Verse Palace

The questions and discussions surrounding why and how writers write can be as fascinating and thought-provoking as good writing itself, no? And this is particularly true of poetry, with all of its nuanced complexity and intoxicating musicality (but then I would say that, wouldn't I). Well the good news is that - my witterings aside for a moment - an excellent new online project has recently been launched, intended to offer a platform for poets to talk about an aspect of writing or reading poems which currently interests them.

It's called Verse Palace, and will feature a post a week solicited from poets, teachers and poetry readers of all opinions, interests and tastes. Some of the contributors already lined-up include David Wheatley, Vidyan Ravinthiran, Mary Jo Bang and Michael Hofmann. Well worth visiting the site over the coming months as it develops then, and getting involved in the discussions.

First up is Poetry Review editor Fiona Sampson, with her thoughts on translation and free verse. Do check it out.

Sigur Rós - Untitled 1 (Vaka)

A great performance of a beautiful song - somehow melancholic and uplifting in equal measure, I think.

Horizon Review

So the third issue of Salt Publishing's online literary journal, Horizon Review, has just been published. Edited by Jane Holland, it's a fascinating, varied, sometimes even satisfyingly infuriating read, and builds on the strengths of its previous issues, proving it can easily compete with the best of the printed mags.

Issue 3 includes new poems by David Morley, Helen Ivory, Barbara Smith, Claire Crowther and Sam Riviere; reviews of many recent collections including Hugo Williams' West End Final, Carrie Etter's The Tethers, and a particularly excellent review of Don Paterson's Rain by John McCullough; and a series of interviews, the most interesting, contentious and quotable of these being Vidyan Ravinthiran in conversation with Craig Raine. In fact, I might well post a separate discussion of some of the stuff which Raine has to say here, finding as I did some bits eminently sensible, some disagreeably caustic, and some just downright antagonistic (not entirely a bad thing). I should also add that what he has to say is on occasion pretty funny, often illuminating, and... hell, just go and read it and I'll stop blathering on.

Also, for those interested (jumping from Don Paterson's aforementioned Forward Prize-winning Rain to Emma Jones's Best First Collection-winning The Striped World) in this week's issue of the Times Literary Supplement (October 16, No 5559) my reviews of both Jones's book and fellow Australian poet Kevin Hart's Young Rain will appear. Do check them out if you can.

The XX

Ones to watch.

The Shape of the Dance

Q: Where is poetry heading? Is poetry that homogeneous an activity?

MD: Substitute the word 'music' for 'poetry' in those two questions and you see the kind of assumptions made about poetry. Blues musicians on the South Side of Chicago, jazz pianists in London, fiddlers in West Clare, electro-acoustic composers in Rotterdam - we wouldn't dream of measuring them by the same standard, ranking them or telling them where we think 'music' is going. Poetry is not an homogeneous activity. And art has no direction. That is spatial illusion generated by early twentieth-century ideas about 'advancement' and 'progress'. If it's hard to see this now, it's because the illusion is augmented by the demands of consumerism. Our economy depends on the notion that things and ideas become obsolete and have to be replaced. Products of art and literature can be sold more effectively if they're marketed as 'new' so that newness acquires an all-pervasive fetish value [...]

interview excerpt from The Shape of the Dance: Essays, Interviews and Digressions,
a collection of prose by the late Michael Donaghy.

Forthcoming Readings

Tall Reflections

Tuesday September 15th 2009 7.30pm

continuing the tall-lighthouse cambridge series

alan buckley & ben wilkinson

voluntary contributions - suggested £2

Visual Arts Centre, Christ's College, Cambridge



Coffee-House Poetry at the Troubadour

Old Brompton Road, London SW5

Monday 21st September, 8pm

pick of the crop with emma jones, greta stoddart, mike bartholomew-biggs, olivia cole, martha kapos, ben wilkinson, emily berry and siân hughes with music from singer/guitarist henry fajemirokun

A poetic cornucopia for autumn’s equinox featuring:

* Emma Jones (b. Sydney), first collection The Striped World (Faber, 2009), now Wordsworth Trust Poet-in-Residence;

* Greta Stoddart, Salvation Jane (Anvil, 2008), lives East Devon, teaches for Poetry School and Bath Spa Univ;

* poet & mathematician Mike Bartholomew-Biggs (b. Essex), Tradesman’s Exit (Shoestring, 2009);

* journalist and Gregory-Award winner Olivia Cole, first collection Restricted View (Salt, 2009);

* American Martha Kapos, Poetry London’s Assistant Poetry Editor, second Enitharmon collection Supreme Being;

* Ben Wilkinson (b. Stafford), pamphlet The Sparks (Tall Lighthouse, 2008);

* Emily Berry (b. London, pamphlet Stingray Fevers, Tall Lighthouse, 2008) features in Voice Recognition (Bloodaxe);

* The Missing (Salt, 2009) by Arvon-winner Siân Hughes, is shortlisted for Forward and Guardian first-book awards

* plus music from singer/guitarist Henry Fajemirokun.

Harsent, Paterson, Seidel

The September issue of Poetry magazine has just been launched.

It includes, among other things, a new sequence from David Harsent, and two poems from Don Paterson's new collection Rain, published by Faber tomorrow.

It also includes a meaty review of Frederick Seidel's Poems 1959-2009 (a poet whose Faber Selected I recently bought and am currently enjoying) by Poetry regular, Michael Hofmann.