un, Korean, L'Arriere-pays, lesbian, Li Bifeng, Louise Gluck, love, Michael Gove, Mohammed al-Ajami, news, Ninjas, poetry, president, Qatari, Raymond Souster, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, school, Skyfall, Stephen Romer, Tennyson, The Customs House, The Overhaul, TS Eliot, Ulysses, Valerie Eliot, Veterans' Day, Welsh, William Brandon Lacy Campos, Yves Bonnefoy, Zhu Yufu

Poetry news from the month of November, freshly squeezed for your delight and delectation.

We start off with the 2012 US Presidential election which of course took place in November. What better opportunity for the Academy of American Poets to publish a selection of “poems of American experience” to help inject the patriotic spirit into the occasion…

Jonny Depp has being wooing Amber Heard with handwritten daily love poems, apparently. Thankfully I don’t have any examples to share.

In the UK, the Education Secretary Michael Gove caused a stir by defending “French lesbian poetry” as a topic of study for university students, which had been criticised by the engineer James Dyson.

The new James Bond movie Skyfall featured the final lines from the Tennyson poem, ‘Ulysses.’ What better excuse to read the whole poem!

A staged version of Coleridge‘s Rime of the Ancient Mariner is making its way to London.

The American conservative media has been working itself up into a frenzy over the news that a six-year old girl was forced by her school to remove the word ‘God’ from a poem she was to deliver on Veterans’ Day.

It wasn’t a good month for poetry in China. An activist, Zhu Yufu, was put on trial accused of “inciting subversion of state power,” because of a poem called ‘It’s Time,’ which he circulated on the internet. The poem declares “It’s time, Chinese people!/ The square belongs to everyone/the feet are yours/it’s time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice.” Another Chinese dissident poet, Li Bifeng, was jailed for 12 years for contract fraud.

Things didn’t look much better in Qatar, where the poet Mohammed al-Ajami, a supporter of the Arab Spring Uprisings, has been jailed for life.

We bade goodbye this month to the French poet and art critic Jacques Dupin, the teacher and Welsh poet Anne Evans, the great Canadian modernist poet Raymond Souster, the widow of TS Eliot and long time guardian of his poetic legacy, Valerie Eliot, the poet and gay activist William Brandon Lacy Campos, and the great but independently-minded American poet Jack Gilbert.

Here are some of new poetry books that were published in November. L’Arrière-pays by Yves Bonnefoy (translated by Stephen Romer), is a fusion of autobiography, art essay and poem. The publication of Louise Glück‘s Poems: 1962-2012 is an important American literary event. The Overhaul by Kathleen Jamie uses the figurative to understand the modern world. Ko Un‘s First Person Sorrowful introduces this Korean’s highly personal brand of poetry to a British audience for the first time. Ninjas by Jane Yeh is unsettling but funny. Andrew Motion tackles war in The Customs House.