January's gone quickly hasn't it? Are you all getting ready to start drinking and giving up on the gym on the 1st February? I thought it was the wrong month to try such tactics as I was in Barcelona last week and will be in Brussels for a few days next week. I will be back for Bad Language at the Castle on Wednesday, where I'm reading in the open mic spot. Nice to have something doing; even a small thing; as since Christmas I've hardly had a space to think creatively.
Poetry's a strange thing in that when you're not doing it, I don't think I think of myself in any way as a poet. There's something distant from the writing of poetry and its place in the world. The distance is, I think, what makes it good, but it also disconcerts a little bit. There's an anthology coming out shortly where I've a couple of poems; so that's good; and various other poems have been sent off somewhere or other and I've just remembered about the Pighog poetry prize - deadline end of the month. I've been working on two separate "collections" if you like: the first is a series of poems set in Manchester; a project I've been thinking about for a while and are some way along with. I'll possibly read some of these at Bad Language. The second is a more general "follow up" to my Salt Modern Voices collection "Playing Solitaire for Money", though I'm not sure if and when it will come out; my other press Knives Forks and Spoons has stopped publishing, and Salt's had a few changes as well. So, I've two pamphlets that may or may not be doing the rounds; may or may not be published later in the year. The good thing is that some of the individual poems are among my best, I think. Its taken me a while to work up my muse in a particular way since touring "Solitaire" - whereas in my other writing I'm quite project focussed, in poetry I'm much more of an organic writer. So if anyone out there's looking to publish a nice pamphlet with some of my best work; or in particular is interested in a Manchester sequence - then please get in touch (www.adrianslatcher.com has the details!).
The frustration has been not having much time to get on with anything. I even started a prose piece a week or two ago and then abandoned it as last weekend and this have been dominated by travel. I'm still reading the first book I downloaded to my Nook before Christmas as well! The puzzle is what to do next... as busy as the literary scene is in Manchester, I'm not particularly interested in just reading for the sake of it - more in creating finished work, in whatever genre.
Anyway, these things have a tendency to ebb and flow - there just always seems a weird disconnect between when you are actually writing something good (which I feel I have this last year or so) and the world in which it needs to appear in to have any presence.
The list of writers shortlisted for the international Man Booker was interesting...I'd only heard of three, and I'm reasonably literate...but then again, Tim Parks on the judging panel had only heard of one beforehand. I think if the prize is about bringing forward writers of merit that we might not know about it, rather than a pseudo-Nobel, then it will be a good thing.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
The Write Stuff for 2013
The literary event season hasn't stopped. A night of poetry, music and performance, Free Frame of Reference on Tuesday just gone at Sand Bar; and then Jenn Ashworth's novel launch (for her 3rd novel, the multi-narrated "The Friday Gospels") at Blackwells on Friday. Poets at the first, fiction writers at the second, it seems - and me at both!
This week poets should be directed to the Penning Perfumes launch on Wednesday at Kraak Gallery - "a scented evening of poems inspired by perfumes, and perfumes inspired by poems". Whilst the novelists will no doubt be looking for familiar faces - both on and off the page - at the Anthony Burgess Foundation on Thursday, when Nicholas Royle launches his Didsbury-set (the Didsbury set?) "First Novel" along with Booker shortlisted Alison Moore.
Short story writers and readers may give this a miss and head for a Comma Press reading at Madlab on Edge Street - Icelandic short story writer Agust Borgthor Sverrison. I guess you pays your money (or not, both events are free), and takes your choice.
Though of course, just because you read one thing, doesn't mean that you can't benefit from seeing another - and increasingly - with performance events especially there's a pluralism. The following week I've got a short open mic spot at Bad Language, first time I've managed to read there, at the Castle on Wednesday 30th, and haven't decided yet whether it will be fiction or poetry; then on the 31st Manchester Art Gallery is open for a zine fair which should appeal to artistic and literary types alike.
Not bad for quiet January. Now, to find time to read a book.
This week poets should be directed to the Penning Perfumes launch on Wednesday at Kraak Gallery - "a scented evening of poems inspired by perfumes, and perfumes inspired by poems". Whilst the novelists will no doubt be looking for familiar faces - both on and off the page - at the Anthony Burgess Foundation on Thursday, when Nicholas Royle launches his Didsbury-set (the Didsbury set?) "First Novel" along with Booker shortlisted Alison Moore.
Short story writers and readers may give this a miss and head for a Comma Press reading at Madlab on Edge Street - Icelandic short story writer Agust Borgthor Sverrison. I guess you pays your money (or not, both events are free), and takes your choice.
Though of course, just because you read one thing, doesn't mean that you can't benefit from seeing another - and increasingly - with performance events especially there's a pluralism. The following week I've got a short open mic spot at Bad Language, first time I've managed to read there, at the Castle on Wednesday 30th, and haven't decided yet whether it will be fiction or poetry; then on the 31st Manchester Art Gallery is open for a zine fair which should appeal to artistic and literary types alike.
Not bad for quiet January. Now, to find time to read a book.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Delia Derbyshire Day
Yesterday was "Delia Derbyshire Day", a day of screenings, talks and performances at Band on the Wall in Manchester to celebrate the late Delia Derbyshire, who is famed for her work primarily with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the 1960s and early 1970s.
Derbyshire is an unusual cult figure in that her work was ubiquitous in homes throughout Britain, albeit virtually anonymously. Most famously, her treatment of Ron Grainger's "Dr. Who Theme", for which she was denied a songwriting credit (Grainger wanted her to have one, but it was against BBC policy.) Her name became better known towards the end of her life (she died in 2001), as cult artists like Sonic Boom, Broadcast and Stereolab, took inspiration from her early sonic experiments; yet even now very little of her music - primarily written for commission - is available; yet in the late 1960s she was already recognised as a pioneer of electronic music and her music appeared at "happenings" and art festivals.
The day started with Canadian film maker Kara Blake's short documentary, "The Delian Mode." A compact 25 minutes, its more like a film essay or visual tone poem than a traditional film; using Delia's music and words throughout to construct a portrait of her creative process. A deserved award-winner, its pulls up some great footage and audio. This was followed by a Q&A particularly focussing on the Delia Derbyshire archive which is now at the University of Manchester. Those in the packed audience hoping for some announcements about new Delia material were to be disappointed, as the archive process is a slow and painstaking one; as the tapes they had been left in Delia's loft for years, and any "context" for them was missing. There is also a BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive, looked after by Mark Ayres - and the story of the workshop, Delia's role in it, and the interest that remains in the both it and her have grown steadily over the years.
It was a shame that Teresa Winter was unable to be on the panel as advertised, as the Q&A did tend to the anecdotal; when, for me at least, it is Derbyshire's role in the musical avant garde of the late 60s that is of interest. Though a woman composer, contemporary music still appears to be far behind visual arts and literature in acknowledging female composition - and even in the Radiophonic workshop, the classically trained Derbyshire was renowned as much for her mathematical background as her musical one. Yet, at the time, through her extra-curricular work in White Noise and Unit Delta Plus, she was part of that late 60s avant garde that could find Yoko One, Paul McCartney, the Pink Floyd, Alan Ginsberg, Soft Machine, Cornelius Cardew and others at the same events, festivals and happenings. There is very little early electronic music available, as the only people who had access to the equipment were institutions, such as conservatoires and the BBC, and rock stars like George Harrison and Pete Townsend who were often "loaned" equipment. What fascinates about Delia's work though is that it pre-dates the synthesizer, and yet the principals that it uses, where the "science of sound" is so critical to the painstakingly constructed sound collages made with magnetic tapes, are what has attracted so much contemporary interest. The history of electronic music has several phases, and each phase has a unique sound and context. Therefore Delia was uninterested in the monolithic synths of the late 60s and early 70s, as falling short of the potential of her own experiments; whilst our contemporary sample-based culture, and cheap phrase-samplers and digital audio workstations approximates her world, but in a virtual space, without something of the serendipity that caused the unique sound of much of her work.
For when the question was asked about "why Delia?" its not just about her being one of the few women making experimental music in that era, or because she was one of a small number of electronic pioneers, but because the work she created had such a range (as one might expect for one working to commission) and yet was so clearly informed by a creativity and emotional sensitivity. In many ways, the things that have always plagued acceptance of electronic music: that its just button-pushing, that its repetitive, that its "cold", are all refuted in her work; and are testament to her genius.
Following the Q&A a "deep listening" session, with tracks both published and unpublished, gave us an opportunity to hear tracks that had inspired the three female artists who would be playing that evening, and who had put together the day. The freshness of the sound, even today, of music mostly recorded around 40 years ago, came crisply through the Band on the Wall's impressive sound system. Yet there's a real mystery to this music - which is ironic really, given it was written for mass public consumption via TV and radio - in that individual pieces from the archive are sometimes uncredited. Working with early synth, the VCS-3, a brilliant electronic pop track from the early 70s, is ten years too early; yet is it Delia? We don't know. To these ears it has some similarity to the experiments of Tonto's Expanding Head Band, but with a rhythmic presence which is something new. For the many tapes in the archive aren't all Delia, and there is a magpie nature to that early Radiophonic workshop work, as a "sound" used on Dr. Who might be re-used elsewhere, both inside and outside the BBC; yet they also add to our understanding of her process, meticulous, perfectionist, time-consuming.
The 2nd half of the day was in its own an equal revelation. Electronic musician Caro C, composer Ailís Ní Ríain and artist Naomi Kashiwagi, along with visuals by Kara Blake, formed the "Delia Darlings" and had used the archive as a jumping off point for three original pieces of work. Ailís Ní Ríain piece for double bass and trumpet took some themes from the remarkable Pot au Feu, and used them as a jumping off point; the sparse but rhythmic arrangements, and the unusual choice of instruments was more of a dialogue between the two women composers, than a conventional "cover". The artist Kashiwagi is renowned for her performances using ancient technology, old wind-up gramophones and 78RPM records. As an artist, rather than composer, her challenge was to create something new - in this case a piece of sound art based on an old jazz standard. Using samplers and software for the first time, although I didn't think the piece quite worked as the finished article, the techniques (with an overhead projection of Kashiwagi's turntablism) were interesting, and of the three peformers, perhaps offered the closest dialogue with Delia's compositional technique. It will be interesting to see how Kashiwagi extends or continues with these experiments. Caro C, finished the evening, with a long multi-modal electronic piece. As the only electronic musician its perhaps not a surprise that her engagement with Derbyshire seemed the deepest, for electronic music remains a genre with its own history, and an approach which is often different than traditional forms. Though her piece was a long, multi-part song-suite, there were clear echoes of Derbyshire's musical achievements, filtered, I think, through that historical view of electronic music of which she is such a part. Echoing Derbyshire's technique, Caro C used different everyday objects to create interesting sounds that were added live to the soundtrack.Finishing off, she thanked the audience, and introduced the DJ, who, fittingly, began with Delia's "Dr. Who Theme."
I very much doubt if anywhere else in the country there was such a rapt audience on Saturday evening for three new, experimental music pieces; which in itself was a tribute, not just to Delia's influence, but to those who had been touched by her work. Audience, film maker, panellists and artists came together in what was a perfectly conceived day, and a tribute which, in an ideal world, Delia Derbyshire would have been alive to witness. Anyone in Liverpool, Sheffield or Newcastle this week should go along to one of the film/performance events completing the tour.
***
Post script: just thinking about the day again; and what an interesting audience it was - people I knew from various communities - arts, digital, academic contexts - and how it refutes my post from earlier in the day about our love of "mediocrity" - for here we have the opposite in some ways; a brave, sometimes thankless archeology of a figure that can't realistically be called either "major" or "minor." The audience for her work is always going to be small, so whereas an unreleased Michael Jackson album might sell millions, an unreleased Delia Derbyshire record would be in the 1000s at best. Yet I think its her role in electronic music that is so critical - for electronic music is part of a whole wider dialogue about our information age. There's a point in the film where she talks about being influenced by the sound of the bombs falling in Coventry. Is electronic music the sound of our modernity? It still polarises. There's direct link her to the futurists and surrealists; and personally, what I found interesting was the serendipity in her work - she had to discover new sounds to match the visual briefs she'd been given, and because they weren't there, she invented techniques. That technology has made the job easier doesn't mean that the quest for new sounds has ended. Its certainly been core to my own music over the years, and I think fuelled the artists on the Bedroom Cassette Masters compilation that I was recently asked to contribute to.What's interesting about Delia's work, is that it suggests a different direction for electronic music than the one it eventually took; often emotional, often dark, but always both inventive and empathic.
Derbyshire is an unusual cult figure in that her work was ubiquitous in homes throughout Britain, albeit virtually anonymously. Most famously, her treatment of Ron Grainger's "Dr. Who Theme", for which she was denied a songwriting credit (Grainger wanted her to have one, but it was against BBC policy.) Her name became better known towards the end of her life (she died in 2001), as cult artists like Sonic Boom, Broadcast and Stereolab, took inspiration from her early sonic experiments; yet even now very little of her music - primarily written for commission - is available; yet in the late 1960s she was already recognised as a pioneer of electronic music and her music appeared at "happenings" and art festivals.
The day started with Canadian film maker Kara Blake's short documentary, "The Delian Mode." A compact 25 minutes, its more like a film essay or visual tone poem than a traditional film; using Delia's music and words throughout to construct a portrait of her creative process. A deserved award-winner, its pulls up some great footage and audio. This was followed by a Q&A particularly focussing on the Delia Derbyshire archive which is now at the University of Manchester. Those in the packed audience hoping for some announcements about new Delia material were to be disappointed, as the archive process is a slow and painstaking one; as the tapes they had been left in Delia's loft for years, and any "context" for them was missing. There is also a BBC Radiophonic Workshop archive, looked after by Mark Ayres - and the story of the workshop, Delia's role in it, and the interest that remains in the both it and her have grown steadily over the years.
It was a shame that Teresa Winter was unable to be on the panel as advertised, as the Q&A did tend to the anecdotal; when, for me at least, it is Derbyshire's role in the musical avant garde of the late 60s that is of interest. Though a woman composer, contemporary music still appears to be far behind visual arts and literature in acknowledging female composition - and even in the Radiophonic workshop, the classically trained Derbyshire was renowned as much for her mathematical background as her musical one. Yet, at the time, through her extra-curricular work in White Noise and Unit Delta Plus, she was part of that late 60s avant garde that could find Yoko One, Paul McCartney, the Pink Floyd, Alan Ginsberg, Soft Machine, Cornelius Cardew and others at the same events, festivals and happenings. There is very little early electronic music available, as the only people who had access to the equipment were institutions, such as conservatoires and the BBC, and rock stars like George Harrison and Pete Townsend who were often "loaned" equipment. What fascinates about Delia's work though is that it pre-dates the synthesizer, and yet the principals that it uses, where the "science of sound" is so critical to the painstakingly constructed sound collages made with magnetic tapes, are what has attracted so much contemporary interest. The history of electronic music has several phases, and each phase has a unique sound and context. Therefore Delia was uninterested in the monolithic synths of the late 60s and early 70s, as falling short of the potential of her own experiments; whilst our contemporary sample-based culture, and cheap phrase-samplers and digital audio workstations approximates her world, but in a virtual space, without something of the serendipity that caused the unique sound of much of her work.
For when the question was asked about "why Delia?" its not just about her being one of the few women making experimental music in that era, or because she was one of a small number of electronic pioneers, but because the work she created had such a range (as one might expect for one working to commission) and yet was so clearly informed by a creativity and emotional sensitivity. In many ways, the things that have always plagued acceptance of electronic music: that its just button-pushing, that its repetitive, that its "cold", are all refuted in her work; and are testament to her genius.
Following the Q&A a "deep listening" session, with tracks both published and unpublished, gave us an opportunity to hear tracks that had inspired the three female artists who would be playing that evening, and who had put together the day. The freshness of the sound, even today, of music mostly recorded around 40 years ago, came crisply through the Band on the Wall's impressive sound system. Yet there's a real mystery to this music - which is ironic really, given it was written for mass public consumption via TV and radio - in that individual pieces from the archive are sometimes uncredited. Working with early synth, the VCS-3, a brilliant electronic pop track from the early 70s, is ten years too early; yet is it Delia? We don't know. To these ears it has some similarity to the experiments of Tonto's Expanding Head Band, but with a rhythmic presence which is something new. For the many tapes in the archive aren't all Delia, and there is a magpie nature to that early Radiophonic workshop work, as a "sound" used on Dr. Who might be re-used elsewhere, both inside and outside the BBC; yet they also add to our understanding of her process, meticulous, perfectionist, time-consuming.
The 2nd half of the day was in its own an equal revelation. Electronic musician Caro C, composer Ailís Ní Ríain and artist Naomi Kashiwagi, along with visuals by Kara Blake, formed the "Delia Darlings" and had used the archive as a jumping off point for three original pieces of work. Ailís Ní Ríain piece for double bass and trumpet took some themes from the remarkable Pot au Feu, and used them as a jumping off point; the sparse but rhythmic arrangements, and the unusual choice of instruments was more of a dialogue between the two women composers, than a conventional "cover". The artist Kashiwagi is renowned for her performances using ancient technology, old wind-up gramophones and 78RPM records. As an artist, rather than composer, her challenge was to create something new - in this case a piece of sound art based on an old jazz standard. Using samplers and software for the first time, although I didn't think the piece quite worked as the finished article, the techniques (with an overhead projection of Kashiwagi's turntablism) were interesting, and of the three peformers, perhaps offered the closest dialogue with Delia's compositional technique. It will be interesting to see how Kashiwagi extends or continues with these experiments. Caro C, finished the evening, with a long multi-modal electronic piece. As the only electronic musician its perhaps not a surprise that her engagement with Derbyshire seemed the deepest, for electronic music remains a genre with its own history, and an approach which is often different than traditional forms. Though her piece was a long, multi-part song-suite, there were clear echoes of Derbyshire's musical achievements, filtered, I think, through that historical view of electronic music of which she is such a part. Echoing Derbyshire's technique, Caro C used different everyday objects to create interesting sounds that were added live to the soundtrack.Finishing off, she thanked the audience, and introduced the DJ, who, fittingly, began with Delia's "Dr. Who Theme."
I very much doubt if anywhere else in the country there was such a rapt audience on Saturday evening for three new, experimental music pieces; which in itself was a tribute, not just to Delia's influence, but to those who had been touched by her work. Audience, film maker, panellists and artists came together in what was a perfectly conceived day, and a tribute which, in an ideal world, Delia Derbyshire would have been alive to witness. Anyone in Liverpool, Sheffield or Newcastle this week should go along to one of the film/performance events completing the tour.
***
Post script: just thinking about the day again; and what an interesting audience it was - people I knew from various communities - arts, digital, academic contexts - and how it refutes my post from earlier in the day about our love of "mediocrity" - for here we have the opposite in some ways; a brave, sometimes thankless archeology of a figure that can't realistically be called either "major" or "minor." The audience for her work is always going to be small, so whereas an unreleased Michael Jackson album might sell millions, an unreleased Delia Derbyshire record would be in the 1000s at best. Yet I think its her role in electronic music that is so critical - for electronic music is part of a whole wider dialogue about our information age. There's a point in the film where she talks about being influenced by the sound of the bombs falling in Coventry. Is electronic music the sound of our modernity? It still polarises. There's direct link her to the futurists and surrealists; and personally, what I found interesting was the serendipity in her work - she had to discover new sounds to match the visual briefs she'd been given, and because they weren't there, she invented techniques. That technology has made the job easier doesn't mean that the quest for new sounds has ended. Its certainly been core to my own music over the years, and I think fuelled the artists on the Bedroom Cassette Masters compilation that I was recently asked to contribute to.What's interesting about Delia's work, is that it suggests a different direction for electronic music than the one it eventually took; often emotional, often dark, but always both inventive and empathic.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
In Praise of Mediocrity
There are two ways in which art affects a culture. One is that the artist, never out of nowhere, but perhaps not widely known, does something that changes perception. It comes at you like a cataclysm, it is a "black swan", an unexpected thing - even if it is what were are looking for ("the next big thing.") Yes, its "Anarchy in the UK" or "Reservoir Dogs", or - as importantly, those works that prove the potential, take it to a next level: "Pulp Fiction" then; or "Money." In a dynamic culture we are always looking for this, and are more surprised if it doesn't occur than if it does. A brief lull in the culture is the vacuum in which the new art will shine. Nobody was expecting the Smiths or Tarantino but the culture wasn't surprised when they appeared; and, as importantly, had the structures in place (independent record labels; Sundance festival) to quickly adapt to the new dynamic.
The other way, is where the cultural actor (it could be an artist, but as I'll explain it could be someone else), is where we have invested our cultural interest to such an extent that we are primarily looking in that direction. The structures we have - and more than that, the "tastes" of the nation - are as predictable as a military parade in North Korea. When the "event" happens then we have already put in place the receiving mechanism. It will be anything except ignored. A healthier culture would not invest so much in these cultural bombs; but we are not a healthy culture - too much depends on respecting the status quo, and without a demographic, political or technological shift to signal the need for the new, we can do nothing other than offer faint praise for the mediocrity. This is the world where the BBC gave over so much of its programming to the launch of the (now forgotten) U2 album "No Line on the Horizon" that Andrew Marr referred to working for "the U2 Broadcasting corporation." (Get well soon, Andrew.) This is the world into which The Phantom Menace (and possibly The Hobbit) dropped; this is the world where "Be Here Now" is the fastest selling album ever, and this is the world where a mediocre, and possibly slightly strange portrait of an otherwise uninteresting person is front page news because she is married to the heir to the throne.
Its eminently possible that something culturally remarkable may have happened in the last few weeks, but our culture is now programmed to praise the mediocre to such an extent that it would not have the structures to do anything other. On a minor level, this is the Guardian only ever interviewing or reviewing poetry at any length when it has the imprimatur of Faber, Picador or Cape; it is the excitement over a new Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan or Martin Amis book; it is X-Factor, and the Olympics and the Premiership. It is, also, ironically, why there is such much interest in the new David Bowie single/album though his last real "hit" was nearly thirty years ago. For Bowie, like Tarantino, or "Star Wars" or Martin Amis has enough cultural capital to make any return, any return-to-form, anything not too dreadful, a welcome one. We praise the mediocre because it has a familiarity which has already been approved. Kate Middleton's (I have no idea what her real name is nowadays, the royals make these things up as they go along) portrait will be the most talked about work of visual art this year and it is an irrelevance whether it is good or bad. It is meant to be mediocre; it could not be anything else. Or rather, if it transcends its origins, (as a good soundtrack album might adorn a poor film), then it is an accident.
For wherever we look, the most important work - the most important cultural work - is happening outside of these media bursts; and despite the availability of everything on the internet and elsewhere, the mainstream press and television have to show a willingness to look beyond the expected if they are to remain valid. There seems, I think, to have been some abdication of responsibility - not helped by our utilitarian leaders - in an age where the mainstream is able to set the agenda almost immune to failure. When a film crashes it used to bring down a studio, but even an absolute turkey like 2012's "John Carter" brought in enough box office to cover its production budget (if not its real costs.) Of course, away from the mainstream there are many things that do bloom, but to go back to my previous posting, artists need to find a way to live, publishers need to be able to make enough money to survive and grow, and audiences need to be able to access less publicised work.
The critic doesn't become mute in an age of mediocrity, but he or she knows that his voice cannot be heard above the deafening mainstream. That an okay single by a great artist, and a mediocre portrait of a woman famous only for who she married, are our two cultural signifiers this week is a sign of the times we live in - and bloggers, writers, friends-on-Facebook, tweeters end up all becoming part of that conversation, even though this week and next my own cultural experiences encompass new electronic music, poetry launches, and experimental performances.
The other way, is where the cultural actor (it could be an artist, but as I'll explain it could be someone else), is where we have invested our cultural interest to such an extent that we are primarily looking in that direction. The structures we have - and more than that, the "tastes" of the nation - are as predictable as a military parade in North Korea. When the "event" happens then we have already put in place the receiving mechanism. It will be anything except ignored. A healthier culture would not invest so much in these cultural bombs; but we are not a healthy culture - too much depends on respecting the status quo, and without a demographic, political or technological shift to signal the need for the new, we can do nothing other than offer faint praise for the mediocrity. This is the world where the BBC gave over so much of its programming to the launch of the (now forgotten) U2 album "No Line on the Horizon" that Andrew Marr referred to working for "the U2 Broadcasting corporation." (Get well soon, Andrew.) This is the world into which The Phantom Menace (and possibly The Hobbit) dropped; this is the world where "Be Here Now" is the fastest selling album ever, and this is the world where a mediocre, and possibly slightly strange portrait of an otherwise uninteresting person is front page news because she is married to the heir to the throne.
Its eminently possible that something culturally remarkable may have happened in the last few weeks, but our culture is now programmed to praise the mediocre to such an extent that it would not have the structures to do anything other. On a minor level, this is the Guardian only ever interviewing or reviewing poetry at any length when it has the imprimatur of Faber, Picador or Cape; it is the excitement over a new Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan or Martin Amis book; it is X-Factor, and the Olympics and the Premiership. It is, also, ironically, why there is such much interest in the new David Bowie single/album though his last real "hit" was nearly thirty years ago. For Bowie, like Tarantino, or "Star Wars" or Martin Amis has enough cultural capital to make any return, any return-to-form, anything not too dreadful, a welcome one. We praise the mediocre because it has a familiarity which has already been approved. Kate Middleton's (I have no idea what her real name is nowadays, the royals make these things up as they go along) portrait will be the most talked about work of visual art this year and it is an irrelevance whether it is good or bad. It is meant to be mediocre; it could not be anything else. Or rather, if it transcends its origins, (as a good soundtrack album might adorn a poor film), then it is an accident.
For wherever we look, the most important work - the most important cultural work - is happening outside of these media bursts; and despite the availability of everything on the internet and elsewhere, the mainstream press and television have to show a willingness to look beyond the expected if they are to remain valid. There seems, I think, to have been some abdication of responsibility - not helped by our utilitarian leaders - in an age where the mainstream is able to set the agenda almost immune to failure. When a film crashes it used to bring down a studio, but even an absolute turkey like 2012's "John Carter" brought in enough box office to cover its production budget (if not its real costs.) Of course, away from the mainstream there are many things that do bloom, but to go back to my previous posting, artists need to find a way to live, publishers need to be able to make enough money to survive and grow, and audiences need to be able to access less publicised work.
The critic doesn't become mute in an age of mediocrity, but he or she knows that his voice cannot be heard above the deafening mainstream. That an okay single by a great artist, and a mediocre portrait of a woman famous only for who she married, are our two cultural signifiers this week is a sign of the times we live in - and bloggers, writers, friends-on-Facebook, tweeters end up all becoming part of that conversation, even though this week and next my own cultural experiences encompass new electronic music, poetry launches, and experimental performances.
Sunday, January 06, 2013
Work and Writing
Back in November, Robert McCrum's Observer column talked about "writers with other careers." I didn't blog about it at the time as I was far too busy, yes, with my working life. Its an interesting subject and I wanted to go back to it, in part because, he conflates several different things here: the writer (a psychologist for instance) whose work gives them an additional insight; the poet who is glad to have a day-job as something to do; and the writer (Beryl Bainbridge) who also paints. Almost all of his examples are from the distant past, yet in an age when "work" has become a totem, and any interesting jobs are apparently being test-driven by unpaid interns, it's an important subject.
Most writers I know work. They certainly don't make much from their writing but more often than not, their writing, the thing they are best at, is - at least peripherally - at the centre of their work: whether its teaching, training, copywriting or journalism. But again, I don't think this is what McCrum is talking about. He's talking about "other jobs." I've been surprised how many poets I know seem to be based in the academy, either as creative writing tutors or teaching poetry. Three friends have recently started PhDs in contemporary poetry, and its this conflation of writer-researcher-teacher which seems to have become the default model. An obituary for the Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll, makes much of his working life as a civil servant: "in the civil service you are assigned a grade. You know your status." It's kind of pleasing to read; since as someone who's always combined a non-literary job (currently in local government) with writing I have to say that it's often got puzzled looks from both sides. Within work, its seen as a quirk, a hobby, but not without its benefits (I once got asked to write a poem for an article), though its not something I'd tend to mention if I was going for a promotion. (Local government doesn't really go for quirks.) Its actually outside of work that I've had the most problem: where I've sometimes got the impression that I'm not really a writer, because I've got a day job.
What a day job does give is some other experience - though whether I write any more about offices than say someone who works from home every day is a moot point. In my case the travel I've undertaken over the last few years has fed into poems, and into the fiction I've recently started, as I've combined work meetings all over Europe with a bit of location scouting. What of course it doesn't give you is time. Nick Laird, also in yesterday's Guardian, talks about missing work - paid, non-literary work, that is - "it was lovely to work on a team and feel that the work you are doing is important" he says of his lawyer's life, but the contemporary professional has to do such long hours that it precludes anything else it seems. That, I think, is the rub. No wonder (young) writers work for minimum wage in bus shops and bars, the temporary hours allowing them time to write; the mundane work often allowing them to dream and even read. Yet, Laird's poetry - unlike O'Driscoll's it seems - is not overly concerned with the world of work: but with what he saw from his window growing up in Northern Ireland. Work, it seems, even exciting work, doesn't always have an easy translation into poetry or fiction; but then again why should it?
Yet, writers need more than Virginia Woolf's "room of one's own", they need money, they need publication, they need something other than splendid isolation. Like Laird, I've always done a professional job, as I've figured if I'm going to work at non-literary stuff then I should at least get a decent salary with it; yet there's also been compromise there: I'm certainly one of the lowest paid of my university group, as I've changed careers several times, and moved from the private to the public sector. For myself, its less the level of renumeration that matters; but the demands that the job has on you. There seems little room for the liberal arts in the coalition's grand plan for UK PLC, and though free university, or living off the dole, inevitably aren't going to come back any time shortly, we have to find some ways - as individuals, as society - for creative people to work AND live. I wasn't the only one shocked to hear that Factory musician Vini Reilly had got into financial difficulties struggling to pay "food, rent and electricity". This is in Manchester, where politicians and civil servants can't open their mouths without mentioning Factory records' legacy. Musicians, it turns out, and probably writers as well, aren't necessarily the best business people.
I guess in a time of austerity, it may seem ridiculous to wonder how we should fund artists, but at the same time, each of us who is creative makes our own deal. For some, like Laird, its an opportunity cost, I guess - for even if his literary life isn't massively lucrative, it's at least got profile and publication; and he understands too well the "deal" in terms of time and achievement. A literary figure with legal experience might be just what the age requires after all. For others, its about "buying" time - and for all the talk of more flexible work places, we don't seem to have moved on much from the seventies. (I couldn't easily take a sabbatical, for instance, and expect my job to be still there when I returned.) And for others, its about the wider culture, that will pay for teaching and for appearing on Radio 4, even if it's reluctant to pay for writers to just write. Yet, these routes are often closed off or (from what friends tell me) seeing a reduction in hours or hourly rate; or, equally as damaging, mostly open to those with certain profiles or talents. (A talent for writing doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to be articulate on Front Row or the Late Review.)
None of this is a case for special pleading; but one way or another writers need to find what suits them and allows them to both write and live; and perhaps a little more understanding how difficult that can sometimes be.
Most writers I know work. They certainly don't make much from their writing but more often than not, their writing, the thing they are best at, is - at least peripherally - at the centre of their work: whether its teaching, training, copywriting or journalism. But again, I don't think this is what McCrum is talking about. He's talking about "other jobs." I've been surprised how many poets I know seem to be based in the academy, either as creative writing tutors or teaching poetry. Three friends have recently started PhDs in contemporary poetry, and its this conflation of writer-researcher-teacher which seems to have become the default model. An obituary for the Irish poet Dennis O'Driscoll, makes much of his working life as a civil servant: "in the civil service you are assigned a grade. You know your status." It's kind of pleasing to read; since as someone who's always combined a non-literary job (currently in local government) with writing I have to say that it's often got puzzled looks from both sides. Within work, its seen as a quirk, a hobby, but not without its benefits (I once got asked to write a poem for an article), though its not something I'd tend to mention if I was going for a promotion. (Local government doesn't really go for quirks.) Its actually outside of work that I've had the most problem: where I've sometimes got the impression that I'm not really a writer, because I've got a day job.
What a day job does give is some other experience - though whether I write any more about offices than say someone who works from home every day is a moot point. In my case the travel I've undertaken over the last few years has fed into poems, and into the fiction I've recently started, as I've combined work meetings all over Europe with a bit of location scouting. What of course it doesn't give you is time. Nick Laird, also in yesterday's Guardian, talks about missing work - paid, non-literary work, that is - "it was lovely to work on a team and feel that the work you are doing is important" he says of his lawyer's life, but the contemporary professional has to do such long hours that it precludes anything else it seems. That, I think, is the rub. No wonder (young) writers work for minimum wage in bus shops and bars, the temporary hours allowing them time to write; the mundane work often allowing them to dream and even read. Yet, Laird's poetry - unlike O'Driscoll's it seems - is not overly concerned with the world of work: but with what he saw from his window growing up in Northern Ireland. Work, it seems, even exciting work, doesn't always have an easy translation into poetry or fiction; but then again why should it?
Yet, writers need more than Virginia Woolf's "room of one's own", they need money, they need publication, they need something other than splendid isolation. Like Laird, I've always done a professional job, as I've figured if I'm going to work at non-literary stuff then I should at least get a decent salary with it; yet there's also been compromise there: I'm certainly one of the lowest paid of my university group, as I've changed careers several times, and moved from the private to the public sector. For myself, its less the level of renumeration that matters; but the demands that the job has on you. There seems little room for the liberal arts in the coalition's grand plan for UK PLC, and though free university, or living off the dole, inevitably aren't going to come back any time shortly, we have to find some ways - as individuals, as society - for creative people to work AND live. I wasn't the only one shocked to hear that Factory musician Vini Reilly had got into financial difficulties struggling to pay "food, rent and electricity". This is in Manchester, where politicians and civil servants can't open their mouths without mentioning Factory records' legacy. Musicians, it turns out, and probably writers as well, aren't necessarily the best business people.
I guess in a time of austerity, it may seem ridiculous to wonder how we should fund artists, but at the same time, each of us who is creative makes our own deal. For some, like Laird, its an opportunity cost, I guess - for even if his literary life isn't massively lucrative, it's at least got profile and publication; and he understands too well the "deal" in terms of time and achievement. A literary figure with legal experience might be just what the age requires after all. For others, its about "buying" time - and for all the talk of more flexible work places, we don't seem to have moved on much from the seventies. (I couldn't easily take a sabbatical, for instance, and expect my job to be still there when I returned.) And for others, its about the wider culture, that will pay for teaching and for appearing on Radio 4, even if it's reluctant to pay for writers to just write. Yet, these routes are often closed off or (from what friends tell me) seeing a reduction in hours or hourly rate; or, equally as damaging, mostly open to those with certain profiles or talents. (A talent for writing doesn't mean that you're necessarily going to be articulate on Front Row or the Late Review.)
None of this is a case for special pleading; but one way or another writers need to find what suits them and allows them to both write and live; and perhaps a little more understanding how difficult that can sometimes be.
Friday, January 04, 2013
The Space Between Things by Charlie Hill
Charlie Hill's debut novel, "The Space Between Things" (Indigo Dreams), is set in one of those almost forgotten times, the early 90s John Major administration, where, for a brief moment, rave culture looked up from the dancefloor and the pills and became political. Arch is an all too typical boheme of the time, sat in his cheap digs in Moseley in Birmingham, smoking dope and partying as part of an ever shifting demi monde. It's that time in a person's life when responsibility hasn't intruded, when it's possible to believe that dope, music and squatting might be a true alternative to the 9-to-5. At a party he meets Vee, and his eyes are opened, albeit briefly, to another life. For whilst he is casual, Vee is serious, and yet they seem made for each other. When she goes off, almost as quickly as they've met, and then disappears for several months to a war-torn Balkans where she's taking photographs of potential war crimes, Arch has a slow coming-of-age.
The dawning of his own political views is a gradual one, and less to do with his pining for Vee, than the brutality that him and his friends encounter following a week long rave at Castle Morton. Between the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays dropping E in1989 and the rise of Britpop, there were a brief few years, when a strange fusion of hippy politics and dance culture fused together. In the grey years of the Major administration, road protestors and techno hippies, travellers and ravers, briefly became public enemy one, and the Criminal Justice Bill was rushed through parliament outlawing public gatherings with the playing of "regular beats." It is this millieu, almost written out of any pop cultural histories that I've read recently (certainly with none of the nostalgia of Britpop or grunge), that Charlie Hill so eloquently maps. For Arch is a bit of a poet-philosopher despite a can't be arse attitude that is typical of both the times and the place. There's hardly been any fictions that have looked at squat culture - Doris Lessing's "The Good Terrorist" from a decade earlier is the one that comes to mind - and this debut has some of the shambolic nature of that culture. Arch is sort-of an unreliable narrator in that we only get a partial view of the world. The Castle Morton rave is just another party to him and it's only afterwards that it becomes a big deal. The ne'er-do-wells who he shares a flat with are dropouts and drug casualties and drifters, and his loyalty to their wellbeing is somewhat less than that of a friend, but more than that of a stranger.
When Vee returns, the love story that frames the novel, begins in earnest. That they only existed as an idea before, a one night stand that is turned into a great love in Arch's mind, works up to a point, but she has returned from a horror that she won't even talk about to find Arch is no longer the loveable comic doper, but is putting his energies into this newly politicised scene. Yet, having come from a real civil war, Vee is exasperated to find that the only thing that has got this generation up in arms is freedom for the right to party!
Hill is excellent on the minutiae of this millieu, and the pre-regeneration, pre-internet of Britain's inner cities is nicely brought back to life. He's also very funny, although there are times when Arch's stream-of-consciousness telling of the tale reads verbatim. The short chapters help us whizz through the seasons, yet we're never entirely convinced by the love affair at the heart of things. There's so much veracity in the story, that one wonders a little at where the fiction begins and ends, and Arch and Vee's initial meeting is told in retrospect and doesn't entirely convince. That said, for a novel of near-contemporary events its fascinating to re-read the recent past. I'm suddenly puzzled as to why road building was the issue du jour of the traveller community - it seems parochial in the extreme! We rarely go beyond the squat culture of Moseley and Arch remains a somewhat inert presence as he takes us through the deteriorations of his community and his relationship, but that's perhaps inevitable given the looking-back nature of the novel.
Like Max Schaeffer's recent "Children of the Sun", Hill finds a wealth of material in a slightly forgotten recent subcultural world, and it brought back memories of going to see Back to the Planet, Chumbawumba and Megadog. But I was a tourist in this world, for by 1994 the illegal party scene was no more, and the traveller convoys were no longer in the news. A different nineties, disconnected from a drug subculture that briefly got political, was about to begin.
The dawning of his own political views is a gradual one, and less to do with his pining for Vee, than the brutality that him and his friends encounter following a week long rave at Castle Morton. Between the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays dropping E in1989 and the rise of Britpop, there were a brief few years, when a strange fusion of hippy politics and dance culture fused together. In the grey years of the Major administration, road protestors and techno hippies, travellers and ravers, briefly became public enemy one, and the Criminal Justice Bill was rushed through parliament outlawing public gatherings with the playing of "regular beats." It is this millieu, almost written out of any pop cultural histories that I've read recently (certainly with none of the nostalgia of Britpop or grunge), that Charlie Hill so eloquently maps. For Arch is a bit of a poet-philosopher despite a can't be arse attitude that is typical of both the times and the place. There's hardly been any fictions that have looked at squat culture - Doris Lessing's "The Good Terrorist" from a decade earlier is the one that comes to mind - and this debut has some of the shambolic nature of that culture. Arch is sort-of an unreliable narrator in that we only get a partial view of the world. The Castle Morton rave is just another party to him and it's only afterwards that it becomes a big deal. The ne'er-do-wells who he shares a flat with are dropouts and drug casualties and drifters, and his loyalty to their wellbeing is somewhat less than that of a friend, but more than that of a stranger.
When Vee returns, the love story that frames the novel, begins in earnest. That they only existed as an idea before, a one night stand that is turned into a great love in Arch's mind, works up to a point, but she has returned from a horror that she won't even talk about to find Arch is no longer the loveable comic doper, but is putting his energies into this newly politicised scene. Yet, having come from a real civil war, Vee is exasperated to find that the only thing that has got this generation up in arms is freedom for the right to party!
Hill is excellent on the minutiae of this millieu, and the pre-regeneration, pre-internet of Britain's inner cities is nicely brought back to life. He's also very funny, although there are times when Arch's stream-of-consciousness telling of the tale reads verbatim. The short chapters help us whizz through the seasons, yet we're never entirely convinced by the love affair at the heart of things. There's so much veracity in the story, that one wonders a little at where the fiction begins and ends, and Arch and Vee's initial meeting is told in retrospect and doesn't entirely convince. That said, for a novel of near-contemporary events its fascinating to re-read the recent past. I'm suddenly puzzled as to why road building was the issue du jour of the traveller community - it seems parochial in the extreme! We rarely go beyond the squat culture of Moseley and Arch remains a somewhat inert presence as he takes us through the deteriorations of his community and his relationship, but that's perhaps inevitable given the looking-back nature of the novel.
Like Max Schaeffer's recent "Children of the Sun", Hill finds a wealth of material in a slightly forgotten recent subcultural world, and it brought back memories of going to see Back to the Planet, Chumbawumba and Megadog. But I was a tourist in this world, for by 1994 the illegal party scene was no more, and the traveller convoys were no longer in the news. A different nineties, disconnected from a drug subculture that briefly got political, was about to begin.
Thursday, January 03, 2013
Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolano
Imagine a scabrous British poet (were such an individual to exist) writing a pseudo-novel positing an imagined alternate history of 20th century right wing literature, interweaving a motley collection of murderers and madmen alongside the existing canon, complete with scholarly footnotes and bibliography, it is likely, I think, that it would never see the light of day. Yet, this is exactly what we hope for and expect from a posthumously translated novel by Roberto Bolano, the Chilean writer who died in 2003 before his unexpected Western success.
"Nazi Literatures in the Americas" has one of the most arresting titles in recent fiction, and yet its not some clever device, it really does describe the novel's contents. Bolano has written an alternate literary history of the American continent (primarily focussed on South America, but with some entries for the North) which also acts as a compelling alternate history of that troubled continent. We've tended to think of radical literature in terms of the "left", whether its counter-cultural writers or utopian leftists, yet Bolano reminds us, through this dark satire, that much of the 20th century was blemished by various fascisms, and that the repressive regimes of the Americas were rarely communist, but led by powerful juntas whose role models, more often than not, could be found in the now-discredited Nazi Germany. It creates quite a jolt for a western reader; and one remembers half-forgotten stories of Argentina being a haven for Nazis after the war, and of the right-wing juntas (frequently supported, at least tacitly, by the U.S.) that have so often militarised the politics of that continent.
Yet, by writing a history of imagined "Nazi Literature", Bolano cleverly highlights how art and culture can exist in even the most oppressive of regimes, and how absurd the idea of a "Nazi Literature" actually is. For the "brief lives" described in this entertaining selection of short biographies, covers a continent with misanthropic literary losers, writing dark tracts in isolation, creating phantom presses, publishing houses and magazines that disseminate a certain kind of right-wing literature. Its only a novel in the loosest sense of the word, but hangs together as a succession of connected anecdotes or stories. The structure is that of popular criticism, chapters on "North American Poets", "Magicians, Mercenaries and Miserable Creatures" and "Wandering Women of Letters," with pen portraits running from a page to many, and an epilogue consisting of a bibliography and extended list of "secondary figures." In this book, Bolano takes great delight in documenting a series of monstrous literary follies that one can only be glad don't exist, but which would make perfect sense in a right wing canon. From epic poems, to memoirs, to small poetry sequences, to experimental manifestoes, Bolano's litany of writers cover ever conceivable genre. Yet the tone throughout is always satirical. Books are released "to little impact"; novelists and poets disappear for years at a time; magazines and publishing houses appear almost as ghosts. The longest story in the book, the final one, about "The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman" sees Bolano himself make an appearance. It appears to be the touchstone story of the book - (perhaps the first written? or at least the key to what has come before) - where a notorious murderer-poet is more myth than man, yet Bolano is tasked to find him, both in the pseudonyms he may have used to write his work and in real life. I do wonder how well we are served in the translation here, and in other stories, as these tales are fabular ones in many ways, and at times it feels like we are losing some of the archness and directness of the stories in their translation to English.
Beyond this pen portrait of the novel, its difficult to analyse in great depth - the allusions to writers and scenes are probably packed with the actual literary history of the continent, and there may well be antecedents to many of these misanthropes, yet it is enough, I think, to appreciate Bolano's deadpan humour. These writers are literary archetypes of the worst kind. They strive away for years in their madness; their life stories are full of death, despair and destruction; their career trajectories are those of madmen and monsters; yet this all makes some kind of cruel, satirical sense. Each is given a birth date and death date - even those outliving the author - and we cross a continent, with Argentinians, Mexicans, Chileans, even North Americans. As a kind of richly comic literary tableaux it even works, in some ways, as a novel, though its clever structure, and Bolano's dark humour make it a genuine one-off.
"Nazi Literatures in the Americas" has one of the most arresting titles in recent fiction, and yet its not some clever device, it really does describe the novel's contents. Bolano has written an alternate literary history of the American continent (primarily focussed on South America, but with some entries for the North) which also acts as a compelling alternate history of that troubled continent. We've tended to think of radical literature in terms of the "left", whether its counter-cultural writers or utopian leftists, yet Bolano reminds us, through this dark satire, that much of the 20th century was blemished by various fascisms, and that the repressive regimes of the Americas were rarely communist, but led by powerful juntas whose role models, more often than not, could be found in the now-discredited Nazi Germany. It creates quite a jolt for a western reader; and one remembers half-forgotten stories of Argentina being a haven for Nazis after the war, and of the right-wing juntas (frequently supported, at least tacitly, by the U.S.) that have so often militarised the politics of that continent.
Yet, by writing a history of imagined "Nazi Literature", Bolano cleverly highlights how art and culture can exist in even the most oppressive of regimes, and how absurd the idea of a "Nazi Literature" actually is. For the "brief lives" described in this entertaining selection of short biographies, covers a continent with misanthropic literary losers, writing dark tracts in isolation, creating phantom presses, publishing houses and magazines that disseminate a certain kind of right-wing literature. Its only a novel in the loosest sense of the word, but hangs together as a succession of connected anecdotes or stories. The structure is that of popular criticism, chapters on "North American Poets", "Magicians, Mercenaries and Miserable Creatures" and "Wandering Women of Letters," with pen portraits running from a page to many, and an epilogue consisting of a bibliography and extended list of "secondary figures." In this book, Bolano takes great delight in documenting a series of monstrous literary follies that one can only be glad don't exist, but which would make perfect sense in a right wing canon. From epic poems, to memoirs, to small poetry sequences, to experimental manifestoes, Bolano's litany of writers cover ever conceivable genre. Yet the tone throughout is always satirical. Books are released "to little impact"; novelists and poets disappear for years at a time; magazines and publishing houses appear almost as ghosts. The longest story in the book, the final one, about "The Infamous Ramirez Hoffman" sees Bolano himself make an appearance. It appears to be the touchstone story of the book - (perhaps the first written? or at least the key to what has come before) - where a notorious murderer-poet is more myth than man, yet Bolano is tasked to find him, both in the pseudonyms he may have used to write his work and in real life. I do wonder how well we are served in the translation here, and in other stories, as these tales are fabular ones in many ways, and at times it feels like we are losing some of the archness and directness of the stories in their translation to English.
Beyond this pen portrait of the novel, its difficult to analyse in great depth - the allusions to writers and scenes are probably packed with the actual literary history of the continent, and there may well be antecedents to many of these misanthropes, yet it is enough, I think, to appreciate Bolano's deadpan humour. These writers are literary archetypes of the worst kind. They strive away for years in their madness; their life stories are full of death, despair and destruction; their career trajectories are those of madmen and monsters; yet this all makes some kind of cruel, satirical sense. Each is given a birth date and death date - even those outliving the author - and we cross a continent, with Argentinians, Mexicans, Chileans, even North Americans. As a kind of richly comic literary tableaux it even works, in some ways, as a novel, though its clever structure, and Bolano's dark humour make it a genuine one-off.
Wednesday, January 02, 2013
New Years Resolutions
Wasn't going to write any resolutions, but the blog was looking a bit bereft with "zero posts" in the 2013 category and my early visit to the shops has been curtailed by a late get-up.And actually these aren't resolutions as scuh - more dichotomies - and I need to move the slider along the line a bit.
1. Work-life balance: this has to change a bit. I hardly took any holiday in 2012, but with work I went abroad 12 times. Great fun and experience, but each trip tends to lead to it being a 60 hour week, as though I can claim time back, I've not had the time to claim it back. So, one way or another, need to make sure I take more holidays/days oweing or cut down on the demands of the job.
2. Books v Space. This is an ongoing battle, and currently the books I buy are almost going straight into boxes ne'er to be seen again, which is a bit pointless, or else creating tottering towers of words, which daunt me even when I think "what shall I read next?" Though I've got a Nook now, I'm not sure it will have much impact on my hardback love. So, I either need more space (move to a bigger flat/house), or less books. Rightmove it is then.
3. Music v Fiction. I've written very little fiction in 2012, but have recorded over 40 songs. During 1999-2006 I wrote very few songs, but several novels and lots of short stories. There's not an exact correlation but time spent on music takes away from time spent on writing fiction. The key factor is "time" of course. Poems I squeeze in regardless (though they do take other types of time, writing time, emotional time.) So with the 2012 music project finished, I probably need to not just promise to write more, but also to record less. (This relates to 1. above - as you need extended time to write fiction.)
4. Laptop v Desktop. I'm still desktop, but to do more, to be more mobile, even to take some time away from the internet to write etc. will probably need me getting a laptop. I have a bit of a phobia of portable devices in that I don't find they actually add much to my life - they seem more like toys than anything else. The ease of putting a CD on still seems easier than burning all my CDs to PC then deciding which ones to download to an MP3 player etc. But, I've just bought a Nook, and it has made me read more on the move - so I guess some thought needs to go into my portable productivity. The desktop has probably got a year or more still in it though, so don't think its going anywhere yet (and if I upgrade from Windows XP most of my software won't work more than likely.)
5. Ottolenghi v KFC. Not that I go to KFC very often - once a quarter I'd reckon these days - but neither do I cook that much either. I got Ottolenghi's Jerusalem for Xmas, so cooking a bit more, a bit better, is something I want to do. Used to cook a lot, and like recipe books, but got lazy (or too busy), both to cook and shop for the ingredients. So more Ottolenghi (or Nigel Slater or whoever) and less crap food on the run.
6. Poetry v Fiction. Difficult one. In one of my periods of self-analysis, aided by a bit of literary life coaching, I realised that I have a tendency to move from one project to another when one thing is finished - not a bad thing in itself but sometimes the projects would be in totally different art forms. Good for the soul etc. but not that good for self definition. So I wrote short stories, when I was trying to get a novel published, talked about starting a fiction magazine when I'd just had a poetry collection out. D.H. Lawrence never got this kind of brand confusion - you were allowed to be varied back then, but unless you've "made it" (hello Damon Albarn), you're now expected to stay right where you are, which makes it much easier for the world to ignore you, I think. So its not an either or with poetry or fiction, more a case of "don't give up when the going get's tough." So, today Jeremy, I'm still predominantly a poet, and I'm not giving that hard-fought epithet lightly, at least not when my new stuff's pretty good. But I'd like to write another novel...oh crumbs....
7. Twitter v Facebook. Not really. I've always been catholic with my social media, though find them less compelling than I used to Great for social connection (hello Facebook poets) and for finding out stuff (hello Twitter link bait) but my suspicions that they are not exactly revolutions, but evolutions seems to be coming true. But I guess though my job requires me to "keep up", I've not really "kept up" with Path or Google plus or Instagram or whatever the latest thing might be. If data is the new oil, then to be honest, the pipes are already there; other things are likely to be mere add-ons. But given that I'm not taking these platforms too seriously, a New Years Resolution should be to not to take them too seriously. Twitter rage is a real phenomenon and drowns out real debate. Ignore or block.
8. Literature v Literature. Not a dichotomy even. I don't really read much that isn't literature, one way or another. Fifty Shades of Harry Potter will have to wait until my dotage when I can only consume mush, I guess. But literature's a broad enough church I think. However, the "must read" list gets longer, and with tired eyes I don't read half as much as I'd like. So, New Year's resolution of traditional kind: read more.
9. Dance v Rock. I joked a while back that nobody's wrote a song called "Rock and Disco" and its true - I've always veered between the two. White boys doing funk has always been a pleasure (up to a point), and the most vibrant times in music are when different types of music go cheek and jowl, whether its Miles Davis and the Allman Brothers, The Clash and roots reggae, or New Order meeting Arthur Baker. Internet availability seems to have made everyone happy with their genre and not willing to explore. But, to be honest, in a world of David Guetta, and Pitchfork approved college rock, a bit more rock in 2012 per-lease....
10. 2013 v 2014. Is this a year for now or a year for preparing the ground for the next now? I'm a bit live for the day, really, it tends to make me a bit happier - and I can fret about the future as much as anyone. However, there's a sense that decisions I make this year might have longevity; so a bit more future-planning wouldn't go amiss right now. Isn't that what resolutions are about anyway?
1. Work-life balance: this has to change a bit. I hardly took any holiday in 2012, but with work I went abroad 12 times. Great fun and experience, but each trip tends to lead to it being a 60 hour week, as though I can claim time back, I've not had the time to claim it back. So, one way or another, need to make sure I take more holidays/days oweing or cut down on the demands of the job.
2. Books v Space. This is an ongoing battle, and currently the books I buy are almost going straight into boxes ne'er to be seen again, which is a bit pointless, or else creating tottering towers of words, which daunt me even when I think "what shall I read next?" Though I've got a Nook now, I'm not sure it will have much impact on my hardback love. So, I either need more space (move to a bigger flat/house), or less books. Rightmove it is then.
3. Music v Fiction. I've written very little fiction in 2012, but have recorded over 40 songs. During 1999-2006 I wrote very few songs, but several novels and lots of short stories. There's not an exact correlation but time spent on music takes away from time spent on writing fiction. The key factor is "time" of course. Poems I squeeze in regardless (though they do take other types of time, writing time, emotional time.) So with the 2012 music project finished, I probably need to not just promise to write more, but also to record less. (This relates to 1. above - as you need extended time to write fiction.)
4. Laptop v Desktop. I'm still desktop, but to do more, to be more mobile, even to take some time away from the internet to write etc. will probably need me getting a laptop. I have a bit of a phobia of portable devices in that I don't find they actually add much to my life - they seem more like toys than anything else. The ease of putting a CD on still seems easier than burning all my CDs to PC then deciding which ones to download to an MP3 player etc. But, I've just bought a Nook, and it has made me read more on the move - so I guess some thought needs to go into my portable productivity. The desktop has probably got a year or more still in it though, so don't think its going anywhere yet (and if I upgrade from Windows XP most of my software won't work more than likely.)
5. Ottolenghi v KFC. Not that I go to KFC very often - once a quarter I'd reckon these days - but neither do I cook that much either. I got Ottolenghi's Jerusalem for Xmas, so cooking a bit more, a bit better, is something I want to do. Used to cook a lot, and like recipe books, but got lazy (or too busy), both to cook and shop for the ingredients. So more Ottolenghi (or Nigel Slater or whoever) and less crap food on the run.
6. Poetry v Fiction. Difficult one. In one of my periods of self-analysis, aided by a bit of literary life coaching, I realised that I have a tendency to move from one project to another when one thing is finished - not a bad thing in itself but sometimes the projects would be in totally different art forms. Good for the soul etc. but not that good for self definition. So I wrote short stories, when I was trying to get a novel published, talked about starting a fiction magazine when I'd just had a poetry collection out. D.H. Lawrence never got this kind of brand confusion - you were allowed to be varied back then, but unless you've "made it" (hello Damon Albarn), you're now expected to stay right where you are, which makes it much easier for the world to ignore you, I think. So its not an either or with poetry or fiction, more a case of "don't give up when the going get's tough." So, today Jeremy, I'm still predominantly a poet, and I'm not giving that hard-fought epithet lightly, at least not when my new stuff's pretty good. But I'd like to write another novel...oh crumbs....
7. Twitter v Facebook. Not really. I've always been catholic with my social media, though find them less compelling than I used to Great for social connection (hello Facebook poets) and for finding out stuff (hello Twitter link bait) but my suspicions that they are not exactly revolutions, but evolutions seems to be coming true. But I guess though my job requires me to "keep up", I've not really "kept up" with Path or Google plus or Instagram or whatever the latest thing might be. If data is the new oil, then to be honest, the pipes are already there; other things are likely to be mere add-ons. But given that I'm not taking these platforms too seriously, a New Years Resolution should be to not to take them too seriously. Twitter rage is a real phenomenon and drowns out real debate. Ignore or block.
8. Literature v Literature. Not a dichotomy even. I don't really read much that isn't literature, one way or another. Fifty Shades of Harry Potter will have to wait until my dotage when I can only consume mush, I guess. But literature's a broad enough church I think. However, the "must read" list gets longer, and with tired eyes I don't read half as much as I'd like. So, New Year's resolution of traditional kind: read more.
9. Dance v Rock. I joked a while back that nobody's wrote a song called "Rock and Disco" and its true - I've always veered between the two. White boys doing funk has always been a pleasure (up to a point), and the most vibrant times in music are when different types of music go cheek and jowl, whether its Miles Davis and the Allman Brothers, The Clash and roots reggae, or New Order meeting Arthur Baker. Internet availability seems to have made everyone happy with their genre and not willing to explore. But, to be honest, in a world of David Guetta, and Pitchfork approved college rock, a bit more rock in 2012 per-lease....
10. 2013 v 2014. Is this a year for now or a year for preparing the ground for the next now? I'm a bit live for the day, really, it tends to make me a bit happier - and I can fret about the future as much as anyone. However, there's a sense that decisions I make this year might have longevity; so a bit more future-planning wouldn't go amiss right now. Isn't that what resolutions are about anyway?
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Last Post (of the year)
It's been a bit of a year for me; hardly had time to catch my breath. I realised this, having been at home for a few days. I've been working so hard on new projects at work, that have also took me away a lot. I'm grateful for the opportunity to have gone to (deep breath), Bologna, Warsaw, Krakow, Istanbul, Helsinki, Amsterdam, Belfast, Berlin, Brussels, and Ghent this year; but its taken up a lot of time and its only taking stock at Christmas that I realise how much. I've hardly seen any films, or gone to any bands, or even read that many books, never mind any bigger things, like buy a house.
Creatively its been okay, though. The opportunities to read my poetry haven't been quite so many - and I can't believe its a year since we finished the Salt Modern Voices tour - but there have been a few, and I've also got involved in quite a few mixed media type events which have been interesting. I like performing, but perhaps more when its part of the art, rather than to promote the art (e.g. a book.) That said, I didn't have much published during the year, just a couple of poems, in the excellent Pussy Riot anthology, Catechism, and in the latest issue of the Rialto (wth a mention on the cover, no less!) of my poem "Beauty."
Not that I've been idle. I've probably written more poems this year, and more that I'm pleased with, than for a decade. Part of this I think is having spent time as part of the NW Poets group, organised by Lindsey Holland. Pleasingly, the group's first anthology will be due in 2013, with a couple more poems from myself included.
I've also been very busy musically, as I mentioned in a previous post, with a series of 12 cassette singles - some 47 tracks - being "released" online during the year, making it my most prolific year musically since 1989. The best tracks from this series will be compiled on an album early in the new year, but can all be downloaded or listened to anyway at my online music site.
My own art is not to be seen in isolation of course, as I've always felt that I belong to a cultural millieu, to which I react, and with which I occasionally engage. From going to see gigs such as Dexy's Midnight Runners, Grimes and Laetitia Sadler; to attending festivals like FutureEverything, Flatpack Festival and Abandon Normal Devices, there's something quite porous between my own artistic practice, and the cultural life here in Manchester in particular.
The Pussy Riot book was published using print-on-demand and available as an e-book and this year was the year when such things came of age. I wonder a little about the publishing industry, whether its now relying too much on small presses, start up ventures, and self-publishing to act as an A&R, or worse still, whether it only takes notice of such ventures when the books make a splash in the traditional places (e.g. a Booker listing.) Poetry in particular seems to have endless vibrant tributaries, yet the main rivers are slow-moving and slow to absorb what's happening elsewhere. Maybe its a bit much to expect literature to have its punk rock/YBA moment so late in the day, but it seems that it might happen some time - maybe 2013?
So, on 30th December, no new years resolutions just yet, particularly as the fundamental things for next year are so fragile. Like everyone else where I work, I've been offered voluntary redundancy, which speaks clearly of the problems everyone in the public sector is facing - even if my projects are funded for another year or so - one wonders what comes next? There's certainly no reassuring noises coming from Central Government. I've now been in Manchester for longer than I lived in Staffordshire, which is some milestone of sorts- given I lived there from the day I was born until I left for university - and if its imprinted on my life, it doesn't feel that permanent. I've begun to write about it, in a series of poems that I'm currently putting together - and that's one resolution for 2013 - to get those, at least, published in some form or other (get in touch if you're a publisher who might be interested in seeing them!)
Art and culture have always been political statements to my mind, and this will get more so, even if the most political poems and stories often aren't the most explicit ones. Yet, as Pussy Riot showed, a cultural act can quickly become a political and then a human act. The 21st century is only just beginning to show its characteristics, and just as Modernism only really came through in the 2nd decade of last century, I think the ramifications of our information society are yet to find themselves clearly articulated in the art and literature of the day. Again, 2013, may well surprise us.
Creatively its been okay, though. The opportunities to read my poetry haven't been quite so many - and I can't believe its a year since we finished the Salt Modern Voices tour - but there have been a few, and I've also got involved in quite a few mixed media type events which have been interesting. I like performing, but perhaps more when its part of the art, rather than to promote the art (e.g. a book.) That said, I didn't have much published during the year, just a couple of poems, in the excellent Pussy Riot anthology, Catechism, and in the latest issue of the Rialto (wth a mention on the cover, no less!) of my poem "Beauty."
I've also been very busy musically, as I mentioned in a previous post, with a series of 12 cassette singles - some 47 tracks - being "released" online during the year, making it my most prolific year musically since 1989. The best tracks from this series will be compiled on an album early in the new year, but can all be downloaded or listened to anyway at my online music site.
My own art is not to be seen in isolation of course, as I've always felt that I belong to a cultural millieu, to which I react, and with which I occasionally engage. From going to see gigs such as Dexy's Midnight Runners, Grimes and Laetitia Sadler; to attending festivals like FutureEverything, Flatpack Festival and Abandon Normal Devices, there's something quite porous between my own artistic practice, and the cultural life here in Manchester in particular.
The Pussy Riot book was published using print-on-demand and available as an e-book and this year was the year when such things came of age. I wonder a little about the publishing industry, whether its now relying too much on small presses, start up ventures, and self-publishing to act as an A&R, or worse still, whether it only takes notice of such ventures when the books make a splash in the traditional places (e.g. a Booker listing.) Poetry in particular seems to have endless vibrant tributaries, yet the main rivers are slow-moving and slow to absorb what's happening elsewhere. Maybe its a bit much to expect literature to have its punk rock/YBA moment so late in the day, but it seems that it might happen some time - maybe 2013?
So, on 30th December, no new years resolutions just yet, particularly as the fundamental things for next year are so fragile. Like everyone else where I work, I've been offered voluntary redundancy, which speaks clearly of the problems everyone in the public sector is facing - even if my projects are funded for another year or so - one wonders what comes next? There's certainly no reassuring noises coming from Central Government. I've now been in Manchester for longer than I lived in Staffordshire, which is some milestone of sorts- given I lived there from the day I was born until I left for university - and if its imprinted on my life, it doesn't feel that permanent. I've begun to write about it, in a series of poems that I'm currently putting together - and that's one resolution for 2013 - to get those, at least, published in some form or other (get in touch if you're a publisher who might be interested in seeing them!)
Art and culture have always been political statements to my mind, and this will get more so, even if the most political poems and stories often aren't the most explicit ones. Yet, as Pussy Riot showed, a cultural act can quickly become a political and then a human act. The 21st century is only just beginning to show its characteristics, and just as Modernism only really came through in the 2nd decade of last century, I think the ramifications of our information society are yet to find themselves clearly articulated in the art and literature of the day. Again, 2013, may well surprise us.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Hauntology
I read an article on the Beatles one time, I think it was Greil Marcus, but may be wrong, where the writer made the case that the Beatles were actually their own antecedents: that the band playing in Hamburg in the late 50s, writing their own songs as callow teenagers, long before they'd met Brian Epstein, were actually peers of the early rock and rollers. He's a little right and a little wrong, I think. There's a fast transmission mechanism in music; and if you're around at the right time with the right influences - say, rockabilly quiff in 1957, a stash of LSD in 1967 or a battered guitar and an attitude in 1977 - then there's not a long distance from seeing the Pistols, say, and becoming the Pistols.
I first wrote/recorded a song in 1982, when I was 15, though I'd probably had tunes in my head and lyrics in my school book for years before. The music I liked - electronic music such as Kraftwerk, OMD, Soft Cell and Human League - was way beyond my suburban imagination, I don't think anyone in my class realised that some of these bands had been plugging away for years. But more important than the influences was the availability of cheap equipment. From the Casio VL-Tone which appeared on Top of the Pops (Trio's "Da Da Da") almost as soon as it appeared in the Kays Catalogue; to proper fully featured synthesizers. But I wasn't the only entranced by both the sounds and the possibilities of the cheap synth. It appears that in bedroom's the country long, people were swapping guitar aspiration for synth love and then with a quick press of the record button and a smidgin of imagination creating their own electronica.
Fast forward 30 years and the internet makes eveything available. So I was both surprised and not when a guy called Simon Holland approached me with the idea of an internet album consisting of electronica from that era. I contributed a track called "Exit to Maya" from 1987 to what has now evolved into a beautifully presented compilation called "Bedroom Cassette Masters."
In the excellent download insert, he talks about what Simon Reynolds - in his book "Retromania" - has referred to as "hauntology" - a music that has a ghostly imprint of the music from the past. So though some of the tracks on BCM are originals uploaded from compact cassettes, others have the sound of that era. Listen and download, its a lovely selection.
Thinking of my own music and how it fits in, I'm not sure I've ever been as close to the zeitgeist as I am now - which is kind of weird given that I've been recording music for around 30 years. To celebrate this "milestone" during 2012, I set myself a task to record a monthly cassette single - and with December coming to a close I'm just finishing off the 12th in the set, featuring the Christmas song "Christmas in Siberia"
.Its been a fascinating project recording over 40 tracks in a year; taking inspiration from stuff I've done before or hearing sounds around me that I've tried to emulate. All of this would be recognisable to my 15 year old self, I think, perhaps inevitable when I'm using a very similar instrument set up as all those years ago. Yet listening to my favourite albums of 2012 - I hear a familiar electronic palate in Grimes or Chromatics - and wonder where those thirty years have gone. In the New Year I'll be "releasing" an album featuring the "best" tracks from the cassette singles series.
One thought is that I might look at some more collaborative stuff in 2013 - as I very much enjoyed a few "live" events during 2012 where my poetry and music lives began to merge a little. There's some interest in Manchester for a joint electronic "jam" session - putting together an album in a day. We'll see what happens. If interested leave a comment or email me at adrian dot slatcher at gmail dot com.
I first wrote/recorded a song in 1982, when I was 15, though I'd probably had tunes in my head and lyrics in my school book for years before. The music I liked - electronic music such as Kraftwerk, OMD, Soft Cell and Human League - was way beyond my suburban imagination, I don't think anyone in my class realised that some of these bands had been plugging away for years. But more important than the influences was the availability of cheap equipment. From the Casio VL-Tone which appeared on Top of the Pops (Trio's "Da Da Da") almost as soon as it appeared in the Kays Catalogue; to proper fully featured synthesizers. But I wasn't the only entranced by both the sounds and the possibilities of the cheap synth. It appears that in bedroom's the country long, people were swapping guitar aspiration for synth love and then with a quick press of the record button and a smidgin of imagination creating their own electronica.
Fast forward 30 years and the internet makes eveything available. So I was both surprised and not when a guy called Simon Holland approached me with the idea of an internet album consisting of electronica from that era. I contributed a track called "Exit to Maya" from 1987 to what has now evolved into a beautifully presented compilation called "Bedroom Cassette Masters."
In the excellent download insert, he talks about what Simon Reynolds - in his book "Retromania" - has referred to as "hauntology" - a music that has a ghostly imprint of the music from the past. So though some of the tracks on BCM are originals uploaded from compact cassettes, others have the sound of that era. Listen and download, its a lovely selection.
Thinking of my own music and how it fits in, I'm not sure I've ever been as close to the zeitgeist as I am now - which is kind of weird given that I've been recording music for around 30 years. To celebrate this "milestone" during 2012, I set myself a task to record a monthly cassette single - and with December coming to a close I'm just finishing off the 12th in the set, featuring the Christmas song "Christmas in Siberia"
 | ||
| 2012's cassette singles from Jan-Nov. December coming soon. |
One thought is that I might look at some more collaborative stuff in 2013 - as I very much enjoyed a few "live" events during 2012 where my poetry and music lives began to merge a little. There's some interest in Manchester for a joint electronic "jam" session - putting together an album in a day. We'll see what happens. If interested leave a comment or email me at adrian dot slatcher at gmail dot com.
Friday, December 21, 2012
A Hard Year
It's felt like a hard year. It has gone fast, but there's been little time for reflection. The culture of anxiety that is a distinct policy objective each time the Conservative party gets into power, has gone into overdrive. They want us all to be afraid that we might lose our jobs; they want our institutions to be both valued for cutting staff to create "efficiencies", and to be as equally anxious. Rarely, and certainly more than most other places in Europe, has power been so centralised. We see it time and again. The decision to spend precious police resources on the storm-in-a-Tory-teacup "plebgate", against the lack of prosecutions for the illegal fraud that the banks perpetuated on the Libor rate; the de-coupling of the welfare benefit system from any reality so that those with disabilities aren't judged on their real condition but on an arbitrary system that would be more at home in a Polish ghetto; and most of all in the corporate coup that has taken over not just much of Britain, but much of Europe, with EU territories such as "Luxembourg" or "Jersey" creating tax holes that can help corporates escape billions in tax, and fiascos such as the rail franchising system and the continuing disaster of PFI, where the systems have been designed as if to maximise the vulnerability of the public sector in order for the fake mantra of free trade (fake because these companies hate fair competition) to be the only thing we hear.
In a year of Olympic triumph it might seem that the crass dismantling of our better natures, begun by Thatcher, and continued by Cameron and Clegg, hasn't yet happened. Yet all the Olympics told us was that a publicly funded stable system that rewarded real excellence (regardless of class) and was fully resourced could be a triumph. For after all, lets not beat ourselves up, Britain has often excelled, despite, rather than because of its leaders and its institutions. But cracks are already showing. There seems a quiescence among the struggling young. The DIY art culture of the 70s has come back a little, helped by all these empty bars and shops which can no longer guarantee a puprose, yet University numbers are down, the effect of that debt culture is yet to be seen; I'm seeing arts and literature and music at a grass roots level, shrivelling up after the initial enthusiasm fails, with a time-rich but cash-poor artistic audience looking at the artificially high rents and house prices, and the low salaries offered in 2012 Northern Britain, and wondering where they go with this? There needs to be a massive redistribution, as Heseltine suggested, from central government to the regions, and then there has to be redistribution from our failing institutions to the grass roots. Yet I'm not seeing any political discussion about these things. The need for economic growth - with its false leveraging of debts above investment as "investment grade" financial instruments - comes at a price. The flow of people and goods is now destroying whatever bit of localism that had managed to gain ground.
Art and culture are as worldwide a market as precious metals or scarce foods, yet we were once - and still are - rich in them. Yet you wouldn't think so, listening to our politicians, who explain everything but understand nothing. The lie that Labour caused our debts through overspending is exposed by the coalition's own "blaming" of the lack of growth on crises in Europe and elsewhere; yet world growth has been growing again.
And, if the Olympics distracted us, and we could be accused of navel-gazing on our own first world problems - most of our own making - I don't think any of us with any compassion went through the year entirely comfortably about what was happening in the wider world. The ongoing murder of civilians in Syria, the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the late year massacre in gun-crazed America, the repression of free speech on the internet, including here and in the US, but also the remarkable women of Pussy Riot. This world remains adept at flinging more problems on top of those it already has, apparently intractably. And yet amidst all the swivel-eyed loathing, the somewhat battered President Obama made it to a second term, which like with Tony Blair's time in power, is the period when difference can really be made (and lets hope he doesn't embark on any disatrous wars); the Olympics showed that whether competitor, volunteer or audience, the British always know how to throw a party (unlike most politicians; they may have "Ok-d" it but the booing of George Osborne must have been one of the highlights of the year); and elsewhere millions of us continue to the best in a difficult situation. Unlikely as it is that we'll overthrow the rentier class any time soon, but Leveson and Uncut and public debate (though rarely, this year, the diminished BBC), at least have the power to embarass them occasionally.
Not yet over, but I've finished work for the year, and intend to have a couple of weeks of reflection myself.
In a year of Olympic triumph it might seem that the crass dismantling of our better natures, begun by Thatcher, and continued by Cameron and Clegg, hasn't yet happened. Yet all the Olympics told us was that a publicly funded stable system that rewarded real excellence (regardless of class) and was fully resourced could be a triumph. For after all, lets not beat ourselves up, Britain has often excelled, despite, rather than because of its leaders and its institutions. But cracks are already showing. There seems a quiescence among the struggling young. The DIY art culture of the 70s has come back a little, helped by all these empty bars and shops which can no longer guarantee a puprose, yet University numbers are down, the effect of that debt culture is yet to be seen; I'm seeing arts and literature and music at a grass roots level, shrivelling up after the initial enthusiasm fails, with a time-rich but cash-poor artistic audience looking at the artificially high rents and house prices, and the low salaries offered in 2012 Northern Britain, and wondering where they go with this? There needs to be a massive redistribution, as Heseltine suggested, from central government to the regions, and then there has to be redistribution from our failing institutions to the grass roots. Yet I'm not seeing any political discussion about these things. The need for economic growth - with its false leveraging of debts above investment as "investment grade" financial instruments - comes at a price. The flow of people and goods is now destroying whatever bit of localism that had managed to gain ground.
Art and culture are as worldwide a market as precious metals or scarce foods, yet we were once - and still are - rich in them. Yet you wouldn't think so, listening to our politicians, who explain everything but understand nothing. The lie that Labour caused our debts through overspending is exposed by the coalition's own "blaming" of the lack of growth on crises in Europe and elsewhere; yet world growth has been growing again.
And, if the Olympics distracted us, and we could be accused of navel-gazing on our own first world problems - most of our own making - I don't think any of us with any compassion went through the year entirely comfortably about what was happening in the wider world. The ongoing murder of civilians in Syria, the escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the late year massacre in gun-crazed America, the repression of free speech on the internet, including here and in the US, but also the remarkable women of Pussy Riot. This world remains adept at flinging more problems on top of those it already has, apparently intractably. And yet amidst all the swivel-eyed loathing, the somewhat battered President Obama made it to a second term, which like with Tony Blair's time in power, is the period when difference can really be made (and lets hope he doesn't embark on any disatrous wars); the Olympics showed that whether competitor, volunteer or audience, the British always know how to throw a party (unlike most politicians; they may have "Ok-d" it but the booing of George Osborne must have been one of the highlights of the year); and elsewhere millions of us continue to the best in a difficult situation. Unlikely as it is that we'll overthrow the rentier class any time soon, but Leveson and Uncut and public debate (though rarely, this year, the diminished BBC), at least have the power to embarass them occasionally.
Not yet over, but I've finished work for the year, and intend to have a couple of weeks of reflection myself.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Prose Style
There was a time when I cared about prose style; more than that, I cared about it more than anything else in literature. I've been thinking about this lately; as I wonder about starting writing some fiction again; and what book to read next. Like I used to care about music being "the best", its not that I don't anymore, rather than it seems further away from ever. You watch X-Factor and there are some talented people on there - albeit mostly in the big set pieces accompanying the contestants - or see a live band; or - like tonight watch Masterchef, and there's so much to admire about the striving to be better. Yet, there's something else I think, which is kind of missing at the moment - not that it is missing, necessarily - but its missing from my life. The "caring" for exceptional writing; at what point did I give up looking? At what point did I stop trying to emulate it?
For there's something brave about the best writing - it's not just words on page, not even just sense and story, but something more than that; words carved from the granite; and I guess the further we are from having read anything that reaches those heights, the more important and vital it actually seems - yet its not that we just want writers like (as an example) DeLillo or Roth at their best - but want that talent to be turned on the times in which we live; that in fact to write a relevant prose for our times is actually to write a brilliant prose for our times; that it's not enough to think we live in degraded times, or to emulate the best writing of the past; we need a writing that does a job today. I'm thinking its not that the prose itself is impossible; but that sometimes it seems that it is the trying that is impossible. The over praising of somewhat style-less books, or writers who are clearly extremely talented but writing as if the last twenty, fifty or hundred years hasn't happened. Not sure where I'm going with this other than a sense of thinking: yes, it's still worth fighting for, looking for; and that the other things that writing can do - telling a story, making us laugh, whatever... - are valuable but its the other that matters. In the dullness of the everyday, in the bright shining light of other artforms - whether HBO drama, or some internet pyrotechnics - words on page can still be the most remarkable of currencies. We have devalued the coinage if we forget this.
For there's something brave about the best writing - it's not just words on page, not even just sense and story, but something more than that; words carved from the granite; and I guess the further we are from having read anything that reaches those heights, the more important and vital it actually seems - yet its not that we just want writers like (as an example) DeLillo or Roth at their best - but want that talent to be turned on the times in which we live; that in fact to write a relevant prose for our times is actually to write a brilliant prose for our times; that it's not enough to think we live in degraded times, or to emulate the best writing of the past; we need a writing that does a job today. I'm thinking its not that the prose itself is impossible; but that sometimes it seems that it is the trying that is impossible. The over praising of somewhat style-less books, or writers who are clearly extremely talented but writing as if the last twenty, fifty or hundred years hasn't happened. Not sure where I'm going with this other than a sense of thinking: yes, it's still worth fighting for, looking for; and that the other things that writing can do - telling a story, making us laugh, whatever... - are valuable but its the other that matters. In the dullness of the everyday, in the bright shining light of other artforms - whether HBO drama, or some internet pyrotechnics - words on page can still be the most remarkable of currencies. We have devalued the coinage if we forget this.
Monday, December 10, 2012
The Other Room
Even though the Other Room frequently features three performers from the more experimental end of the poetry spectrum, its rare that you can find more than cursory connections between them. On the surface, Alec Newman, Nat Raha and Seekers of Lice (actually a solo artist, called, I think, Anne), hadn't much in common either but coincidentally all read sequences, and had some element of the improvisational in work that was otherwise very structured.
Alec is the publishing phenomenon that is Knives, Forks and Spoons press, but as host Tom Jenks reminded us he first "met Alec as a poet." Our first sequence of the evening was a sombre one; as Alec, pulling random prose sections from a brown envelope read testimony from the Lodz ghetto. It was a surprisingly effective mechanism. The horror of the ghettos, and the move from containment to expulsion and extermination of the Jews, is our very own descent into Hell. By telling the story at random - interspersing the speech of the ghetto "elder" Rumkowski with that of the survivors - our "descent" is fractured, and somehow the horror of even the smallest decisions is amplified. These found texts have their own poetry of course; their own monotony - (the banality of horror?) - but Newman's approach, which didn't interpolate meaning in any way other than his matter-of-fact delivery, stopped this short of the language feeling appropriated. In the end, we are listening to the horror, and reflecting on it.
Nat Raha read several pieces, both before and after a break, the majority of which was newer work. There is a fractured lexicon to Nat's work which occasionally (live, rather than on the page), strays into confusion, but more often seems jagged with meaning. What that meaning is is less certain - this is a provisional art in some ways; provisional on our engagement with it, and free somewhat of context, whereas Newman's work felt more tentative, its meaning certain, but its execution asking us questions. In certain pieces, the density of language, its slightly academic complexity creates a veneer that is occasionally impenetrable, but mostly something comes through, whether its queer theory; contemporary political anger (in a strong poem castigating the coalition, dedicated to Sean Bonney), or language itself (in an anti-sonnet sequence that will be published in 2013.) The best performance piece had Nat and a friend reading a simultaneous poem, where there voices, even more matter-of-fact than Alec, combined effectively, reminiscent of the vocal collage of the Velvet Underground's "The Murder Mystery"; not surprisingly these pieces had been written for a tribute to Sonic Youth, and the final poem used their lyricals to early classic "Youth Against Fascism."
When a performer is billed as "seekers of lice" one didn't quite know what to expect. But Seekers of Lice, a tall, quietly spoken woman, was more art than performance, though the quietly effective nature of her performance had its own power over the room. Reading short prose aphorisms from a stack of cards that she let fall beside her, the same random element that we'd found with Alec came into play. The writing was occasionally funny, sometimes personal and anecdotal, occasionally simple but decorative. This felt like a distant sister of Stein's "Tender Buttons." When artists engage with words, there's sometimes an over-simplicity that makes you wonder about their choice of medium, but Seekers of Lice read her somewhat oblique strategies in a way that made you want to seek them out on the page. The second piece, was a new sequence where she was accompanied by a slideshow of equally oblique images, some photographs being close-up shots of banal objectives; others being slightly mis-shot street scenes that were almost animated for three or four slides of the view from a slightly different angle; others being blank sheets of colour. The piece ended with a rich red, a calming end to a piece that was both calming and unsettling, her quiet words again offering something off a fractured narrative, and like Greenaway's not entirely dissimilar "Drowning by Numbers", having a sequence to it. Perhaps the most tentative of the works this evening, it was also my favourite.
Alec is the publishing phenomenon that is Knives, Forks and Spoons press, but as host Tom Jenks reminded us he first "met Alec as a poet." Our first sequence of the evening was a sombre one; as Alec, pulling random prose sections from a brown envelope read testimony from the Lodz ghetto. It was a surprisingly effective mechanism. The horror of the ghettos, and the move from containment to expulsion and extermination of the Jews, is our very own descent into Hell. By telling the story at random - interspersing the speech of the ghetto "elder" Rumkowski with that of the survivors - our "descent" is fractured, and somehow the horror of even the smallest decisions is amplified. These found texts have their own poetry of course; their own monotony - (the banality of horror?) - but Newman's approach, which didn't interpolate meaning in any way other than his matter-of-fact delivery, stopped this short of the language feeling appropriated. In the end, we are listening to the horror, and reflecting on it.
Nat Raha read several pieces, both before and after a break, the majority of which was newer work. There is a fractured lexicon to Nat's work which occasionally (live, rather than on the page), strays into confusion, but more often seems jagged with meaning. What that meaning is is less certain - this is a provisional art in some ways; provisional on our engagement with it, and free somewhat of context, whereas Newman's work felt more tentative, its meaning certain, but its execution asking us questions. In certain pieces, the density of language, its slightly academic complexity creates a veneer that is occasionally impenetrable, but mostly something comes through, whether its queer theory; contemporary political anger (in a strong poem castigating the coalition, dedicated to Sean Bonney), or language itself (in an anti-sonnet sequence that will be published in 2013.) The best performance piece had Nat and a friend reading a simultaneous poem, where there voices, even more matter-of-fact than Alec, combined effectively, reminiscent of the vocal collage of the Velvet Underground's "The Murder Mystery"; not surprisingly these pieces had been written for a tribute to Sonic Youth, and the final poem used their lyricals to early classic "Youth Against Fascism."
When a performer is billed as "seekers of lice" one didn't quite know what to expect. But Seekers of Lice, a tall, quietly spoken woman, was more art than performance, though the quietly effective nature of her performance had its own power over the room. Reading short prose aphorisms from a stack of cards that she let fall beside her, the same random element that we'd found with Alec came into play. The writing was occasionally funny, sometimes personal and anecdotal, occasionally simple but decorative. This felt like a distant sister of Stein's "Tender Buttons." When artists engage with words, there's sometimes an over-simplicity that makes you wonder about their choice of medium, but Seekers of Lice read her somewhat oblique strategies in a way that made you want to seek them out on the page. The second piece, was a new sequence where she was accompanied by a slideshow of equally oblique images, some photographs being close-up shots of banal objectives; others being slightly mis-shot street scenes that were almost animated for three or four slides of the view from a slightly different angle; others being blank sheets of colour. The piece ended with a rich red, a calming end to a piece that was both calming and unsettling, her quiet words again offering something off a fractured narrative, and like Greenaway's not entirely dissimilar "Drowning by Numbers", having a sequence to it. Perhaps the most tentative of the works this evening, it was also my favourite.
Sunday, December 02, 2012
Albums of the Year 2012
Albums of the year lists come earlier every year it seems, and chances are I've not yet heard 2012's best records (I only discovered Nicholas Jaar's wonderful album after those lists came out last year) Anyway, here's a partial attempt at listing records that have made an impression on me.
Born to Die - Lana Del Rey
There are 3 versions of the album now, mine's the original tight selection. Our thoughts that Lana was some kind of cult artist readymade for David Lynch film didn't quite lend to the reality - which is this is the best Madonna-like pop album for years, as aspirational and sparkly as "Like a Virgin", and as polished as "Ray of Light." So Lana Del Rey has morphed into a real pop star rather than a cult artist's approximation of one. If nothing's quite as poised as "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" the tracks we knew her for, teen anthems "This is what makes us girls" and "National Anthem" are not far behind, but are pure pop confectionary.
Visions - Grimes
I was played the single "Oblivion" and its minimalistic catchiness seeped into my brain - so that I picked up the CD and went to see her. Mushroomed in popularity, you felt that she should be playing somewhere smaller and more intimate than the Ritz, and the stage show hadn't quite grown with her increased success - that said, the intricacies of the album sounded even better live. Are these cult songs that are inadvertently poppy or pop songs that are cleverly draped in experimentation? A little of both, I think. Grimes has stumbled on something genuinely new and original- retro electronica and echoes of 80s new wave fused into something new. Its an album that you keep wanting to play all the way through, but individual songs all have their own character.
Tonight I'm Gonna Soar - Dexys
I was never a massive Dexys fan - but I took a punt on this returning album and was glad I did - a brilliant suite of understated mature love songs, with a tasteful soul backing - its a heartfelt mini opera, that has Kevin Rowland's sometimes thin voice carefully massaged by the classical country-soul band interpreting the songs. Again, the songs came alive when played live, as a "suite" of songs - half stage show, half musical - but the dynamic range is there on the record as well.
The Allah Las - The Allah Las
A late addition to my list - the Allah Las are like the perfect 1965 bar band that never really existed - surf guitar, mod licks, beat band rhythms - its unashamedly retro, as if waiting for a Tarantino film to be featured in - but somehow such pop classicism seems perfectly times for late 2012. Anyone who liked the early stomp of the Small Faces, the Action, the Rolling Stones of "Aftermath" and pre-Pepper Beatles, will find room for this lovely debut in their collection.
Until the Quiet Comes - Flying Lotus
How could Flying Lotus follow the immense originality of "Cosmogramma"? If that was a hip hop record in only the vaguest sense, oweing as much to sampledelic pioneers like DJ Shadow and the Avalanches, his new album is a quiet, more evenly stated thing - and none the worse for it. Its as much a jazz record as anything else - but again genre is defied - this is the jazz of late Miles Davis, 1980s Herbie Hancock and Spearhead but with a remarkable amount of sonic invention throughout. Again, an album for playing all the way through, its charms take a listen or two, but its worth taking the time.
Banga - Patti Smith
Her first album of original material since 2004's excellent "Trampin'" its a perfectly honed record that plays to all Smith's strengths: there's poetry, quietude, yearning, loss, and beauty. The CD was beautifully presented in a "book" edition, but the contents is what's important - and its a really consistent record that can stand up with any of her latterday work, and even echoes some of her unimpeachable seventies material.
The Cherry Thing - Neneh Cherry and the Thing
Neneh Cherry always seemed a bit of an accidental pop star, after all her father was Don Cherry, and she was part of the avant jazz post punk madness that was Rip, Rig and Panic. This album came out of the blue - mostly covers, with the European jazz band The Thing, it reinterprets the Stooges "Dirt" and most remarkably Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" but never seems a gimmick - rather you feel that this is the music Cherry's meant to be singing.
Sun - Cat Power
Its been an incredibly female-friendly year, and I almost missed that there was a new Cat Power album out - and then when I got it, didn't play it for a while. Perhaps I wondered whether she could live up to "The Greatest". Its a very different record. She's ditched the Nashville country-soul licks, for a more varied instrumentation, that returns a little to her indie roots, but as ever with Cat Power its the expressiveness of her voice and the quality of her songs - whether her own, as on here, or her interpretations - that really matters, and its a consummate collection. Like the Grimes album this is a record that is a "singer songwriter" album only in name; it finds new ways of constructing songs that seems to have inhaled the example of some of the more left-field acts out there.She even has Iggy joining her on the epic Heroes-echoing "Nothin But Time."
Ill Manors - Plan B
When the video and single "Ill Manors" came out earlier in the year it felt like a direct response to the 2011 riots and was hailed as a "Ghost Town" for the era. Ben Drew, aka Plan B, is a very modern star though, and almost at that stage where critical acclaim or not hardly matters. He appears on adverts, sings and raps, has appeared in his first self-directed film to which this is a kind of soundtrack, he even gets the grizzled legend that is John Cooper Clarke to guest with him... and he has hit records. "Ill Manors" the song is probably the heaviest record to make the top 5 all year, and its sonic template is repeated throughout the album, a modern industrial rap record, both a world away from his soulful breakthrough on "The Defamation of Strickland Banks" and entirely at one with it.
But it would be wrong to sum up 2012 based just on artist albums as two other things during the year were worthy of mention. Isle of Wonders, the Danny Boyle/Underworld soundtrack to the Olympic opening ceremony was stunning, and the double CD acts as a welcome reminder of that expressive event. Arctic Monkeys, Mike Oldfield and Vangelis's Chariots of Fire make the oddest claim to "Britishness" but two phenomenal Underworld tracks, the 17 minutes "And I will kiss" and the beautiful "Caliban's Dream" mean its a necessary addition to any collection. Secondly, contemporary R&B remained the soundtrack to the year - even if its now near impossible to separate the well-tooled pop, rock and R&B tracks, often constructed by the same producers or the same songwriters. Oft-derided Coldplay deserve serious kudos for being the one rock band that still goes head-to-head with the pop acts in the chart, and the discordant, no-chorus wonder of their Rihanna collaboration "Princess of China" was one of the year's oddest hits. As for R&B/pop music, the best tracks were unstoppable. Alex Clare's "Too Close" has the heaviest electronic chorus since "Firestarter", Azealia Banks' "212" raises expectations for this new artist, and Rudimental's "Feel the Love" and Rihanna's "Where have you been?" are wonders of the modern studio. More left field was Zebra Katz's minimalist psychothriller "Imma Read".
Born to Die - Lana Del Rey
There are 3 versions of the album now, mine's the original tight selection. Our thoughts that Lana was some kind of cult artist readymade for David Lynch film didn't quite lend to the reality - which is this is the best Madonna-like pop album for years, as aspirational and sparkly as "Like a Virgin", and as polished as "Ray of Light." So Lana Del Rey has morphed into a real pop star rather than a cult artist's approximation of one. If nothing's quite as poised as "Video Games" and "Blue Jeans" the tracks we knew her for, teen anthems "This is what makes us girls" and "National Anthem" are not far behind, but are pure pop confectionary.
Visions - Grimes
I was played the single "Oblivion" and its minimalistic catchiness seeped into my brain - so that I picked up the CD and went to see her. Mushroomed in popularity, you felt that she should be playing somewhere smaller and more intimate than the Ritz, and the stage show hadn't quite grown with her increased success - that said, the intricacies of the album sounded even better live. Are these cult songs that are inadvertently poppy or pop songs that are cleverly draped in experimentation? A little of both, I think. Grimes has stumbled on something genuinely new and original- retro electronica and echoes of 80s new wave fused into something new. Its an album that you keep wanting to play all the way through, but individual songs all have their own character.
Tonight I'm Gonna Soar - Dexys
I was never a massive Dexys fan - but I took a punt on this returning album and was glad I did - a brilliant suite of understated mature love songs, with a tasteful soul backing - its a heartfelt mini opera, that has Kevin Rowland's sometimes thin voice carefully massaged by the classical country-soul band interpreting the songs. Again, the songs came alive when played live, as a "suite" of songs - half stage show, half musical - but the dynamic range is there on the record as well.
The Allah Las - The Allah Las
A late addition to my list - the Allah Las are like the perfect 1965 bar band that never really existed - surf guitar, mod licks, beat band rhythms - its unashamedly retro, as if waiting for a Tarantino film to be featured in - but somehow such pop classicism seems perfectly times for late 2012. Anyone who liked the early stomp of the Small Faces, the Action, the Rolling Stones of "Aftermath" and pre-Pepper Beatles, will find room for this lovely debut in their collection.
Until the Quiet Comes - Flying Lotus
How could Flying Lotus follow the immense originality of "Cosmogramma"? If that was a hip hop record in only the vaguest sense, oweing as much to sampledelic pioneers like DJ Shadow and the Avalanches, his new album is a quiet, more evenly stated thing - and none the worse for it. Its as much a jazz record as anything else - but again genre is defied - this is the jazz of late Miles Davis, 1980s Herbie Hancock and Spearhead but with a remarkable amount of sonic invention throughout. Again, an album for playing all the way through, its charms take a listen or two, but its worth taking the time.
Banga - Patti Smith
Her first album of original material since 2004's excellent "Trampin'" its a perfectly honed record that plays to all Smith's strengths: there's poetry, quietude, yearning, loss, and beauty. The CD was beautifully presented in a "book" edition, but the contents is what's important - and its a really consistent record that can stand up with any of her latterday work, and even echoes some of her unimpeachable seventies material.
The Cherry Thing - Neneh Cherry and the Thing
Neneh Cherry always seemed a bit of an accidental pop star, after all her father was Don Cherry, and she was part of the avant jazz post punk madness that was Rip, Rig and Panic. This album came out of the blue - mostly covers, with the European jazz band The Thing, it reinterprets the Stooges "Dirt" and most remarkably Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" but never seems a gimmick - rather you feel that this is the music Cherry's meant to be singing.
Sun - Cat Power
Its been an incredibly female-friendly year, and I almost missed that there was a new Cat Power album out - and then when I got it, didn't play it for a while. Perhaps I wondered whether she could live up to "The Greatest". Its a very different record. She's ditched the Nashville country-soul licks, for a more varied instrumentation, that returns a little to her indie roots, but as ever with Cat Power its the expressiveness of her voice and the quality of her songs - whether her own, as on here, or her interpretations - that really matters, and its a consummate collection. Like the Grimes album this is a record that is a "singer songwriter" album only in name; it finds new ways of constructing songs that seems to have inhaled the example of some of the more left-field acts out there.She even has Iggy joining her on the epic Heroes-echoing "Nothin But Time."
Ill Manors - Plan B
When the video and single "Ill Manors" came out earlier in the year it felt like a direct response to the 2011 riots and was hailed as a "Ghost Town" for the era. Ben Drew, aka Plan B, is a very modern star though, and almost at that stage where critical acclaim or not hardly matters. He appears on adverts, sings and raps, has appeared in his first self-directed film to which this is a kind of soundtrack, he even gets the grizzled legend that is John Cooper Clarke to guest with him... and he has hit records. "Ill Manors" the song is probably the heaviest record to make the top 5 all year, and its sonic template is repeated throughout the album, a modern industrial rap record, both a world away from his soulful breakthrough on "The Defamation of Strickland Banks" and entirely at one with it.
But it would be wrong to sum up 2012 based just on artist albums as two other things during the year were worthy of mention. Isle of Wonders, the Danny Boyle/Underworld soundtrack to the Olympic opening ceremony was stunning, and the double CD acts as a welcome reminder of that expressive event. Arctic Monkeys, Mike Oldfield and Vangelis's Chariots of Fire make the oddest claim to "Britishness" but two phenomenal Underworld tracks, the 17 minutes "And I will kiss" and the beautiful "Caliban's Dream" mean its a necessary addition to any collection. Secondly, contemporary R&B remained the soundtrack to the year - even if its now near impossible to separate the well-tooled pop, rock and R&B tracks, often constructed by the same producers or the same songwriters. Oft-derided Coldplay deserve serious kudos for being the one rock band that still goes head-to-head with the pop acts in the chart, and the discordant, no-chorus wonder of their Rihanna collaboration "Princess of China" was one of the year's oddest hits. As for R&B/pop music, the best tracks were unstoppable. Alex Clare's "Too Close" has the heaviest electronic chorus since "Firestarter", Azealia Banks' "212" raises expectations for this new artist, and Rudimental's "Feel the Love" and Rihanna's "Where have you been?" are wonders of the modern studio. More left field was Zebra Katz's minimalist psychothriller "Imma Read".
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Now's the Season to be Poetic.
The Christmas markets may be open and the John Lewis adverts on rotation, but there's also quite a lot of poetry things going on in the NW at the moment. Earlier in the week, I was pleased I was able to make the 2nd Manchester Poets for Pussy Riot event organised by Richard Barrett. Richard had been instrumental in getting so many NW poets to contribute to the excellent English PEN anthology Poets for Pussy Riot which is available as an eBook and print on demand. My poem "Her Jazz for Pussy Riot" made the explicit link with 90s Riot Grrrl, and Richard had read it out on my behalf last time.
This time around a dozen poets - mostly from the NW - gave a reading at Thomas's Restaurant in the Northern Quarter. Its a really great room at the top of the restaurant, where you're away from bar noise or some of the other problems you sometimes get in venues. I arrived just as Richard was making his introduction, fashionably late, but with the excuse that I'd been up since 4 that morning, having flown back from Krakow. I think my critical faculties on the event are a bit dulled as a result, but I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the evening. Most of the poets had some kind of take on the subject matter - which, now that two of the Pussy Riot girls have been sent to prison in Siberia, is not just about that, but the wider repression of ideas and thoughts in Russia that it represents. In a room where everyone was in sympathy, there wasn't much need for polemic, and so the poetry took centre stage. The evening was topped and tailed by "cover versions" - Richard Barrett reading an excellent long poem by Ariana Reine's Mercury, and Steven Waling finishing with Tim Atkin's translation of Tsvtayeava's 'I Love The Rich.'
In between there was sweetness, light, polemic and poetry - reflecting the new diversity of Manchester's poetry scene, there were memorised performances - an excellent selection from StephPike - alongside the avant garde - a soundtracked eulogy to a dead animal rights activist by Leanne Bridgewater, and a "found" and profound filleting of a day's newspapers by Gareth Twose - and the ever entertaining John Calvert accompanied himself with both Korg Monotron and guitar. I read mostly new poems, as well as "Her Jazz for Pussy Riot" from Catechism: Poems for Pussy Riot anthology.
Recordings of Leanne Bridgewater, Susan Birch, Steph Pike, John Calvert, Judy Kendal, Gareth Twose, Anna Percy, Steve Waling, Ursula Hurley, Richard Barrett and myself are here.
Coming up: I'm reading at Sand Bar at Stirred Poetry, thanks to Anna Percy, on Monday 3rd December.
Gathering Moss
Its hard to recall how unfashionable the Rolling Stones were in the early 80s. Whereas the Beatles were neatly packaged in nostalgia; long ago broken up - and, with Lennon's death - never to reform; the Stones were still there, chugging away, with bad hair, bad denim, and worst of all, bad songs. The first Stones album I remember coming out was, in fact, a bit of a return to form - "Start Me Up" was the lead single from "Tattoo You" in 1981, and I liked it, as I did "Undercover (of the night)" a couple of years later. But recall hearing some of the former album played on Radio 1, and its lyrical S&M and tired riffs sounded dated. My dad had the "Rolled Gold" compilation and I used to play that now and then, though mainly those glorious sixties hits like "Satisfaction", "Get Off of My Cloud" and (mostly) "Paint it Black."
The first Stones albums I bought was a cassette double pack of "Aftermath" and "Beggars Banquet" from a Woolworths in Australia in 1985. I liked them both, but the tight mod pop-rock of "Aftermath" was my favourite then, and remains so now. I guess the only sense of the Stones being "cool" came with seeing Jagger in "Performance" - a revelation in every way.
So, I was always interested, but their back catalogue was in a bit of a state - all those ABKCO albums released in the seventies; and the tendency of radio to only ever play the sixties hits. I'd pick up Stones songs in the oddest places: Dream Syndicate's live cover of "Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man"; the Sisters of Mercy doing "Gimme Shelter"; hearing the lovely "Angie" on the radio one afternoon. I don't even think their albums tended to make the "best albums of all time" lists of the time. (I've checked - the "best 100 albums" of all time from NME writers in 1985 only had room for "Exile on Main Street" - preferring albums by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Jimmy Cliff and the Buzzcocks to "Let it Bleed" or "Beggars Banquet.") Not everyone was listening to the critics of course, and Primal Scream were one band whose love of the Stones combined with their own classic coolness.
Here we are then, in 2012 and the Stones are 50 years old. That their relevance was over thirty years ago doesn't really matter, as they had a good couple of decades. Never having broken up, despite losing the odd member - tragically in Brian Jones case, they are part of the triumvirate with Dylan and the Beatles that still towers above our memory of the sixties. Whilst the Beatles were writing for everyone, and Dylan was the ultimate ideas magpie, the Stones made a very little go a long way. They never strayed that far from the idea of the group composition - the band as an integral part of any song that Jagger/Richards wrote. Keyboards and piano were only included on their records as another blues instrument; and if in the seventies they dabbled in funk and disco (quite well) and reggae (less so), then it seemed a natural progression for an R&B band. I've still never got on with the bluesy earthiness of "Exile" - but their soulful psychedelia always had a little of the devil in it, explicitly so on "Sympathy" and hardly needed the bandwagon chasing of their psychedelic album (though it includes another song that I heard first elsewhere - "She's a Rainbow" which was covered by Manchester's World of Twist). My own Stones pantheon would run from 1964-1981 at a stretch. That they managed to take the simple blues template and - without ever going too far from it - extracting so much else, that seemed entirely relevant to the times they were living through, remains a wonder.
A personal Stones Top 10
1. Sympathy for the Devil
2. Paint it Black
3. Play with Fire
4. Salt of the Earth
5. What to Do
6. Gimme Shelter
7. You Can't Always Get What You Want
8. Miss You
9. Angie
10. Wild Horses
The first Stones albums I bought was a cassette double pack of "Aftermath" and "Beggars Banquet" from a Woolworths in Australia in 1985. I liked them both, but the tight mod pop-rock of "Aftermath" was my favourite then, and remains so now. I guess the only sense of the Stones being "cool" came with seeing Jagger in "Performance" - a revelation in every way.
So, I was always interested, but their back catalogue was in a bit of a state - all those ABKCO albums released in the seventies; and the tendency of radio to only ever play the sixties hits. I'd pick up Stones songs in the oddest places: Dream Syndicate's live cover of "Under Assistant West Coast Promo Man"; the Sisters of Mercy doing "Gimme Shelter"; hearing the lovely "Angie" on the radio one afternoon. I don't even think their albums tended to make the "best albums of all time" lists of the time. (I've checked - the "best 100 albums" of all time from NME writers in 1985 only had room for "Exile on Main Street" - preferring albums by Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, Jimmy Cliff and the Buzzcocks to "Let it Bleed" or "Beggars Banquet.") Not everyone was listening to the critics of course, and Primal Scream were one band whose love of the Stones combined with their own classic coolness.
Here we are then, in 2012 and the Stones are 50 years old. That their relevance was over thirty years ago doesn't really matter, as they had a good couple of decades. Never having broken up, despite losing the odd member - tragically in Brian Jones case, they are part of the triumvirate with Dylan and the Beatles that still towers above our memory of the sixties. Whilst the Beatles were writing for everyone, and Dylan was the ultimate ideas magpie, the Stones made a very little go a long way. They never strayed that far from the idea of the group composition - the band as an integral part of any song that Jagger/Richards wrote. Keyboards and piano were only included on their records as another blues instrument; and if in the seventies they dabbled in funk and disco (quite well) and reggae (less so), then it seemed a natural progression for an R&B band. I've still never got on with the bluesy earthiness of "Exile" - but their soulful psychedelia always had a little of the devil in it, explicitly so on "Sympathy" and hardly needed the bandwagon chasing of their psychedelic album (though it includes another song that I heard first elsewhere - "She's a Rainbow" which was covered by Manchester's World of Twist). My own Stones pantheon would run from 1964-1981 at a stretch. That they managed to take the simple blues template and - without ever going too far from it - extracting so much else, that seemed entirely relevant to the times they were living through, remains a wonder.
A personal Stones Top 10
1. Sympathy for the Devil
2. Paint it Black
3. Play with Fire
4. Salt of the Earth
5. What to Do
6. Gimme Shelter
7. You Can't Always Get What You Want
8. Miss You
9. Angie
10. Wild Horses
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Most Modern
In 1999 I wrote a slightly tongue-in-cheek article called "As if Ulysses had never been written". It was primarily about fiction, but asked the question of what legacy modernist fiction had had on the contemporary literary landscape. I (correctly) predicted that me might see, at the time of the millennium, big, baggy, linear novels though owed very little to Joyce, Woolf, Stein et al. I probably wouldn't have asked the same question of poetry, partly because I felt somewhat unqualified to do so, but also because surely the answer was evident: modernism was a foreign plant that had never quite flowered in our tough soil. The existence of "The Movement", our veneration of Larkin, the popularity of Heaney and Hughes, were all evidence enough that the modernist project had stalled on these shores.
That British poetry still fears modernism seems a silliness, but I think it's still there. In his otherwise excellent biography of Edward Thomas, Matthew Hollis (just appointed as Faber poetry editor), ends the book by bigging up the Thomas strand of English poetry. Our poet laureate is quoted on the cover; and the Wikipedia entry for Thomas mentions Ted Hughes' quote that Thomas was "the father of us all." British poetry had its post-modern tribes, but they were thin on the ground (or at least, have been squeezed out of the narrative) compared to their American cousins. Our confessionals, our beats, are either minor figures or tend to be assimilated into a mainstream narrative.
I'll come back to this. In the way that one's reading tends to beget one's reading; I was fascinated by an exemplary article in this month's Poetry by Clive James. He is talking about "memorable lines" and how whereas some poems may cluster them together in a series of unforgettable "hits", other poems may have interminable gaps between the lines that have somehow survived. He speaks of Heaney's luck to be bought up in a landscape that almost guaranteed a musicality to his poetry. My thoughts on that of course, are, perhaps at the heart of my discomfort with the romantic/natural world tendencies of so much British poetry: for surely if we're not "lucky" enough to be born with the beautiful acoustics of a church at hand, then we have to find music elsewhere? It is notable that many of the great American poets of the 20th century haven't necessarily eulogised that country's monumental landscape but something else entirely. We need, I think, to follow on from Ginsberg, and find Whitman in the supermarket.
But this essay played into a conversation I'd been having the night before at the launch of Lindsey Holland's debut collection "Particle Soup." We've had conversations before about where particular poets and poems "fit" - and it seems that there are quite a few writers I know who are not comfortable or particularly interested in the old arguments between the "mainstream" and "avant garde." It's possible after all to like Simon Armitage and Geraldine Monk; and also, I suspect, to question some of the differences and distinctions between different "schools." It can work the other way of course; I'm not particularly interested in Prynne or Heaney. Thinking aloud, as you do after a poetry reading, when you're sat in the pub, I mused on how useful or not these distinctions are to our own practice. I've often been surprised, in conversations with contemporaries, how much of their influence - if that's the word - comes from their peers. Perhaps coming as a bit of an outsider to poetry has its advantages: I puzzle a little at "generations". There are plenty of poems and poets coming to my attention apparently fully-formed; less, I think, in the fifteen or so years I've been taking an interest, where I've seen an obvious development. Part of this is about the proliferation; partly about the very idea of "schools." But also, there is something of influence. I'll be honest, there's been very little I can take as a poet from, say, Armitage. I know I can't do what he does with anything like his skill or effectiveness. Yet, at the same time, his method doesn't actually have a lot of use for the kind of poetry I want to write. Discovering both Les Murray and John Ashbery in the late 90s, I didn't consider them to be opposite ends of anything; but both have been helpful models.
And that's what this comes down to, I think. We all have books that meant something to us; and as time flattens things out, rather than fixing the narrative ("Modernism began in 1912 and ended...blah blah blah") I feel that, in art at least, though its probably equally as true of history, we have to look again at the story, and revisit with our contemporary eyes and ears. Though you might not find much that bears similar characteristics to Eliot or Pound in the 19th century's Empire poets; there are echoes of intent going back further - Eliot saw this in the metaphysicals; Pound in Chinese poetry amongst other forms. James in his article makes the salient point (one that I'd made the night before, actually) that Tennyson was exempted from the general early 20th-century disdain from the late Victorians. And rightly so. His words sing, they have "hits", they do not go "clunk." Of course, fascinating ourselves behind modernism we begin to notice other difficulties. Outside of Eliot and Pound, there is no shortage of "clunking". H.D. and Richard Adlington have their moments; Joyce hardly qualifies as a full-time poet - though he was certainly a modernist - and by the time we get to Auden, we have a voice that is doggedly non-modernist, though is perhaps inconceivable without the example of modernism. Larkin, like Tennyson, survives all movements and "Movements" because he was so good. Thom Gunn always seems an exception to any box you put him into, and though I'm not much of a Hughesian, his influence is large - and, vitally, different.
Which takes us back to the poems - the lines that matter - and whether you'll find these as easily in Bunting or Olson or Prynne as in Billy Collins or Andrew Motion or William Letford. (If there is one fault in the James essay is that he rarely strays into the contemporary minefield: the past is easier to negotiate in this way, but it would be good to know what his thoughts were on, say Sam Riviere's "81 Austerities". The most modern he gets is with his description of Martian poetry as "all climax, no build up" - which seems brilliantly apt, and possibly explains why the first time you read martianism, it's wonderful, but by the time of "History: a Home Movie" there's little left to be excited about.) So how do we negotiate the modernism argument? I guess by sidestepping it. In Holland's poetry, for instance, we rarely linger on a particular image for that long, this is neither imagism or still life, but more a roving camera, "movementism" rather than "The Movement" if you like, and its a quality (it is a quality) that I find in quite a lot of contemporary writing. We live, after all, in an age of alacrity - but whereas the Futurists needed to exalt the fast and modern - our age; a virtual one; has its Larkinesque moments: the English countryside passing by his eyes as he travels south one Whitsun for instance. This is no longer technology as the motor of our times, but us, being to some extent cog-parts of that technology. How we fuse that with our humanity is perhaps a quintessentially poetic questions? Do poets wear glasses, I often wonder? And if they do, why don't the write about them more - the answer is that a poet always has a short- or long-sightedness to deal with however much they profess to 20/20 vision.
So, I look at where we might find that "movementism" in the past, and its there before the age of mechanical reproduction; I guess we can find it in "The Seafarer" or in the narrator-narratee structure of "The Canterbury Tales"; but we also see it, mostly, I think, in those pre-modernist modernists. I'm thinking of Hardy and Hopkins in particular. Their poems are rarely still lives. The ever enervating "The Darkling Thrush" sees the self-conscious (modernist?) narrator move from darkest depression to elation; this could be the romantic euphoria of Wordsworth of course, turning a corner and being hit in the face by the wonders of nature; but in Hardy the narrator hasn't moved, other than through the course of his day (and the course of his moods.) Like reluctant Larkin travelling on a bank holiday, the fin de siecle Hardy is feeling the pains of the age; yet can still be lifted. The still life is never less useful a model, I think - and here we have the beginnings of a sensibility that survives modernism, but certainly pre-dates it - an ability to view the world from different angles. Less the painter fixed on his muse, and more the child on the beach, prefiguring the Instamatic or the digital camera, and taking the kind of shakey camera shots that tell us something about how our minds work. Neither us or the landscape is unchanging. We can re-frame the shot to avoid the pylons if we want, but importantly they are still there. This is the lesson, I think, that contemporaries have extracted from Modernism, but actually, have found it was already there in the proto-modernists such as Hardy and Hopkins and is there again, in the post-war poets. In this viewpoint, modernism becomes a useful touchstone, a project, a movement; post-modernism, a sidetrack, and those post-modern confessionals, beats or New Yorkers, who its easier to put in a vast, slightly awkward box, called the "avant garde", are now clearly in sight again, as part of an ongoing narrative that exists without need for labels.
And going back to Clive James one last time, one wonders if the "line", the "hit", the memorable is what matters for more than the utilitarian view of Heaney and Hughes' "Rattle Bag" to memorise poems by half. As James says, half joking, when someones starts on reciting Milton or whoever, there's rarely any one of us there with the text to check they've got it right. There is, I think, a difference between acting and reading, after all. If there's anything to be said about this somewhat egalitarian view, its that it seems inevitably echoed in recent anthologies of younger poets - where its not clear where their influences come (other from their peer group or the wider world), but they certainly don't seem to have bounced directly down from those just a few years older. There is, after all, no contemporary Auden or Eliot to bounce all questions off. That would require a series of "hits" of Beatles proportions.
That British poetry still fears modernism seems a silliness, but I think it's still there. In his otherwise excellent biography of Edward Thomas, Matthew Hollis (just appointed as Faber poetry editor), ends the book by bigging up the Thomas strand of English poetry. Our poet laureate is quoted on the cover; and the Wikipedia entry for Thomas mentions Ted Hughes' quote that Thomas was "the father of us all." British poetry had its post-modern tribes, but they were thin on the ground (or at least, have been squeezed out of the narrative) compared to their American cousins. Our confessionals, our beats, are either minor figures or tend to be assimilated into a mainstream narrative.
I'll come back to this. In the way that one's reading tends to beget one's reading; I was fascinated by an exemplary article in this month's Poetry by Clive James. He is talking about "memorable lines" and how whereas some poems may cluster them together in a series of unforgettable "hits", other poems may have interminable gaps between the lines that have somehow survived. He speaks of Heaney's luck to be bought up in a landscape that almost guaranteed a musicality to his poetry. My thoughts on that of course, are, perhaps at the heart of my discomfort with the romantic/natural world tendencies of so much British poetry: for surely if we're not "lucky" enough to be born with the beautiful acoustics of a church at hand, then we have to find music elsewhere? It is notable that many of the great American poets of the 20th century haven't necessarily eulogised that country's monumental landscape but something else entirely. We need, I think, to follow on from Ginsberg, and find Whitman in the supermarket.
But this essay played into a conversation I'd been having the night before at the launch of Lindsey Holland's debut collection "Particle Soup." We've had conversations before about where particular poets and poems "fit" - and it seems that there are quite a few writers I know who are not comfortable or particularly interested in the old arguments between the "mainstream" and "avant garde." It's possible after all to like Simon Armitage and Geraldine Monk; and also, I suspect, to question some of the differences and distinctions between different "schools." It can work the other way of course; I'm not particularly interested in Prynne or Heaney. Thinking aloud, as you do after a poetry reading, when you're sat in the pub, I mused on how useful or not these distinctions are to our own practice. I've often been surprised, in conversations with contemporaries, how much of their influence - if that's the word - comes from their peers. Perhaps coming as a bit of an outsider to poetry has its advantages: I puzzle a little at "generations". There are plenty of poems and poets coming to my attention apparently fully-formed; less, I think, in the fifteen or so years I've been taking an interest, where I've seen an obvious development. Part of this is about the proliferation; partly about the very idea of "schools." But also, there is something of influence. I'll be honest, there's been very little I can take as a poet from, say, Armitage. I know I can't do what he does with anything like his skill or effectiveness. Yet, at the same time, his method doesn't actually have a lot of use for the kind of poetry I want to write. Discovering both Les Murray and John Ashbery in the late 90s, I didn't consider them to be opposite ends of anything; but both have been helpful models.
And that's what this comes down to, I think. We all have books that meant something to us; and as time flattens things out, rather than fixing the narrative ("Modernism began in 1912 and ended...blah blah blah") I feel that, in art at least, though its probably equally as true of history, we have to look again at the story, and revisit with our contemporary eyes and ears. Though you might not find much that bears similar characteristics to Eliot or Pound in the 19th century's Empire poets; there are echoes of intent going back further - Eliot saw this in the metaphysicals; Pound in Chinese poetry amongst other forms. James in his article makes the salient point (one that I'd made the night before, actually) that Tennyson was exempted from the general early 20th-century disdain from the late Victorians. And rightly so. His words sing, they have "hits", they do not go "clunk." Of course, fascinating ourselves behind modernism we begin to notice other difficulties. Outside of Eliot and Pound, there is no shortage of "clunking". H.D. and Richard Adlington have their moments; Joyce hardly qualifies as a full-time poet - though he was certainly a modernist - and by the time we get to Auden, we have a voice that is doggedly non-modernist, though is perhaps inconceivable without the example of modernism. Larkin, like Tennyson, survives all movements and "Movements" because he was so good. Thom Gunn always seems an exception to any box you put him into, and though I'm not much of a Hughesian, his influence is large - and, vitally, different.
Which takes us back to the poems - the lines that matter - and whether you'll find these as easily in Bunting or Olson or Prynne as in Billy Collins or Andrew Motion or William Letford. (If there is one fault in the James essay is that he rarely strays into the contemporary minefield: the past is easier to negotiate in this way, but it would be good to know what his thoughts were on, say Sam Riviere's "81 Austerities". The most modern he gets is with his description of Martian poetry as "all climax, no build up" - which seems brilliantly apt, and possibly explains why the first time you read martianism, it's wonderful, but by the time of "History: a Home Movie" there's little left to be excited about.) So how do we negotiate the modernism argument? I guess by sidestepping it. In Holland's poetry, for instance, we rarely linger on a particular image for that long, this is neither imagism or still life, but more a roving camera, "movementism" rather than "The Movement" if you like, and its a quality (it is a quality) that I find in quite a lot of contemporary writing. We live, after all, in an age of alacrity - but whereas the Futurists needed to exalt the fast and modern - our age; a virtual one; has its Larkinesque moments: the English countryside passing by his eyes as he travels south one Whitsun for instance. This is no longer technology as the motor of our times, but us, being to some extent cog-parts of that technology. How we fuse that with our humanity is perhaps a quintessentially poetic questions? Do poets wear glasses, I often wonder? And if they do, why don't the write about them more - the answer is that a poet always has a short- or long-sightedness to deal with however much they profess to 20/20 vision.
So, I look at where we might find that "movementism" in the past, and its there before the age of mechanical reproduction; I guess we can find it in "The Seafarer" or in the narrator-narratee structure of "The Canterbury Tales"; but we also see it, mostly, I think, in those pre-modernist modernists. I'm thinking of Hardy and Hopkins in particular. Their poems are rarely still lives. The ever enervating "The Darkling Thrush" sees the self-conscious (modernist?) narrator move from darkest depression to elation; this could be the romantic euphoria of Wordsworth of course, turning a corner and being hit in the face by the wonders of nature; but in Hardy the narrator hasn't moved, other than through the course of his day (and the course of his moods.) Like reluctant Larkin travelling on a bank holiday, the fin de siecle Hardy is feeling the pains of the age; yet can still be lifted. The still life is never less useful a model, I think - and here we have the beginnings of a sensibility that survives modernism, but certainly pre-dates it - an ability to view the world from different angles. Less the painter fixed on his muse, and more the child on the beach, prefiguring the Instamatic or the digital camera, and taking the kind of shakey camera shots that tell us something about how our minds work. Neither us or the landscape is unchanging. We can re-frame the shot to avoid the pylons if we want, but importantly they are still there. This is the lesson, I think, that contemporaries have extracted from Modernism, but actually, have found it was already there in the proto-modernists such as Hardy and Hopkins and is there again, in the post-war poets. In this viewpoint, modernism becomes a useful touchstone, a project, a movement; post-modernism, a sidetrack, and those post-modern confessionals, beats or New Yorkers, who its easier to put in a vast, slightly awkward box, called the "avant garde", are now clearly in sight again, as part of an ongoing narrative that exists without need for labels.
And going back to Clive James one last time, one wonders if the "line", the "hit", the memorable is what matters for more than the utilitarian view of Heaney and Hughes' "Rattle Bag" to memorise poems by half. As James says, half joking, when someones starts on reciting Milton or whoever, there's rarely any one of us there with the text to check they've got it right. There is, I think, a difference between acting and reading, after all. If there's anything to be said about this somewhat egalitarian view, its that it seems inevitably echoed in recent anthologies of younger poets - where its not clear where their influences come (other from their peer group or the wider world), but they certainly don't seem to have bounced directly down from those just a few years older. There is, after all, no contemporary Auden or Eliot to bounce all questions off. That would require a series of "hits" of Beatles proportions.
Monday, November 05, 2012
Clarity and Complexity
There seems to me to be a bit of a false dichotomy between "difficult" and "accessible" writing, whether in poetry or prose. Perhaps its the same in other art forms. Certainly if you're watching the X-Factor you'll only see a transparent, linear art - for with the odd exception, these are interpretations which - in the "saving" song, for instance - tend to want lyrics that reflect the situation. Yet even the most apparently simple of pop songs can be obscure, with no real lack of meaning or understanding. If the "love song" is the main theme of pop music, then love is a perfect medium for both the clear and the complex - for as a concept it is simple, understandable; yet our endless artistic (and personal) ruminations on it tell of its infinite variety, and its complexity. So though you can sing "I love you" in a pop song, you can also sing "you're my wonderwall" or "left the cake out in the rain" and the obscure has meaning. Of course, the tune is often a clue. (And it can work the other way - Springsteen's Born in the USA may be a cynical anti-war song, but its punch-the-air chorus belies that - so no wonder it has often been co-opted by the right.)
One of the reasons, I think, that Carol Ann Duffy is so well read is because she doesn't just do simple, it just appears simple. A poem comparing love to an onion is simple in terms of its image, and could appear (and probably does, in its many workshop imitations) banal, but actually such simplicity is hard to come by. Similarly with Simon Armitage, his poetry manages to sneak the metaphysical into even the most anecdotal of situations. Yet there's that false dichotomy we see where Geoffrey Hill is referred to as "difficult" and Duffy as "accessible." Taking those broad brush themes such as love and death and you can make them either. Hill's poetry at its best doesn't seem particularly difficult to understand the heft of it; but you may struggle with the references. I guess the question I always ask is if a poem (and a poet) is being true to itself. I'd feel uncomfortable researching something just for a poem; yet that's different, I think, than writing about something one is already interested in. It's why "The Wasteland" remains so much of a touchstone - you can read it either way, and perhaps the scholarly approach to the poem might cast less light than the emotional one.
But poetry always has a little bit of a veil over it. Fiction shouldn't be hard, should it? Again, I'm not sure what we are talking about here. Henry James can be hard, because he spends so long getting to the nub of what he is saying, yet he can also write one of the best ghost stories in the language in "The Turn of the Screw." Language, it seems, can get in the way of understanding, and perhaps in James there are times when it does; in Conrad or say, Saramago its the density of the writing that creates any difficulty, yet "Heart of Darkness" or "Blindness" have an ability to express quite simple truths with a depth that resonates along time after reading.
I don't think I've ever had an ideal reader - though I probably write for people my own age, my own generation, and perhaps, with my own cultural reference points. I remember reading that Ishiguro things about what he writes in English now, knowing it will be translated. This seems a strange kind of compromise; but at the same time, if its not clear in your own language then what are you trying to do? I've read a lot of unpublished work over the years and I'd say that the one thing that sometimes lets new writers down is not their obfuscation, but that it sometimes appears that they don't know what is happening in their book. The uncertainty is there. I'm never quite sure I agree with the idea that its up to the reader to "interpret" - the death of the author seems to forget that the author is also a reader (an interpreter) of his or her own work - and though I don't think its the only interpretation, the intent is important. Anyone who has written with any kind of serious intent will know too well how often we fail to achieve what we set out to do. Language, and its complexities, seems to offer the best way out of this bind - that, rather than complexity. Books that I enjoyed, but felt suffered a little from the author's lack of intent, are often ones which seem to get the psychology all wrong. We can, I think, believe anything if the author makes us believe it. I often use the example of "The Godfather" movie, where Micheal Corleone moves from someone who is determined not to be part of the family business, to being a cold-blooded killer who is even more ruthless than his father. This shouldn't work, but the motivation is so well done (and the part so well played), that the change is inevitable.
With the unpublished writer having few readers other than friends and family, you tend to jump on particular comments - either as a sense you've got things right, or an acknowledgement you've got things wrong. A novella I wrote was read separately by a couple who came up with quite different views on the core relationship in the story. I felt that I must have done something right here; for the story was open to an interpretation - these imaginary characters have motives that I have given them, but which are only transmittable to the reader via my prose and their actions.
I don't think of myself as a particularly "clever" person in that I don't know science or languages or mathematics or music and I wonder what sort of writer I might be if I did? However, as an imaginative writer, you can pretty much imagine anything. The essay by James from which this blog takes its name, makes that very same point - that a writer doesn't need to have been a soldier to write about a barracks; but may well have been near a barracks at some point. (In "The End of the Affair" Graham Greene muses that she'd have probably had to have slept with a soldier at least.) So for me to write something complex is for me to know something complex to at least the extent that I can make it believable. What I can't legislate for is my readers being less erudite or more erudite than I am. Chances are I might know more about pop music and computers, but chances are also high that they'll probably know much more than me about nearly everything else.
But a writer tends to be a knowledge sharer in many ways - in which an academic, for instance, may not be. I've found out something good, or interesting, and I'll make a story from it and share that with the world. You should find something new from a novel I think, if only because of the work that has gone into it. "Wolf Hall" and "Bring out the Bodies" aren't a replacement for a history of the Tudors, but you don't need to know that history to enjoy the books - and oddly enough, how ever many histories you've read or seen, it can often be the fictional representation that sticks the facts more in your head than even the best scholarship. But this risks writing as being merely utilitarian. I was at a debate in Norwich a few years ago where a number of writers gave fascinating talks about advances in neuroscience. Here was the classic case; none of us were scientists, specialists in the room; some had spoken with specialists and got an insight that they were able to share; yet at the end of the day, it struck me that we were being a little too much in awe of the experts. Where, I wondered, was our experience in this matter? For if neuroscience is about what it's like to be human, then surely that is what good novelists and poets (and readers of good novels and poems) are experts in?
With the exception, I think, of children's books, which are clearly written, even at their best, with a compromise or two in language and form based upon the perceived audience, there is no monopoly on complexity, or indeed on clarity. A badly written book can be unecessarily complex, whilst a well written one by a good writer may sometimes be bland or banal.
Because I've no "ideal reader" if I do think about readers its probably those friends I grew up with, or have made in later life. I want, I guess, people I know and like to enjoy or at least understand my writing. If I write something obscure then there must be a reason for it; there must be some clarity; but if I write something very plain, the same transaction is required - why am I doing it? And am I doing it right?
Over the last few years its been my poetry that has been read the most, and its been interesting that it seems to have gone down better with non-poets, and possibly non-poetry readers, than with poets. I guess that I'm writing a recognisable world, at least - for its often contemporary of theme and language. Yet, paradoxically, the poems that seem to resonate best are those where the meaning is not linear, where I'd have some difficulty in paraphrasing what I'm saying. I like to think that that's the moment where I've successfully managed to integrate clarity and complexity in such a way that one looks like the other, and its impossible to untangle either.
One of the reasons, I think, that Carol Ann Duffy is so well read is because she doesn't just do simple, it just appears simple. A poem comparing love to an onion is simple in terms of its image, and could appear (and probably does, in its many workshop imitations) banal, but actually such simplicity is hard to come by. Similarly with Simon Armitage, his poetry manages to sneak the metaphysical into even the most anecdotal of situations. Yet there's that false dichotomy we see where Geoffrey Hill is referred to as "difficult" and Duffy as "accessible." Taking those broad brush themes such as love and death and you can make them either. Hill's poetry at its best doesn't seem particularly difficult to understand the heft of it; but you may struggle with the references. I guess the question I always ask is if a poem (and a poet) is being true to itself. I'd feel uncomfortable researching something just for a poem; yet that's different, I think, than writing about something one is already interested in. It's why "The Wasteland" remains so much of a touchstone - you can read it either way, and perhaps the scholarly approach to the poem might cast less light than the emotional one.
But poetry always has a little bit of a veil over it. Fiction shouldn't be hard, should it? Again, I'm not sure what we are talking about here. Henry James can be hard, because he spends so long getting to the nub of what he is saying, yet he can also write one of the best ghost stories in the language in "The Turn of the Screw." Language, it seems, can get in the way of understanding, and perhaps in James there are times when it does; in Conrad or say, Saramago its the density of the writing that creates any difficulty, yet "Heart of Darkness" or "Blindness" have an ability to express quite simple truths with a depth that resonates along time after reading.
I don't think I've ever had an ideal reader - though I probably write for people my own age, my own generation, and perhaps, with my own cultural reference points. I remember reading that Ishiguro things about what he writes in English now, knowing it will be translated. This seems a strange kind of compromise; but at the same time, if its not clear in your own language then what are you trying to do? I've read a lot of unpublished work over the years and I'd say that the one thing that sometimes lets new writers down is not their obfuscation, but that it sometimes appears that they don't know what is happening in their book. The uncertainty is there. I'm never quite sure I agree with the idea that its up to the reader to "interpret" - the death of the author seems to forget that the author is also a reader (an interpreter) of his or her own work - and though I don't think its the only interpretation, the intent is important. Anyone who has written with any kind of serious intent will know too well how often we fail to achieve what we set out to do. Language, and its complexities, seems to offer the best way out of this bind - that, rather than complexity. Books that I enjoyed, but felt suffered a little from the author's lack of intent, are often ones which seem to get the psychology all wrong. We can, I think, believe anything if the author makes us believe it. I often use the example of "The Godfather" movie, where Micheal Corleone moves from someone who is determined not to be part of the family business, to being a cold-blooded killer who is even more ruthless than his father. This shouldn't work, but the motivation is so well done (and the part so well played), that the change is inevitable.
With the unpublished writer having few readers other than friends and family, you tend to jump on particular comments - either as a sense you've got things right, or an acknowledgement you've got things wrong. A novella I wrote was read separately by a couple who came up with quite different views on the core relationship in the story. I felt that I must have done something right here; for the story was open to an interpretation - these imaginary characters have motives that I have given them, but which are only transmittable to the reader via my prose and their actions.
I don't think of myself as a particularly "clever" person in that I don't know science or languages or mathematics or music and I wonder what sort of writer I might be if I did? However, as an imaginative writer, you can pretty much imagine anything. The essay by James from which this blog takes its name, makes that very same point - that a writer doesn't need to have been a soldier to write about a barracks; but may well have been near a barracks at some point. (In "The End of the Affair" Graham Greene muses that she'd have probably had to have slept with a soldier at least.) So for me to write something complex is for me to know something complex to at least the extent that I can make it believable. What I can't legislate for is my readers being less erudite or more erudite than I am. Chances are I might know more about pop music and computers, but chances are also high that they'll probably know much more than me about nearly everything else.
But a writer tends to be a knowledge sharer in many ways - in which an academic, for instance, may not be. I've found out something good, or interesting, and I'll make a story from it and share that with the world. You should find something new from a novel I think, if only because of the work that has gone into it. "Wolf Hall" and "Bring out the Bodies" aren't a replacement for a history of the Tudors, but you don't need to know that history to enjoy the books - and oddly enough, how ever many histories you've read or seen, it can often be the fictional representation that sticks the facts more in your head than even the best scholarship. But this risks writing as being merely utilitarian. I was at a debate in Norwich a few years ago where a number of writers gave fascinating talks about advances in neuroscience. Here was the classic case; none of us were scientists, specialists in the room; some had spoken with specialists and got an insight that they were able to share; yet at the end of the day, it struck me that we were being a little too much in awe of the experts. Where, I wondered, was our experience in this matter? For if neuroscience is about what it's like to be human, then surely that is what good novelists and poets (and readers of good novels and poems) are experts in?
With the exception, I think, of children's books, which are clearly written, even at their best, with a compromise or two in language and form based upon the perceived audience, there is no monopoly on complexity, or indeed on clarity. A badly written book can be unecessarily complex, whilst a well written one by a good writer may sometimes be bland or banal.
Because I've no "ideal reader" if I do think about readers its probably those friends I grew up with, or have made in later life. I want, I guess, people I know and like to enjoy or at least understand my writing. If I write something obscure then there must be a reason for it; there must be some clarity; but if I write something very plain, the same transaction is required - why am I doing it? And am I doing it right?
Over the last few years its been my poetry that has been read the most, and its been interesting that it seems to have gone down better with non-poets, and possibly non-poetry readers, than with poets. I guess that I'm writing a recognisable world, at least - for its often contemporary of theme and language. Yet, paradoxically, the poems that seem to resonate best are those where the meaning is not linear, where I'd have some difficulty in paraphrasing what I'm saying. I like to think that that's the moment where I've successfully managed to integrate clarity and complexity in such a way that one looks like the other, and its impossible to untangle either.
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