Sometimes there is very little poetry in my life... but lately I have been:
- listening to this Guardian interview with king o'the north poet Simon Armitage. It's about 40 minutes long but not uninteresting (shorter video version available too). In the long interview I liked the part where he talked about studying geography instead of literature (I hadn't heard any of that before) and he's also pretty good on not living in a capital city. It was interesting to see what poems people on't street could remember in the voxpop thing at the start too (Larkin wins! Yeh, Larkin... well, in England anyway). Would anyone know any Armitage out on't street now, I wonder? And will they once he's gone and buried and taken that kind of 'endearing delivery thing' he does with him..? Just a question... not meant as a slur (I quite like him... even if his face does look like a cartoon moon... or maybe because of that...).
- reading the first part of Richard Holmes' Coleridge biography “Coleridge - Early Visions” (along with a "Selected Poetry" by STC). I have somehow missed Samuel Taylor Coleridge out of my life completely (see portrait above - by Pieter van Dyke, 1795) and I am trying to make up for this just now. In the biography I am just at the bit where he is writing “The Ancient Mariner” (hear it read by Orson Welles in five parts – here, here, here, here and here). The film that you can see with the Welles reading is by Larry Jordan (1977), using engravings by Gustave Doré. Here is the first part of the film embedded to give you a taste of it:
I have half a mind to write a long story poem packed with drama... but as yet it is only half a mind, sadly. I must get on and look for the other half...
And just in case you feared that my literary mind was filled with men... I have been reading Alice Walker's short stories too (as recommended by poet Judith Taylor in a comment some posts back). Each of the Walker stories in "The Complete Stories" (1994) is so huge (in terms of scope and content) that it feels like it almost needs its own book. As a collection it feels over-full somehow... but I suppose that is a compliment.
I've been recording some more audio poems lately too... and watching a whole heap of movies. I'll get to a movie post soon, I hope. Just for a change.
11 comments:
Great! I have both the book you mention and also its sequel, 'Darker Reflections', by Richard Holmes. Both very good, but the best book of his I've read is 'Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer'.
And I rate Simon Armitage very highly...
It was the "Darker Reflections" that got me started... it was in my Mum's stack of biographies (she devoured them!) and I started to read it and then realised that I would be better off getting the first one and starting at the beginning. I struggle a bit with the religious content (I realise as the years pass that I am actually allergic to religion) but I like all the rest.
Do you know any Armitage off by heart, SW? Got any favourite pieces of his?
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Just remembered another poetry thing I did this week... listened to a radio programme about Spike Milligan's serious poetry. It's only on the player till 13th Nov. Cut and paste if you want to get to it...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016w0nh/Spike_Milligan_The_Serious_Poet/
Simon Armitage spoke at this year's Swaledale Festival Rachel. The tickets sold out within a couple of days - it is nice to know that poetry is so popular up here.
Haven't learnt any poetry off by heart since I was in my teens, Rachel!
Yes, due to a super-religious upbringing - as you may know from my blog - I became extremely allergic to religion myself. But since then - and much later - I've become remagnetised. Oh, the burdens our forefathers(mothers) foist upon us!
Yes, he talks a lot about his readings in the interview, Weaver (as well as lots of other subjects). It is worth a listen.
I went to a couple of events he did at the St Andrews poetry festival a few years back (a small group reading and a panel discussion). He was totally lovely - interesting, amiable, fair, knowledgeable. Couldn't fault him.
I didn't have a very religious upbringing at all - a few hymns and prayers in primary, fairly low-key Quakerism at secondary, nothing regular with the family - and most of all I just find it really uninteresting. For me there is so much else to think about!
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I watched the start of the Armitage interview. I have a book of his poems sat here to read, too.
Coleridge - I keep meaning to get into him more, too. I've got that book, The Road to Xanadu kicking around somewhere...
I've read all of Armitage excepting his most recent - dosh pending - and also can't fault him - all excellent. I've only seen him in interviews and such like - not real life - so that's on my list of to dos.
I even wrote a poem of an imagined conversation with him. Must dust that one and get it on the sideboard.
So as a fan R, do you have favourite poems/books of his? And I would like to see your conversation one too! Tim Turnbull does one about showing him how to really use a chainsaw or something (very funny live).
I ask about your favourites because though I like him I have yet to really make that connection with his work.
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I remember you said you really liked 'It Aint What You Do It's What It Does To You' when I featured it on my blog way back.
The thing is with Armitage (unlike Hughes, Heaney and Larkin - surely some of his major influences) there's not really a nucleus of wow, stand-alone, anthologisable poems, IMO. I think they all have to slowly seep into you en masse.
Yes, and when I was reading my Armitage "Selected" today that was one of the poems I came across (I started at the beginning of the book and it's pretty near there).
Interesting your comment about the "en masse" seepage. I tend to judge each poem at a time... whoever the writer is... (at least I think I do) but maybe that's only one way of looking at it.
Reading today "November" jumped out at me more than others (for various reasons). Horribly sad though. I wished I hadn't read it in some ways!
it's here
http://www.revisionworld.co.uk/node/7182
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