I have been neglecting this recently, partly down to the constant routine of working on my dissertation and working in a theatre and partly down to finding it strange spending time writing things that not many people read and isn't particularly interesting, but I just realised I want to be a poet so should probably work through that apprehension.
It feels like a bit of a grinding schedule at the moment, but since the last time I wrote I've been snuck up on by some culture. So things I have seen are as follows:
I saw One Man, Two Guvnors and the National Theatre with James Corden, and though I don't like him that much as a comedian, it was one of the funniest things I've ever seen live. An amazing supporting cast and perfectly choreographed slapstick. Also saw Butley with Dominic West on my night off last week. Resisted the temptation to shout "FIVE - O" when he came on stage, and a great script about the unravelling day in the life of an English professor.
My friend and poet, Kayo Chingonyi, generously offered me a spare ticket to see a reading at London Literature Festival in the Southbank centre a couple of weeks ago. It was on the 5th floor (not the Library side) which has brilliant views of the Eye and Parliament, and with four poets reading their work on the theme of Place. It was interesting to hear Kate Clanchy taking and reading about an ambiguous relationship to Scotland, a place she grew up but feels rejected by in many respects. I don't personally feel like a poet rooted in place at all, which is often such a great theme, and it was refreshing to hear writing and opinion from that perspective as well as Toby Martinez De Las Rivas who writes expansively and eloquently on his relationship with the places that have shaped him. Nick Laird, one of my favourite poets, was top of the bill though and after some understandably powerful poems about growing up in Northern Ireland, he gave a taster of the new collection he is working on with a poem called 'Go Rangers', a phrase he hears a lot living in New York.
Read Kayo's blog of the event
http://litandspoken.southbankcentre.co.uk/2011/07/07/poetry-and-place-weston-roof-pavillion-royal-festival-hall/
On New York, and I am onto the close analysis of James Schuyler's poems for my dissertation, which has come as a relief and motivation as I now remember (after all the theory) why I am exploring his writing. It's so grounded in things he can see and hear and somehow he makes every observation incredibly poignant and philosophical. I've been really looking at 'Empathy and New Year' today, which deals with the problems of naming and observation 'Not knowing / the name for something proves nothing'. He finishes it brilliantly, the snow he's been admiring having blown off the trees:
Night / and snow and the threads of life
for once seen as they are,
in ropes like roots.
