Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

I dare say a good few people miss “Something Understood” since Radio 4 chooses to broadcast it at 6.30 and 23.30 on Sundays [though one can probably access it through the web]. Each week it takes a theme and explores it through literature – poetry, prose and on occasion a conversation. Two regular presenters are Fergal Keane and Mark Tully. However, guest presenters are also used and a short while ago Douglas Dunn took the chair and considered his position of Professor of Creative Writing and the act of creation itself [in particular of poetry]. He kicked off with the question, often asked of himself – can one teach writing? His response being, if one can teach playing the bassoon or acting or dance, why not? The basic skills are essential to allow the genius to express itself, though in the past there have been self-taught writers, actors, etc. But the suspicion lingers on. One cannot teach genius. Self discovery is the operative word. Acts of imagination happen by accident more often than not.

The skills taught are needed to articulate the surprise that has been visited on the poet. That articulate response to the unexpected could be called inspiration. Douglas Dunn said that he belongs to an old fashioned miraculous school of poetry the principle of which is, that you can’t write a poem unless you have a poem to write.

When Rilke acted as an assistant to Rodin he realised that his poetry had been fixated on the visual, he realised he needed to use the senses other than those obvious to him. Poetry is unique amongst the arts in that it involves itself with all five senses. Apprentice poets should go through a litany of the senses before he or she sits down to write – sight sound touch taste smell until the routine drill becomes second nature. Once this has been understood they begin to be in business. Another quality is that found between the ears - intelligence. It cannot be taught but must be used. Another unteachable quality is what lies in that secret place behind the left nipple –‘heart’ – feeling, emotion, tenderness, vehemence, passion, a sentient concomitant to those values generated between the ears.

We need to play off the product of intellect against what is felt. A sense of narrative, an intense concentrated story-telling, even if it is only of a moment of observation – seeing the familiar in another way- is also needed.

“I like to rub poetry against the other arts. One art can challenge another.”  Dunn moved on to a consideration of this interaction and inspiration. ‘There are two kinds of music,” said Philip Larkin,” the kind that comes in through the ear like honey and the other sort, that comes in like broken glass’. Dunn feels that music can educate the poetic ear – in his case jazz in particular- and he played Duke Ellingron’s fascinating piece, Barcarolle – Anthony and Cleopatra which takes as its jumping-off point the sound and rhythm of the oars of Cleopatra’s barge.

“Any writer worth his or her salt will accept penury as a consequence of a commitment to poetry or fiction.” Teaching is at least a living but it doesn’t give much time or energy to write. It can, however, “release you from the obligation of having to undertake such phenomena as poetry readings – going round the halls” [He sticks to teaching]. Poetry reading in schools is one of the most difficult to survive [illustrated by Carol Anne Duffy’s “Head of English”]. “Poets will always take their own course. You can drone on until hell freezes over about rhyme and metre etc. but what you hope to convey is the singularity and feeling within, the independence and autonomy of the poem and poet.” You can’t be too ‘structured’ all you can do is keep talking, hoping that it will happen.
“To teach any sort of art is to attempt to turn the student into a confident exception….”. Douglas Dunn illustrated his theme with a selection of poetry and music illustrating the points he was making. Many of his points, I thought, are worth sharing.

Another programme (on Feb 13th) was by Hugh Lupton, storyteller, who delved into myth, ancestors and the Chain of Voices. He quoted a letter he had from Ted Hughes: “When I was a lad, back in the dark ages, I used to dream about wandering the roads, in the west of Ireland and the Hebrides just telling tales and singing songs and grafting myself somehow into the old trunk of that tradition, what a fall since…..”
Lupton also quotes Beula Kadappa, a Burmese storyteller, “The written word goes from the eye to the brain; the spoken word goes from the ear to the heart,” and also a Rumanian saying: “Three golden apples fell from the sky. One was for me who speaks; one was for you who listens and one for all those who are standing behind me now“.