Tuesday, 23 August 2011
The Snowboy Virtual Tour: Interview 4
This one was a little different, and happened on my friend Jorge Farah's non-poetry blog, Every-ist and Every-ism. As well as the obvious, there are Pearl Jam references dotted about, and arguments about The Spin Doctors and Batman. Enjoy.
Monday, 22 August 2011
The Snowboy Virtual Tour: Interview 3
My third interview was with London-based Californian poet, Robert Peake. Here is part 1.
Wednesday, 17 August 2011
The Snowboy Virtual Tour: Interview 2
A little while ago I was invited for an interview by Phil Brown at Silkworms Ink. Slightly earlier than I was expecting, here is what happened while I was there.
Monday, 15 August 2011
The Snowboy Virtual Tour: Interview 1
A while ago I mentioned that I was going on various blogs and online venues in the next two or three months, to talk about poetry and The Snowboy. My first interview is with Declan Ryan at Days of Roses; he asks me about influences, favourite collections and music. He's also featured my poem 'The Ideal Bed'. I hope you enjoy.
Sunday, 14 August 2011
The Second SMV Interview
Adrian Slatcher, Claire Trevien and I asked Lee Smith some questions for this second Salt Modern Voices interview. Enjoy!
Saturday, 13 August 2011
Salt Modern Voices Tour Dates
Well, we promised. So here I'm glad to say that we can deliver. Here are the first three places on the map for the Salt Modern Voices tour, featuring me, and the SMV pamphleteers, reading our poems at different spots around the country. Feast your eyes on these, pick a date or four, then come and feast your ears... or something... on what promises to be some exciting readings.
Salt Modern Voices: Warwick. Robert Graham, Emily Hasler, Adrian Slatcher and Claire Trévien read at The Writer’s Room, Warwick University on 27 October 2011 from 19h00.
Salt Modern Voices: London. A two-part event on 14 and 28 November 2011 at The Compass. Eight readers in total:
14th November: Shaun Belcher, Adrian Slatcher, Lee Smith, and JT Welsch
28th November: Mark Burnhope, Robert Graham, Emily Hasler, and Claire Trevien
Salt Modern Voices: Manchester. Shaun Belcher, Lee Smith, Claire Trévien, and Robert Graham read at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester on 30 November 2011 from 18h30.
Salt Modern Voices: Warwick. Robert Graham, Emily Hasler, Adrian Slatcher and Claire Trévien read at The Writer’s Room, Warwick University on 27 October 2011 from 19h00.
Salt Modern Voices: London. A two-part event on 14 and 28 November 2011 at The Compass. Eight readers in total:
14th November: Shaun Belcher, Adrian Slatcher, Lee Smith, and JT Welsch
28th November: Mark Burnhope, Robert Graham, Emily Hasler, and Claire Trevien
Salt Modern Voices: Manchester. Shaun Belcher, Lee Smith, Claire Trévien, and Robert Graham read at The International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester on 30 November 2011 from 18h30.
Monday, 8 August 2011
Does Poetry Make Anything Happen?
In Memory of W.B. Yeats
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we had agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
W.H. Auden
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we had agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
W.H. Auden
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
Salt Modern Voices Tour
My fellow SMV pamphleteers and I have been conspiring to bring you a Salt Modern Voices Tour, in which we will be touring the UK and reading at various venues. As a lead-up to that, we will be taking turns to interview one another about our pamphlets and our work in general. The first stop on the pre-tour features JT Welsch, in interview with Lee Smith and Claire Trevien on Sabotage. Go and have a read; and when it piques your interest, go and buy JT's fantastic pamphlet here.
Tuesday, 2 August 2011
The Snowboy has arrived
My first small collection of poetry is now available from Salt Publishing. You can see the description, and endorsements, by clicking here. You can buy it from the Salt website, or from Amazon.
I'd like to say thanks to my family and friends for putting up with my poetry-writing obsessions all these years, especially Sarah, my self-confessed "poetry widow". Thanks also to anyone who has seen early versions of some of these poems, and who I didn't thank explicitly in the book itself: everyone at PFFA, particularly Laurie Clemens, and anyone on Facebook who has ever pressed 'like' (or madly scrambled to find the 'dislike' button; every opinion is useful).
Come buy, come buy!
Also, between August and October I'll be visiting various blogs and online venues to answer questions about my pamphlet, and/or various related things. My first visit, according to the 'plan' (which isn't much of a plan, I'll admit), will be to Andrew Philip's blog, Tonguefire. I'm looking forward to that, and will post a link here whenever a new visit on 'The Snowboy Virtual Tour' (ooer) is available for you to read.
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