Four Flatulent Forsythias

So the Poetry Archive has been updated and this is good news, right? Well, the website looks very different and they seem to have gone for more of an interactive blog style with Andrew Motion's puppy-dog face featuring heavily rather than a straight-forward website. Suppose it's fairly inevitable but I can't help but miss the old site to some extent. I liked its old-skool quote then text, with a diddy little player at the side. Still, the site's in Beta so it might get better.

Think it was about time they added a download feature, and it's great that they've made individual poems downloadable as it can be a frustrating feature of sites like the Poetry Business that you don't get separate tracks per poem. I still think they're outrageously over-priced though, I can almost hear my dad on loop, "how much?" But what is a reasonable price per album? Or per poem, for that matter? Surely lower prices would mean more sales? But that's for another time.

Really recommend the recently added Kei Miller recordings. He's a fantastic reader and 16 tracks is ok for £9.99, I guess.

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Interesting interview with Niall Campbell from the brilliant Scottish Poetry Library. Apparently they'll be alternating their interviews to be with one established and one less known poet every week, which is great.

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Jan had listened to 'Why Walking Matters' on NPR on the walk to work this week and told me about it when she got back. It certainly ties into the Mort-Wilkinson-Oswald-Long-thang. So exercise is apparently good for your creativity, not news to everyone, certainly, but well worth a listen. For anyone who caught the episode of The Echo Chamber you'll have heard of Richard Long, but why not take a gander at his 'textworks' on his website if you haven't already, ideally after a long wander?

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I subscribed to 'Dark Horse Magazine' last week on the merit of its description of itself on the website: "We like to think that the journal is characterised by a clear-sighted scepticism and an eye for the genuine. We understand that hype, in its presumption of consensus, is irrelevant to readers of any individuality." Really looking forward to reading John Lucas on Waterman, Mort, and Campbell in the next issue. 

Originally came across it thanks to Niall Campbell's retweet of Ian Duhig's 'Ground gives' elegy for Heaney.

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.