Dublin reading podcasts

My reading in June on the Wurm im Apfel series in Dublin is now available in two podcasts from iTunes (simply search for my name under the description--not author) or for streaming online on this page of the Wurm im Apfel site. I read selections by Claire Crowther, Frances Presley, Anna Reckin, and Lucy Sheerman from Infinite Difference: Other Poetries by UK Women Poets, as well as some of my own work from that anthology and from my pamphlet Yet (Leafe, 2008). Thanks to Kit Fryatt and Dylan Harris for the invitation and their generosity, and to Poetry Ireland for funding the event.

"Notes from the underground: a fresh breed of literary magazines"

in today's Independent. Not only are the magazines promising, but the national newspaper coverage of the matter too.

"Imagined Sons 18" up at Iowa Review

"Imagined Sons 18: Greek Salad," in the current print issue of Iowa Review, is now on their website as a selection from it.

Another appreciative review of The Tethers in New Welsh Review

When a review of The Tethers shows close reading and subsequent understanding, I feel heartened and encouraged. Sarah Wardle's review in the summer issue of New Welsh Review is such a one (others include Paul Batchelor in The Times, Richard Gwyn in Poetry Wales, and Ben Wilkinson in the TLS). I'll quote the last few paragraphs here and refer you to the magazine for the complete article.

"In places the word choice is archaic: vocabulary includes ‘cherish’, ‘yearn’, ‘forebore’ and ‘nay’; but her fondness for such language fits with her at times Shakespearian inflexion. She deploys elevated diction, as in ‘asseverated your sincerity without reserve’, and in places uses academic discourse to interesting effect: ‘There is a London winter hermeneutic at work/ well into April’. In general, her raised diction and meditative cadence succeed in capturing the register and rhythm of the mind’s pensive voice, as at the close of ‘The Honeymoon of Our Attraction’: ‘Of the wave’s surge I know only/ I stand soddened.’

"Elsewhere, she can write with startling clarity and imagery, as in ‘Biopsy’: ‘This is my body. This is my heart,/ standing aside like a child at the zoo’; and in the fine lines which close the collection from ‘The World at Dusk’: ‘When at last I walked to the postbox, afternoon/ was everywhere. I had decades to live’.

"This book will be enjoyed by a readership that is both general and academic, and on either side of the Atlantic. Carrie Etter’s poetry stems from strong geographical roots and, unlike some contemporary poets, she shows an awareness of her literary heritage. Dedicated to her late father, The Tethers is a fine tribute and promising debut, filled with intelligent observation and written with precision."

The Tethers shortlisted for London Festival Fringe New Poetry Award

The Tethers appears on a long shortlist for the just-begun London Festival Fringe New Poetry Award. Further details are available here. The winner will be announced in August.

"Divining for Starters (46)"

is up on The Liberal's website.

Selections from Edward Dorn's Gunslinger I & II (Fulcrum, 1970)

A rich and strange book. I'll be returning it to The Poetry Library this week should someone else wish to experience it.

from Book 1 (easier to excerpt as the narrative is just beginning)--

He would show you his map.

There is your domain.

Is it the domicile it looks to be

or simply a retinal block

of seats in,

he will flip the phrase

the theater of impatience.

*

my mare lathers with tedium

her hooves are dry

Look they are covered with the alkali

of the enormous space

between here and formerly.

*

STRUM

strum

And by that sound

we had come there, false fronts

my Gunslinger said make

the people mortal

and give their business

an inward cast. They cause culture.

*

Stranger you got a pliable lip

you might get yourself described

if you keep on.

*

and as the disputational 44

occurred in his hand and spun there

in that warp of relativity one sees

in the backward turning spokes

of a buckboard, then came suddenly

to rest, the barrel utterly justified

with a line pointing

to the neighborhood of infinity.

The room froze harder.

*

Your vulgarity is flawless

but you are the slave

of appearances--

*

You make the air dark

with the beauty of your speed,

Gunslinger, the air

separates and reunites as if lightning

had cut past

leaving behind a simple experience.

*

to her swelled black mound

her startled faun

which has the earthy smell

of slightly gone

wild violets

from Book 2--

I didn't know you had a drawl, Slinger

I dont, I slow up at noon

from the inertia of National Lunch

and from the scatteredness

of the apexed sun which attempts

at that point to enter a paradox--

namely, The West which is The East.

Edward Dorn

Gunslinger 1 & 2 (London: Fulcrum, 1970)

The entire Gunslinger is available from The Book Depository.

"on suicide" and "on civil war" by Alasdair Paterson

Two more short poems from Alasdair Paterson's new collection:

on suicide

almost his

last thing

that weekend

planting out bulbs

footnotes for the spring

on civil war

following inundation infestation invasion

measure countermeasure and scorched earth

crops officially pitiful and stores covertly emptied

here is an announcement from the ministry

let them eat roots

thank you

here is an announcement from the military

I wouldn't dig

just there

if I were you

Alasdair Paterson

On the Governing of Empires (Shearsman, 2010)

You can order On the Governing of Empires directly from the publisher or from The Book Depository with free worldwide delivery.

Local artists

There's a thriving arts community in the West Country. Three artists whose work I like are Alexandra Becker, painter, Jane Gibson, ceramicist, and Trevor Lillistone, ceramicist. I'll add Maxine Foster once the digitial photos on her website reflect more accurately the vibrancy of colour in her work, and I'm sure there are many others whose work I don't know--introduce me?

Poets for Living Waters

Kudos to Amy King and Heidi Lynn Staples for curating Poets for Living Waters, a blog site of poetry responses to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Thus far (having not had time to read all the entries) I've particularly enjoyed those by Tasha Cotter and Brenda Iijima and hope to contribute to the site myself before long.