Skip to main content

Review: Reading Poetry

I have received, recently, one of the most thoroughly enjoyable books of poetry I have read of late - Reading Poetry: An Anthology.  From Two Rivers Press, and edited by Peter Robinson, it puns on the fact that this is actually a very local anthology, of poets writing from and about the much-maligned town of Reading (home to Ricky Gervais).  Robinson observes that Rimbaud had an address here; Jane Austen was schooled here; Wilde was gaoled here.

What makes the anthology so refreshing is that it isn't grandiose in its claims - this isn't the best of anything.  Indeed, Robinson's introduction is a model of true modesty.  These are simply poems by Reading-based poets, each prefaced with a poet's commentary on how this place has or hasn't impacted on them.  As it turns out, Reading, for all its small-town Englishness, has a thriving poetry community.

The poems - mostly in the Larkin line - are well-written, observational, clever, and amusing.  I was moved by their calm, lyrical approach.  Included are the poets Paul Bavister, Jane Draycott, A.F. Harrold, Kate Noakes, Gill Learner, Susan Utting, and Adrian Blamires, among others.  Not a bad poet in the lot.  This collection reminds us of what is great about English poetry, despite its foibles, spats, conservative twinges and celebrity culture - its continuity, its depth of field, and its constant surprising relationship to wherever it happens to find itself.

Any reader outside of England wanting a glimpse into what living in a less-than-metropolitan city over here is like, and how poets get on with words day to day, should get this exemplary beautifully-made collection.

Comments

Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

When I was growing up in Reading (forty years ago) poetry was conspicuous by its absence. I found it the most philistine town imaginable and after I left to go to Oxford would only return for brief visits. Things have obviously improved since then.

Best wishes from Simon

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".