Poetry Ireland News

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POETRY IRELAND NEWS Scéala Éigse Éireann

March / April 2011

editorial / eagarfhocal Dear Subscribers, I’m delighted to report that the Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon has maintained our funding at last year’s levels.

This comes as a considerable affirmation for our organisation, and for the services we provide and the work we do in these difficult economic times, and will ensure our vital support for writers and writing is continued both island-wide and internationally.

Thanks also to the Arts Council of Northern Ireland for supporting the exciting development of the extension of the Writers In Schools Scheme to the North. Based on the success of and response to the Border Crossings Project – a pilot series of visits/residencies due to finish this Easter – we anticipate there will be considerable interest in schools’ programmes in Northern Ireland.

Spring is upon us and so too are the festivals, be it the Poetry Now in Dún Laoghaire, Cúirt in Galway, or the Franco-Irish Literary festival in Dublin Castle. And to celebrate Dublin’s establishment as an UNESCO capital of literature, DublinSwell will take place on 18 March in the Convention Centre on North Wall Quay, for what promises to be an extraordinary night of literature and music; despite the size of the venue, the word is to book early.

Lastly, congratulations to poet and former editor of Poetry Ireland Review Peter Sirr, who won the Michael Hartnett Award for his collection The Thing Is. – Joseph Woods, Director

SPRING FESTIVALS Anne Carson will open this year’s Poetry Now festival in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, with a keynote address entitled The Untranslatable (In All of Us). The festival runs from Thursday 24 to Sunday 27 March, based at the Pavilion Theatre, and events include: a seminar to mark the centenary of the birth of Polish poet Czesław Miłosz (1911–2004), awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980; readings with Dave Lordan, Fiona Sampson, Michael Longley, Gerald Stern, Don Paterson and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, among others; and the announcement of the winners of the Irish Times Poetry Now Award and the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award. Full details available at www.poetrynow.ie The twelfth consecutive Franco-Irish Literary Festival, with a theme of Générations / Generations / Glúnta, is based in The Coach House, Dublin Castle from Friday 8 to Sunday 10 April. This year’s festival features bi-lingual readings, lectures and discussions with Geneviève Brisac, Virginie Linhart, Phillippe Forest, Eric Fottorino, Véronique Ovaldé, Claude Arnaud, Mícheál Ó Conghaile, Caitríona O’Reilly, John Banville, Macdara Woods, Harry Clifton, Keith Ridgway and Paul Murray, among others.

For full details, try www.francoirishliteraryfestival.com Galway’s Cúirt Festival takes place from Tuesday 12 to Sunday 17 April, and among the literary highlights are readings, launches and discussions with Simon Armitage, Kevin Barry, Sujata Bhatt, Dermot Healy, Paul Murray, Dennis O’Driscoll, and Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley, who will launch Being Human, the companion anthology to Staying Alive and Being Alive.

For a full programme go to www.galwayartscentre.ie

Poetry Ireland News is published bi-monthly by Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann Designed & Edited by Paul Lenehan and David Maybury Director: Joseph Woods Administrator: Ayoma Bowe Publications Officer: Paul Lenehan Media Resources: David Maybury Education Officer: Jane O’Hanlon (01) 475 8605 WiS Development Officer: Anna Boner (01) 475 8601 Development Education: Moira Cardiff Poetry Ireland, 2 Proud’s Lane, D2 Phone: (01) 4789974 Fax: (01) 4780205 E-mail: poetry@iol.ie Web: www.poetryireland.ie Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann is grantaided by both Arts Councils in Ireland

MICHAEL HARTNETT POETRY AWARD Peter Sirr is the winner of the 2011 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award for his collection The Thing Is (Gallery Press), described by adjudicators James Harpur, Thomas McCarthy and Mary O’Malley as a work of great technical skill in versecraft that is lifted beyond mere craft by the power of reflective waiting. Peter Sirr, a previous winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, and former Director of the Irish Writers’ Centre, will accept the award at the opening of Éigse Michael Hartnett on Thursday April 14 in Hartnett’s home town of Newcastle West, Co Limerick (www.eigsemichaelhartnett.ie). The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award / Gradam Bliantúil Filíochta i gCuimhne ar Mhícheál Ó hAirtnéide is jointly funded by Limerick County Council and The Arts Council.

LUNAR Dear pea-head, in your lunar language tell us again how the world stirs, how things appear, hold still, drift; how the light startles and the dog erupts at dawn to shout creation down, how smiles begin and faces blunder close then far, and sing. Give us the seal-note, bird-trill, warble, let rip, tell us what the gods want of us, who your leader is, how to sing, like you, under the language, like stars, like submarines, like the spirits of everything here, like a sleeve of wrens loosed from a hedgerow and lifted clear ...

– Peter Sirr, from The Thing Is

Please send items for publication in the next issue no later than mid-April 2011.

Due to space limitations, not every item received can be included in the newsletter.

Visit our website at www.poetryireland.ie to view readings and events not included in this issue.

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readings léamha Poetry Ireland Readings All Poetry Ireland events are admission free except where indicated. To confirm, use local contact details or tel. 01 4789974; e-mail info@poetryireland.ie

Steve MacDonogh

Dermot Bolger

Olaf Tyaransen

Tommy Frank O’Connor

Philip McDonagh

Friday 4 March @ 6.30pm

Thursday 31 March @ 6.30 pm

Poetry Ireland in association with Dublin Book Festival and Publishing Ireland presents A Tribute to Steve MacDonogh (1949-2010) MacDonagh will be celebrated by speakers including Alice Taylor, Ken Bruen, Michael O’Brien, Ronan Sheehan and Gerry Adams as well as through poetry, stories and music.

The tribute will be followed by the launch of Steve’s final project with Brandon, Corca Dhuibhne by Liam O’Neill T. 01 4151210 E. info@dublinbookfestival.com W. dublinbookfestival.com

Poetry Ireland in association with Over the Edge presents

Saturday 19 March @ 11.30am Poetry Ireland is association with the SiarScéal Festival presents Dermot Bolger The Abbey Hotel, Abbey St, Roscommon, Co Roscommon T. 087 2628191 W. www.siarsceal.com

Saturday 26 March @ 8pm Poetry Ireland in association with The Forge at Gort Festival presents Olaf Tyaransen & Clare Sawtell Admission: €4/3 Sullivan's Royal Hotel, Gort, Co Galway T. 091 564822 ext 312 E. sylfredcar@iolfree.ie

Wednesday 30 March @ 7.30 pm Poetry Ireland in association with Doghouse Books presents

Aidan Hayes, Mae Leonard, Karen O’Connor, Anatoly Kudryavitsky & Tommy Frank O’Connor Siamsa Tíre Theatre, Tralee (Adm. €9/6) T. 066 7137547 E. info@doghousebooks.ie

Tua Forsström

Tuesday 12 April @ 6.30 pm Poetry Ireland in association with the Irish Writers’ Centre, The Royal Danish Embassy in Ireland, The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ireland, NORLA (Norwegian Literature Abroad), The Finnish Embassy in Ireland, the Embassy of Sweden in Ireland and the Swedish Arts Council presents a Nordic Night of poets and poetry featuring

Tua Forsström, Jan Erik Rekdal, Morten Sondergaard & Eva Runefelt Irish Writers Centre, 19 Parnell Square, D1 T. 01 8721302 E. info@writerscentre.ie

Sunday 1 May @ 3.00pm Poetry Ireland in association with Strokestown International Poetry Festival presents Peter Fallon Strokestown Park House, Strokestown, Co Roscommon.

T. 071 9633 690 E. director@strokestownpoetry.org W. www.strokestownpoetry.org

Monday 2 May @ 1.15pm Poetry Ireland in association with Drogheda Arts Festival presents Michael O’Loughlin Droichead Arts Centre, Stockwell St, Drogheda, Co Louth T. 041 9833946 E. info@droghedaartsfestival.ie W. www.droghedaartsfestival.ie (Adm. €8)

Thursday 5 May @ 6.30 pm

Thursday 31 March @ 6.30 pm

Poetry Ireland in association with Doghouse Books presents the launch of Via Crucis by David Butler and Capering Moons by Anatoly Kudryavitsky.

Damer Hall, 112 St Stephen’s Green West, D2

Poetry Ireland presents Philip McDonagh accompanied by harpist Lily Neill, launching her new CD, The Habit of a Foreign Sky. Unitarian Church, 112 St Stephen’s Green West, D2

Miriam Gamble

Miriam Gamble,

with James Lawless & Anne McManus Galway City Library, St. Augustine St, Galway T. 087 6431748 E. over-the-edge-openreadings@hotmail.com

Peter Fallon

Michael O’Loughlin

Anatoly Kudryavitsky

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education oiliúint the write residency by enda wyley Poetry Ireland has over the years sponsored and supported many valuable Writer in Residence programmes in schools throughout the country.

Poet and Children’s writer Enda Wyley is the current Writer in Residence at Loreto Dalkey Secondary School, sponsored by Poetry Ireland and supported by Loreto Dalkey staff and pupils. Here, she describes exercises and approaches she uses in the poetry workshops she runs for Transition Year students.

We each hold the amethyst at the beginning and the end of every poetry workshop. It is lilac at the jagged tips, dark purple in the centre and is said to be the stone of inspiration.

So, we pass it from hand to hand, each person telling the rest of us a piece of news or something they remembered, overheard or noticed since last we met – two cats fighting, an angel made of snow, a chimney on fire. Poetry is after all, to be found in the detail of memory and then is made whole by the imagination.

The amethyst warms us up to the multitude of possibilities that poetry can uncover. And as the stone moves through the group, we discover that it changes, just as we do by listening to the ideas of everyone in the workshop. By the time the stone reaches the last person, it is no longer that icy cold stone that emerged from the bottom of my rucksack but a truly precious stone made warm from the energy of ideas in the workshop.

It is a simple exercise, this passing of the amethyst. But somehow it has helped us to loosen up our senses, free us from the tangle of our everyday lives and springboard us into the world of poetry where everything is possible, if you want it to be.

Now we are set to read and be inspired from other poets.

We look at the Czech poet Miroslav Holub’s poem ‘Go and Open the Door.’ Nobody has heard of him but for now, that doesn’t matter. What is important is the poem. It is fresh and surprising and deceptively simple.

Go and open the door.

Maybe outside there’s a tree, or a wood, a garden, or a magic city.

It is also quietly humorous and the last few lines make us smile. Why must we open the door? Because, Holub tells us, ‘At least/ there’ll be/ a draught.’

We try writing our own poems using Holub’s first line and surprise ourselves when the poems begin to flow in the short space of time we have for the poetry workshop.

‘I never thought before that other people’s poems could inspire me to write,’ someone in the class says and we all nod, pleased with the realisation that this is true. We read our poems out loud to each other and like them.

We move on. How are poems made? How do we structure them? What’s the difference between a piece of prose and a poem? We chat about these ideas. Then we get scribbling again, the pens itching in our hands. We write poems with wishes in them, dreams in them, poems full of lies. Writing poetry is fun we discover and there are no rules – only the

ones we make up by ourselves for our poems. We feel free and happy.

Today we talk about images. We try writing poems where one thing is compared to another. We find we can write in metaphor, without using the words ‘as’ or ‘like’.

A building reminds one person of branches against a skyline.

Cyclists in a city, make somebody else think of wheat swaying in a field. We read Ezra Pound’s two line poem – yes, poems can be that short! – where his description of a crowd in a métro station in Paris is unexpected and inspiring: The apparition of these faces in a crowd; petals on a wet, black bough.

Time is nearly up. We pass the amethyst from hand to hand and conclude by saying one thing we enjoyed in the class today. We are all agreed we want to read more, keep a journal, write more, before we meet again.

I say goodbye, wipe the board clean and place the precious stone in my bag. On the way to the train station I feel it against my lower back, still warm from the energies I’ve left behind. When I reach the city, the stone still hasn’t fully cooled down.

It will take a long time to do so.

The Door Go and open the door.

Come to see me, it's oka y, But please, Don't let the door get in your way.

Go and open the door.

Out here there is a blue There is beauty and opposky and happy sun.

Now go, and turn the hanrtunity. dle.

Go and open the door.

Let a gush of wind be you It will refresh you, clean r freedom.

Now go, push the door you. and allow it disappear.

Deep down you know you Be aware that you will enc can open the door.

But use that strength to ounter more. push you forward, And remember, You are far greater than the door you stand before .

Carla Celada, Loreto Dalkey Secondar y School Student

Enda Wyley (www.endawyley.com) has published four collections of poetry with Dedalus Press – most recently To Wake to This in 2009. Her books for children include I Won’t Go to China and The Silver Notebook, both from O’Brien Press.

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opinions tuairimíocht THE EMBODIED TEXT

by MÁIGHRÉAD MEDBH

It began for me with two performances in 1988, one by Patrick Deeley, the other by Diarmuid Lynch-Ó Dálaigh.

Though in my early stages as a poet, I had already decided on an approach to composition: I would shape the form directly from the feeling and I wouldn’t censor my language. Publication and vocal delivery weren’t yet issues for me, but watching those two very different poets reciting without text awoke a fancied heritage of bardic performance that gave me a sense of mission. I still see them, how their words seemed to be living in them, straining their chests and pushing out their foreheads.

exciting artists, from John Cooper Clarke to Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze. It also seemed necessary to address the political situation. Source and story, philosophy and psychology, comprised my more natural habitat, but in the late eighties, Ireland was shivering in the uncertain hands of censorship and social flux. If I were to write seriously, even self-obsessed little I felt that I couldn’t turn a blind one. There was also feminism, which I had discovered late.

well-researched novels, and have another large prose work in progress.

At present I’m focused on a mix of page and performance and am glad to have embraced what is now a renascent art.

Inspired, Gerry McGovern and I organised some multi-media performance nights, which, fired by fandom and hubris, were christened Exploding Plastic Inevitable. Taking part were people who are still on the Dublin scene and some who, sadly, no longer perform – Mael Coll Rua and Whipping Boy among the best.

So what’s it all about? For me it’s about sourcing the physical motivation behind the thought. My basic method is to mine my body for its reactions to chosen themes, listen to the rhythms that emerge and fit words to the rhythms.

Lately, I often remain more distant from my themes, but for the narrative poems and those that describe emotions, I usually work from body-feel. I then like to let the words sing, and be sung by, the body. This act becomes part of the publication process. Performance poets are, predictably, physically expressive.

Another major component is empathy. I want to reach out and touch someone.

The desire to create a circle of communication drives the performance.

At one event someone said, ‘The others told us how it was; you took us there.’

I was socially inept, bad at confrontation and unable to deal with criticism. Not the best personality for embarking on a course of declamation, iconoclasm and self-exposure. Thankfully, the debilities were containable. I put on whatever armour was necessary and proceeded to do a job. To my introspective and uncool self, the possibility that I might be part of something radical seemed worth the effort. In practice, much of it was self-immolation. I never became part of any ‘scene’. I made a point of being indifferent to praise and resistant to adoption by radical coteries. I wanted to explore, as faithfully as possible, the phenomenon of my existence.

Performance poets are often very well read and are not necessarily inattentive to detail. Verbal simplicity and play can be deceptive. I’m very impressed by the quality and experimentation of many poets on the lively contemporary circuit. However, there are performance poets who play slavishly to the audience, who think their presentation must be light, ‘positive’ and moral. This is also a common practice among poets who don’t consider themselves performers. I don’t think we should apologise for depressing, disturbing or bewildering. When we present the truest poem we can manage, we offer a memorable experience.

I’ve always been attracted to performance. I trained in stagecraft and took part in some productions. But performing your own work is terrifying in the initial stages. In a play you lose your personality in the character and someone else’s words, but when you stand page-less to present a poem, you are naked and alone. You embody the text.

It wasn’t just the romantic notion of a bardic tradition. Public Enemy had just taken to the world stage and spoken-word performance had energy and relevance. Some rap was really good, and Britain had a huge array of

Did the performing make my poetry inferior? Yes and no. During the heavier political phase, I was often polemical, simplistically formulaic and hasty in concept. Within a few years, I had resumed my closer work with concept and form, though I still composed with an eye to dramatic potential. If print is a yardstick, I’ve been shortlisted in a few competitions, published in many journals and anthologies, and my collections come from three publishing houses. At my lowest textual ebb, I think the audience at least experienced verbal fluency, passion and a physical engagement with words that was relatively unusual.

I’ve sometimes regretted the decision to publish in the vocal moment more often than on the page. If I hadn’t spent all that time working with samples and recordings, training my voice and body, I might have twenty published collections by now. I did, after all, write several

Discipline and preparation matter. A rakish performance will work, a careless one will not. But the key, the absolute necessity, is a considered and sustained theory of the text. This is intellectual practice and the gig will suffer from its neglect. Performance poetry at its best is a fusion of mind and matter.

Máighréad Medbh’s most recent collection is Twelve Beds for the Dreamer (Arlen House, 2010).

Her website is www.maighreadmedbh.ie

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competitions, etc comórtaisí, srl FESTIVALS, COMPETITIONS, ETC WILLIAM TREVOR / ELIZABETH BOWEN SHORT STORY COMPETITION Entries are now being accepted for the inaugural William Trevor / Elizabeth Bowen short story competition, which has a total prize fund of €4,500 available for stories of no more than 3,000 words. The adjudicators are Vincent McDonnell & John McKenna, the deadline for entries is Friday 29 April. For an entry form go to www.mitchelstownlit.com or contact Poetry Ireland.

WIGTOWN POETRY Wigtown, on the south-west coast of Scotland, is ‘home to 900 people, a malt whisky distillery and, since 1988, a quarter of a million books’ (see www.wigtown-booktown.co.uk).

The Wigtown Poetry Competition, run in conjunction with the Wigtown Book Festival, has categories for poems in English, Scots and Scots/Irish Gaelic, judged by Brian Johnstone, Rab Wilson and Aonghas Phàdraig Caimbeul, respectively.

The closing date is Tuesday 3 May. For further details or to enter online go to www.wigtownbookfestival.com or contact Poetry Ireland.

OVER THE EDGE COMPETITION The 2011 Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Competition, for poets and fiction writers, is open for entries until Wednesday, 3 August, and offers a total prize fund of €1,000. The authors of the winning poem and story will vie for the title of New Writer of the Year and for the opportunity to read at an Over The Edge event in Galway.

This year's judge is Elaine Feeney, whose first full collection of poetry, Where’s Katie?, was published last year by Salmon.

For full details, visit http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com THE FORGE AT GORT The Forge at Gort festival, run by the Western Writers’ Centre, takes place on Friday 25 and Saturday 26 March in Gort, Co Galway. Participants include The Poetry Chicks, Michael Kearney, a Poetry-Ireland sponsored reading with Olaf Tyaransen & Clare Sawtell (see Readings page), Paul Jeffcut, John W Sexton and the première of Tea With George Moore, a celebration of the life and work of George Moore by Margaretta D’Arcy and John Arden.

T. 091 564822 (Ext. 312) E. westernwriters@eircom.net W. www.twwc.ie TRINITY WRITING WORKSHOP In his capacity as Writer Fellow at Trinity College Dublin, Hugo Hamilton will lead a (free of charge) writing workshop on Friday 25 March–Saturday 26 March, and Friday 1 April–Saturday 2 April. Applicants should submit by post (no e-mail) a single piece of prose not exceeding 1000 words to the Oscar Wilde Centre, School of English, Trinity College Dublin, 21 Westland Row, D2, no later than Friday 18 March.

Further info from lifoley@tcd.ie ANNE ENRIGHT Edited by Claire Bracken and Susan Cahill, Anne Enright is the first book-length study of the 2007 Man-Booker Prize winner’s work. The book, published by Irish Academic Press,

will be launched on Thursday 24 March at 6pm in The Oak Room, Mansion House, Dawson St, D2. Moynagh Sullivan from NUI Maynooth is Guest Speaker, and Anne Enright herself will be in attendance to read from her new book, The Forgotten Waltz. Admission free, all are welcome.

QUB Highlights of the Spring season at The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry (Queen's University, Belfast) include Michael Longley on Thursday 31 March at 8pm in the Great Hall, and a reading from Irish-language poets, Philip Cummings, Gearóid MacLochlainn and Caitríona Ní Chléirchín, in the Seminar Room, Seamus Heaney Centre, on Friday 13 May. For a full programme go to www.qub.ac.uk/heaneycentre POETRY AND PENITENCE On Saturday April 2 Maurice Harmon will give two talks (morning and afternoon) on ‘Poetry and Penitence’, followed by a discussion, at Avila, Carmelite Centre, Bloomfield Avenue, Morehampton Rd, D4. Admission free, all welcome. T. 01 6430200 for start times and enquiries.

DEDALUS LAUNCH On Tuesday 5 April at 7pm in the Irish Writers’ Centre, 19 Parnell Sq, D1, Dedalus Press will launch three new collections of poetry: Piano by Eva Bourke Sorrow’s Egg by Katherine Duffy Hombre: New and Selected Poems by Gerard Fanning T. 01 8721302 E. info@writerscentre.ie / editor@dedaluspress.com MA IN POETRY STUDIES AT MDI The Mater Dei Institute of Education is offering a MA in Poetry Studies, available either part-time (2 years) or full-time (1 year). The course aims to provide ‘a necessary bridge to the study of poetry at doctoral level, but also to provide a sense of disciplinary confidence to those who write and read poetry for pleasure.’ Modules available for the MA include the poetic representation of Italy from Virgil to the present; Elizabeth Bishop; the Lyric tradition from Sappho to Hip-Hop; Contemporary Poetries; and a Poetry Studies Workshop.

For more information, contact Michael Hinds (Programme Co-ordinator), Mater Dei Institute of Education, Clonliffe Rd, D3, on 01 808 6527, or e-mail michael.hinds@materdei.dcu.ie DUBLINSWELL DublinSwell is ‘an evening of imagination and inspiration’ to celebrate Dublin’s status as an UNESCO City of Literature, and features leading names from the worlds of literature, music film and theatre, including: Sebastian Barry, Dermot Bolger, Damien Dempsey, Roddy Doyle, Paul Durcan, Christine Dwyer Hickey, Glen Hansard, Paul Howard (aka Ross O’Carroll Kelly), Declan Hughes, Biddy Jenkinson, Claire Kilroy, Paula Meehan, Joseph O’Connor, Seamus Heaney and actors from the Abbey Theatre company.

The event takes place on Friday 18 March @ 7.30pm at the Convention Centre, Spencer Dock, North Wall, D1.

To Book: www.tickets.ie/DublinSwell or T. 0818 33 32 31.

Tickets: €18, €21, €25, incl. booking fee.

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opinions tuairimíocht KEEPING IT STEADY Poems about poetry can be awfully discouraging, but a good one I often come back to, for my own obscure reasons, is this short poem by Robert Graves:

by THEO DORGAN usage of words, stands in dialectical relationship to the invisible langue.

DANCE OF WORDS To make them move, you should start from lightning And not forecast the rhythm: rely on chance Or so-called chance for its bright emergence Once lightning interpenetrates the dance.

For Graves, the poetic trance is integrative, not reductive; the poetic trance involves a heightening, not a diminution of powers — in this trance the mind is more, not less, conscious of itself, of the phenomenal world and of its own operations. Apparently disparate thoughts, feelings, events are seen as structurally interdependent and mutually informing – the whole issuing in an artefact, the poem, which has the power of compelling attention, of reinvoking experience.

Grant them their own traditional steps and postures But see they dance it out again and again Until only lightning is left to puzzle over – The choreography plain, and the theme plain.

There’s a great steadying sanity in that poem, as there is in the 1962 lectures on poetry that Graves gave in Oxford.

When he writes about poems, his own or another’s, Graves is patently sincere in his intention, which is to give his opinion as a diligent craftsman on the work under scrutiny. His critical writings are a kind of curiosity; the style is low-key, anecdotal, a kind of reportage; he neither seeks to establish, not appears to see any merit in, anything resembling a “first principles” critical method.

For the Russian Formalists, according to Terence Hawkes, poetry … was made out of words, not ‘poetic’ subjects. For Graves also, the word, allied with and informed by a lively sense of its history of usage and its etymology, is the basis of poetry: a poet lives with his own language, continually instructing himself in the origin, histories, pronunciation and peculiar usages of words, together with their latent powers, and the exact shades of distinction between what Roget’s Thesaurus calls ‘synonyms’ – but are there any such things? … A poet may make his own precedents, in disregard of any law of correctness laid down by grammarians – so long as they accord with the natural genius of English.

Similarly, Saussure’s individuation of the two realms of langue and parole would not be, to Graves, an alien concept. He is aware that the entirety of a language is anterior to any given utterance, and that speech, parole, the

more fully the implications of his lines, and sharpens them. The final version (granted the truthfulness of its original draft, and the integrity of any secondary elaboration) will hypnotize readers who are faced by similar problems into sharing the poet’s emotional experience.

Graves says: In a true poem, produced by the deep trance that integrates all the memories of the mind, the dormant powers of each word awake and combine with those of every other, building up a tremendous head of power. How far the reader is conscious of the inter-related sounds and meanings depends on how much of a poet he, or she, is: for I allow the title of poet to all who think poetically, whether writers or not.

For Graves, poetry arrives from ‘otherwhere’. He maintains that the poet’s attention is somehow forcibly attracted, even seized, and further that the force which presses the poem on him is an organizing force, requiring certain predispositions of the poet’s mind in order to be received, containing its own lineaments in protean form: all poems, it seems, grow from a small verbal nucleus gradually assuming an individual rhythm and verse form. The writing is not ‘automatic’, as in a mediumistic trance when the pen travels without pause over the paper, but is broken by frequent critical amendments and excisions. And though the result of subsequently reading a poem through may be surprise at the unifying of elements drawn from so many different levels of consciousness, this surprise will be qualified by dissatisfaction with some lines.

Objective recognition of the poem as an entity should then induce a lighter trance, during which the poet realizes

One of the things I like in Graves is that his descriptions of poem-making have an undemonstrative, matter-of-fact quality: The Vienna school of psychology presumes a conscious and unconscious mind as two separate and usually warring entities; but a poet cannot accept this. In the poetic trance he has access not only to the primitive emotions and thoughts which lie stored in his childhood memory, but to all his subsequent experiences – emotional and intellectual; including a wide knowledge of English won by constant critical study.

Words are filed away by their hundred thousand, not in alphabetic order but in related groups; and as soon as the trance seizes him, he can single out most of the ones he needs. Moreover, when the first heavily-blotted draft has been copied out fairly before he goes to bed, and laid aside for reconsideration, he will read it the next morning as if it were written by another hand. Yet soon he is back in the trance, finds that his mind has been active while he was asleep on the problem of internal relations, and that he can substitute the exact right word for the stand-in with which he had to be content the night before.

Sounds about right to me.

Theo Dorgan’s most recent publications include the poetry collection Greek (Dedalus, 2009) and the memoir Time on the Ocean: Sailing from Cape Horn to Cape Town (New Island, 2010).