Quite Contrary: Martin Stannard and Kim Addonizio - February 2016

I’m trying to keep up with my personal target of at least one post per month, although February’s been quiet. I’ve mainly been getting on with editing and so on, but this would not make for a very interesting post so I’m going to tell you about a reading I went to earlier on in the month. Martin Stannard came over all the way from China to read in Nottingham. Martin’s work is relatively new to me; I only came across one of his books last August. I had only come across the reviews. If you’re of a nervous poetic disposition and/or a fan of Simon Armitage, well especially if you’re a fan of Simon Armitage, watch out. It’ll sting. Martin described himself as ‘contrary’ on the night and, well, read this for yourself after this post. Anyway, I’m writing about the poetry now. Martin has done a lot for poetry. He edited the magazine Joe Soap’s Canoe from 1978 to 1993 and introduced many home-grown poets as well as lesser known American ones. You’ll find a great deal of work from the second generation of New York Poets and one edition was dedicated to the work of Paul Violi. He even published Simon Armitage too. I’d come across the excellent ‘The Ingredient’ in Anthony Wilson’s Lifesaving Poems and by a random act of happenstance received a copy of The Gracing Of Days which was published by Slow Dancer Press in 1989 and also featured that poem. All the pages are falling out of my copy, but that’s probably a good sign, as I’ve been reading it a lot.

A rare copy...

On the night Martin read from his new collection Poems for the Young at Heart which is published by Leafe Press and has a very nice endorsement on the back by Ian McMillan. Another poet once published in Joe Soap’s Canoe. Martin’s reading was funny. Honestly, you don’t often laugh your way through readings very often, and I for one enjoyed that. Intermingled with this were moments of Romance and acerbic commentary. All these elements sit together casually in the poetry. You can tell it’s very heavily influenced by the New York School and Frank O’Hara in particular. It’s conversational, follows its own inner logic and goes ‘on its nerve,’ as O'Hara once said and lots of people having been saying since.

Excerpt from  'A Few Words of Wisdom,' From The Gracing of Days...seems appropriate for a blog called 'Commonplace.'

I’m glad I went despite having a cold (I always have a cold) and drove home through the night with C Duncan’s latest album for company.   David Belbin has also written something about the evening, although his post includes some footage and a trip to A&E.

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Someone else who’s quite contrary, but perhaps in a more openly emotive and autobiographical way, is the American poet Kim Addonizio. I’d been reading Wild Nights published by Bloodaxe last year on and off for a while now. I think I once wrote that when you enjoy a poem you don’t read it just once and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read ones like ‘Glass,’ ‘November 11’ and ‘Florida.’ Even though I’ve read the book I’m still returning to the poems. This collection is one of new and selected poems and goes back about twenty years or so. Kim’s poems are very upfront about relationships, love and sex.  There's a lot of drinking and harmonica playing too. We often use the phrase 'someone who’s lived it’ but I’d be inclined to say this is poetry by someone who isn’t afraid to write candidly about living. The poems themselves have a conversational, almost stream of consciousness style. There’s that word again, conversational. We seem to use it a lot when we talk about American poets, apparently UK poets don’t chat so much (apart from Coleridge). 

Kim’s book has spent a lot of time by the bed and in my kitchen; I just pick it up and dive in. I was trying to find an excerpt to share, but that felt very difficult as I don’t feel I can neatly quote from any poem without showing it in the context of the whole thing. I’ve found a recording of someone called, somewhat implausibly, Porridgebrain, reading out ‘Glass’ with a very English accent, but it's still very conversational, and ah, that last line, ‘I’m so in love with you I can’t stand up.’ 

Thank you, Porridgebrain. Until March.

The 2015 Aldeburgh Poetry Festival

 

Attending the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival is habit forming. Last year I went to Aldeburgh for the first time and went again this year. By now there are many blog posts out there and I’m aware I’m adding to the list, but it takes me a while to process things. For example, last year I was thinking about some of the events and readings ages after they’d happened. This year I’m already looking back to some astounding readings by Helen Mort, Kei Miller and Kim Addonizio, but also poets I wasn’t so familiar with like Valerie Rouzeau, Dorothea Smart, Michael McCarthy, Choman Hardi, Peter Sirr and Christine Webb.  Perhaps that’s one of the draws of this particular festival, is that you go to discover new things rather to confirm what you know. Both years I’ve felt as if gained a great deal by going. It’s not near where I live, so there must be a special reason for travelling all that distance to get there. And yes, it wasn’t easy travelling through Friday rush hour and missing the first few events. But as soon I arrived I went straight to Snape on the bus and got on with it all. 

Unlike last year, I hadn’t brought any advance tickets, which was useful, as I would’ve missed things, but I found I could get my tickets quickly enough anyway. I went to Kim Addonizio’s close reading of a Don Patterson poem and conversation between John Burnside and Helen Macdonald on language and nature.  It was all a bit of a rush and I had to eat my sandwiches like a schoolkid during Kim’s talk, but no one seemed to mind. I saw lots of people I knew and settled in quickly. The main reading was a real highlight; I went to the main reading with Helen Mort, Kei Miller and Jeremy Reed. I should say Jeremy likes glitter. He was throwing it around as he read. He said he ‘likes glamour’ at poetry readings. Very memorable. I knew the readers would be good, but I didn’t realise how good. At the beginning of the event, Andrew McMillan was awarded the Alderburgh first collection prize for Physical which I’d recently reviewed for The Compass. Afterwards I got the bus back, ended up in The Crosskeys with various people and then got lost on the way home. It’s very dark in Suffolk.

Next morning I woke up and listened to the seagulls. I brought a few going home presents for the twins and got a lift to Snape with Carole Bromley and her husband. It was a really full day. Even if people don’t stay for the whole three days, then Saturday is the day when most people seem to overlap. In general, one of the amazing things is how you meet people who actually exist in real life, not just on screen or in print. It was a pleasure to meet people in the flesh like Josephine Corcoran, Robin Houghton and John McCullough. There were so many others too.That’s another reason for going, it's nice to chat with people you only meet on a screen or in letters. Mainly the conversation revolved about the poetry and feeling overwhelmed - in a good way - by all the poety things going on. I went to a great main reading and the Open Workshop, ambitious to say the least with a roomful of about - who knows- seventy people there.  I had a bit of a break in the middle of the day and I’d recommend leaving Snape for a bit and having a walk around the marshes and surrounding countryside for a breather. I also made good use of the second hand book stall and The Rialto one, and ended up buying, among other things, many copies of seminal poetry publication Joe Soap’s Canoe. Even though it’s all on-line, it’s good to have the real thing.

Then back for more craft talks, coversations and readings. A word on the main readings, they are one hour forty-five minutes long – yes really. There’s usually a break of 15 minutes or so. I have to say and I really mean this, they don’t feel like one hour forty-five minutes. Honestly. The poetry’s top notch. I loved listening to Valérie Rouzeau reading in French, she had a gentle, charismatic presence. Kim Addonizio was incredibly entertaining, she played the harmonica and in homage to Jeremy Reed threw petals over her head. She also had time for a little drama. She asked three male volunteers to come up to the stage and be her backing chorus of, erm, male appendages. I was sitting next to Roy Marshall who bounced up to the stage, good for him. If I were a man, I could have been an appendage too. It made everything very lively and John Burnside was going to have a tough act to follow. I didn’t think he’d be quite my thing at first, but I enjoyed listening to him and his reading rounded off the evening for me. He also had a good sense of humour and knew how to follow after Kim. Another thing that struck me is that the organisers must be pretty damn good to choose readers who can make the most of their readings. This was Ellen McAteer's first year as director of the festival, but due to a family matter was unable to come. Nevertheless it all ran like clockwork.

Festival Photo of the Audience

Then back to Aldeburgh on the coach that the festival put on. Instead of going back to the B&B it was a mild evening (yes really for November) I went for a walk along the sea front, sat on a bench and phoned home. It was so dark. You could see lots of stars but I didn’t walk into the water or anything so that was ok. I was in a lovely B&B. I always meet a few people who tell me about the festival when it was all by the seaside, but I tried to make the most of  being near the beach this year. That night I stayed up late and leafed through my various purchases. Then ZZZs. Then morning, seagull cries and breakfast. Then 4 hour drive home past the Llama farm and some mysterious Suffolk villages. 

I was sorry not to stay for the Sunday, but it’s amazing I was able to squeeze it in at all with work and family. There were quite a few more things I would've liked to have attended. I did manage to photograph some of the twins’ teddies on the beach before driving home, to provide photographic evidence for the girls that Owl and Giraffey had indeed been to the seaside. I was still buoyant from the festival and didn’t care how silly I looked. If you were there wondering, yes that was me.