Fresh Starts | Poetry | Robert Lowell, Confessional Chameleon

Forgive me father, it has been many years since my last poem. 

How much of ourselves are we supposed to put in our writing? It is an equation which the greatest writers have always strived to balance. It is a notion which Robert Lowell spent a great deal of his career tinkering with, and is best exemplified in his acceptance speech of the 1960 Poetry Book Award:

“Two poetries are now competing, a cooked and a raw. The cooked, marvellously expert, often seems laboriously concocted to be tasted and digested by a graduate seminar. The raw, huge blood-dripping gobbets of unseasoned experience are dished up for midnight listeners. There is a poetry that can only be studied, and a poetry that can only be declaimed, a poetry of pedantry, and a poetry of scandal.”

This distinction heightened and hounded Lowell’s career from the moment he uttered these words. The dichotomy between formalism and confessionals pulled his work between the desolate piquancy of Life Studies which gained him his early popularity and the ornate architecture of Land of Unlikeness from which his writing career began.

In the thirty-three years between Lowell’s first and last collections, he never stopped tinkering and refining, one might say reinventing, his approach to writing poetry. But then, is reinventing a misnomer, as it suggests that Lowell was fully complicit in his ever-changing style? In his superb synoptic essay, After Enjoying Six or Seven Essays on Me, he suggests that this is not the case:

“When I was working on Life Studies, I found that I had no language or meter that would allow me to approximate what I saw or remembered. Yet in prose I had already found what I wanted, the conventional style of autobiography of reminiscence. So I wrote my autobiographical poetry in a style I thought I had discovered in Flaubert, one that used images and ironic particulars.”

He then goes on to suggest that his later shifts in style were a direct result of the poems’ requirements, rather than any conscious effort to change his own style:

“Later on in For the Union Dead, free verse subjects seemed to melt away, and I found myself back in strict meter, yet tried to avoid the symbols and heroics of my first books.”

I always find these phrases like ‘I found myself’ and ‘tried to avoid’ fascinating when writers are discussing their own work. It all fits in with that trance-like state that is supposed to take hold of us when we are truly in sync with the muse and writing ‘real’ poetry. It is also entirely at odds with what we know of the drafting process – no writer should be able to look their reading audience in the eye if all they have done is knock a few moments of inspiration onto the page and post it off to their publisher. In his ‘raw’ and ‘uncooked’ analogy, surely Lowell is driving at the idea of the poetic sweet-spot being a figurative ‘medium-rare’ situation.

“I pray that my progress has been more than recoiling with satiation and disgust from one style to another, a series of rebuffs”, writes Lowell at the end of his essay. In retrospectively considering his career, he is clearly aware that his shifting style could be seen as caprice, or a superficial avenue for redecorating his common theme of autobiography.

It must surely have been in reaction to M.L. Rosenthal’s labelling of Lowell as “confessional” that the poet went about such shape-shifting in style, just as his close friend, Elizabeth Bishop, did all she could to avoid being pigeon-holed as a female or feminist poet.

Perhaps it is through my own semantic idiosyncrasies that I have always paired Lowell with a very different stylistic chameleon, David Bowie. At similar stages in both men’s careers they went about the task of ‘cover versions’, of sorts; Lowell with his series of poetic re-working, Imitations (1961) and Bowie with his album of cover-versions, Pin Ups (1973).

I make this connection, purely because it serves as a fine illustration of artists telling us a great deal about themselves through the convenient masking act of ‘translation’. When Bowie was between two elaborate concept albums, Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs, two wonderful pieces of musical fiction, he allowed himself an album of cover-versions with which to unashamedly share far more universal and cathartic themes than Ziggy Stardust would ever allow him to explore.

Similarly, we get the sense that Lowell shares far more of himself through the re-imagined monologues of his Imitations than in the more factually autobiographical yet emotionally measured pieces in Life Studies. It puts me in mind of poor Thomas Wyatt, finding the only acceptable public voice for his melancholy in translating the works of Petrarch from the Italian. As Paul Muldoon points out in his Oxford lectures, we often find out most of Lowell’s life when he is writing about and through historical figures.

But then, what are we then to learn from Lowell about fresh starts? Surely the man who happened to find himself writing in one form or another, depending on what the poems required would scoff at the artifice of a ‘fresh start’. In this sense, Lowell tells us that there is no such thing as a fresh start in poetry, merely a willingness and openness to go where our writing requires us to go.

I would argue that it is one of the only true signs of a genuine writer that their work varies from collection to collection, even at the expense of quality and commercial viability. The poet who churns out a second collection of similar length, content and style to their debut has not found that balance between the raw and the cooked; the worst and most repetitive of us can easily be located on either side of this spectrum.

Lowell did something that poets such as Anne Carson and David Morley are doing now (in both cases, look at their three most recent collections and trace the great stylistic eclecticism, held together by clearly tangible thematic threads that run through their respective works). Like many great writers, Lowell knew that his foremost challenge was to harness his writing toward something with purpose, secure that the style of his writing would come through patient exploration, just as the sea sounds from a shell.

Phil Brown

Poetry Editor

Wider Reading | Poetry | Wiki Wild West

“The Internet is just a world passing around notes in a classroom.”

-Jon Stewart

“A Mission Statement is a dense slab of words that a large organization produces when it needs to establish that its workers are not just sitting around downloading internet porn.”

-Dave Barry

I’m saying this right off the bat – I love Wikipedia.

Are you still here, poets? Good. This is a call to arms.

Most people I know have been in this ubiquitous conversation-path in the post iPhone world:

A: That is not true!

B: It is true!

A: I will stake any money on this… it is not true

B: OK then, well lets see if you’re right (pulling out iPhone) see… right here, it says it’s true.

A: (sarcastically) Oh! Oooooh! Well if it’s on Wikipedia then it must be true. That site is just a load of people putting down their opinions and pretending it’s a fact.

I hate ‘A’. With my whole heart I hate them (although I’ll admit that ‘B’ is a twit as well). Not because I believe in everything I see on the internet, but because I hate the mentality that criticizes something that you have the ability to directly change. I’m not talking about a philosophical Gandhi-ish ‘be the change’ moment… you can literally change Wikipedia if you don’t like it. It’s ours. It’s free. (Sorry countries where it isn’t).

Why do I bring this up in relation to poetry? Because poets are missing a trick. The scientists have the right idea. I cannot count the fascinated hours I’ve wasted learning about Leidenfrost Effect, or Tautochrone Curves or Nikola Tesla. Why is it then that I can barely find an A4 page’s worth on Ted Hughes or Free Verse or Anne Carson? If the scientists are so desperate for the world to understand their obscure ideas, then why can’t we follow suit? Wallace Stevens has saved my life just as many times as the Leidenfrost Effect (althought Stevens does have one of the better Wiki entries)! I know there are scientists out there who are fascinated by poets – can we please repay their favour by sharing what we know.

I have begun my campaign to feather poetry’s Wiki-nest brick by brick. I am starting with a few high-profile poets, one paragraph per day. This may not seem like much, but as my confidence grows I will become bolder and more ambitious with my contributions. And what’s more, you are going to help.

I know that there are poets reading these words. I know that you own text books and literary criticism and biographies and ‘collected letters’ and quarterlies. I know that these are absolutely brimming with information that will die if we let it – poetry is a niche market and its literature goes out of print.

So as soon as you are done reading this, sign up for a Wikipedia account and start editing. You can do this immediately. Find a poignant quotation from a reputable source about a famous poet. Then go put it on that poet’s Wikipedia page – and reference it properly with the ISBN etc.

It will feel strange at first – Wikipedia editing requires you to become familiar with a formatting code of sorts that takes a little getting used to. But this does not matter to you because you are doing something good for the world. Once you hit your stride it will take you 10 minutes to add a paragraph to a page. Then you will start getting adventurous. You will begin adding images and info-boxes and going out of your way to research.

You will find yourself sat in the library and notice that you are surrounded by people doing the same thing as you – not ferreting away for their own obnoxious essays, but they are all making notes and citations that they can go home and share with the world. You will all glance in recognition at each other and go for a beer in the pub opposite the library and toast a new age where the doors are blown open by a wind that forces every speck of dust out of the windows.

Go forth and start sharing all that specialist knowledge you take so much pride in.

Phil Brown

Poetry Editor

Prizes | Poetry | The Silkies

“Contemporary poets, alas, have prizes instead of readers. The number of poetry prizes in the land is astonishing… Such is their plentitude that one is almost inclined to think contemporary poetry less an art than a charity in need of constant donations.”
– Joseph Epstein

“It’s scary… Who’s number one? Who’s number one?”
– John Berryman upon hearing of Robert Frost’s death.

In literature, prizes have always been of great importance, especially in poetry. There are several reasons for this; an indication of quality in a medium with no apparent rules, a source of financial support for practitioners of a non-lucrative profession, a source of encouragement for up-and-comings, a means for boosting the prestige of a publishing house or company and encouraging big names to submit.

The reason for literary prizes that I want to pay closer attention to however, is ‘encouragement’.  In Tradition and the Individual Talent, T.S. Eliot seems to draw a line between the young poetaster and ‘any-one who would continue to be a poet beyond his 25th year’. Eliot distinguishes between these camps because:

“The mind of the mature poet differs from the immature one not precisely in any valuation of “personality”, not necessarily more interesting, or having “more to say”, but rather by being a more finely perfected medium in which special, or very varied, feelings are at liberty to enter into new combinations.”

Whilst I agree that there is a distinction to be made between the ‘mature’ and ‘immature’ in poetry, it can be very difficult sometimes to see why one would ever put in the hours and effort to graduate to ‘poetic maturity’. Society is all too aware that, in the hunter/gatherer sense, we do not need poets, just as with actors, footballers, journalists and musicians. Whilst we poets do not share the salaries that some of these other professions enjoy, we do share their preoccupation with prizes.

Whilst there is invariably money attached directly and indirectly to the Oscars, the F.A. Cup, the Grammys and the T.S. Eliot Prize, the real importance is their role in the community. These prizes send out a clear message to the winners, the runners-up, the fans and general public alike – ‘our pursuit has a tradition and it matters’.

To this end, I have elected myself judge and jury for the first season of what I hope will become the most coveted poetry award in the country – ‘The Silkies’. In order to win one of these awards you must fulfil one vital criteria only – you must appear on my bookshelf. I am accepting entries from all origins and eras, but will aim to keep my main focus on contemporary poetry.

All (living) winners of this most prestigious award are entitled to one free drink up to the value of £5.20 should you spot me at any literary event, or indeed anywhere. Proof of identification required.





Best Title of a Collection

This was perhaps the easiest decision to make of all the awards. The award for best title must undoubtedly go to Matthew Welton’s audacious 101 word title –

‘We needed coffee but we’d got ourselves convinced that the later we left it the better it would taste, and, as the country grew flatter and the roads became quiet and dusk began to colour the sky, you could guess from the way we retuned the radio and unfolded the map or commented on the view that the tang of determination had overtaken our thoughts, and when, fidgety and untalkative but almost home, we drew up outside the all-night restaurant, it felt like we might just stay in the car, listening to the engine and the gentle sound of the wind’



Best Title for an Individual Poem

This award was a closely-fought battle between Robert Sheppard’s “Fucking Time: six songs for the Earl of Rochester” (from Complete Twentieth Century Blues) and the eventual winner. In the end however, I went with this one from Roddy Lumsden’s last collection, Third Wish Wasted:

‘Between the Penny Dropping and the Penny Landing’



Best Cover Illustration

Horrific and beautiful, Tabatha Vevers’ depiction of the mermaid, Europa, having been literally raped in half and left for dead on a rock is one of the most harrowing things to ever catch my eye in Foyles. An interesting fact about this collection is that the poem ‘Mermaid’, which is one of Alvi’s best, was only written and included after the poet had seen the illustration above. Thankfully, this collection is just as emotionally beguiling and powerful as the cover suggests.




Best Press Photo

Handsome, urban, serious with messy hair and an upturned collar. One of the finest modern writers to have written extensively about London.

 “What are you writing about Tobias?”

“What have you got?”

Tobias Hill – Salt Publishing


Best Name of  Poet

It was almost impossible to choose this one. A large part of me wanted W.D. Snodgrass, or Toby Martinez de las Rivas, Ryan Van Winkle or Tom Pow. Whilst all of these writers display what are inarguably superb names, the award for this category must surely go to this Irish poet. I am particularly fond of how the three acute accents make the name look as though it is facing a strong Westerly wind:

Eiléan Ní Chulleanáin



Best Use of Box Brackets

When I am marking the writing of my pupils, one of the things that the curriculum tells me to look out for is ‘inventive use of punctuation’. What exactly this means can be a somewhat obtuse idea until facing an example such as this from the excellent poem ‘Observations of a Neanderthal Colony’ by Sam Riviere:

“She kept singing as they knuckled her to the ground.
The [children] continued to sleep as both [men] began to [rape]
her, their scruts bobbing an instinctive, pneumatic rhythm.”




Best Use of Public Transport in a Poem

Very tempting to bring in our good friend Tobias Hill again on this one, but in the end, Lachlan Mackinnon reigns victorious with this line from Riders on the Storm, which appears in the collection The Jupiter Collisions:

“The trams run all night, their opening and closing doors
the city’s gills.”



Best Dig at a Famous Spouse

Really nearly went with a bit of Hughes here, but in the end this one has to go to Nick Laird. OK, so there’s every chance these poems are entirely hypothetical or about other people but they still leave me with a clear memory of the time I wrote a poem about how bad my girlfriend’s Pocahontas costume looked one Halloween and she didn’t speak to me for days. This extract is taken from Nick Laird’s ‘Waging War’ from the collection ‘On Purpose’

“This evening at dinner your very existence
was enough to disprove Darwin.
I outhitlered Hitler.

These nightly show-trials are
becoming tiresome and factious,
each decree absolute and absurdly revanchist.”



Best Use of Poem-Shape

This award really goes to the entire of Anne Carson’s collection ‘Decreation’, which is a favourite of mine for many reasons – not least of all the beautiful and bizarre shapes that her poems take on in this collection. I provide below one short example:

OUR FORTUNE

In a house at dusk a mother’s final lesson
ruins the west and seals up all that trade.
Look in the windows at night you will see people standing.
That’s us, we had an excuse to be inside.
Day came, we cut the fruit (we cut
the tree). Now we’re out.
Here is a debt
paid.

*

Thank you one and all for tuning into this inaugural presentation of The Silkies. We look forward to seeing you soon for another round of this highlight in the literary calendar.

Phil Brown
Poetry Editor