Not Quite Back to the Forward

The sharp eyed among you will have noticed that, despite previous posts on the Forward prize shortlists, I've not yet commented on the results. The main reason for this, aside from the usual time pressures, is that so far I've read only one of the shortlisted collections in each of the book lists--John Burnside's Gift Songs and Daljit Nagra's Look We Have Coming to Dover!, which won the first-collection prize--and, until I have at least a couple of the other books under my belt for comparison's sake, I don't feel qualified to comment on whether I think the winners were the most worthy. I'm currently reading Luke Kennard's The Harbour Beyond the Movie; no distance through it yet, but hugely impressed thus far. Sean O'Brien's winning The Drowned Book is high on the to-be-read pile. I'll be back to this topic, time permitting.

The Marvellous Madness Begins

It's August, there's a downpour a day and Edinburgh has brigadooned into the Radio 4 consciousness once again. Must be festival time. Of course, by "festival" I mean not only the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, but the Festival of Spirituality and Peace, the Edinburgh book fringe (which seems to be so unofficial this year that it lacks any separate publicity), the Edinburgh Art Festival and probably several other festivals I've heard nothing about yet.

I long ago abandoned hope of navigating the seven circles of the Fringe programme* and now tend to focus my attention on the Book Festival first, then the International Festival and the Film Festival with glances at Fringe reviews. However, my first taste of Edinburgh's 2007 festival vibe, courtesy of a tip-off from Rob A Mackenzie, was a chunk of Luke Wright's Poetry Party on Saturday night. I won't repeat what I said here and here about performance poetry. Not all the names on the bill were performance poets as such, but that was the overall style. I heard only a small selection of them: Joe Dunthorne, Tim Turnbull, Tim Wells and Martin Newell, as well as Luke Wright, who performed one piece in between each set. Tim T was the best for my money**--he's always entertaining. I'd expected Dunthorne's stuff to be more interesting than it was, but didn't know what to expect from the others.

Still, it was a great opportunity to chat with Rob and catch up with Roddy Lumsden and Andy Jackson, neither of whom I'd seen in ages. And I managed to make it to the pub for one drink with Rob, Roddy, Andy and co. The pub in question being the Meadows Bar***, there were faint shades of the student hours spent drinking with sundry student and grownup poets.

By sober contrast, I dipped into the Book Festival on Sunday morning for a reading by Nick Laird, launching his second collection, On Purpose, and Daljit Nagra. Despite costing £7.00 and starting at 10.15 am, it was as well attended as the poetry party. Nagra read first. Much of the work he read demands a good performance, which he certainly gave, but it also has a much more interesting linguistic texture, signficantly greater depth and a greater awareness of the literary tradition than the animal known as performance poetry. Laird is a more straightforward lyrical, literary poet, a voice emerging from the Northern Irish tradition in the line of Heaney and Muldoon. Some lovely writing. He had a nice line in self-depricating commentary on his own introductions to the poems. I'm looking forward to reading Nagra's and Laird's collections. I have Nagra's Look We Have Coming to Dover! and Laird's To A Fault on hold at the Scottish Poetry Library and bought On Purpose.

*Comedy, Music, Events, Comedy, Theatre, Visual Arts and Comedy.

**Not that any money was involved, as the event was free.

***Which served a watery pint of the usually marvellous Caledonian 80 with no head to speak of.

Debut Authors Festival 2007

The programme for the the Debut Authors Festival 2007 came through the door this week. This year's festival has a 100% increase on the 2006 poet count: there are two--namely Daljit Nagra and Annie Freud--but that's still one down on 2005.

Also as with last year, the poets are mainstreamed into the programme alongside the prose writers: Nagra on the panel for "Britain Today" and Freud in the "Love Against the Odds" event. In 2005, there was a poetry event with Jacob Polley, Matthew Hollis and Choman Hardi. Which approach is better for poets? Minority that we are, perhaps we can garner a slightly greater audience by being placed alongside novelists, but my memory of the 2005 poetry event was that it was pretty full. Besides, this festival is pitched particularly at emerging writers, so mainstreaming shouldn't be necessary from that point of view.

Of course, there's something to be said for a thematic approach, which seems to be the way the festival is going. However, it still feels to me like the poets are a slender add-on to the prose writers, not so integral a part of the programming as their novelistic brethren and sistren. That impression is reinforced by the "Unpublished Writers Jam Session" (emphasis mine), billed as "a fantastic opportunity to read your unpublished work in front of an expert panel." But, if it's the same as in previous years (and the blurb is identical, as far as I can remember) it's not a fantastic opportunity if you're a poet. In fact, it's no opportunity at all. I'd be much less irritated if the event called itself an "Unpublished Novelists Jam Session". Y'know, as a poet, I'm a writer too.

But don't get me wrong: I'm otherwise impressed with the programme and very pleased that poets are on the increase again in it. Last year, I was told that the paucity of poets was because there were few debut poets to choose from. Well, that might be the case if all you're considering is the main publishers (Nagra's with Faber and Freud is with Picador), but there's a lot of work worth hearing furth of the Mighty Handful and smaller presses are becoming ever more important to poets. After all, it was a Seren poet who beat Heaney, Feaver and Williams to the poetry Whitbread--sorry, Costa--last year.

Gists and Piths

Gists and Piths is a newish British poetry and poetics blogzine, which seems to lean towards the experimental. I haven't read the poetry on the site, but I enjoyed "Some thoughts on the mainstream" and the review of Daljit Nagra's book (which I also haven't read yet). Should be worth following this blog's development.