Lifesaving Poems During a Power Cut

Lifesaving Poems, Ed. Anthony Wilson, Bloodaxe Books, 2015

At the time of writing I am sitting in my front room with all the car alarms going off outside and a poorly 7 year old. It appears the whole street has had a power cut.  There seem to be a lot of minor ailments in the Taylor household, days off from school are fairly common. Miranda’s ok for now. She has her little ponies. The internet’s off for a while, so while I have a full battery it seems like a good idea for another blog post. What follows isn't a review, but a commentary. I have a bit of a headache myself, bear with.

Over the last few weeks I've been reading and re-reading Anthony Wilson’s remarkable anthology Lifesaving Poems, which is published by Bloodaxe. I've never read a book quite like this. For those not in the know, Anthony Wilson is a poet and a blogger. The book began life as a notebook where Anthony chose a single poem from a poet, that moved him, and then he copied it out in the book as a way of engaging with the piece.  I imagine that the physical act of writing out a poem must have really helped to get under the skin of the pieces and been a pleasure. In time Anthony went on to post these poems on his blog with a brief prose summary as to why he had enjoyed them so much. This is around the stage I bumped into the poems. These are not poems chosen with any bold claims about being written by the ‘great and the good’ but are quite simply poems that Anthony liked. So there’s a lot of love in the pages of this anthology. The reasons for the poems being there are often very personal and it’s very brave of Anthony to discuss such things. Brave is often an overused word, but I can’t imagine many people willing to write in such a way. In those prose passages we not only find out more about the poets and their poems, but also about Anthony’s life and we’re given an insight into his illness with cancer. Not only is this an anthology of poems but also an autobiography of sorts; another reason for really liking the book.

Reading Lifesaving Poems has also made me think about how I read poetry. I read quite a bit of prose but I hardly ever re-read a novel cover to cover unless I have to, say for reasons of teaching or studying. Even if I do there may be many years between readings. Poetry is different. You can never (ever) read a good poem once. It’s impossible. Like a piece of music, you’d never listen to a favourite song once. Have you ever heard of a music lover who adored an album but only listened to it once or twice. When I like a song I play it on repeat. With poetry I may read a collection cover to cover but feel afterwards like I've not really read it properly, there’s always more to dig out and experience. So when I read that Anthony copied out these poems by hand I was rather touched. It appeared to me that here was a reader who wanted to completely engage with the poems. This is poem-love.

The poems themselves cannot be linked together or grouped by any particular patterns, other than an exploration of what it is to be human. Some of the names and poems were familiar to me, but some were just names. The kind of poems by poets you suspect will be good but have never fallen into your lap. That’s where Anthony steps in. He’s an intermediary, introducing you to the poems like interesting strangers at a party. He’s a kind host too. I never felt lectured, not once. In fact I liked his honesty and gentle tone. Has anyone ever told you (or almost shouted at you) ‘oh you must have read X poet. What do you mean you haven’t read X! I read X in the playground in Juniors!!!’ I have never tasted all the puddings in the world either, despite being a fan of dessert. The point, I guess, is how willing you are to read different things and Anthony is a great guide in that respect.   I also liked the fact that many of the poems are not by ‘poets of note.’ Why should they be? It made me wonder what would go into my own ‘Lifesaving Poems.’

In this book you’ll find individual poems (among others) by Sylvia Plath, Thom Gunn, Carol Ann Duffy, Catherine Smith, Dorothy Nimmo, Ted Hughes, Ann Sansom, Sharon Olds, Galway Kinnell, Jean Sprackland, Elizabeth Bishop, Jo Shapcott, Cliff Yates, Moniza Alvi, Charles Simic, Hilary Menos, Janet Fisher, Adrienne Rich, Peter Sansom, Rose Cook, Peter Carpenter, Mary Oliver, Iain Crichton Smith, John Ash, Esther Morgan, W. N. Herbert, Kathleen Jamie, Mandy Sutter, Jackie Kay, Martin Stannard, Carol Rumens, Seamus Heaney, James Schulyer, Ian McMillan, Deryn Rees-Jones, Derek  Mahon and Geoff Hattersley (glad to read him here, hurrah!) I could go on there are so many poets here. Hopefully I'm giving you an idea of scope. I imagine Anthony is an excellent teacher in his day to day work, I certainly feel like I've learned a lot. In particular there’s a very generous supply of American poets too. The book is a great introduction or a very important affirmation of all these poems.

Lastly, there are many passages were Anthony talks about ‘poetry exhaustion’ or what I call being ‘over-poetried.’ Sometimes this is very funny. I can’t find the quote now (typical), but something about throwing it all in and ‘becoming, say, a banker.’ Luckily he comes back to poetry.

Oh yes, the power came back on at some point, but I didn't notice.

                          

Anthony Wilson has published two collections of poetry, Love for Now and Riddance as well as Lifesaving Poems. To find out more about the blog and Anthony’s poetry and work click here.


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P.S. I copy and pasted my blog entry from a word doc and waited for the web to heal, in case you were wondering how this got on-line! Apart from power cuts I've had lots of internet problems recently, perhaps this is trying to tell me something regarding time spent on the web...

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.