Sophie Mayer's Her Various Scalpels

I've been enjoying reading Sophie Mayer's first collection, Her Various Scalpels, just released from Shearsman, and want to share with you "Sleepside," in this PDF on Brand where it was originally published. I'd reprint it here, but as you'll see, its spacing is intricate and I don't know how to replicate that here. The book is available from Shearsman's online store or Amazon.co.uk.

A weakness of contemporary poetry criticism, and one poet-critic's suggested remedy

In the new online journal, Mayday, American poet-critic Kent Johnson considers why so little poetry criticism is critical in sense of finding fault. He comes to the conclusion that this is because so many poets are themselves reviewers and, especially when they are younger, they want to ingratiate themselves with others for the sake of their careers. There's no doubt the same thing happens in the UK. When last year I told another poet that I was going to be on a reading with a poet I'd criticized in a review, the response was essentially, "That's what you get for writing critical reviews." I couldn't respond at first; I could hardly believe what I was hearing. I was supposed to write wholly positive reviews, even if that wasn't how I felt? Nonsense. I realize I take a risk that the reviewed poet will in turn write a disparaging review of my forthcoming book or deny me an opportunity, but that kind of tit-for-tat would weaken said review's weight. 

Johnson goes on to offer the following remedy: that journals reserve a portion of review space for anonymous reviews. Editors would need to discern whether it were simply a negative review, revenge, an ad hominem attack, etc., but I think the idea generally practicable. Mayday went on to obtain responses to Johnson's essay from a range of poet-critics, and Stephen Burt makes a point I've made before: If a review is going to be wholly negative, why give it the journal space? Why not use it for a book that deserves recognition?

Claire and I

Claire and I on my 40th

National Poetry Month--how'd it go?

I'd be glad to hear reports of how it went for others trying for a poem a day. Something unusual happened with my work: I began writing in spurts, that is, roughly three poems in a go. That partly results from my work on After Sex; those tend to come out several at a time. But I've also written elegies for my father, a few Divining for Starters, etc. While I can't say I wrote 30 poems in 30 days, I'm pleased with the amount of quality work I've done in the month--it's been a while since I had a month so creatively productive, and it's given me some pleasure amid my grieving for my father, for the life I'd imagined for myself and lost with his death. 

Kudos to my MA students Alia Brinkman and Jenny Martin for writing a poem a day all month long! I'm impressed.

Carol Ann Duffy named UK Poet Laureate

See the BBC article for details. What do you think?

Imagined Sons, second selection

Some readers will be aware that thirteen prose poems from my third collection, Imagined Sons (in progress), appeared in PN Review in its May-June 2007 issue. I'm pleased to say another sixteen appear in the new issue of The Republic of Letters, along with three poems from The Tethers. I strongly recommend the magazine--it abounds in both quality and variety, quite simply "a good read" wherever you begin. If you'd like to see the issue, John Sandoe Books in Chelsea stocks it.

After Sex, third selection

Taken down after a few days, as usual

Wales Book of the Year Longlist 2009

There's a proportionally high amount of poetry this year--exactly half the ten-book list, a consequence of Tiffany Atkinson's role on the judging panel, the quality of poetry submissions this year, or both. The poetry titles are Matthew Francis's Mandeville, Robert Minhinnick's King Driftwood, Sheenagh Pugh's Long-Haul Travellers, Zoe Skoulding's Remains of a Future City, and Samantha Wynne Rhydderch's Not in These Shoes. The other titles are Deborah Kay Davies' Grace, Tamar and Lazlo the Beautiful (a short-story collection), Joe Dunthorne's Submarine (a debut novel), Stephen May's TAG (novel), Dai Smith's Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale (biography), and Gee Willliams' Blood etc. (short-story collection). While I haven't read all the poetry titles, Mandeville and Remains of a Future City both deeply impressed me, and neither has received sufficient critical acclaim; I'm delighted they're on the list.

Deborah Digges, 1950-2009

I've long admired her precision and dexterity. This comes from her last book, Trapeze.

My Life's Calling 

My life's calling, setting fires.

Here in a hearth so huge
I can stand inside and shove
the wood around with my
bare hands while church bells
deal the hours down through
the chimney. No more
woodcutter, creel for the fire
or architect, the five staves
pitched like rifles over stone.
But to be mistro-elemental.
The flute of clay playing
my breath that riles the flames,
the fire risen to such dreaming
sung once from landlords' attics.
Sung once the broken lyres,
seasoned and green.
Even the few things I might save,
my mother's letters,
locks of my children's hair
here handed over like the keys
to a foreclosure, my robes
remanded, and furniture
dragged out into the yard,
my bedsheets hoisted up the pine,
whereby the house sets sail.
And I am standing on a cliff
above the sea, a paper light,
a lantern. No longer mine
to count the wrecks.
Who rode the ships in ringing,
marrying rock the waters
storm to break the door,
looked through the fire, beheld
a clearing there. This is what
you are. What you've come to.

An insightful review of Yet

There have been three reviews of Yet by poets who, I gather from their reviews, have read little experimental poetry. Trained in practical criticism to the exclusion of other ways of reading, it seems, the reviewers try hard to "decode" the poems rather than seeing how a poetics of consciousness might work. I don't fault them for that--it's partly a result of the gulf between mainstream and experimental British poetry.

Imagine my pleasure, then, on the occasion of Scott Thurston's more understanding review of Yet in Stride. I don't agree with all he says, but his appreciation of the Divinings as thinking through language in the lyric makes me hopeful that when Divining for Starters comes out at last, there will be some readers who enjoy it for what it is.