Out With the Old | Poetry | Eric Gregory Awards 2011

“that’s one fucker of a fucker, eh?”

“Aye, man, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

-Niall Campbell

Last week was an important time in the world of poetry, for we saw the announcement of this year’s Eric Gregory Award winners who were, if you do not already know, Holly Hopkins, Niall Campbell, Tom Chivers, Martin Jackson and Kim Moore.

I had the pleasure of attending the traditional winners’ reading, hosted in the Betsey Trotwood by Roddy Lumsden.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I go to a lot of poetry events of all shapes and sizes, and as a result I feel that I have developed a fairly keen ear for what works and what does not.

I say this as if it is a hard skill to master; it isn’t. If you can let a week pass after seeing a poet for the first time and still remember something impressive about their reading, then what they are doing works. It really is as simple as that for me. Last Wednesday’s reading was that rare thing of a live event where everyone’s set lodged itself in my perforated memory fairly vividly.

I have known Tom Chivers and Holly Hopkins for long enough not to have been surprised by how well they read (Tom’s crowning moment was probably his masterful inclusion of the calculator-friendly word, ‘boobless’ in a poem and Holly infuriatingly read one of the most beautiful nuptial poems I have ever heard at a point in my life when I am desperately trying to write something for a friend’s wedding).

The other three were a pleasant revelation however. Kim Moore’s mixture of youthful energy and dry sense of humour made for an entertaining end to the opening section. In listening to her describe the interior of a Wetherspoons pub whilst evoking Dante’s Inferno, I felt a slight kindred spirit with the many hours I have spent poetically dissecting life in a public house.

She finished with a hilarious piece about what happens to poets when they retire, how they will look at a beautiful night sky and no longer feel obliged to construct metaphors. The piece almost read as if it could be Philip Larkin’s letter declining the post of poet laureate in 1984.

Martin Jackson filled the stage with a very different type of energy. Just as memorable as his poetry were the brief beguiling snapshots of his life given between poems. Jackson appears to evoke everything that we want our writers to be – handsome, busy-minded folk living in houses with wardrobes propped up with discarded early drafts and shelves full of books with the covers ripped off.

The last poet to read was Niall Campbell, a writer introduced with much glee by his fellow Scotsman, Lumsden (they both celebrated Campbell being the first Scot to win a Gregory in 16 years by downing a glass of Scotch on stage before the reading).

Campbell’s poetry was worth the wait however. His voice is that of a small-town boy who can see the big picture and his ability to imbue the minutiae of a remote life with a profound universality puts me in mind of Michael Longley.

In the past, the Eric Gregory awards have proved a fairly sound prophecy of the people who will go on to achieve great things in the world of poetry. If the five people who read last Wednesday are where poetry is heading, then I can sleep easy tonight knowing that we are in safe hands.

It is a real honour to be part of a group that hosts such talented new writers and I look forward to bringing you new work by some of this year’s Gregory Winners in Silkworms' exciting imminent rebirth this year.

Phil Brown

Poetry Editor

Wider Reading | Days of Roses Anthology

"All that really mattered then was that I was a man..."

The name Days of Roses is taken from a Tom Waits song in which a man phones an old flame in his twilight years for one last reminiscence of things lost. I’ve no doubt that Waits would be happy to have his lyrics used for the recent poetry anthology, not least of all because it had its launch last night in the sort of sweaty, dimly lit, cramped, underground pub that would appeal to his beatnik heart.

As well as the body heat and the smell of incense, what immediately hit me upon arriving at the Day of Roses  launch was what a socially comfortable event the night was. This may seem like an odd thing to point out in a literary review, but as someone who has been to a lot of readings, I cannot over-emphasize the importance of making your guests feel that they are in capable hands when hosting a live event. You will not find a better example of how to make this work than attending a Days of Roses event.

So, for the uninitiated, Days of Roses is a monthly poetry-reading event that has been running for a little over two years in various fine drinking establishments across the land. The list of previous performers is an impressive thing to behold, including some of my favourites; Sam Riviere, Roddy Lumsden, Jack Underwood, Heather Phillipson, Jon Stone, Ross Sutherland, Tom Chivers, Todd Swift, James Brookes and Emily Hasler.

As they pass the two-year mark, the team behind these events have put together a beautiful anthology of some of their favourite performers. It is clear that the same amount of care and pleasure went into the production of their anthology as goes into the hosting of their nights; the books are hand bound by co-editor, Malene Engelund, the cover includes one of fifteen photographs and pieces of art by Ross McNicol and Amelia Newton Whitelaw and, if I’m not very much mistaken, are typeset in Perpetua, the absolute king of fonts for printing poetry*.

As seems to be the case with every other modern anthology, the Days of Roses team make a selling point of their diversity. Whereas some anthologists will use ‘diversity’ as a way of masking their lack of coherence, I feel that the range of styles to be found in this collection is reconcilable with the high quality of the writing throughout. The beauty of the Days of Roses anthology concept, is that by framing it as an artefact of a live reading, the reader will read it whilst imagining a performance, which makes the diverse range of registers and voices refreshing rather than confusing.

Two particular highlights of the anthology are Maximilian Hildebrand’s wittily bleak Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle:

“So I’m outside in the garden

And it’s just me and the bugs

And they don’t mind

So I light up a ciggie at the

Second attempt and cough

A couple of times to know I’m a smoker

And it’s a desperate profession

And I think to myself

This is living alright…”

and Lydia Macpherson’s Pastoral:

“The wireless bleats

spring is here and look

the chewing gum is blooming

lichen on city pavements

in the river shopping trolleys

are mating at rusty angles

welding in the petrol spills…”

Beyond this, the anthology, and its launch night, is/was also greatly enhanced by the ever mesmerising Liz Berry (follow the link for a review I did of her debut pamphlet last year) and this year’s Costa Prize winner, Jo Shapcott (who has provided an exclusive new poem called The Elements as the book’s opening).

Whilst the fact that you are reading this strongly suggests that you missed the event itself, I recommend you try to pick yourself up a copy of the Days of Roses anthology by e-mailing the days of roses team while supplies last, or wait a couple of weeks for it to come out on Amazon.

*For more information on the virtues of Perpetua, please e-mail James Brookes, who will happily write you an essay on the topic.

Phil Brown

Poetry Editor