Monday 4 March 2024

Scenes from a film, Nicholas Hogg's Missing Person

Cinematographic or filmic aren’t habitual adjectives when describing the vast majority of contemporary U.K. poetry, but they provide an ideal point of departure for discussion of Nicholas Hogg’s first full collection, Missing Person (Broken Sleep Books, 2023).

In the above context, the last two stanzas from
Starring Role seem especially relevant:

Then a tea with the lads,
            the ruffle-haired cub. I wander off
from the gang — cue plaintive strings (not too loud)
            as I stand and stare from a new-build shell.
A reviewer may write
            that this is rather mawkish,

the boy at a window
in an empty home. What the critic
has failed to gather, is how the man will carry
            this void
            into every room he walks
            for the rest of his life.

These lines read as a statement of poetic intent. They’re comparing an individual person to a character, a fictional scene to a supposedly factual event, highlighting the blurred lines between the two, while they’re also anticipating a potential film critic/literary reviewer’s reticence at the poem’s struck poses. And all this, of course, plays out alongside a reference to an archetypal musical soundtrack for the event or film. Via these references, Hogg is implicitly asking us questions. Are we reading a poem or watching a film? Is it fact, faction or fiction?


The endings in
Missing Person are particularly interesting. At first, they might often lead a reader to suggest that they’re taking an easy way out of the poem. However, an alternative conclusion presents itself once we view them as the closing shot in a mini-screenplay. This is when they suddenly become loaded with the connotations of Hollywood, toying with our expectations of life and cinema. One such poem is Gun (With Englishman):

I want to add a detail here, like circling birds, or a dust devil swirl.
But, no. Just a fridge. And a target with a heart
blown out.

In this extract, the first person jumps from being a protagonist to taking on the role of the screenwriter. Or even the director. At this point, the reader is made aware that the poem is blending with a scene from a film, riffing on all those stereotypical plot twists and images that the big screen imposes.

These cinematographic poems are by far the most remarkable pieces in
Missing Person. They stand out among the other strong but less striking poems that make up the rest of this collection, and are well worth the entrance fee to the book as a whole. Here’s hoping Nicholas Hogg’s future writing continues to explore and mine their potential, because they strike at the heart of a crucial issue in contemporary U.K. poetry - the blurring of the poet and the first person – and they do so with terrific, idiosyncratic insight. I recommend you read them for yourself!

Saturday 2 March 2024

Tasting Notes on YouTube

Thanks to my new YouTube channel, I’ve managed to upload the poetry film of Tasting Notes that we made back in 2013. The pamphlet might be out of print, but at least this gives the poems themselves a new lease of life…!

Tuesday 27 February 2024

Meticulous observation, Jean Atkin's High Nowhere

High Nowhere (Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2023), Jean Atkin’s new collection, is packed with implicit and explicit sociopolitical ramifications that overtake the reader bit by bit, poem by poem. At first sight, it might seem a disparate book, but is highly coherent and cohesive, each section adding another layer to Atkin’s portrayal of a planet in crisis.

This above-mentioned portrayal sometimes addresses climate change directly, as in references to extinction (such as to the Tasmanian Tiger) and a poem titled
40.2 degrees. And then it homes in on other negative impacts of human activity, as in Earth’s viral load

To understand viruses, consider
how humans infest the earth.
How each one wants only to live.

At other times, however, Atkin’s approach is more indirect. One such example can be found in
A wish on the Glynch, which ends as follows:

…Wish for water
say the millstones, wish for the grain’s flow
wish for bread, says the village
bread and summer sunshine, bread and ordinary snow
bread ground for us by the Glynch brook minnow!

In this case, the poem works in synch with the rest of the book via its evocation of the loss of local roots and food sources, hinting at the disappearance of a connection with the place where we live rather than stating it outright.

And this last point takes on additional significance once the collection’s focus shifts to Iceland, where nature might appear eternal, but where modern development also intrudes, as in the final stanza of
Power Lines...

September, and I am being driven in the rain
past the new giants of Iceland, their electric spell.
I will keep listening in fear of the future,
in fear of the stories the pylons will tell.

Jean Atkin’s poetry never rants. Instead, it observes meticulously. On opening
High Nowhere, we find ourselves in the hands of a poet who trusts us to reach our own conclusions on the back of her reportage. I dare you to finish reading this book and emerge indifferent to the role of humans in the plight of the Earth. That’s the mark of Atkin’s success.

Sunday 25 February 2024

A video from the London launch

Here’s a visual taster of Whatever You Do, Just Don’t, a video from the packed London launch in which I read a poem titled The Ghost of Tim Walker (with thanks to Flo, Mat Riches’ daughter, for shooting it). Enjoy…! 

Tuesday 20 February 2024

Fire River Poets

I'll be the Guest Poet for Fire River Poets on 7th March, reading from Whatever You Do, Just Don't. This is a Zoom event (open to all but requiring prior registration). More info on the Fire River Poets website via this link.

Thursday 15 February 2024

A clear-eyed approach to grief, Christopher Arksey's Variety Turns

Variety Turns (Broken Sleep Books, 2023) is Christopher Arksey’s first pamphlet and is unusual in many ways. To start with, it’s thematic in nature rather than following the time-trusted route of providing an initial wide-ranging sample of the poet’s attributes. This decision alone indicates the poet’s confidence in his own writing, which also extends to a trust in his readers throughout these poems, never forcing arguments or conclusions, instead allowing layered details to speak for themselves.

The pamphlet revolves around the loss of a mother, tracking the process of her dying and then her family’s grief. Such highly personal subject matter means it’s far too easy to conflate the poet and the first-person protagonist, as is demonstrated by several of the otherwise insightful blurbs that accompany the book. However, Arksey himself refuses to fall into such a trap. One excellent example of his method is Grief, which I’ll now quote in full (with thanks to the poet himself for granting me permission to do so):

Indescribable,
though I’ve tried.
Failing in my usual
way of stumped silence
or inarticulate babble.
The best I can offer:
a permanent resident,
neither seen nor heard,
though their presence
is felt everywhere.

The poem combines self-deprecating humour with a clear-eyed, never maudlin attitude towards hefty themes, all alongside an implicit reminder that poetry is art and artifice rather than mere anecdote, as is reflected by Arksey’s explicit invocation of metaphor. Moreover, he engages with the suggestion that elegies are renowned for allowing the poet to overreach to express something that cannot be expressed. Arksey’s afore-mentioned self-deprecation undercuts such an approach, providing us with an implicit statement of poetic intent for the pamphlet as a whole, standing against received wisdom.

Both in approach and in execution, Variety Turns introduces us to a fully formed voice. A quick glance at the endorsements might suggest it’s a hard read, but Christopher Arksey’s light touch enables him to dodge any accusation of sentimentality or self-indulgence. This is a pamphlet that shows how pain can be turned into poetry without abandoning the reader, and that’s a considerable achievement in the current poetic climate.

Tuesday 13 February 2024

Copy by copy...

Copy by copy, every hard-earned sale of a poetry collection is an act of trust, a contract between the poet and the reader that reaches far beyond money. This is why I refuse to shy away from reminding you about Whatever You Do, Just Don't. You can purchase it here.