All Becomes Art (Part One)

No music today, just a poem, mainly because that poem (the one in the video above) is in a new book. The book is called All Becomes Art – Part One and it is published by Speculative Books. All the writing in it is inspired or in some way connected with the work of the brilliant visual artist Joan Eardley (1921-1963). There are more than 50 other contributors (and I think a Part Two still to come) so there’s plenty to explore. There was due to be a launch for this book in Glasgow today but it has been postponed till late March so I thought I’d tell you about it here (it’s available now from Speculative Books). 

My poem in the book is She’s not there – something I wrote back in 2007 after seeing Joan Eardley’s 1943 self-portrait a couple of times in Edinburgh (you can see that self-portrait on the National Galleries page I linked to already). I already knew about her because we lived on the Angus coast in Scotland from 2002 (in Auchmithie, then Montrose) and she lived for years just up the coast in Catterline. Although she died in the 1960s she is very much still a presence in that part of the world and she painted its landscapes over and over. Her studio in Catterline (‘the Watchie’) is still a working studio and the current resident is the hugely talented Stuart Buchanan (we are the proud owners of a couple of his paintings).

Joan Eardley’s life story caught my attention for various reasons but, as often happens, it was something we shared that dug into my brain and is certainly part of the background to this poem. Her father had mental health issues and killed himself when she was a young girl (as mine did). Also, like me, “the details of his death were not explained” to her until years later (I actually found out about mine from a girl I met at secondary school, something I wrote about on Day 5 of my Fun A Day project last year). Joan Eardley’s father had fought in World War One and died in 1929. Mine was a village GP in the very early days of the NHS (he qualified during WW2) and died in 1973. I keep a kind of mental list of well-known people who talk or write about the fact that their fathers killed themselves (I don’t really want to, but I do). The lovely poet/writer Salena Godden, for example, is another person on the list. Every now and then I wonder how much it affects a person’s work to have that particular event in their background. I suppose it must (Salena’s most recent book is Mrs Death Misses Death). I don’t think it is the worst thing that can happen to a person (for many of us in this situation these weren’t fathers we knew very well, often they were already absent in many ways) but it is still a significant thing and it stays with you more than you want it to maybe. It makes you more aware of death than the average child, perhaps, makes you less trusting of the stories people tell you.

This poem has always done well for me (it was named, of course, after the song by the Zombies, though I first knew the Santana version as my next brother up was a Santana fan). I am grateful to the publishers for still accepting it for this lovely wee book even though it has appeared both online and in my own first book in 2008. I’ve never been a big fan of the whole “we can’t accept it if even your cat has read it” approach taken by so much of the poetry industry (I understand it but I find it tiresome all the same) so big cheers to Speculative Books for being a bit more flexible. We can get too tied up in the admin of our art at times I think and that can be counter-productive. Joan Eardley stood out in all the elements and did her fabulous paintings – she made the art – and that’s the most important thing. Plus I enjoy this kind of detail: poet Andrew McMillan recently tweeted (regarding a poem of his that “people often seem to return to”): “it was rejected from tons of magazines, disappeared into competitions- always just write what you want to write.” Sounds good to me.

I’m nearly done here but did I say “no music”? It seems I (almost) lied as Kris Drever (the songwriter I wrote about on Day 19 of this year’s Fun a Day series) has a song about Joan Eardley and Catterline (it’s called Catterline). Along with songs by lots of other Scottish songwriters, it’s on an album put together by Stonehaven Folk Club called Sense of Place that you can get here. I just ordered a copy.