A Footnote to "Les Troubadours de HappenStance"

"Things often move slowly in the poetry world!" said I. Do you think if we rechristened poetry "slow books" it might become as vaguely trendy as the slow food and cittaslow movements? But then even vague trendiness is probably not what poetry needs. Remember, it was once the new rock 'n' roll. Now, it's The Guardian's new selling point (for a week or so, at least)*.

*See the footnote to this excellent piece by Sean O'Brien.

And, despite my sarcastic tone, a genuine hooray for The Guardian's free booklets (except the Great Interviews series)!

Wading Through ... Or Not

On the train into Edinburgh for Polly Clark's reading the other night, I finally started to read Sean O'Brien's Forward and TS Eliot prize-winning collection The Drowned Book. Now, I might be missing something--I must be missing something, if the judges of both prizes aren't--but I simply couldn't get into it. It's not that it's what one might call difficult poetry, it's just that I found it ... well ... dull. Granted I've only read the first three or four poems, so maybe there's something more later in the book, but it would go against all the principles of constructing a collection to put your least interesting poems at the front.

Has anybody else read The Drowned Book? Do you find it dull? If you don't, I'm willing to be persuaded. I don't intend to abandon it quite yet, but there was little or nothing in those opening poems that would naturally draw me back, especially when I'm having fun reading Milton along with Rob Mackenzie, Jane Holland and others. If you're a Drowned Book fan, what is it about the poems that grabs you or draws you in?

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.