Monday 12 May 2014

Five Green Botts.

Five things. First is Steve Ely talking to Maurice Riordan about poetry stuff, and lamping on Poetry Review's latest podcast. Found it shed good light on Ely’s work and thought he came across well, modest, aware of his position but respectful. Some great descriptions in there, Ely describing lamping for one, and a powerful reading of a new poem at the end. 

Next up is the ‘Fugue #3: Crossgates’ podcast by Matthew Clegg. Came across this through Helen Mort’s reweet (so thanks Helen). Grand. Even though calling it a ‘fugue’ seems extraordinarily pretentious, I thought the format worked really well. Poems embedded in a bit of narrative and all of it recorded on loc. Makes for good listening. ‘Blood and Icecream,’ especially powerfully read, I thought. 


Thought the Dave (if he is an actual Dave) of Davepoems, when I first came across the site, might be one of those anonymous knob-bloggers. Bit too vitriolic if occasionally irreverently brilliant. But Dave seems to have shelved his more extreme iconoclastic tendencies for the time being, and has started writing very readable and informative reviews. Nice. A review of Niall Campbell's Moontide is up there now, go read it!

“Is this idea of treating every poem as a passage from havoc to identity some kind of liberation theory of poetry? Yes.” David Biespiel on The Rumpus does it again. And getting Roethke and Rich in on it clinches his argument. Used to have ‘Diving into the wreck,’ on a CD I listened to daily on the way to work in Poland. Reading it again’s like having a circuit come live. Very inspiring third instalment. 

One last bott — I’m hoping to write a post about Mona Arshi’s poem ‘Different Principles of Enclosure’ for Friday and the website I found it on is Toe Good Poetry. I love to listen and read me poems so I think it’s brilliant.

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