Postcard from a Poet
Recently it was International Poetry Day. This is an annual event that always seems to pass me by as I guess it does many lovers of poetry, for what on earth is a day such as this for other than to shake awake those people that forget to appreciate the important things in life because other, louder things have taken over. Like Mothers Day or World AIDS Day, it is designed by sensitive people to remind the rest of us to be sensitive. I have no problem with that. Two minutes on local transport will prove to anyone just how much people in this country need reminding. But it only occurred to me on International Poetry Day this year what it is really for. As it was succinctly put (and with a refreshing lack of sentiment) by a poet whose name drifted from my radio and past me in the background of my office: it is to give poets some work. As a poet myself, who could barely afford to raise a glass to the memory of Betjeman with the entire earnings of my career, I am all for these metaphorical bunk-ups, these Poetry Veteran’s Benevolent Society fundraising days. There are some really talented writers of verse out there who really deserve them. After all, these types of days are organised in order to provide for people whom the state has neglected, that the state, the people within that state, and the governors of that state have not rewarded aptly for duty. Or they are set up to raise money and awareness for those less fortunate than others (novelists?), those that the state should be looking after but for some reason or other (and I resist the temptation to drag Thatcher into this) have neglected as a society. I prefer to think of it as a kind of Poets’ soup kitchen rather than as a “poetry awareness day” as I have heard it described, which makes it sound like there should be posters about it up in the doctors waiting rooms of the land.
It is sad to see poetry in such a state. Publishers (apart from the obvious and devoted) are disinterested. Magazines (apart from the devoted) are crippled by lack of circulation. This is all pointing in one direction: nobody reads it. I think it is Kenneth Rexroth I echo when I say I cannot abide people that claim to love poetry but never buy a book. I have met no end of people who quote Robert Frost at me and yet could not name one of his volumes. This is hardly a crime but it has just reminded me that one of the advantages of being a writer is that nobody can hear you scream.
So why is it that we – if I can bullishly shoulder in on the territory reserved for successful poets for a moment – continue to write it? Every teenage miscreant has scribbled a verse or two on the back of his/her biology folder in an attempt to squeeze the poison from the wound of an unrequited crush. But why would an adult, with responsibilities and licences and hair in annoying places feel the need to write a poem and send it off for publication, screaming from the page, “look at me! This is what I was feeling! This is how I view the world! Look how clever I am!” What is the point if nobody reads it?
I remember the look my father gave me when I told him that I wanted to be a poet and he asked me if I could make a living out of it. I gravely quoted Robert Graves: “There is no money in poetry” I said, “but there is no poetry in money, either.” “But does it have a good pension scheme?” was written all over his face. It is a classic ailment, the Poets’ bank balance, which stretches back farther than the mortgage or the credit card repayment by quite some distance. It is an ailment that suggests to me that IPD is organised more to help cure a poet than to redress him his dues. At least, with that in mind, you know you can always trust a poet.
Poetry is the best thoughts written in the finest language, somebody once said (no doubt infinitely more eloquently than that.) But we now live in an age where intellectual depth and beauty, where not extinct altogether, have moved onto different plains. So few people are interested in reading poetry because now you can experience the same emotions on the screen – you can rent “poetry” from Blockbuster and soak up some kind of Don Juan or Wreck of the Hesperus in under two hours. But people continue to write it because mankind has a need to create, a need to express the feelings felt when a butterfly leaves a rose petal, how small we can all feel briefly in between worrying about paying the bills and fretting over whether she really loves me. When you can hire a film crew and a good cast for the price of a biro and notepad, poetry will die out altogether. That’s not to say, specifically, that film is killing poetry. More accurately I am saying that when the artistic revolutionaries of yesteryear looked for inspiration, they looked to Rimbaud, to Whitman or to Byron. Now we sit in the midst of a truly unique age when everything moves too fast for most people. Now is the age when the heroes of the young revolutionaries are The Clash and Scorsese. Poetry has moved on. Now it’s rock ‘n’ roll.
This article originally appeared in CFUK Magazine Winter 2006