Interview with Bill Grifffiths by Jane Marsh
Bill Griffiths - born London 1948, moved north to Seaham in 1990. Taking a first degree in History, he went on to undertake a PhD in Old English at King's College London in the 1980s. Published primarily as a poet, he also writes in the fields of Old English and local history, northern dialect and some fantasy/fiction. He helps edit 'Northern Review' at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne as well as writing and publishing poetry and devising websites. Recent books 'Spilt Cities' (Etruscan Books), 'Durham and other sequences' (Westhouse Books), 'Tyne Txts' (with Tom Pickard, Amra Imprint). Websites: billygriff.co.uk, story-of-seaham.com, pitmatic.co.uk, the-lollipop.co.uk (little press listing). Has campaigned, with Bruce Kent and others, for appeal hearing for long-serving Liverpool prisoner Ray Gilbert (the subject of several of his poems).
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Hello Bill. Your poems were first published by Eric Mottram in the Poetry Review. Do you feel that Poetry Review has maintained the same perspective over the years in terms of the kind of poetry it promotes? I confess, I read it rarely due to so many little magazines coming my way but perhaps you could persuade me otherwise.
Back in 1971 or so, Poetry Review was quite prestigious among the ‘properly’ printed and bound poetry quarterlies. The appointment of Mottram as editor was untypical of The Poetry Society (its publisher) but evinced a glimmer of interest in new types of poetry already appearing in print elsewhere (e.g. Fulcrum Press). Mottram set aside the conventional, worthy sort of contributor and gave prominence to younger poets in this country (plus Bunting and MacDiarmid!) and American poets like Duncan, Rukeyser, Zukofsky, Ginsberg, Snyder. As it became clear that not only Poetry Review but The Poetry Society (beginning to style itself The National Poetry Centre) was changing course, there was a growing resentment from the literary establishment, culminating in the Arts Council of Great Britain (which never interferes in its clients’ artistic policy, by the way) vowing to withold its grant unless the elected council of The Poetry Society unelected itself. That would be 1977 or 1978. Their threat worked, and Poetry Review sank back into its unremarkable old ways.
On the relative merits of Poetry Review with Mottram and Poetry Review without Mottram, you can make up your own mind – copies of the 1970s issues should be available in a good library and are still well worth looking at. That the issue still rankles became clear when Sean O’Brien used Poetry Review to publish a review of Keith Tuma’s UK anthology of 2001 and made unkind references to out “Eric Jealous and E.K.Resentment” - widely assumed to mean Eric Mottram and E.K. Brathwaite. Was anyone seriously objecting to the ‘pollution’ of English poetry by American or Caribbean voices? My feeling is that this elite, exclusive version of ‘England’ is a mythical spot somewhere in the South only mentioned when it is necessary to have something to cudgel peasants and provincials with.
Could you tell me a little about Eric Mottram. What kind of a person was he? Did you ever read his poems? If so how did you respond to them? What kind of response did he have to your work? I notice also in your biography that you spent time cataloguing the Mottram archive bequeathed to Kings College. Could you tell me a little about this archive? If I were to go to Kings College and ask about this archive how would you advise me to start my initial research?
Eric was immensely wide-read and immensely industrious. He had not only all the facts (as it seemed) of the 20th century at his disposal, but made contact with every poet he could who showed a bean of inventiveness. His travels included most Far Eastern countries, with (later) India; Switzerland, Holland, Hungary, etc.; and of course the States. He was immensely generous and constructive with his time, and encouraged a great many poets in their writing, as well as helping on many an academic career. At his best, he went to Court to speak up for Bill Butler and Unicorn Bookshop in Brighton in the 1960s when modern poetry as not immune from prosecution, to be publicly branded unfit to teach at a university by the Magistrates who resented his guidance on literary merit.
Mind, decades of campaigning for a more inclusive culture didn’t improve his temper, and I cannot say I felt comfortable in his presence the way I did with Bob Cobbing, exploring the mysteries of the Gestetner Duplicator. An hour or two with Eric was like having your brain pummelled by a master mind-boxer, though in a positive and usually kindly way.
We did not see eye-to-eye on poetry: the essential regard for word-sound I have was just ‘craftmanship’ to him. His style was rather loose and free-line (“spoken words have sufficient rhythm in themselves” he averred), though he developed some interesting dislocations of syntax in later work. He never tried to get me to write like himself, however; there was a tolerance there as well as a lot of self-assuredness.
I might claim to be one of the few people who have read all his poetry (while cataloguing his archive). You could too, but before turning up at King’s have a look at the online catalogue – it takes some reaching via www.kcl.ac.uk - via academic services…archives…personal papers…Mottram…then the little blue link to the catalogue itself. It’s a fascinating introduction to a great character.
I recently spoke to Lawrence Upton and he said that he and Bob Cobbing had worked on a number of pieces together. What was your relationship with these poets and in what direction did you find your work developing while working with them?
Bob, with a blobby duplicator and a fizzy scanner, ran Writers Forum, a little press (and a workshop) with a definite emphasis on sound poetry, visual poetry and performance poetry. Early associates of Bob were Jeff Nuttall, Keith Musgrove, and ‘Group H’ (for Hendon, Middlesex). Lawrence and I met him at the time WF and The Poetry Society coincided in the 1970s. Most of my publishing in the 1970s (and a fair bit in the 1980s and ‘90s) was done in collaboration with WF – we shared the work, the costs and the final copies. These were poems of mine, but Bob contributed the machinery of printing which was still rare in those far-off days. In other words, he was willing to open his home and facilities to almost anyone with an interesting idea to translate into print. In particular I learnt the importance of unity of content with technique – a unity that extended to format, printing medium, booklet design and – ultimately – performance.
Bob’s workshop was a great means of making new contacts and expanding verbal horizons – there was Lawrence of course, but also Clive Fencott, Sean O Huigin, cris cheek, Peter Mayer, Jeremy Adler, an occasional Dom Sylvester Houèdard ruffling the hair of a young Alaric Sumner, plus Betty Radin with her visual fables… Geraldine Monk and Maggie O’Sullivan were soon to feature as WF authors, but not quite that early on.
What instigated your ambition to study Old English at Kings College London?
In what way did Old English influence your work?
After The Poetry Society debacle, I manage to survive for some time on a few prestigious performances with Bob Cobbing and Paula Claire (as Konkrete Canticle), but increasingly found myself needed to look after my aging parents – not an onerous task, but one that seemed ideal combined with part-time study. About 1974 I had been introduced to Old Welsh by Peter Finch; the side-step to the great literature of Old English was unavoidable. Part-time MA courses were then remarkably good bargains (late 1980s), and I did well enough at that to proceed to a PhD.
Old English has an alliterative pattern to the line; it has certainly boosted my awareness of alliteration; but the rhythm of the line is relatively free (did G. M. Hopkins’ draw his ‘sprung-line’ rhythm from OE rather than Old Greek or Old Welsh?) I like that rhythmic indeterminacy; I think old literatures and languages are an important route to innovation in current culture – think of the impact of Jerry Rothenberg’s Technicians of the Sacred.
The idea of place and dialect I have noticed interests you. Could you expand a little on why this interests you?
Dialect is a descent of Middle English. Place is somewhere to live, an important consideration for every nomadic soul. In the 1980s I was able to secure a houseboat near Uxbridge on the Grand Union, but when the moorings went up from £200 p.a. to £1000 p.a., I retired with good grace to Seaham in Co.Durham (4 hours by train from Liverpool). Having always admired the North-East – its cities and coast, its sense of community, its dark humour (and its Anglo-Saxon speech). The community has taken a battering in the 1990s, but still compares well with the daily warfare of London.
I am fascinated by the fact that you can translate and write in old English.
Could you tell me a little on how old English sounds compared to how it is written?
It sounds odd to the modern ear. ‘g’ was often ‘y’ (giese is our yes), c was often ch (cyrice is our church), sc was always sh (sceotan is our shoot), cg was always dg (brycg is our bridge). The vocabulary was both similar and contained many extra unfamiliar words that were jettisoned in the later Middle Ages in favour of French- and Latin-based introductions. Try my website www.billygriff.co.uk… go to Old English… to ‘Cuthbert and the seals’ for a text and a sound file.
What is your favourite old English text?
Beowulf.
Can you translate this?
Jane Marsh is nothing but a figment of Alice’s imagination.
Jane Mersc is nawuht ac swefn Alice modes.
(Where swefn is ‘dream or invention’ and mod is the root of our word ‘mood’ but then meant the stronger qualities of the mind. Neither Jane nor Alice are OE names by the way, unlike Hilda or Edith.)
I have heard you were once a Hell’s Angel. Could you tell me a little about this episode in your life?
Do you feel it affected your writing? If so, in what way?
A belting twinge in one shoulder muscle where I once catapulted over the handlebars of a bike is one lasting effect. It is strange, looking back, how big and grand outlaws in their early 20s seemed to me as a teenager; now I think of 20-year-olds as mere bairns, no more dangerous than a playground slide.
Culturally speaking, it convinced me I was not cut out to be a hero; so that I paused and thought about what I could really hope to do well at or be useful in (which was poetry); it gave me an underlying sense of the nothing behind our society, which is a resource of a kind; and an enduring respect for relationships of equality.
Of course a decent bike now costs over £10,000 (as against £30 for my Royal Enfield in 1966), so it isn’t really an option as a career any more.
You recently attended one of Alice’s poetry readings in Liverpool. In what way did you feel it was successful and what ways was it unsuccessful. What would you have done differently?
I would have given the reader his or her own bottle of wine approx. 50 minutes before they were due on. Before even that, shift the coffins to one side and put up a few balloons and some bunting. (I mean, the room is imposing, but you have to fight against it somewhat.)
You have been campaigning for a long time for the release of the Liverpool prisoner Ray Gilbert. Could you tell me a little as to what instigated your campaign? Are you and Ray still in touch?
I was wandering through Durham Market Place one morning with well-known poetry figure Nicholas Johnson when I came on a stall manned by the bright sparks of the North-East ABC. Not thinking my guest was likely to want to stop and chat with them, I took some leaflets instead, one of which was an appeal on behalf of Ray Gilbert, then in Durham Jail. I visited him twice there before he was moved away and was impressed by his resilience and commonsense in an environment a degree hotter than Hell. His claim to innocence is not easily summarised: there is a website
www.ray-gilbert.co.uk, with notes on his case by Bruce Kent, if you want more.
Finally, could you tell me what you are presently working on in terms of your poetry and any forthcoming publications you have coming out.
Currently completing a book on the Northern Sinfonia (Newcastle’s orchestra) and a dictionary of North-East dialect past and present. Both due out from Northumbria University. A selected poems is being finalised with SALT (look out for this in 2005). There is a good batch of longer poems meriting reprinting. Online, www.opalcoast.co.uk has recently been completed, and work started on www.ochrecoast.co.uk (collaborative ventures of verse, prose, visual, sound). After that, some new poetic adventure will surely turn up…'The Mud Fort' from Salt Publishing, 2004: Basically it's shorter poems 1984-2004, selected and collected together.
Thank you very much for your time, Bill.
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