So, I've been collaborating with Mary Modeen on an artists book. This was a first for me. Previously, I've only collaborated on film – with a series of film poems for the BBC, other poets including Owen Sheers and Gillian Clarke. That was an interesting process. Plus, it scored me welcome and rare kudos points with non-poetry enthusiast friends of both sexes, the poems being read for the screen by Matthew Rhys and Eve Myles.
These film poems for the BBC were a laudable attempt at pushing poetry into the mainstream audience, propelling poems into the homes of many who felt poetry had nothing to offer them. The films appeared in a feature-length documentary and also, occasionally, before or after EastEnders. The theme was rugby and cleverly used the Welsh passion for the sport to indoctrinate in the nicest possible way. I knew nothing about rugby; I've made it a point of never watching a single event in totality. But as a poet, I know a lot about games, because poetry is all about games – and, in teaching, I am at pains to stress this to students. Moves, strategies, victories, (mostly) losses. Falling and getting up again. I fought the poem and the poem won... But I am a stickler for research so I asked friends and colleagues about the rules of rugby. I was subjected to the complex and breathless ins and outs, a litany of examples of the beautiful violence of it. I realised, with not a little depression, that I already knew a lot about rugby. Perhaps too much.
The film poems seemed to go down well with viewers. And that pleased me. Convincing people around me that poetry has something to say to them, deprogramming them from all the dreadful practical criticism clap-trap that they had to endure as children at the hands of people who knew nothing about it, trying to assure them that having the feeling before the meaning is not only acceptable but to be positively encouraged, taking away that performance anxiety as a reader or listener – projects all close to my heart and, very often, a catalogue of futility. Education – when it's executed in the wrong way – is remarkably difficult to shift, not just from the mind but from the soul.
This artists book collaboration was obviously going to be a new direction for me. And not simply because I was working with an artist. When Mary contacted me to tell me she wanted to work with me, I was first delighted but then there came a degree of magical thinking. Mary's work centres around landscapes, around people and belonging – that fugitive thing, home. These were concerns of mine in my first book, The Never-Never. Largely, I suppose, coming from my own sense of not quite fitting. But now, those concerns had taken on a new aspect, as I came out from behind my wall of silence. It was no longer a matter of cultural belonging, but rather of belonging to my writing again – or not. I saw how we could make this work in a new way. Mary thought we should explore territories. We both agreed these should be uncertain. There would be no categoricals. This would be the consecration, as it were, of doubt. Ah, doubt! That blessing. And at the centre of all doubt there is loss, actual or anticipated. Unsurprisingly, losses therefore figure highly in the poems and are accompanied by Mary's haunting, exceptionally beautiful prints of landscape. These losses are no bad things, however. Quite the contrary. I'm grateful for them.
The product of our collective labour arrived by special delivery last week. That was fitting, for it was my last week at New Welsh Review. The new life out there. Uncertain territory indeed. But one I chose for myself and that has made, well, all the difference.
It's a handsome book – luxe edition, produced in limited edition copies by a master printer in Australia. His craft is a wonder to behold. Opening out from hardback, concertina-like, Mary's prints and my poems can be read from all angles, but each angle essentially denying full impression of the other. A trade of the eye. Footholds gained and lost. Wholeness, and then the incompleteness. The sheer quality of this book – with thanks to Mary and Pharos Editions, and their quite special care – reminded me of what a powerful object in and for itself a book can be – and should be. In my hands, it had that kind of heft. Signing each of the books for the exhibition was a strange thing. I've signed books before. But this time, as they say, it's personal.
You can find out more about the project and the touring exhibition, which also features other poets, here.
These film poems for the BBC were a laudable attempt at pushing poetry into the mainstream audience, propelling poems into the homes of many who felt poetry had nothing to offer them. The films appeared in a feature-length documentary and also, occasionally, before or after EastEnders. The theme was rugby and cleverly used the Welsh passion for the sport to indoctrinate in the nicest possible way. I knew nothing about rugby; I've made it a point of never watching a single event in totality. But as a poet, I know a lot about games, because poetry is all about games – and, in teaching, I am at pains to stress this to students. Moves, strategies, victories, (mostly) losses. Falling and getting up again. I fought the poem and the poem won... But I am a stickler for research so I asked friends and colleagues about the rules of rugby. I was subjected to the complex and breathless ins and outs, a litany of examples of the beautiful violence of it. I realised, with not a little depression, that I already knew a lot about rugby. Perhaps too much.
The film poems seemed to go down well with viewers. And that pleased me. Convincing people around me that poetry has something to say to them, deprogramming them from all the dreadful practical criticism clap-trap that they had to endure as children at the hands of people who knew nothing about it, trying to assure them that having the feeling before the meaning is not only acceptable but to be positively encouraged, taking away that performance anxiety as a reader or listener – projects all close to my heart and, very often, a catalogue of futility. Education – when it's executed in the wrong way – is remarkably difficult to shift, not just from the mind but from the soul.
This artists book collaboration was obviously going to be a new direction for me. And not simply because I was working with an artist. When Mary contacted me to tell me she wanted to work with me, I was first delighted but then there came a degree of magical thinking. Mary's work centres around landscapes, around people and belonging – that fugitive thing, home. These were concerns of mine in my first book, The Never-Never. Largely, I suppose, coming from my own sense of not quite fitting. But now, those concerns had taken on a new aspect, as I came out from behind my wall of silence. It was no longer a matter of cultural belonging, but rather of belonging to my writing again – or not. I saw how we could make this work in a new way. Mary thought we should explore territories. We both agreed these should be uncertain. There would be no categoricals. This would be the consecration, as it were, of doubt. Ah, doubt! That blessing. And at the centre of all doubt there is loss, actual or anticipated. Unsurprisingly, losses therefore figure highly in the poems and are accompanied by Mary's haunting, exceptionally beautiful prints of landscape. These losses are no bad things, however. Quite the contrary. I'm grateful for them.
The product of our collective labour arrived by special delivery last week. That was fitting, for it was my last week at New Welsh Review. The new life out there. Uncertain territory indeed. But one I chose for myself and that has made, well, all the difference.
It's a handsome book – luxe edition, produced in limited edition copies by a master printer in Australia. His craft is a wonder to behold. Opening out from hardback, concertina-like, Mary's prints and my poems can be read from all angles, but each angle essentially denying full impression of the other. A trade of the eye. Footholds gained and lost. Wholeness, and then the incompleteness. The sheer quality of this book – with thanks to Mary and Pharos Editions, and their quite special care – reminded me of what a powerful object in and for itself a book can be – and should be. In my hands, it had that kind of heft. Signing each of the books for the exhibition was a strange thing. I've signed books before. But this time, as they say, it's personal.
You can find out more about the project and the touring exhibition, which also features other poets, here.
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