Poetic Mechanicals & bloody Laureates

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

It was a warm night in London and difficult to sleep. Strange where the mind wanders in the wee small hours but I amused myself by considering this caper of appointing Poets Laureate in the UK.

Poets Laureate is quite an old tradition dating back to Plutarch I believe but in the UK it is now more or less a University/academic appointment and cleared by the palace as the Laureate's duties in return for the traditional butt of sack is to write poems around national occasions and the cultural life of the country.

Andrew Motion was the previous Poet Laureate and the newly appointed Laureate is Carol Ann Duffy who fits the University theory of society- female and openly gay. Huzzah etc etc and we're all delighted I'm sure.

I don't like the politics or the lack of concern for obvious talent in these appointments. I'm certain both Motion and Duffy can dactyl one a trochee or trochee a dactyl in a trice which is ... nice.

But then I think of Philip Larkin who every dog on the street knows should have been Poet Laureate except for his rather worrying habit of having to be ejected from the Marks & Spencer lingerie department in Hull on a fairly regular basis.

The palace I am sure and the English arsecrockery are no strangers to the sexual peccadillo but they must keep up appearances and prefer the devious rogue rather than the public one. Its the Hyacinth Boucquet policy.

The Times Literary Editor Erica Wagner kicked off a debate around Xmas 2008 to identify a popular choice for best post-war British writer. After many furious letters to the Times, drive-by essaying and floods of bitter tears the Times' readership settled upon Philip Larkin. I couldn't argue with that and its a welcome readjustment with respect to the literary reputions of John Betjeman and Larkin.

So. Here is the point of my idle ramblings. Should national poets be placed by University academics? By palaces? By small groups of usually self-interested ivory tower inhabitants? Is Famous Seamus the best poet on the island of Ireland or is he the approved choice of the establishment?

In the UK I would argue ( and be damned for it I'm certain) that the best poets don't come from the tedious Universities at all.

Britain's poet of the people may not be a career poet at all but a lyricist. Why can't Morrissey get the job? Or Mark E Smith?

I wouldn't recognise an Andrew Motion poem if it ran over me. I don't care about Duffy no matter how technically proficient she is- I suspect she's the politically correct choice and swablocks to all that.

'Punctured bicycle on a hillside desolate,
will nature make a man of me yet?'' (This Charming Man, by Morrissey)

'Trudging slowly over wet sand ... to the bench where your clothes were stolen' (Every Day Is Like Sunday, by Morrissey).

Philip Larkin would have been proud of these lines I am certain. I am equally convinced that Morrissey would throw punches at the suggestion he become Poet Laureate.

Doesn't mean it shouldn't be offered to him. And the other thing is his poetry is instantly recognisable to a generation of English people. So why not?

[C. Flower]

Nice OP Captain Con. Seamus doesn't do it for me. His version of Beowulf reduces the original raw flesh tearing blood and guts violence to banality. A good schoolboy.

Larkin is depressing though.

I agree that much of the best poetry is now found in the lyrics of songs, I think because its written for a non-precious audience.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Yup. Even 'Doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo' is redolent of Lewis Carroll and one would have to dig down as far as Stock Aitken and Waterman to find the lyrical limitations of popular music I'd say...

'All mimsey were the borogroves
and the mome raths outgrabe'

Hope the nights get a little cooler soon or I'll be carted off to Mansergh House.

[Assam]

Last Thursday / Friday were indeed sultry, sweltering and conducive to all kinds of mental meanderings! .... good question posed by the Captain.

I see that the USA also has a Poet Laureate - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-poet-laureate - nope, never heard of him either and I noticed in the Irish Times that a chap called Harry Clifton has been appointed to something called the "Ireland Professor of Poetry" - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...273707910.html - it sounds like the post earns a lot more than the British one!

I'm all for Mark E Smith though there IS a lot more to poetry than the lyric tradition. I think C Flower once had a mini-project of posting some wonderful T S Eliot poetry on a different site.

A number of Poets Laureate have written some radical work, have tried at least to "speak to power". I presume many of them feel a need to do so, having been so publicly embraced by the establishment.

Admittedly, I too wouldn't know a Motion poem if it hit me. I've heard the current P. Laureate "recite" and she was truly dreadful, though a poet shouldn't necessarily have to be a good "performer" too, I guess. I take your point re an "academy" choice.
She has seemed to respond more immediately to various events, though the quality of the output is seriously open to question (!).
"Famous Shamus" I've had no time for since comparing his early poetry eons ago with some late 19th century "Blut und Boden"-type German poetry and finding many similarities.

But poetry IS important ...

[Sam Lord]

I agree that much of the best poetry is now found in the lyrics of songs.

I don't agree much with the poet laureate concept but this is really an extraodinary assertion

[Sam Lord]

I appreciate that this is somewhat off topic but I heard this guy not long ago and thought that I would share the joy. It is worth sitting through the introduction to hear him read.

Nice.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbHQAK2J7NA"]YouTube- Poet Kamau Brathwaite reads from Born to Slow Horses[/ame]

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Last Thursday / Friday were indeed sultry, sweltering and conducive to all kinds of mental meanderings! .... good question posed by the Captain.

I see that the USA also has a Poet Laureate - http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...-poet-laureate - nope, never heard of him either and I noticed in the Irish Times that a chap called Harry Clifton has been appointed to something called the "Ireland Professor of Poetry" - http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...273707910.html - it sounds like the post earns a lot more than the British one!

I'm all for Mark E Smith though there IS a lot more to poetry than the lyric tradition. I think C Flower once had a mini-project of posting some wonderful T S Eliot poetry on a different site.

A number of Poets Laureate have written some radical work, have tried at least to "speak to power". I presume many of them feel a need to do so, having been so publicly embraced by the establishment.

Admittedly, I too wouldn't know a Motion poem if it hit me. I've heard the current P. Laureate "recite" and she was truly dreadful, though a poet shouldn't necessarily have to be a good "performer" too, I guess. I take your point re an "academy" choice.
She has seemed to respond more immediately to various events, though the quality of the output is seriously open to question (!).
"Famous Shamus" I've had no time for since comparing his early poetry eons ago with some late 19th century "Blut und Boden"-type German poetry and finding many similarities.

But poetry IS important ...

Ta for the info above, Assam. I agree that poetry is important but I believe it is now the preserve of academic technicians whereas in the past (as recently as between the wars) we had such lines to amuse the public as 'Come friendly bombs fall now on Slough' from Betjeman which is accessible to the general public.

We had ' Down stucco sidestreets, Where light is pewter' from Larkin's Dublinesque which many Dubliners would identify with I suspect and enjoy.

I think there are many technically proficient poets around but where's the heart? And the line that builders would shout down from scaffolds at Seamus Heaney?

Its not the scaffolders fault. Its the academics and their close chested guarding of technical poetry I feel ...

I guess what I'm asking is when is Seamus Heaney going to make the Ulster Fry famous all over the world? With words that roll warmly around the mouth like the sausage they describe?

[Sam Lord]

Do we have a thread for poems we like?

Here is one I am fond of:

Justice Denied In Massachusetts

Let us abandon then our gardens and go home
And sit in the sitting-room
Shall the larkspur blossom or the corn grow under this cloud?
Sour to the fruitful seed
Is the cold earth under this cloud,
Fostering quack and weed, we have marched upon but cannot
conquer;
We have bent the blades of our hoes against the stalks of them.

Let us go home, and sit in the sitting room.
Not in our day
Shall the cloud go over and the sun rise as before,
Beneficent upon us
Out of the glittering bay,
And the warm winds be blown inward from the sea
Moving the blades of corn
With a peaceful sound.

Forlorn, forlorn,
Stands the blue hay-rack by the empty mow.
And the petals drop to the ground,
Leaving the tree unfruited.
The sun that warmed our stooping backs and withered the weed
uprooted—
We shall not feel it again.
We shall die in darkness, and be buried in the rain.

What from the splendid dead
We have inherited —
Furrows sweet to the grain, and the weed subdued —
See now the slug and the mildew plunder.
Evil does overwhelm
The larkspur and the corn;
We have seen them go under.

Let us sit here, sit still,
Here in the sitting-room until we die;
At the step of Death on the walk, rise and go;
Leaving to our children's children the beautiful doorway,
And this elm,
And a blighted earth to till
With a broken hoe.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

Thats beautiful isn't it? Reminds me a little of Kavanagh on Monaghan but then the poets would have been from very different backgrounds I suspect (!)

There's another thread idea I'll have to mull before posting ... unless you'd like to? Is poetry inherently socialist in that words belong to no one and can be utilised by anyone?

Or is it right-wing and exclusive in that one needs to have a certain level of education in order to be appreciated?

My favourite is Yeat's 'Collar-bone of a hare' ... (no copyright issues since early this year- past 75 years since Yeats died)

The Collar-bone of a Hare
by William Butler Yeats

WOULD I could cast a sail on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king’s daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.

I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,
Through the white thin bone of a hare.

[Sam Lord]

Is poetry inherently socialist in that words belong to no one and can be utilised by anyone?

Or is it right-wing and exclusive in that one needs to have a certain level of education in order to be appreciated?

Is it impossible that words could become property?

[Sam Lord]

Like You
By Roque Dalton
(Translated by Jack Hirschman)

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-
blue landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

A poet's death lingers bitterly in El Salvador

"One of the fellow guerrillas believed to have ordered Dalton's killing for insubordination is now a senior member of the Funes administration, elected a year ago as El Salvador's first leftist government.

Dalton's sons, a journalist and a filmmaker, are asking that prosecutors try Jorge Melendez and Joaquin Villalobos, two former members of the People's Revolutionary Army, or EPR, for the 1975 killing of their father. The Catholic Church in El Salvador and a university human rights institute are calling on the government to fully investigate the killing. Funes has said he won't dismiss Melendez."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/insurgency/

As the article points out Melendez is now a senior figure in the Funes government. Joaquin Villalobos (who reputedly gave the order for Daltons killing) settled in Oxford, England where he engaged in post graduate studies and is now, I understand, a critic of left wing movements in Latin America.

Roque Dalton, one of the finest Latin American poets of his generation, was a son of Winnall Dalton, one of the famous bank robbing Dalton brothers of the American wild west.

RIP

[Sam Lord]

Conscientious Objector
by Edna St. Vincent Millay


I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans,
many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he cinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabouts of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I like the Millay Sam which I had not seen previously- and ta for the info on Roque Dalton and his interesting family connections ...

I was just thinking there that although it might seem that we have diverted off slightly my second thoughts are that we are still very much on topic but using poetry to discuss and emphasise the importance of the artform...

Some things are said less effectively in prose I suppose and putting rhyme/rhythm and metre on it is like turbocharging an idea ... attach some arresting imagery to it and it becomes a powerful piece of art.

On the poetry as politics side I think we were wondering aloud (or I was) whether poetry is democratic, socialist, or the preserve of an educated elite these days. What I'd like to see from Famous Seamus and Carol Ann Duffy is a return to the universal.

One hears the perennial complaint of poets which is 'nobody reads poetry anymore' which is a bit like a professional door-to-door umbrella mender complaining that umbrellas are now so cheap no-one bothers to have theirs mended but simply buys a new one...

Its up to the front-rank poets to spark a sense of the universal in a wider audience I think which is why I rather cheekily challenged Heaney to give us the killer word on something everybody from Northern Ireland knows about ..the famous Ulster Fry. If he wanted to remain politically acute then an allegorical tribute to such a thing mundane in its fame lends itself to politics/culture just as well.

I'm enjoying this thread though...

[gli]

Since he was menioned, one of my favourite ditties from Larkin:

Going

There is an evening coming in
Across the fields, one never seen before,
That lights no lamp.

Silken it seems at a distance, yet
When it is drawn up over the knees and breast
It brings no comfort.

Where has the tree gone, that locked
Earth to the sky? What is under my hands,
That I cannot feel?

What loads my hands down?

Everytime I read it, I find or imagine a different angle I can take on the issues apart from references to death and decay. While the poem could have been written and referenced to most centuries, I find or interpret a very real modern ethos. The lines "Where has the tree gone, that locked earth to sky?" and "What loads my hands down?" alone open up a vista of imagination and intrepretation that is as large as the universe we/I can fathom. I also like the rhetorical use of questions which ignite brain molecules into motion.

As for the laureates and politics, my take is that all words are political. Leaving aside the part poetry played as a political device in days of yore, our more mundane word smiths in the MSM and PR are as adept at opening huge vistas between what is said and what is meant. The difference between the genuine poet and the PR sociopath is the difference between a person one who seeks meaning, using the materials at hand to craft artifice which may or may not last, and the one who sees words as commodities to shape a fleeting meaning from which they can make some short term gain.

Of course, my musings are political.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

I see what you mean there with 'Going' and there is layer upon layer there in the poem I'd agree ... the tree that locked Earth to the sky is a skyscraper of an image in more ways than the immediate image I'd say..

I think thats what I'm liking about this thread ... there hasn't been an ounce of the usual fire and rebuttal but a building of comment upon comment. Something about art can do that and its lovely to see ... very enjoyable. And quite political too..