Forgive me, father, for it has been 10 years since I last read Yeats...

I have a confession to make. I'm not mad about Yeats.

I bow to the wisdom of those who do love him, but I just can't. It's one of many indifferences to Important Literary Figures, which also include blind-spots with Dickens and Wordsworth. I don't go so far as, say, Gerry Murphy (i.e. "Yeats, you c**t!") which I take to be more of a love/hate thing, given his poem's Bloom-inspired title ‘Anxiety of Influence’.

What puts me off is the “glamour” of his wording (as Pound puts it here), or more simply--cheesiness. As a reader I want the poet to get out of the way of their own work. At the risk of sounding too airy-fairy, poetry is at its best when it seems to move through the writer, rather than being pushed around by them. Pound says this so much better in his review of Yeats’s Responsibilities when he praises:

“that sort of poetry which seems as if sculpture or painting were just forced or forcing itself into words. The gulf between evocation and description … is the unbridgeable difference between genius and talent.”

As yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, in a kind of Lenten penance I revisited some poems of Yeats’s at the Poetry Foundation website. My queasiness was unsoothed while reading much of his work, but happily I got the familiar chills I always get with reading ‘Second Coming’. I love it’s controlled weirdness, its measured prophesy, its cold and unearthly tone. It’s pure Yeats, but also Yeats getting out of the way of his poet-persona and letting inspiration take over.

As a side note, I’ve only just noticed the feature of the Poetry Foundation website that allows you to log in and add poems to a personalised “favourites list“. ‘Second Coming’ was the first I added to mine. Hopefully sufficient as peace offering for my stubbornness in not meeting Yeats halfway.

Peppers & Cathedrals

Finally had a chance to visit the excellent Twisted Pepper & Loft Bookshop in Dublin--thank you to Oran Ryan and 7 Towers for hosting a reading by myself and Anamaría Crowe Serrano. We've been exchanging poems for a few years in a 'call-and-response' format, which is gathering into a modest collection we've christened 'JAM Sandwich'. (We even had a load of posh jammie-dodgers at the reading, thanks to one of Anamaría's kind friends running off to M&S for a few treats.)

The Loft Bookshop is one of those places you're delighted exists, and hope that people spend enough there to keep it afloat (as opposed to the soulless, selectionless likes of Easons for example...) Here's hoping the holiday season is good for them. I bought the first issue of Can-can there, and relaxed with a very strong & yummy Americano downstairs in the cafe. I love the mix of poems in Can-can, which ranges from rich-lyrical to pleasingly puzzle-boxy (that's a real phrase--I'm insisting on it). A discovery for me was Jennifer Mooney's 'The cure'--I'm a sucker for how a poem sounds. 'Things mould and sour in the bellies/ of this town. We ask for it like Louise/ us lassies...' Her images are potent as well: 'words/ jarring at the bottom of a pint glass.'

At the beginning of November I was in Coventry, happily drinking local ales in the shells of ex-churches with Colm Scully & Afric McGlinchey (in between poetry readings). Thanks to Tony Owen, Mal Dewhirst & Paul Casey for their generosity and kindness in making that happen. Our reviews of the Cork - Coventry exchange are here.

A quick final thank you to the Cork Literary Review for publishing a couple of my poems & my interview with Conál Creedon. The launch was a very classy affair altogether-- wine & music in the Cork Vision Centre. Check out their video of contributing authors discussing the importance of the printed page in modern publishing.

These moments keep a girl going! I'm grateful!

Anatomy of a Hatchet-Job

Reviewing a book and didn't enjoy it? Have a professional jealousy you want to hash out in public? Want to assert your professional authority over newbies? Need to grab the attention of the literati and leave a lasting impression? Consider trying ... a hatchet job!

Guidelines to Honing your Hatchet-Craft

1. Forget that the author is a human being. This may interfere with your ability to rip their work to shreds. (The military works in a similar way--you can't kill an enemy if you think of them as some mother's child.) Any weakness is fair game for public attack--particularly with poets & short story writers whose extravagant lifestyles can easily be compared to footballers & movie stars.

2. Make sweeping generalisations such as 'all the stories had too many characters'. Resist the desire to point out too many specific examples of your criticism, as this will just confuse the reader. They'll trust your opinion, particularly if you hold a respected position like 'journalist' or 'university professor'. Be sure to reinforce your superiority by frequently quoting your credentials. Statements such as 'I have read thousands of short stories' are valid.

3. When all else fails, implicate a conspiracy. Surely if the writing isn't to your taste, there must be some nefarious reason it's gained the success it has. (You know--nepotism, bribery, voodoo.)

4. WRITE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. IT IS A SUREFIRE WAY OF LETTING PEOPLE KNOW YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT YOUR BELIEFS. (TECHNIQUE ALSO GOOD FOR COMMENTING ON YOUTUBE VIDEOS OR WRITING ANGRY SIGNS FOR SHOP-FRONTS.)

5. Study other hatchet-artists. After all, you can't succeed in progressing as a writer unless you learn from the examples of others! Try this vitriolic review of one of the shortlisted titles on this year's Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.


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Next post: my weakling's guide to writing a balanced review. Meanwhile, extra credit reading for those who still insist on balanced reviews in The Short Review.

NaPoMo: Week Four

Lazy-reader syndrome settled in, in week 3, and the need to focus became a clear objective. Variety has been one key for me--surfing around to different mags & websites for my daily poem, and allowing myself to jump between print collections as well. Another problem was that I was finding myself reading a string of poems, only to have to go back to read them again as I'd taken nothing in. There's so much out there that it's easy to fall into useless habit of quantity consumption, rather than quality reading.

It seems simple, but just limiting the number of poems I read in a sitting has made a huge difference, along with a nice pause in between poems to rest the mind. (Putting the book down for a sip of coffee & a bit of people-watching was a great 'palette-cleanser'.)

My original goal of revising a poem a week didn't happen. I plain forgot about it. Mindfulness is key to not only reading, but writing... Happily, I've been writing a few new things. Mostly studies/exercises, but the pen is moving. Really enjoying Matthew Sweeney's workshop at the Munster Literature Centre, which includes class time writing prompts as well as weekly homework.

What I've taken away from National Poetry Month is the understanding that focus & mindfulness is crucial. And with a bit of discipline, the love of reading and writing will absolutely follow.

NaPoMo: Week 3

I've stuck with my goals in Week 3, reading poems in Horizon daily, and reading from collections by Maurice Riordan. Really enjoying Riordan and the scientific eye he trains on the moments of everyday life. Take, for example, this incredible poem from his Faber collection, Floods, re-printed in the Guardian. I love the visceral line, "The wineglass slips your fingers' hold/ And signals to the planet's core." I won't say much more than this as I have an article on Riordan forthcoming on the Poetry International Web site in May/June, but he should be required reading for anyone who wants to write about their own lives well. Particularly A Word from the Loki. I'll leave the rest of my commentary for the official article. (Do pop over and have a look at the site though--last issue includes articles on the excellent Ailbhe Darcy & Bernard O'Donoghue.)

Despite really enjoying this week's reading, I'm finding my NaPoMo resolve & endurance waning a bit. The brain is tiring out from self-imposed reading oversaturation. I reckon poetry fans need palette cleansers. To read a poem well requires quite a lot of simultaneous attention & receptiveness, which takes energy. Maybe I should limit how many poems I read in a row--put the book down and go for a walk or do a bit of cleaning before reading more? Maybe the ideal would be to read one at a time at random intervals in the day--one with breakfast, one on the bus home, one while waiting for the kettle to boil at night? I think that'll be my challenge for the last week: waking up the brain, taking my time, reading poems in bites before taking a break to digest them.

NaPoMo Week 2

Have I gushed about this before? My favourite night of the open mic year at O'Bheal is the ‘Only Other Poets’ night which happens annually on our anniversary. People don’t read enough poetry--and the real crime is that POETS don’t read enough poetry. This is why the night on which Open Mic-ers are required to read someone else’s work is so magic--and the list of readers was absolutely packed. (Kudos to the Long Valley, Winthrop Street for being so patient with us!) Some read poems by friends, Tina Pisco read an excellent piece by one of her daughters, some chose randomly from the bookstall in a sort of ‘lucky dip’ fashion, and of course there were the classics.

Another part of the evening involved the O’Bheal regulars reading poems by other O’Bheal regulars which I found really moving. It’s fabulous to get a chance to pay a tribute to someone you’ve gotten to know through the venue, and showing them that you’ve been moved by their writing. I read a piece by Afric McGlinchey, who took the Hennessy prize for new poetry the very next day! (Congrats to her--well deserved!) We read from O’Bheal’s annual ‘5 Words Anthology’ which is made of pieces written during a weekly poetry game. The brilliant thing about someone other than the author reading it is that it shakes up your expectations. It removes the familiarity you have with the author, and presents the poem as a free-standing creation. And when you hear someone else read your work, it has a ‘legitimizing’ power to it. It’s nice to know someone else connected to your words. (Thanks for reading mine, Grant Burgess!)

As for the rest of NaPoMo Week 2, I’ve really enjoyed reading Salt’s Horizon Review daily. In my limited recent experience, it seems to have a nicer, more challenging mix than Poetry Daily. Have also been reading from Geraldine Mills & Lisa C. Taylor’s joint publication, The Other Side of Longing. The two women have been exchanging poems for years after meeting at a conference, and actually met up for a stint in a cottage to write even more--the product being this enjoyable collection. The poems feed off each other in a call-and-response fashion, spinning work into deep and interwoven themes. Collaborations between female poets seem to be popping up everywhere: Poetry Chicks, Poetry Divas, Catch the Moon. In a stroke of good fortune this week, I’ve been asked to read with Catch the Moon in Cork on 5 May at the Sextant Pub, lunchtime. I’m completely nervous, but glad for a chance to push myself, get work together and polished up. Many thanks to Catch the Moon for the opportunity, and to Moray Bresnihan of Mutant Space for arranging/publicizing the reading.

Onwards & upwards to NaPoMo Week 3! I’ll be reading some collections of Maurice Riordan, and more from Horizon every day. And, ok, I’ll commit--at least two evenings spending some time getting poems together for the CTM reading.

NaPoMo: Week One

Being a poetry reader is like being perpetually single. You go through a lot to try to make that fairy-tale connection, to feel that surge of excitement at contact with someone who really gets you. When a poem doesn’t turn you on, there’s a kind of disappointment. You wonder when you’ll fall in love again.

I think this is why there are less readers of modern poetry than people who keep up with the latest novels. Novels are stories, and stories are sociable & familiar. We routinely listen to stories from anyone and everyone--taxi drivers, bank tellers, mothers, people at the bus stop & gossipy neighbours. It only requires a basic, passive attention. You take stories in, let them come to you.

Poems, good poems, ask for a lot more. They require active attention, a reading spot with minimal interruptions, curiosity, an engaged brain, suspension of disbelief, a full stomach, keen focus & sometimes the willingness to submit to hypnosis or altered consciousness. If we’re honest, we don’t do all that for just anyone. If there’s no spark, we lose interest quickly. We check our texts or look at our watches. We make the good-enough excuse & take off.

Reading poems daily has been an exercise in letting go. I’m realising that being a good reader is also knowing I’m not going to fall in love with everything. I still believe in reading widely--you have to live in hope, don’t you? But if a relationship just ain’t working, it’s best to move on to the next one. To be honest, the Poetry Daily website has been a favourite of mine in the past but at the moment I haven’t been blown away. I think next week I’ll move on to reading a couple of poems from Salt Publishing’s Horizon online every day.

As far as my goal of reading a collection fortnightly, I’ve changed that too (for the moment). This week I finished two books that I’d only half read: Brian Turner’s Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2005) & most of Kay Ryan’s The Niagara River (Grove Press, 2005). Comparing the two confirms how much of an emotional reader I am. I totally engaged in Turner's intense moments, and was a bit intimidated by Ryan’s intellectual puzzles. Ryan was always interesting & incredibly challenging, but sometimes I found myself frustrated by her short, short lines and extremely simple word choices. I’m a sucker for a line that sounds well, and have been told by past tutors that I have a penchant for ‘over-egging the pudding’. Ryan is fat free, egg-free, lean & mean. Her pieces are taught & sinewy. I admire them, but from afar. Turner’s work engages your heart, but without sappy confessionalism. He balances restraint and emotiveness, using some really stunning images. Nearly every piece feels important to have read. His 'Two Stories Down', for example, was powerful enough to make me put the book away and try to gather myself--I think it’s one of the finest in this collection:

‘When he jumped from the balcony, Hasan swam
in the air over the Ashur Street Market,
arms and legs suspended in a blur
above palm hearts and crates of lemons,
not realizing just how hard life fights …’

As for my final resolution of revising a poem weekly, I managed that too (albeit in the eleventh hour). I’ve placed it in an envelope marked ‘May’, realising I need to let them sit for a while before I can get the right perspective. Trying to force a poem to be ok is like fighting for so long you forgot what made you mad in the first place…

Looking forward to week two, to daily dips into Horizon, & beginning to read a collaboration by Geraldine Mills & Lisa C Taylor, The Other Side of Longing (Arlen House, 2011).