Hay 25

So Hay comes around again. This year, the festival celebrates an incredible 25 years. I'll be there this June, in conversation with poet Philip Gross (8 June), comedienne Helen Lederer (9 June) and travel writer John Harrison (10 June). I do hope you can join us. You can take a look at the programme here.

Devolved Voices - a new project

I am delighted to announce that Professor Peter Barry, distinguished academic based at Aberystwyth University, has been awarded a major research grant from the prestigious Leverhulme Trust. Professor Barry has been awarded the grant to lead the three-year 'Devolved Voices' project. The project begins in September of this year, and I am thrilled to be joining Professor Barry on the team, alongside the wonderfully acute critic and scholar Dr Matthew Jarvis.

Devolved Voices will focus on the English-language poetic output from Wales since 1997 – a period that has seen many exciting new voices emerge and, notably, a flowering of powerful and various poetry from women. The project will result in several books, including a scholarly volume and a book of interviews with poets.

During the life of the project, there will be an exciting and media-rich living narrative of the project on our Devolved Voices website. The website will feature interviews with and readings from poets, together with interviews from notable players on the Welsh poetry scene. The website will be open to all, and we intend that both specialists and readers of poetry in general will find stimulating material. We'll also be on Twitter! All of this will go live later this year.

It's a great honour to receive a Leverhulme research project grant, and we are all enormously grateful to the Trust for its support.

You can read more about the project by taking a look at the press release.

And It's Surely to Their Credit

So: Happy International Women's Day.

I've been quiet. But I hope silence equates with substance. I can certainly assure you it equates with industry. Many books are underway – and I'll tell you more about these over coming months. Plus, a very exciting 2013 all round. Some surprising, superb, established names – together with highly accomplished newcomers I'm proud to be introducing.

In the meantime, I want to flag the arrival in the autumn of our new poetry list. We've designed a series of uniform covers in beautiful colours. First up this year are Alan Kellermann and Anna Lewis. Of course, I come with my bias, but here are two excellent new poets. They'll be promoting their books in the autumn/winter/spring 2012/13. Following that, we have poet Jemma King, with her lovely collection, in 2013. A very special group of promising voices.

In more personal news, a new anthology of British poets arrives in the late spring from Cinnamon, Lung Jazz, edited by Todd Swift and Kim Lockwood. It contains work by many poets I admire and whose planetary presence is undeniably a Good Thing. I am in it also, with a paean to Brandon Flowers. And it's all for charity. You can pre-order here.

More soon.

New course at the Poetry School this summer

This summer, I'll be leading a new fortnightly course at the very wonderful Poetry School on poetry and the monologue.

We will read classic and contemporary wonders, discuss, share, suggest, create our own beautiful new work – and have much fun along the way. This course is ideal for those seeking to explore imaginative avenues in a friendly and supportive environment. 

Booking is now open for this course and many others.

No

Oh, rejection. It's hard to take. It's hard to dish. I've had it both ways, and it's not a pretty business on either side of the table. Whether in matters of love, job applications or literature, No hurts. Hell, it even hurts when you're not that invested in the first place.

In permanent marker: No.

Yes, I've known it. I know what it can involve. Starting out, the slips and coffee-stained poems came back by return with an efficiency that bordered on the humorous but for the fact of...

Wine, expletives, tears. That I was risking quite a lot... And bystanders were concerned. For what?

And then, the clock on the wall, the tick, tick which is really, if you think about it, the sound of ice slowly forming in the heart: What the hell do I do now? And: Is it over? 

Well, it's no benchmark of quality per se, but if it is over, then the answer is: yes, it is over, for it was probably never on. The real deal will continue. In the face of bewilderment, of dissuasion, of poverty, of being utterly ignored, of great hurts. They want to fail better. We know this, since history can sometimes prove instructive. I should put it frankly. The real deal is randy for the muse – and yet it is more radical still. They suffer, hopelessly – somehow just sitting there, blocked and impotent – from a particularly unfortunate case of erotomania, even when being slapped in the face with a plaice.

Here, Charles Boyle, editor of CB Editions and acclaimed poet and fictioneer himself, talks a little about rejection in a good piece on his admirable blog, pointing out the many faces of No. And the fact that editors are human.

My Brilliant Career

A few tips for approaching Parthian with your manuscript here.

Reports

2011 commenced with an end. Three happy years over at New Welsh Review. In the trenches during a recession – and, in many ways, having among the very best times of my professional life. It’s rare I’ve left behind anything positive – and when I was relatively fulfilled. But it was an empowering move – and necessary, too. Poems have been written. Some still abide, in the shadows. More importantly, there was all that thinking, that sense of freedom. A beautiful artists’ book – aptly titled Uncertain Territories – came out in March, the product of a collaboration with artist Mary Modeen. It’s a deluxe book, and you can’t buy it on Amazon, alas; Mary and the master printer who worked it up to its extraordinary loveliness are the reasons why it deserves to sell at a premium, rather than the efforts of this humble poet. I've been proud to be a part of some great events. I've continued my quest to become First Great Western's (first ever) Gold Card Holder. (Only a few more years!) I've seen patient, splendid people receive, at last, the acclaim they deserve. Teaching is inspiring, I remember. I've taught some truly talented new and lovely poets – who've reminded me, once again, what it's really all about: magic, romance. And now, close of the year, and I have something I've wanted for a while – a list. We've exciting plans for the years ahead at Parthian. Great times, and I hope you'll come and share them with us. Our final title of this year is out now: Dannie Abse's autobiography Goodbye, Twentieth Century. It's brilliant, moving, hilarious – richly detailing an eventful life in Dannie's stylish prose.

****

My grandmother died. But while it hurt like hell (we were close, so close), one understands the ol’ river that is life. We hear it, we hear it – when we’re not busy ignoring it. And after the grief comes the staggering gratitude for all the luck, the crazy luck of it all. And one can say, ‘It was all gravy, wasn’t it? For us. And all that time.’ But it isn’t always so.

Our friend, Kelly – the wife of my friend John – was an extraordinary person. Firstly, let me tell you now – somewhat shallow of me, I know – that she was a true Irish beauty, a knockout: long dark hair, a wide smile... But she also possessed an interior beauty. Witty, clever, eccentric, steel in her strength. She was genuine loveliness and true grit. And there in her eyes, something deeper again: the record of a pilgrim soul. We met her when she fell in love with John. They enjoyed marvellous interplay. John’s incredible sense of humour was matched in an ideal partner. They adored one another. But Kelly discovered, not long into their marriage, that she had cancer. She approached her illness with great dignity and courage. I remember her – kindly, but very firmly – swatting my emotion when we shared coffee and pastries one day. She had no time for such saccharin. A true fighter, she kept her paws up. But cancer is no respecter of love or value, and, tragically, in July of this year, Kelly lost her battle. The order of things seemed disturbed. It was incredible that someone young and utterly gorgeous and productive and so important to so many could be lost, and lost so ruthlessly. But it happened. I knew Kelly for too short a time. But she made a big impact. Such is the power of the rare person. You rocked, Kelly. 

****

Let’s live our lives, friends. And live them well, and full. 

Happy Christmas.*



*Signing off until the New Year.

Poetry at the Royal Scottish Academy

Any readers based in Edinburgh or Scotland way, the Poetry Beyond Text project is now being exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy. My contribution to the project is a selection of poems presented in an artists' book, with images from my wonderful, remarkably talented collaborator (and curator of the exhibition), Mary Modeen. Other work features splendid contributions from poets including Robin Robertson, Deryn Rees-Jones and John Burnside. Find out more here.

Work and Days

I am delighted to say that I was appointed editor of Parthian at the beginning of this month. I'll be joined by Jon Gower as associate editor. Jon is a noted broadcaster, as well as a superb fictioneer, and I am so pleased to be working with him on what we hope will turn out to be another great chapter in Parthian's ongoing success story.

We are currently welcoming unsolicited submissions. If you're interested in finding out more about what we publish and/or how to submit, please visit the About Us section of the website, take a tour of some of our authors (ranging from Niall Griffiths to Stevie Davies to Rachel Trezise and so many more), and then carefully read our guidelines. Along the way, you might find you want to pick up one of our many award-winning and critically acclaimed titles as a winter warmer.

This blog will, of course, keep going; it always does. But if I am occasionally quiet, please bear with me. I am probably reading a great book. And you know where that can lead.

Sadeness (Part 3)

I went to see Melancholia last night. What follows contains ample spoilers.

Melancholia is billed as 'a beautiful film about the end of the world'. Its opening sequence admittedly contains some ravishing and manipulative dreamscape tableaux: birds fall in slowmo from a hyperreal sky, electricity courses from the fingertips of hands raised to the universe in offering, a bride floats like Ophelia in a river. Add to that the overture from Tristan and Isolde cranked up to the max, and, for a moment, the disarmed viewer may be fooled into thinking that what will follow will be something of substance and great artistic commitment. But this opener is really nothing more than a money shot, a premature ejaculation – exploiting our tendency to fall for the bait and switch. It's an abuse of the cinematic contract.

'Part 1: Justine' has drawn unfavourable comparisons with Festen. That criticism seems somewhat unfair. Much of the tone appears to me to be borrowed, instead, from the marvellous and underseen Rachel Getting Married. But this latter film, with its intelligent and unstinting exploration of the seething hatred and passion within family life and its study of a personality in crisis, should have been enough to discourage von Trier in his attempts. If, indeed, he has seen it at all. For, unlike most great directors, von Trier seems to me to be anything but a cineaste.

Justine (Dunst) is, on the face of it, as we watch her and her new husband (Alexander Skarsgard) giggle in the back of their limo, an uncomplicated and beautiful bride. In a clunking metaphor for life, their gigantic white limo cannot negotiate the slender and steep incline of the dust road that will take them to their wedding reception at her sister's house. After many comical attempts at manoeuvring, they abandon the car and walk the road. Dunst, appearing bare foot at the venue, is roundly dressed down by her sister Claire (Gainsbourg), an apparent control freak who doesn't even bother to enquire what has happened to the couple. It is the first indication the viewer gets that Dunst is somehow trouble, and apparently a victim of circumstance with whom the viewer, at least, should side.

What follows amounts to perhaps the most boring wedding ever to be committed to any film I've seen. The cliches, and their offensiveness and triteness, come in short order: the loveable, but roguish father (Hurt) and the gimlet-eyed, toxic bitch-mother (Rampling), now divorced and simmering in their bile; the portrait of Claire, whose normalcy is really a cover for her neurosis; the long-suffering brother-in-law, John (Sutherland), who appears to hold everyone in contempt; the sweet little nephew who seems to be the only person Justine can reach out to. Unpleasant speeches are given.

Justine keeps disappearing from the proceedings. First for a cruise around the estate in a golf buggy. Then for a pee on the golf course. (She's sad, sad, sad.) Then for a heart-to-heart with her new husband who shows her a picture of a young apple orchard he's bought for them. (She's sad, sad, sad.) He tells her that when the trees are matured, he'll sit her under them. Maybe he'll build her a swing, too. No wonder she's depressed. 'Let's just wait and see what happens,' she tells him. Smart move. For, perhaps a moment too late, she seems to have realised that the two of them don't appear to belong in the same film. Things roll on. And on. She takes a long bath. She's back to cut the cake. Floating lanterns celebrating the young couple are sent out to the sky. Eventually, Justine's back on the golf course again – it's a magnetic pull for her, clearly. She's followed out by a new recruit to her advertising firm. His pursuit of her is a piece of pointless plotting that is not worth the outlining, save for the fact that it allows the hypocritical von Trier to insult the advertising industry which he has exploited to his great service time and again. Anyhow, back to this recruit. Justine throws him down to the ground. She mounts him and, enthusiastically, the two copulate. Off she goes, back to the house to moon over her onion soup and tell her boss (Stellan Skarsgaard) how much she utterly despises him. Shortly before dawn, her new husband, rather discomforted that Justine is underwhelmed by his apples, tells her he's off. And, just like that, the longest and shortest marriage in modern cinema is over.

Then we're on to 'Part 2: Claire'. (Are you still with me?) Now we see things from Claire's perspective. And mostly we see them from the house's terrace. But they are not much different. Time has elapsed. Justine has had a nervous breakdown. She is deeply depressed. We know this because she's chopped her long locks into a bob, won't bathe and declares that Claire's meatloaf 'tastes like ashes'. A planet is on its way in a fly-by – Melancholia – that has been hiding behind the sun. It's been hiding a long time. Father and son are excited about it. But Claire gets anxious about the planet. Despite her husband's assurances, she wonders whether it might actually collide with earth. Living in a world where there appears to be no TV or Radio, she is forced to look it up online. On a computer that looks rather like an Amstrad. And on a very early internet. While Claire is surfing and quietly freaking out (she stops washing her hair), Justine is perking up considerably. She begins making appearances on the terrace in cut-off jeans and sexy casual tops; she wanders off, naked, in the middle of the night to lie down on some rocks and circle one areola, basking in the blue glow of Melancholia. This is just one of the more tasteless and leering moments dressed up as credibility in the film, which also uses a depressive's resistance to being bathed to score von Trier a lingering shot of Dunst's breasts. Did Dunst think this was art? 

The fly-by happens. The earth is still here. Claire's relieved. But watch out! It's behind you! And it's coming back! We discover this in an unintentionally laugh-out-loud moment, articulated by Sutherland's facial expression with all the subtlety of a Covent Garden mime artist. His certainty and rationality in tatters, he takes Claire's stash of 'suicide' pills, and goes off to die in the stables. Claire is remarkably calm when she discovers him. She covers him with straw and goes back to – where else? – the terrace. High Priestess Bore Justine lectures the now broken Claire, both of them mostly ignoring Claire's young son. 'Life is only on earth – and not for long'; 'The earth is evil – no one will miss it.' On and on she goes. Claire wonders what might be the right way to meet the end of the world. A glass of wine on the terrace, she suggests. But Justine is having none of it. Instead, she spends her last hours building a wigwam. Without a canvas. The trio sit in it and hold hands, as the CGI comes rolling towards them. The End. 

This is not a beautiful film about the end of the world. It's an ugly, nasty film. It's filmmaking of the most juvenile kind possible. It's indulgence at the highest level. Von Trier has spoken openly about his battles with depression. Let's be clear: this film celebrates the condition of the depressive. It's an insult to anyone who has endured the bite of the black dog. It seems to suggest, even to the extent of endowing Justine with psychic powers, that depressives are special, an elect. It claims that depression is empowering. It says that depression is good and real. It glorifies the type of oblivion that most of us left behind long ago in our teenage room. But the problem is more than that. I don't believe for one moment von Trier believes any of it. He's making films, after all.

The dishonesty doesn't stop there, either. When Kubrick took Strauss's Blue Danube for 2001: A Space Odyssey, when Visconti took Mahler's Adagettio from his Fifth Symphony for Death in Venice, there was a sense of artists meeting across time, enriching and enhancing each other. A relationship. When von Trier takes one of the most beautiful pieces in the history of western music, ripe for the cinematic picking – the overture from Tristan and Isolde – he does so to lend ballast to his lightweight efforts. He uses – and abuses – Wagner to distract us from the pretentious emo twaddle he's dishing out. He gives us art, all right. But it's not his to take.

Where you come from

I've worked out the problem with getting older. For a while, I thought it was the difficulty that wrinkles presented. Could I be a feminist and realistically contemplate getting a jab of Botox? Did I still have the right to enter the changing rooms of Topshop? But this year, it's all become so very clear. The problem with getting older is that people suddenly start dying more often. Great people.

This past weekend, my grandmother passed away. She was our family matriarch. She was also hilarious; much of that hilarity, it dawns on me now, more intentional than I had previously supposed. It's a kind of disenfranchised grief, in a way, losing the elderly. People are keen to pass off the death of those who enjoyed a long and relatively healthy life. It's as if you are meant to carry on regardless. If I once hear the old rejoinder 'She had a good innings,' I will not be responsible for my actions. The fact that someone is old or has 'lived their life' changes the selfishness of the bereaved not a jot. We want those we love to be with us forever. We fool ourselves until they are not there that they always will be. We want them to protect us. And this world is so replete with a lack of acceptance that their entire acceptance of us is worth more than any kind of success you can achieve in this world. I wish I'd noticed that earlier.

My grandmother did not have a grand life. Not in the way I used to think was grand. She went into service as a girl – yes, the world was really like that, and not so very long ago. She went on to become one of the best landladies in Wales. She loved the man in her life until he left her a widow in her 60s. She loved her daughter. In my father she found the son she never had. She adored her grandchildren. She worshipped her many brothers and sisters. But, of course, as we go through life, we recognise more keenly that great lives can often be small and small lives can often be very great indeed.

My grandmother's time in service led to a curious situation in which she was the only one of our clan ever to have lived in a stately home – Blenheim Palace, no less. She was evacuated there during the war, along with the upper-class girls who were schooled there and whose lives she made comfortable. 'They were lovely and so good to me,' she said, much to my class-conscious teen fury. We went back there in the 1980s, and she lovingly went through every room, remarking how little it had changed. Yes, she went back – as if it was yesterday, recalling her many duties with no hint of self-pity, but, instead, pride. She could explain more about the place than the guidebook we bought. It is with amusement now that I note that, during her period there, the yanks had also landed in the grounds and set up their camp. Nan viewed the era as a golden one in her life.

She married my grandfather, after he somehow managed to charm her, despite his enduring mischief – they met when, behind her in the queue, he exposed her ration fraud to a shopkeeper. They entered the pub trade and she became landlady of The Greyhound (a pub I re-imagined as The King's Head in a poem of mine). Neil Kinnock was a young radical, supping regularly. They both thought him a mouthy and disrespectful fake and later keenly pointed this out every time he appeared on the news, roundly mocked by commentators, in the 80s. My grandfather sacked Tom Jones and his then band (Tommy Scott and the Senators) from their appearances at the pub, thus freeing up the Welsh Pelvis's schedule, and allowing a bit of rock and roll history to happen. 'Tom Jones can't sing,' they both insisted. Many great people passed through their hours there.

But she was special to me because she was such a committed personality. Intractable in her beliefs, always exhibiting outward strength in times of great despair, unwavering in her devotion and loyalty to family and all that that meant and obligated one to. She was the perfect, textbook Welsh woman. Her support of me was enormous. She took great pride in my achievements, especially when I received my degree. And she could be quite uniquely ingenious in her magpie hunts around Swansea, once turning up a vintage issue of Poetry Wales she discovered in some car boot sale or other, just as I was starting to write my own poetry. 'It's perfect,' I told her. And it was. But not every discovery was quite so successful. The whole family found themselves regularly gifted with eccentric objects, most pretty useless – and she converted her living room, after my grandfather's passing, into a cave of bizarre delights. 'It's like santa's bloody grotto in here,' my brother once dryly observed. She laughed. She was impossible to offend and unconcerned with conformity.

There was no one quite like her. It's such a sad thing to lose someone who knew you and loved you your whole life. It's almost like a part of who you were then has been taken with them.

But here she is as a young girl, in a photo weathered through the time travel. She was remarkably pretty. And her good looks lasted her entire life. She was always very pleased about that. She was incredibly and amusingly vain. Perhaps her only flaw. Along with her bingo habit. And we loved her for it, and for everything. 

Poetry and Places

I've not updated that regularly over the last month or so. It's been an incredibly hectic time, with new projects and various secret missions. I intend to get back into my groove very, very shortly. And I have a review to post, too...

In the meantime, I've noticed that A Poet's Guide to Britain is currently being repeated and can be viewed on iPlayer. I contributed to the latest to be re-screened, on Lynette Roberts. It was a pleasure to be involved in the series, and Owen proved to be a terrific presenter. There's also a few other episodes still live on the Beeb website, so grab them while you can or buy on Amazon. You can also buy an accompanying anthology.

More soon.

Chief Executive of Literature Wales

Following the departure of our gifted Chief Executive since 1998, Peter Finch, Literature Wales is now seeking to appoint a new leader to carry the organisation forward into an exciting and ambitious future.

We are seeking an individual with a raft of energy, creative and entrepreneurial flair, and the ability to provide a truly inspirational and visionary leadership which reaches out to all sections of our literary community and general public. This is a rare opportunity to lead literature provision, programming and appreciation at a time of great renaissance in the two literatures of Wales. The ability to speak Welsh is essential for this post.

For further details on the job description and how to apply click here.

Today

Back from Spain, where there was gloriously nothing to do – except to swim in the Med, read, let Sangria warmly rise to the head in a lovely tapas bar and play cards on the terrace. All this while the waves rushed and retreated. I think I am coming to understand the true purpose of holidays more and more as time passes.

So, safely returned, if somewhat depressed.

And then, at about 4am on Sunday morning: sirens. Around the corner from us, the local boyz were tearing up the neighbourhood. Some even apparently brought along shopping trolleys, clearly wedded to Baden-Powell's dictum: Be Prepared! Chief in their sights: JD Sports and our local, remarkably enlightened HMV, which does a good line in more specialist fayre (I once even discovered not one but two copies of the Director's Cut of Reds) and has a wonderful staff straight out of Kevin Smith central casting (and I mean that in the best sense). The boyz apparently went for the trainers first and the XBoxes second. That makes sense. They also managed to cover most of the high road in coat hangers and mannequins from H&M and further attenuate the fortunes of local independent shopkeepers on their way home. Your intrepid reporter, it must be said, did not get out of bed as witness, but, instead, refreshed on Twitter from safely under the duvet. The future of all news reporting. The next morning, I awoke with the strangest dream fresh in the mind: it was 1980-something and I was in love with Mickey Rourke and the country was in tur–... Well, there's no place like home. And sometimes, home is, indeed, so sad.
 
In other news, I am delighted to be joining Parthian Books as an Associate Editor. I've long admired Parthian's style and substance; as discoverer of some of the finest fresh talent around, Parthian has published authors who have gone on to major wins and shortlistings for some of the biggest prizes, including Wales Book of the Year, the Betty Trask, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and The Orange Futures Prize. Great to be a part of a visionary indie that fuses the contemporary line with tradition (in the shape of the Library of Wales series) and the homegrown with the international (as a notable source of quality fiction in translation). I'll be working on a number of projects for the publisher, including a new poetry series. More details on the Parthian website and this blog at the end of the month.

Tomorrow

This one goes out to Rebekah Brooks. Like Simone de Beauvoir, she studied at the Sorbonne; unlike Simone de Beauvoir, she didn't complete her studies. I should add that the song has nothing whatsoever to do with Simone de Beauvoir or, indeed, Rebekah Brooks. But this is my inch-raised platform. I have found yawping the following keywords over the original track an aid to pleasure: Chipping Norton, Cheshire and Cameron.

I am off to get a suntan at the end of the week. But I'll be back with the usual in a few weeks, and I'll also be posting a review of Tamar Yoseloff's The City with Horns, which I have been meaning to do for ages. A very fine poet, so she is, and I'll explain why I think that in August.

Mañana.