Review
Richard Gwyn Defying Gravity
RICHARD GWYN
Defying Gravity
Red Sharks Press, £3.99
BORDER COUNTRY
Edited by David Hart
Woodwind, £5.95
Reading Defying Gravity is like meeting an articulate, much-travelled person: full of illuminations and anecdotes, but also possessed of a tendency to ramble, to go off at a tangent.
The book is divided into two sections, EAST and WEST, which hardly reflect or contrast each other as you would expect. Gwyn switches between two distinct styles from one poem to the next: a spare, Carlos Williams mode and another, influenced more by the Black Mountain poets.
Many of these poems impressed in short bursts but not in their entireties, a case of publication before close re-working. One example is 'Clouds Swiftly Passing', a poem about a drowned village which touches on the Welsh historical consciousness (unusually for Gwyn). Until a too deliberate and abstract parenthesis, this poem flows wonderfully with mysteries of ghosts and fishes.
The poems that do work are focussed on one subject, like the excellent 'Adagio', with its gentle twilit evocations of Greece blending with descriptions of women working. One special woman says...
and the skin
of my love
is soft as
nectarine
When he is being natural he succeeds and 'Petrushka' is another good example. It takes the simple theme of becoming young through dance and is full of Greek nights...
and Petrushka hops and shudders
always on the edge of equilibrium
along the harbour front
Gwyn's a writer with a long way to go, but with subject matter aplenty to draw on. There's enough here to suggest he will go on to write a book of startling poems. Unfortunately, Defying Gravity isn't the one.
Robert Minhinnick said recently that Literature Festivals tend to create a "depressing uniformity/ and the yearly Hay-on-Wye Lit. Fest. is a classic example with its emphasis on media personalities.
Border Country is about poems produced at Hay's poetry 'Squantums', which were genuine innovations (though detractors might call them 'poetry scrotums', with writers of involved in mutual metaphoric masturbation!). 'Squantum' derives from Native American, meaning 'door' (literally) and 'picnic' (practically). Over several days a group of writers were given a theme and each then (after discussing their progress in intervening public sessions), produced a poem. Border Country examines work produced at two 'Squantums', where famous writers, including Robert Minhinnick, tackled the themes of “Border country: motherland/fatherland”. The poems themselves are also included in the book.
Were any doors opened? Did the writers have a picnic? Do we really want to read about it?
I've always admired David Hart's contributions to the world of literature, but his introduction (he was MC at the 'Squantums' -there are mixed terms!) only reveals his distance from Wales. Having made positive noises about 'minority' cultures west of Hay, he then goes on to admit that for him Hay had to remain in England so his organisation could fund the festival. There you have it: money rules and it comes from England! Finance had re-drawn the border...a perfect topic for one of these poems, I'd say.
I wasn't much interested in reading the discussions about the creation and re-working of the poems either. Writers do tend harp on about their work and take themselves too seriously. (Minhinnick was incredibly quiet, I'm pleased to report.) There were even embarrassing gaffs like Adrian Mitchell's silly poem about England and Wales (it rhymes with "snails"). Why is it that the British Left take Ireland to heart and treat Welsh self-determination so patronisingly?
The writers seemed to be having a picnic and their poems did open doors (not just to the local hostelries!). Minhinnick's seemed rather strained, as if he was uncomfortable with the whole idea, but most poets came up with stimulating pieces. However, most did what they normally do well, without venturing in new directions.
The one exception was Jeremy Reed, whose 'Border Country' was one of the highlights. It had all his characteristic richness of imagery, but also a wit I hadn't associated with his work previously. - And just when I was bemoaning the lack of a political response to the themes, along came Nigel Jenkins and Menna Elfyn with two predictable but still powerful poems about English perceptions and racism towards the Welsh and about Greenham Common women, respectively.
These 'Squantums' were a real international poetry picnic with works translated from Welsh, Irish Gaelic and Polish. All in all, this book is more than worthwhile for these poems alone, which make up a mini-anthology. It's certainly persuaded me that 'Squantums' are the best thing to come from the Hay Festival.
Page(s) 58-59
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