Review: Paul Abbott's Flood

Alongside Jane Holland's review of Adam Foulds's debut, The Broken Word, my review of Oxford undergrad Paul Abbott's Flood, published by Clutag Press, is now up on the latest edition of Poetry Matters. You can find it here.

(ix) 02:50: Newtyle

Remember that poem right at the end of Don Paterson’s God’s Gift to Women (1997)? The last in the book’s muddled sequence of poems that take their titles from the defunct Dundee-Newtyle railway line, it comes a handful of blank pages – actual blank pages, just to be clear, not the blank-page poems Paterson has a proclivity for – after the notes, isn’t listed in the contents, and got up the noses of a fair few critics with its mid-parentheses, mid-sentence, ostentatious ending. Really, though, nothing can disguise its intrinsic revelatory weight and significance, how ever much the poet seems at pains to undermine any naïve, earnest hunt for intellectual or spiritual meaning: the white page of its printing likened to snow, which in turn becomes a deity’s “shredded evidence”, falling from the skies.

Well, for those who haven’t spotted this already, you might want to check the copyright page of Landing Light (2003), Paterson’s equally acclaimed follow-up volume (if one discounts the magnificent “spiritual portrait” of his Machado versions, The Eyes (1999).) Here, for those who, as “A Talking Book” puts it, “drag each sentence through their fine-toothed combs, / all set to prove the Great Beast lies at slumber / in the ISBN or the barcode number”, is the follow-up quatrain, just below that italicised bit about not lending, selling, copying, rebinding, or reading choice pages out to random passers-by like a grade-A nutter.

I’m not quite sure what I make of it, but despite its apparent sincerity and lyrical solemnity, it seems like Paterson is joshing here, specifically with the kind of person who he half-expects would a) notice this kind of thing in the first place & b) bother to link the two quatrains up and pore over ’em for a while (i.e. me), and what he/she might make of it all. I get the feeling that a part of Paterson reckons – and maybe on the whole, he’s not totally wide of the mark – that many a literary scholar lacks the requisite sense of humour when it comes to scrutinising poems to understand his point here, which is that, essentially, if you look hard enough into anything, you can in turn, if you like, see pretty much anything you want reflected back – maybe, say, your own straight-laced critical brilliance if you’re so inclined. But make no mistake, the poem suggests, you’re wasting your time, since such an approach does great poetry no service whatsoever. You might just as well apply your dazzling exegesis to the dullest of shopping lists and look forward to much the same result.

So the poem’s a bit of a joke, perhaps, but a joke that makes a serious point. Whether the forgivably naïve gusto and application of the serious undergrad, or the wasteful idiocy of brilliant minds who really should know better, looking for meaning as something already resident within any text, the poem suggests, is just plain wrong. The journey, the road, the natural process of reading for what the text might meaningfully generate, is where the interesting stuff happens; not at the oasis, a mirage of intrinsic transcendental meaning, where the tortuous, minutely scrutinised road meets its imaginary end.

This is, then, a defence of poetry as something which means – in that reified and wholly false sense – nothing at all, yet at the same time, far from meaning whatever you want it to mean, is charged with huge transformative power and an unrivalled sense of possibility. Though if you feel like asking why Paterson didn't just damn well say that, you might not be getting this.

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C'est la vie

Today: As well as research and reading for a review and a critical perspective, two new poems that a) emerged quite quickly and b) after tinkering and editing later in the day, I am happy with.

Tomorrow: The realisation that said poems require a lot of work, or worse, that they are irredeemably crap. The consolations of yesterday's research, remaining as it does useful and - more or less - intact.

The Mars Volta : L'Via L'Viaquez

The Dark Film

Review of Paul Farley's The Dark Film in The Guardian.

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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.

Drive-By Truckers

Drive-By Truckers perform "Birthday Boy", taken from their new album The Big To-Do, on Jools Holland's Later.

New Poetry @ Poetry Matters

Just wandered across to the Tower Poetry site (a poetry venture run by poet-critic Peter McDonald at Christ Church College, Oxford) to find that the latest issue of Poetry Matters is up. And it's good to see more poetry than prose there for a change - its reviews, though always engaging and worth reading, are something of a regular feature compared to new writing. But in this issue, no less than four poets grace its webpages, including Stephen Romer, Emily Middleton, and Paul Abbott, whose Flood I reviewed for PM last year. There're also a couple of my own new(ish) poems. If you're not about to head out and enjoy the good weather, then, do head across and have a read. There's also a review of Peter Porter's cheekily named Better Than God, by Vidyan Ravinthiran, which, at least for me, provided an interesting window on a well-established poet whom I'm criminally unfamiliar with.

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Forthcoming Readings

Tall Reflections

Tuesday September 15th 2009 7.30pm

continuing the tall-lighthouse cambridge series

alan buckley & ben wilkinson

voluntary contributions - suggested £2

Visual Arts Centre, Christ's College, Cambridge



Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour

Old Brompton Road, London SW5

Monday 21st September, 8pm

pick of the crop with emma jones, greta stoddart, mike bartholomew-biggs, olivia cole, martha kapos, ben wilkinson, emily berry and siân hughes with music from singer/guitarist henry fajemirokun

A poetic cornucopia for autumn’s equinox featuring:

* Emma Jones (b. Sydney), first collection The Striped World (Faber, 2009), now Wordsworth Trust Poet-in-Residence;

* Greta Stoddart, Salvation Jane (Anvil, 2008), lives East Devon, teaches for Poetry School and Bath Spa Univ;

* poet & mathematician Mike Bartholomew-Biggs (b. Essex), Tradesman’s Exit (Shoestring, 2009);

* journalist and Gregory-Award winner Olivia Cole, first collection Restricted View (Salt, 2009);

* American Martha Kapos, Poetry London’s Assistant Poetry Editor, second Enitharmon collection Supreme Being;

* Ben Wilkinson (b. Stafford), pamphlet The Sparks (Tall Lighthouse, 2008);

* Emily Berry (b. London, pamphlet Stingray Fevers, Tall Lighthouse, 2008) features in Voice Recognition (Bloodaxe);

* The Missing (Salt, 2009) by Arvon-winner Siân Hughes, is shortlisted for Forward and Guardian first-book awards

* plus music from singer/guitarist Henry Fajemirokun.

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Horizon Review

So the third issue of Salt Publishing's online literary journal, Horizon Review, has just been published. Edited by Jane Holland, it's a fascinating, varied, sometimes even satisfyingly infuriating read, and builds on the strengths of its previous issues, proving it can easily compete with the best of the printed mags.

Issue 3 includes new poems by David Morley, Helen Ivory, Barbara Smith, Claire Crowther and Sam Riviere; reviews of many recent collections including Hugo Williams' West End Final, Carrie Etter's The Tethers, and a particularly excellent review of Don Paterson's Rain by John McCullough; and a series of interviews, the most interesting, contentious and quotable of these being Vidyan Ravinthiran in conversation with Craig Raine. In fact, I might well post a separate discussion of some of the stuff which Raine has to say here, finding as I did some bits eminently sensible, some disagreeably caustic, and some just downright antagonistic (not entirely a bad thing). I should also add that what he has to say is on occasion pretty funny, often illuminating, and... hell, just go and read it and I'll stop blathering on.

Also, for those interested (jumping from Don Paterson's aforementioned Forward Prize-winning Rain to Emma Jones's Best First Collection-winning The Striped World) in this week's issue of the Times Literary Supplement (October 16, No 5559) my reviews of both Jones's book and fellow Australian poet Kevin Hart's Young Rain will appear. Do check them out if you can.

Odds and Ends

Still haven't found time to blog about my time at StAnza, Scotland's international poetry festival held in St Andrews, yet - though I intend to get round to it soon. In short, it was a great (long) weekend: particular highlights including readings from Bill Manhire, New Zealand's foremost contemporary poet; the excellent Simon Armitage; poetry centre stage with Robert Crawford and Kate Clanchy; and the launch of Roddy Lumsden's new collection, Third Wish Wasted. And I enjoyed taking part in the poetry breakfast on young poets, as well as the tall-lighthouse Pilot reading (alongside Abi Curtis, Adam O'Riordan, Jay Bernard and Emily Berry) and pamphlet signing, both of which proved popular.

Before I get to doing a proper write-up then, I thought I'd flag up a few forthcoming odds and ends: I've two new poems that'll appear in the next issue of Poetry Matters on the Tower Poetry site, and a short sequence that'll crop up in a future issue of Stand magazine. Also in the next two issues of Stand, I've a couple of reviews: first of Colette Bryce's Self-Portrait in the Dark; second of Glyn Maxwell's Hide Now. And I've completed a fair number of critical perspectives of poets for the British Council Contemporary Writers site which'll go live in due course, including Robert Crawford, David Constantine, Patrick McGuinness, Carol Rumens, Tom Paulin, and the late Mick Imlah.

Alongside forthcoming reviews for Magma and the TLS and working on new poems, then, I'm having a happily busy time of it - the only problem being that man flu has recently halted me from doing much at all productive; hunched as I am over the PC with a mug of tea and packets of honey and lemon Lockets. Even if you are misguided enough to do so, however, please don't extend your sympathies - many, not least my girlfriend, will amply attest to how utterly pathetic I am when afflicted with only the slightest of sniffles.

The Temper Trap - Love Lost

You might know them for their recent hit single 'Sweet Disposition', but Austrialian four-piece The Temper Trap's debut album Conditions is equally impressive, even if the band's influences aren't difficult to spot. Worth checking out this live performance of the first track from the album, 'Love Lost'.