The proper poets

This week I have been working on how to approach the life of a Cheesecake pin-up model in poetry form. There has been a problem getting into it, because I have found so much contradictory information about her life. The question is who do I beleive, and having to decide which side I will take somehow. In the end I wrote a poem in which I described one event twice, projecting both versions of events, which seeemed more interesting than I imagined, in questioning what truth is, how memory is constructed. Perhaps both versions of events are reliant upon eachother to exist. Really I should have been writing prose this week, but the research I had done was pressing upon me to make a commitment and decide how I would tackle it. I wanted to tie up poetry loose ends before delving into prose because I always feel with prose I never know how long it will take. I don't with a poem, but at least a draft is in sight.

Also this week I went to two poetry events. The first was a reading by Paul Batchelor and W.N Herbert at Newcastle University. I was uncertain about going to this event, I think because it was at the university, and because it was required to book a place to attend (I worry that events which do this potentially exclude people who may not know if they can attend until on the night itself, or people like myself who can't speak on the phone.) I am sort of very wrong at the uni, the room was full of academics and proper poets, lots of people who don't know me, and lots of people who have met me once or twice but don't really want to speak to me (just as well, I am even more useless in this context and sort of hear my voice bleat useless hello's, but am too intimidated to have anything else to say.) (OK, a quick diversion to describe what I mean by proper poets, I think this is something I need to think about. I suppose the term refers to people I consider to be serious poets somehow, either by the content of their work or by the fact that they are recognised, known and respected as poets. Proper poets leave me feeling somehow improper I suppose, somehow inferior because of the things I write about maybe, but also because I'm not there. I am not a hobbyist with my poetry, as it is something I am passionate about, but somehow respectable poets leave me feeling like a poet YTS.)

This event was really packed out, literally every man and his dog (the proper poets can really rake them in.) There was a good mix of men and women in the audience, which was unusual. (Last month there was a reading by female poets and the audience was exclusively female (this doesn't beg the question to me, it screams it- what lies at the heart of this? It seems to indicate that women who like poetry are interested in hearing it whatever its source, but this does not seem to apply the other way around. I refuse to accept that male poetry lovers are somehow more discerning, or that the quality of poetry by women is generally inferior to that by men. I am still thinking about this, and have noted that when I have seen lists of poets favourite poets it is very very rare for female poets to be included on the lists of men. Is it just me who finds this insulting?)

Batchelor read from his new pamphlet To photograph a Snow Crystal (everyone knows this is a poet on the rise, and I mean this in an actual way, not in how we usually use this term to talk kindly about poets who aren't yet known, so I won't go into the quality of his poems- we all know it, since the poems are a competition winner.) I almost feel as if some poets are a different type of species to myself, perhaps because of the quality and content of the work, and I feel ill-equipped to venture my opinion when the poets are academics. Batchelor's poems are very clean and precise, at their best they are like a crystal through which we can see the real nature of light. My favourite poems in the pamphlet are those which illuminate specific details of real life (sometimes the ordinary becoming extraordinary, as in Butterwell, a poem which is not in the pamphlet which the poet ended the reading on, in which the simple act of his father returning from work is transformed.) The poems are controlled, almost scientific, but if the poems are a science they are a science of the human condition, providing space for thought. My favourite poems in the pamphlet are those which seem somehow haunting, almost lonely.

' A day
with nothing to say for itself, and morning
making light of it. Who in the world
might she have been? You draw the blinds
& turn back to the bed as one
by one the panes fill up with snow.'

(from Snow, To Photograph a Snow Crystal- Paul Batchelor)

In contrast to some of the poems I was surprised at the humour, and humanity of his introductions to poems. Like I said, this is an event of a whole different poetry species ( the respected poets) so I didn't expect humour and honesty at an event at the university (don't ask me why, something to do with my own fear that middle class/academic people are somehow robots, I am prepared to accept that many of them may not be, but they usually have to demonstrate otherwise somehow first!) Batchelor seemed to create an atmosphere of inclusivity for the audience by allowing chinks of humanity to be glimpsed in his introductions to the poems. (I think introducing a poem well is a skill that isn't thought about too much, the danger of saying too much or negating the poem is always present, and the tendency to say too little is there. What I actually realised is that audiences do like to hear little bits to create the illusion that they know the poet a little, that he/she is sharing something of themselves with them. This is something I need to work on, since I have the feeling that the less I can share of myself the better, as I hope the poems are alot more interesting than I am.) There was a comfort in hearing Batchelor's mother said she ' liked this poem, it reminded her Ruby don't take your love to town, by Kenny Rogers', and it was this sort of revelation that was surprising in the midst of (some of) the poems.

W.N Herbert read following Batchelor, and I was again surprised at the energy he put into presenting his work, and the inclusion of humour in the poems and the presentation of them. I haven't seen this poet read before, and he wasn't as I imagined him to be at all. The audience lapped it up. The only thing that I was slightly disappointed by perhaps is that although the poems were presented in a very confident and engaging fashion, there was less of that illusion of the poet revealing something of himself to the audience, and I was left wondering what this poet may actually be like really under all of this. The advantage of this of course could be the creation of intrigue. I will certainly be reading more W.N Herbert in the future, not only because it was of a high standard (like I said why go there? since this is a uni event and a Bloodaxe poet we knew that) but perhaps because I want to see if there is any sense of who this poet really is to be gleamed from inspection of the poems.

The following night I went to Colpitts in Durham, to see Jackie Litherland read from her new book The Work of the Wind (I really can't wait to read this book from cover to cover.) This was another extremely well attended event, and I suppose another situation in which I am uncomfortable in. (What I discovered from the two events being in sucession was that people's reaction to seeing me at events is to say 'I haven't seen you in a long time. are you alright?' This really surprises me since I do go to a fair few events, not every event granted (or there wouldn't be time to write, or do those pesky things that need doing in life to ensure free head space for writing time- in my case, at this time of year re-potting plants, and sorting through rooms with binbags of things for the charity shop, things for recycling, things that will get in the way when I have to gloss the skirters.) (Perhaps people say this because they just don't know what to say to me, because after all these years I've still never managed to have a conservation with any of them beyond how is work?) Jackie Litherland's reading was amazing in so many ways, the sheer volume of work in this book is intimidating in alot of ways (the fact that there are 60 sonnets in the book is something that makes me realise how far I have to go.) The poems are lyrical, sad, and at times funny, but always ferocious with life, and she defly combines all these elements in deeply personal poems which never contain an ounce of self pity, bitterness, or anger. What the poems do is present loss, grief, the ordinary things that become extraordinary in everyday life, and most of all love, a very human tenderness is in these poems, and we see love, relationships that are sometimes mundane, predictable but always magical. This is a love that is sometimes full of holes that have had to be darned again and again in different ways, the poems show this working, love happening between different people negotiating who they are and what is there everyday. I felt extremely moved at the reading to hear poems about her father, poems about alcoholism, life and grief. I forgot about class, and didn't care, the poems seemed so specific and yet universal. I forgot how uncomfortable I was, how I didn't fit right, how I hate my hands and couldn't seem to hide them, and was transported by the poems. A poem which was a celebratory tide of a baby forming cyllables on the beach seemed to demonstrate the remarkable skills of this poet, a subject which could so easily become sentimental and be difficult to tackle in a poem flowed effortlessly, beautifully, a celebration. This was truly an inspiring night, a humbling night, and something that has made me think about how there are still things I've never been able to write about to any satisfaction, and perhaps never will.