Category Archives: Poetry

Doomed in Good Company

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Thoughts for Dispossessed Poets

“There is another world, and it is in this one”

-Paul Éluard

“He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.”

-John 1:10

Skull with Top Removed by Leonardo DaVinciBoo hoo. The modern world we live in does not appreciate poetry. Not like it ought to, not like you and I do. We get it. We eagerly await that new journal or book of poems, smuggle it like contraband into our grey morning commute. We find the one poem that, as Dickinson put it, takes the top of our head off. And it stays with us all day, as we go about our work counting beans or scrubbing out loos. It changes who we are and how we see the world. But nobody else really gets it, and the lack of money is there to prove it.

So maybe we’re doomed.

But poetry has already changed the world–yours, mine–irrevocably in altering how we see it. It is in the world, making and re-making it, and the world has not a clue. But we know. And so we go on reading and writing, having great conversations long past bedtime, walking through the gentle misery of everyday living with this secret knowledge, this little spark that could light the whole world on fire–but doesn’t. Perhaps never will.

Maybe we’re doomed. But we are doomed in good company–you and me–which is to say we are blessed indeed. Ask anyone. The poets always throw the best parties. They dance like they have nothing to lose, because it’s true. And you and me, we’ve made it this far somehow, getting by, doing our thing, making life just about work. John Keats died largely unrecognised. But ask his friends at the time, and he meant as much to them then as he does to many of us now. Do we really expect better for ourselves than the respect of a few respectable peers?

The audience is dwindling. Fine. If you need someone to write for, write for me. I mean it. I need your poems as much as I ever did–the ones I can carry around with me, the blue flame, the chip of ice in my heart. Continue reading →

A Poem for my Nemesis

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Henry, Prince of Wales by Robert PeakeWell, not quite. For all I know, we may be related.

But imagine my frustration at being beat in search engine results for my own name by someone who has been dead for almost 400 years. I decided to channel that frustration into a tribute in the form of a digital experiment.

What follows is the poem I wrote for Robert Peake the Elder, an English painter in the court of King James I. I have added links on various phrases in the poem to images of portraits that inspired the text. I have also included audio of me reading the poem, and a gallery of images at the bottom of the page.
Continue reading →

Poem in South Bank Poetry 15

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South Bank Poetry 15I came home from two weeks in New England to my contributor’s copy of South Bank Poetry 15. I was very sorry to miss the launch reading due to this trip. However, I look forward to reading through poems from a list of names both familiar and new.

My own addition to the issue is “London Blues”. Prof. Robert Hass’s “Poetry of American Cultures” lectures at UC Berkeley introduced me to American blues as not only a musical but also a poetic form. However, I scarcely could have guessed at that time that I would take up the form years later in relation to my new life in London.

Copies are available at Foyle’s on Charing Cross Road, Royal Festival Hall, the London Review Bookshop, and can be ordered by mail through contacting Peter Ebsworth.

Mice of the London Underground (Poem and Audio Online)

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Baby MiceMy three-part poem “Mice of the London Underground” is now available on the qarrtsiluni website as part of their Animals in the City issue. Part three of the poem draws inspiration from a prank notice about attacking mice at Farringdon tube station, which I commute through frequently.

I love the theme of this issue and look forward to the other urban animal poems, which will be published on the site in the coming days.

Read and listen to “Mice of the London Underground” online at qarrtsiluni.

Letter From My Migraine (Poem Online)

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Photo: Deborah Leigh

Photo: Deborah Leigh

The poem “Letter From My Migraine” is now available online at the edgy e-zine Ink Sweat & Tears. A concussion at age five brought my soccer career to a halt, and began a lifelong relationship with intense cranial pain. The poem gives a brief glimpse into our recent correspondence.

Read “Letter From My Migraine” at Ink Sweat & Tears.

London Poetry Hotspots

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Great Fire of London, 1666In addition to which British poets to read, American friends who come to visit invariably ask which spots they should visit to get a feel for the London poetry scene. In a recent article for HuffPo UK, I list five of my current favourites (plus a bonus)–selected for their friendly atmosphere, talented lineups, and longstanding commitment to stoking the fires of poetry in The Big Smoke.

Discover all six hotspots, and view an interactive map of locations, on HuffPo UK.

The Silence Teacher is Now Available

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The Silence Teacher by Robert Peake

My short poetry collection The Silence Teacher is now available from Poetry Salzburg. It distills nearly seven years of writing about love and loss into just thirty-two pages, and is dedicated to the memory of our son.

The poems in this collection were written in both America and England. They encompass the two years of my MFA in Writing degree at Pacific University, wherein the encouragement of my mentors Sandra Alcosser, Marvin Bell, and Joseph Millar, alongside many gifted students and friends, helped me to take up William Stafford’s challenge to revise, not only my work, but my life.

Many thanks to Dr. Wolfgang Görtschacher and Andreas Schachermayr, not only for selecting this manuscript, but for working very diligently and efficiently since then to bring it to publication. Pre-orders are now shipping from Austria and, if you have not already, you can order your own copy here.

Urban Harvest Now Available for Sale Online

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Urban HarvestThe Highgate Poets are a lively and talented group of North-London-area poets with whom I have had the pleasure of associating for over a year now.

They have been publishing an anthology of member poems every other year since their founding in 1977. I am delighted to have two poems in their newest anthology, Urban Harvest, and pleased to announce that it is now available for sale online at their website.

The book ships throughout the UK, however you can also contact the group coordinator if you are interested in ordering from abroad.

Why Sharon Olds?

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Sharon Olds

“You must revise your life.”

-Wiliam Stafford

 

The audience at the T.S. Eliot Shortlist Reading were the real winners. They were treated to Gillian Clarke’s quiet tenderness, like a swan navigating a near-frozen lake. They relished the sweet sibilance of beekeeper Sean Borodale. Julia Copus gave visions of ova during IVF as ghost-like “luminous pearls.” Michael Schmidt wove Jorie Graham’s linguistic basketwork into their ears. Simon Armitage read out passages of “the British Illiad”. Kathleen Jamie let us witness how she, like her “Roses”, “haggle for my little portion of happiness.” They gasped overhearing Jacob Polley’s conversation between a mum and her stoic stabbed son. They were dogged by Deryn Rees-Jones into regarding “man’s best friend” a little differently. And wisecracking Paul Farley made them all laugh out loud.

Then a girlish woman with long grey hair, pinned back by three small sparkling barrettes, took to the stage. She seemed to read for the shortest span of time–just two poems. Yet what was remarkable is that just as these poems, in their simple, plain-spoken way, were getting good enough for most poets to consider them complete, hers go further. An impressive meditation on breasts transcends the obvious observations, as the poet tells us that, just as this one part of them was once adored by boys when they were teenagers, what all women really want is to be as adored in their entirety this much.

This is the mature Sharon Olds. This is the winner of the 2012 T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. She joins Mark Doty, another poet of intense observation, as one of just two Americans to take home this prize.

Yet this American poet, who pushed the envelope of confessional poetry and inspired a generation toward the genre in its heyday seems at first a somewhat unlikely choice for a British award. Continue reading →

10 Transcontinental Poets for 2013

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Transcontinental 2013The Internet gives us the illusion that the best a culture has to offer will invariably find its way to us. But when it comes to art, I find that so much still comes down to local knowledge. Americans and Brits alike have long maintained a fascination with the literary work of their overseas cousins, but usually only the biggest names make the trip across the pond.

Hoping in some small way to remedy this, I have written an article for the US edition of The Huffington Post on “5 British Poets to Watch in 2013” and, for sake of symmetry, an article in the UK edition of The Huffington Post on “Five American Poets to Watch in 2013“.

How closely you watch is, of course, up to you. My hope is that you will seek out the work of these ten fine poets out for your own sake, to bring a little transcontinental mischief and mirth to your poetry reading in the year ahead.