There was an element of theatre in Ruth Padel’s reading of her poems. Not only did she bring alive the narrative charge of her poems but she also did different voices for the characters in her poems, usually Darwin or his wife since she was mostly reading from Darwin: A Life in Poems. The book is an unusual and ambitious project but the poems she read were not groaning under the weight of the lofty idea. They were tender, humourous, down-to-earth, and they made Darwin more human which is not easy to do with legends. Some are available here.
Disappointingly (but expectedly), the Q&A session after the reading had few questions on poetry. Darwin, spirituality and conservation vied for attention, and obviously more people are interested in these than in poetry. I think there were one or two interesting questions about whether she would ever turn (return) from science towards poetry. The unsaid words here were ‘real’, ‘normal’, something like that. I may be paraphrasing this badly but I think the attempt was to understand whether she would move away from the specific themes she’s been attached to so far, whether she would ‘free’ her poetry to go where it will.
So is themed poetry restricted in some way? Is poetry directed towards a cause glancing away from other areas of truth it could discover? On the other hand, judges on award panels seem to think that big concerns are important for poetry. Re: Judge’s comments on Philip Gross winning the TS Eliot Prize for The Water Table and Roddy Lumsden’s comments on that.
Does anyone else have a problem with this preference for themed books as opposed to miscellanies. Surely that’s an American thing, arc and concept and all? I’m happy with either, but claiming it as a strength which goes towards a prize win is odd, no?
Ditto with ‘big concerns’ – are we giving prizes for ‘big concerns’ now? Big concerns, whatever they are, are great, but surely not a reason to award a prize?
So which side of the fence are you on?
Back to Padel: some of us got to meet her the next day for an informal discussion and lunch, a generous three hours during which the questions were more focused. We talked about some nitty-gritty stuff like craft and performance but it didn’t graduate to a very evolved discussion on poetics. I’m not sure why. The time was probably short and the group a bit diverse (playwrights, fiction-writers, poets). She clearly believes in modernist ideas of compression, avoiding abstractions and so on. I would’ve been interested to know how she responds to poetry written in a very different aesthetic. Or what she feels about Language poetry, which is more recent.
Anyway, relatedly, I’ve started my three months of poetry-and-not-much-else at the University of Kent. The room is all tidy lines, the air outside is crisp and cold, my fingers have not frozen yet. The snow has stopped but there are some meager patches of it lying around. The quiet is so big I could float in it.
I’m thrilled to have access to books we normally don’t get in India. The high point of my day was reading Don Paterson’s Nil Nil at an English pub outside the cathedral. The picture of the cathedral is a bit blurry because my hands had gone numb in the cold.
The discussion did not evolve because maybe except for you and Joshua, all the poets were quiet and very guarded. I was actually looking forward to a deeper discussion on poetry/poetics because I am very keen on poetry and poets. When she pondered and decided not to read Don Paterson, I thought it was a brilliant cue for all the poets to take more risks in the conversation. Because with her decision, she raised an active point on the reception of a text and its sensibility – poetics there.
@Swar: Hmm, did you feel that? I thought it was also because there were some distractions — the journalist, moving to the restaurant and so on — around that time. If there was some amount of guardedness, I suppose it’s a bit natural. Would be nice to be able to break through that more quickly I guess, the next time we have such an event. I think it was worth it anyway though, in case that didn’t come through. Just being my usual greedy self, wanting more, etc.
Please say a quiet hello from me to Becket (Thomas a) in the Cathdral. We performed “Murder in the Cathedral” in college – and (blushes) we essayed the lead
JJ (aka KVK)
Another unrelated to poetry comment, but I had to jot it down: Your pictures are as poetic as your words and they’ve finally convinced me to take that long-overdue trip to England that I’ve been dithering about for ages. Enjoy your stay, Anu!
Anindita,
I don’t see a link. Where can I read Roddy Lumsden’s comments in full?
Swar,
‘When she pondered and decided not to read Don Paterson, I thought it was a brilliant cue for all the poets to take more risks in the conversation. Because with her decision, she raised an active point on the reception of a text and its sensibility – poetics there.’
You don’t need to be a poet to raise those questions.
@JJ: Have done.
He says hello back.
@OJ: Thank you sweetheart! And you must…
@Aditi: Oh, I don’t know what happened…thank you for pointing that out. I’ve fixed it. You should be able to get to Poets on Fire which is where he posted his comments.
Most excellent photographs.
@Sche: Thank you muchly
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