Difficult Second Collection

People talk about second books being difficult, or indeed the second of any creative endeavour, as in the well-used phrase ‘difficult second album.’ The first book is meant to be the breakthrough one, the one you’ve wanted to write all your life. Writers usually have a number of unpublished manuscripts before the first published book. Nevertheless, the first published book is the big deal and then…then the second is the crashing through every floor in the building until you reach the lobby on your behind. That’s the stereotype, anyway.

My first book of poetry was published almost two years ago. I’ve got some distance now and can see what’s wrong about it and even a few things I still like. Can also see, with a trace of wistfulness, the type of poems I probably wouldn’t write anymore. It so happened that I was chatting to my publisher Jane Commane, at Nine Arches Press, and the subject of the second collection came up. We talked about what type of time scale I was working towards. The year 2016 was mentioned. It all felt very strange thinking about the ‘new’ book, like planning for a new child. The first book came out in July 2012, but the manuscript was more or less agreed on with editing still needing to be done around the January of that year. Therefore I’d wrapped up the contents of the book in my head at the beginning of 2012, but still had a little way to go. Around that time I wrote very little new stuff which was actually any good. The book took up a lot of time and my attention. I was experimenting though and that has its place, but there are many files on my computer which are poem graveyards, poems which escaped me, didn’t make any sense or I simply lost interest in them. They remind me a bit of the ‘Stillborn’ poem by Sylvia Plath:

These poems do not live: it’s a sad diagnosis.

They grew their toes and fingers well enough,

Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.

If they missed out on walking about like people

It wasn’t for any lack of mother-love.

They were loved, but they never came through. I came across these pieces when I was putting together lists of possible poems for a future collection. It’s very odd how you can spend ages writing, revising and editing and then strike through over a pamphlet’s (or maybe much more) worth of work.  I pity the editors to whom I sent some of this poetry! 

Even if I've had breaks from writing I've tried not to have breaks from reading poetry. I usually have a book on the go.  Reviewing helps, blogging now and then - keeps the ink flowing! 

The next issue for me is a sensitive one. Do I work towards a themed collection or do I go random? Random has often been my middle name over the last few years. A themed collection is not one that I would immediately aim for. I’ve tried pursuing this and it’s nose-dived. I read Carrie Etter saying that it wasn't until much further down the line she found the imperative to write a themed collection. I haven't got a theme, but there's a working title now and a sort of concept. This sounds like a 'concept album' moment, but it may well change.

One of the reviewers of the first book made an interesting point and that was why weren't the poems grouped? If I don’t go for themed I might continue writing and just put the pieces into groups. I am still writing about similar things, but as a poet friend says that doesn't matter, just ‘furrow deeper.’ But then, these groups!? They are so different! One group is poems about my own heritage and background, one is poems which have nothing in common apart from their own eccentricity, some are the big topics, love, loss and so on and some are just well, they are just. How do you tie all the threads together? This bothers me much more than it ever did with the first book. 

'I Don't Call Myself a Poet'

This fascinating site was brought to my attention by Wayne Burrows the other day. A project run by Sophie Mayer. It's a simple idea, students are assigned a contemporary poet, they have to familiarise themselves with that person's work and then interview them. The interviews are fascinating and many of the poets interviewed are refreshingly frank and honest about the way they view themselves as a writer of poetry. This includes an impressive list of 68 writers with more to come. It's the honesty which really appealed to me, especially on the subject of publication, rejection and how writers keep writing. Jane Holland made me laugh out loud when she put it down to 'stupidity and egotism,' however, what becomes clear is that poets become poets because they can't actually stop themselves, not simply because of the kudos of awards and publication. They lap up other poets' work, they see value in a variety of different voices; poets writing at different times, in different languages, different styles and concerns. It becomes a labour of love, I once read Rilke's 'Advice to a Young Poet,' which I think would be relevant to an older poet, a middle-aged poet, someone starting out and someone carrying on. You might be getting my hint. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet I am at liberty to copy and paste this:

You ask whether your verses are good. You ask me. You have already asked others. You send them to journals. You compare them with other poems, and are upset when certain editorial offices reject your efforts. Now (since you’ve permitted me to give you advice) I ask you to abandon all this. You look outside yourself, and that above all else is something you should not do just now. Nobody can advise you and help you, nobody. There’s only one way to proceed. Go inside yourself. Explore the reason that compels you to write; test whether it stretches its roots into the deepest part of your heart, admit to yourself whether you would have to die if the opportunity to write were withheld from you. Above all else, ask yourself at your most silent hour of night: must I write? Dig inside yourself for a deep answer. And if the answer is yes, if it is possible for you to respond to this serious question with a strong and simple I must, then build your life on the basis of this necessity; your life, even at its most indifferent and attenuated, must become a sign and a witness for this compulsion.

On being asked 'What made you become a poet?' Carrie Etter replies in her interview:  'I never felt as though there were a decision or a choice.' Which sums up what Rilke says above. You do it because you have to. I regret having my 'nearly decade off' writing poetry in my 20s, because I decided to let other people get on with, I was going to get on with other things. It didn't work forever, I went back to it because I couldn't stop myself.

Many of the poets discuss the issue of 'truth' in poetry and I liked Maitreyabandhu's response. Incidentally, Maitreyabandhu is the writer of one of my favourite poetry essays, 'The Provenance of Pleasure,' which appeared in the Spring 2011 edition of Poetry Review. We forget that writing itself is a pleasure when we are bogged down with rejections, there is a higher pleasure, perhaps even a spiritual pleasure in the act of writing, but that's another blog post. Anyway, here's the quote:

The way to avoid sentimentality in poetry is to work hard at telling the truth. At the same time, we shouldn’t be so afraid of sentimentality that it stops us expressing any emotion in poetry at all!

My friend Roy Marshall, whom as you know is an exceptional poet, is very good at this. I sometimes wonder that there is an danger in being too clinical with a poem, as well as over-sentimental. Is good poetry more like a paper-cut? In terms of getting 'jolted' into understanding, even if you will never, ever go through the same experience as the person who wrote the poem you are reading.

I could go on, I really could. But I will stop here for the morning as my twins are doing half-days at school and I have not hung out any washing yet. At least I will have something to think about when I am pegging things on the line.

The site of course is here.