dumbfoundry

"Firstly, you must pay. It is simply not OK to treat authors as a public service. Authors may seem to have a lovely carefree life, or to be so low-paid that another day of penury simply doesn't matter, but in fact we all work extremely hard and our time is worth something. It may only be £100 or it may be ten times that. But offering only biscuits is an insult. We can get biscuits at home, thanks."

If literature is food for the mind, then a poem is a banquet, according to research by Scottish scientists which shows poetry is better for the brain than prose.

So, what does this mean for us poets? Poetry rarely pays well, and most poets remain obscure throughout their lives and even after death. As Doctorow and other advocates say, the danger for authors lies not in "piracy" but in obscurity. But with the use of a Creative Commons license, it becomes easier to distribute one's works.

"Another day, another poem. I turn the page of the three-year Alhambra Poetry Calendar (selected by Shafiq Naz, Belgium; see www.alhambrapublishing.com) which Paul Kane introduced us to a couple of years ago. It's the 21st September, 2009. In 2008 it fell on a Sunday, this year it's Monday. Page 342's poem is (surprise --genuine surprise) : Coventry Patmore's To The Body. At last! I think aloud, --A POEM!

The trouble with this poem is that it is too well-known for its own good. I'm trying, without much success, to remember the first time I read it. It seems always to have been among the poetry furniture in my head, and so I can't really ever recapture the first electrifying effect of my first encounter with it. But electrifying it was, that I recall, and it is good now to have the challenge of re-assessing this over-familiar poem and experience it as the new.

"Tell someone you're a poet and their reaction will rarely be a brisk nod and an even 'right you are then'. More likely they will suddenly regard you in one of two ways - either with undeserved and inappropriate wonder or, more often, with equivalent and barely-concealed contempt. In the latter instance, their reaction seems to say: 'A poet? What's the point of that?'"

"A biography which gives more than name and past works is at fault because it inevitably influences the reading of a poem."

"It is now six months since Craig Arnold died — or vanished, as most notices have termed it."

"Black and minority ethnic poets don't always behave in the expected way for poets; that is, they don't always sit down and write in standard English about Greek myths. Perhaps that's why they struggle to get into print. In 2004, writer-critic Bernardine Evaristo discovered that fewer than 1% of those published by mainstream poetry presses were non-white."

'The passage of twenty-five years has not diminished the relevance of [these] poems. As I have followed Christina Pacosz's work, I have been impressed by her vision of the world, beset as it is by the problems she addresses. If poetry is to be returned to circulation after a time in the dark, let it be the poetry that exposes recurring concerns and shows determination to deal with them.'

"I vividly remember reading "Zelkova Tree", the very first poem we published in Cha, for the first time. It triggered my memory of reading Ovid’s Metamorphosis. In Book IX of that book, the nymph Dryope unknowingly plucks a flower of the lotus tree, which is actually another nymph (Lotis). Because of this crime, Dryope is turned into a black poplar. Before the transformation runs its full course, however, she has enough time to utter a message for her son, warning him to be cautious: ‘let him fear the pool, pluck no blossoms from the trees, and think all flowers are goddesses in disguise!’ (Ovid’s Metamorphosis Book IX, 380-81). Apart from pointing out the changeability of all life forms, one can also say Metamorphosis is highly eco-conscious. All these plants and animals are incarnations of others; you are imprudent to poke, pluck and part them, for you cannot be sure what they really are: they may be someone you know!"

Wendy Cope: Yes to the first question. Writing parodies of male poets was one way that I rebelled against male ideas about how we should write. The first poems of mine that got published were literary jokes that made male poets laugh. Some of them probably think those were the only good poems I ever wrote. I don’t think the gender of the Poet Laureate is important. I don’t think the Laureateship is important. I am on record as saying that I would be happy to see it abolished.

And straight off, he mentioned how, as an editor, he wished he did not see quite so very many poems in the present tense--he wanted to see poetry that goes "beyond the lyric moment of now." So how do the tenses work? "I was" gives us rumination, recounting. "I am" gives us immediacy, now (and, I would add, urgency). "I will be" is impending, a prophecy. He advised us a revision technique: try rewriting the poem in another tense entirely. This doesn't have to mean it is correct or there it will remain, but we might open up some possibility, some tension, or find some holes we might not have otherwise noticed.

The TIME Magazine in the dentist’s office is wondering what happens to your cloud-borne data when you’re dead. A relevant question for all of us who a) compute and b) are mortal.

"To mark our 100th birthday I wanted to think of a project on a grand-scale which lots of people could participate in – something that was about Poetry but which also summoned up the idea of ‘Society’ – to reflect all the thousands of people who’ve kept the Society going since 1909.

It being Christmas, the Christina Rossetti poem came into my head “What can I give him, Poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;” So – what skills could I offer the centenary? – I thought – 'I CAN KNIT'."

The current project we are undertaking, in partnership with Corban & Blair, has had myself and the Red Room fellows, inviting poets we have previously commissioned in part Red projects, to allow us use of their poems on these cards. As we had no funds to pay the participating poets to write a new poem or, at this stage, to pay them for a second use of their poem, poets had the opportunity to decline. So, in the case of these cards, Red Room is promoting the poets work out of a devotion to quality Australian poetry and a we have a commitment to providing poets with new audiences and new modes of publication.

Come and enjoy the beauty and power of signed poetry and experience its pleasure and visual impact with two of the most prominent sign language poets in Britain - both with International reputations. Interpreter Cathryn McShane will sign introductions. It will be fun and you do not have to know anything about sign language to enjoy their performance.

Thom starts talking. His voice is soft but clear. His words move like an impromptu dance. Liz and Kim (the Cathouse Creek Duo) play music behind him. He tells us, “Write down what you love.”

I write:

Trees. Song. Waterfalls. Andrew. Chocolate. POETRY! Home country. Birds. Purple. Red. Hot sauce.

He keeps talking. He passes out newspaper pages. "Find a word," he says. "Write it down." (That’s when I find “hot sauce”.) He hands round books, photos, CDs with evocative covers. “Respond!” he tells us, and, “We only have a short time together. Write while you’re listening.” We find that we can.

We write, he talks, we talk, the music plays, we read out what we’ve written, he recites a poem that responds to our words, he reads out poems by other people...

“Write about one of those things you wrote down, write about what you love.”