'iamb': Poetry Seen and Heard

Over the weekend, an excellent new poetry endeavour was launched online. 'iamb' is a website of poets reading their own work, and (at least so far) features 20 poets with three poems each - you can both read, and listen to, the poems.

I was delighted to be part of this first wave of poets, with representation not only from the UK but around the world. The website is the brainchild of Mark Antony Owen, an English poet who is also the author of the Subruria poetry website, featuring small, lyrical, incisive poems about the suburbs, family life and more. Mark is also a talented web designer, and both of these websites are beautifully presented.

I happen to know that there are some really exciting plans for 'iamb' later this year, so while there's plenty to listen to and read right now, keep watching this space.

My own contribution can be found on this link: https://www.iambapoet.com/clarissa-aykroyd

The first poem, 'I dream the perfect ride', is previously unpublished and is a sort of idealised memory of my riding days (when I was a teenager, so not recently, except a trail ride every few years or so.) I do know that the physicality of the memory is quite specific and quite real.

'Amrum' first appeared in my Broken Sleep Books pamphlet Island of Towers, but this is its first appearance online. It was inspired by a visit to the North Friesian Islands.

'Watson on Dartmoor' is pretty self-explanatory (a Sherlock Holmes poem which is actually a Watson poem), but is a personal favourite. It first appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears.

New Poem Published for National Poetry Day, & Sherlock Holmes Essay

I never feel as though I end up fully participating in National Poetry Day, because if I'm in London I'm working (it's the first Thursday in October) and if I'm off work, it's typically because I am out of town. I am currently in Canada, which also meant an eight-hour time difference. However, "participating fully" isn't really the point: enjoying and promoting poetry is, and there's always a way to do that at least a little.

The theme of National Poetry Day this year was Truth. I was delighted that the wonderful Ink Sweat & Tears chose my poem 'Speaks true who speaks shadow' as one of fifteen poems in total that they published across five days, on and around National Poetry Day. You can read the poem here: http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=20142&fbclid=IwAR2vfh2nSOp8A9r8M19eIc_C3pxSr6ILZgHb4tknfDDplzvvUVsWut58PuQ

The title of the poem is taken from Paul Celan's poem 'Speak you too' (the translation by John Felstiner), and my poem is dedicated to Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in London in 2006. I have always been fascinated and saddened by Litvinenko's story, and I recently saw the play A Very Expensive Poison at the Old Vic, which is about his life and death, so it has all been on my mind.

On another subject, and really not poetry but I'm going to mention it anyway, I've published another essay about Sherlock Holmes in the new collection Sherlock Holmes is Everywhere!, published by Belanger Books. The essay is essentially about how I find Sherlock Holmes in London, and it's just one of a huge variety of essays which locate Holmes anywhere and everywhere. The Belanger Books website is here, but you will find that it takes you to Amazon to purchase the book, so you can also search for it there.

New Poems Published in The Interpreter's House and Ink Sweat & Tears

I think that poem publications are much like buses in that often there are none for ages and then there are a few at once. Or at least two.

This week, my poem 'Healer' appeared in Ink Sweat & Tears, as part of their National Poetry Day feature (which they have a tradition of turning into National Poetry Week). The next day, my poem 'In Paris' was published in The Interpreter's House, which has just moved to a new online format.

I wrote 'Healer' a couple of years ago when I did a residency with the Poetry School and London Parks & Gardens Trust, in Cleary Garden, a historic public garden in the City of London. Although it was named after Fred Cleary, who campaigned for public spaces in the City, Cleary Garden was originally founded by Joseph Brandis, the subject of the poem. There aren't a lot of details about Brandis (that I'm aware of) but he was a member of the Cordwainers Company, and he did such a good job of transforming that particular bomb site into a garden that the Queen visited in 1949. The theme of this year's National Poetry Day was 'Change', so the poem was perfect for the Ink Sweat & Tears feature.

'In Paris' was written last year, after my last visit to Paris (a weekend meet-up with my brother). I've now been reading Paul Celan for over 20 years, and his importance in my writing and reading life can hardly be over-estimated. I've written a few poems more or less inspired by or dedicated to him, but this is definitely the one I'm happiest with. I always think of Celan in Paris, although, as the poem says, I've never gone as far as Pont Mirabeau (he lived nearby and is presumed to have jumped to his death from that bridge).



Photo: Cleary Garden, London. Taken by Clarissa Aykroyd

Recent (Sherlock Holmes) Poem Publications

I still write poems on other subjects (I promise) but my recent poetry publications have been of the Sherlock Holmes variety.

In late June my poem 'Beekeeper' (which first appeared in The Ofi Press Magazine) was reprinted in Canadian Holmes. This is the journal of the Bootmakers of Toronto, one of Canada's pre-eminent Sherlockian societies. I was a member for several years, during which time I published several reviews and essays in Canadian Holmes - including an essay written when I was in junior high and attempting to prove that Sherlock Holmes was a Canadian. Canadian Holmes also printed a poem I wrote in tribute to Jeremy Brett (my favourite Sherlock Holmes actor, and probably my favourite actor full stop) after his death in 1995. I was 16 and it was either my first poetry publication or one of the first. This was my first publication in Canadian Holmes for something like 15 years, so it's nice to be back.

In early July, Ink Sweat & Tears published my poem 'Watson on Dartmoor', which strictly speaking is a Watson poem rather than a Holmes poem. Watson, a romantic soul, seems quite overwhelmed by the eerie atmosphere of Dartmoor in The Hound of the Baskervilles. But if I'm honest, this poem is mainly me being Watson. I visited Dartmoor a few years ago - it was December, and it was just like the descriptions in the Hound, but more so. It truly feels like a world part of but separate from our own, and so it can never be fully captured.


Image: I Looked Out Across the Melancholy Downs (Sidney Paget, from The Hound of the Baskervilles, 1902)

New Poem Published for National Poetry Day (Week)

Nikola Tesla in Colorado Springs, 1899. Photograph by Dickenson V. Alley. Public domain


I was in Canada on 8 October - National Poetry Day in the UK - and with the time difference I slept through most of the happy occasion. However, on 11 October Ink Sweat and Tears published my poem 'Thinking of Tesla on the District Line',  as part of their program of poems for the week following National Poetry Day.

This year's theme for National Poetry Day was Light. I wrote the poem some time ago as a little tribute to Nikola Tesla, a favourite scientist, and it seemed to fit the theme well so I sent it off to Ink Sweat & Tears. I don't usually have favourite scientists, and it is fair to say that rather than really being a poem about science, this is a Famous Dead Guy Crush poem. Tesla was a remarkable man. The glimpse of lights from the District line is real, by the way. I think you will find it around Gloucester Road, though I can never remember exactly.

New Poem Published: 'Cairo'

Cairo from Al-Azhar Park, 2010. Photo © Clarissa Aykroyd


A few days ago, Ink Sweat & Tears (who were also kind enough to publish one of my poems a week before, on National Poetry Day) published my poem 'Cairo'. You can read it here: http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=7467

I wrote 'Cairo' in 2010, a few weeks after visiting the city in late August/early September. In fact, I started to write it while I was still in Cairo, but I only hammered the images together after returning to London. I have always liked this poem and so it was good to find a home for it.

'Cairo' is quite a personal poem. Everything in it reflects something of my experience in that terrifying, exhilarating city. I wonder if to the detached reader it reads as a pre- or post-revolution poem - as it turned out, we were there only a few months before the Arab Spring started - but it is probably too abstract and personal to partake of that at all. I am tempted to wonder if the poetic part of my brain saw something coming that the rest of me didn't, but that may be a step too far. It is essentially a poem about embracing the unknown, possibly a frightening unknown.

National Poetry Day 2014: Remember

Today, 2 October, is National Poetry Day.

I'm sure it's partly because it's a weekday (I think it's always a weekday), but it seems as though I never end up doing a whole lot on National Poetry Day. I'm still not sure if I will be attending any events tonight. However, I am wearing this top. (In case you wonder about the English, my friend who lives in Japan gave it to me. They have a deep love there for funny English on t-shirts.)

I may or may not be going to events later, but I'm delighted that I have a poem up today on the wonderful Ink Sweat & Tears, who are publishing poems for a few days on the 'Remember' theme. The poem is called 'Against Remembering' and you can read it here.

I find the 'Remember' theme quite difficult to get my head around, simply because virtually all poetry (possibly even more than other art forms) seems to deal with memory in one way or another. Presumably the theme was chosen to coincide with the 1914 centenary, but war poetry is far from being the only focus (though it is one focus): remembrance and memory are being interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including research on the nation's most-memorised poems (you can look at the #thinkofapoem hashtag on Twitter, or the work of The Poetry and Memory Project.)

Because of the breadth of the theme, I wasn't sure which other poems might be most suitable to highlight. When I thought of favourite poems, almost every single beloved poem I have ever had came to mind (and I have had many beloved poems), or else none came to mind.

Eventually, though, I thought I would post the below poems, which all deal with aspects of and approaches to memory. I thought almost right away of Edward Thomas, but again, it seems as though every one of his poems is a memory poem: sometimes about anticipating memory. This is just one of them.

Enjoy, and I hope you're having a great National Poetry Day.


EARLIEST MEMORY (Sharon Olds)


REMEMBERING CARRIGSKEEWAUN (Michael Longley)



THE LONG SMALL ROOM (Edward Thomas)


The long small room that showed willows in the west
Narrowed up to the end the fireplace filled,
Although not wide. I liked it. No one guessed
What need or accident made them so build.

Only the moon, the mouse and the sparrow peeped
In from the ivy round the casement thick.
Of all they saw and heard there they shall keep
The tale for the old ivy and older brick.

When I look back I am like moon, sparrow and mouse
That witnessed what they could never understand
Or alter or prevent in the dark house.
One thing remains the same - this my right hand

Crawling crab-like over the clean white page,
Resting awhile each morning on the pillow,
Then once more starting to crawl on towards age.
The hundred last leaves stream upon the willow.

"Poetry Is Everywhere; It Just Needs Editing"

Ladybird photo © Gabrielle Warr, 2012

 

This entry is a shameless plug for my newly published poem, 'Northern Line', which appears on the Ink Sweat & Tears blog/e-zine on this link: http://www.inksweatandtears.co.uk/pages/?p=3509

When I posted the link to the poem on my Facebook page the other day, my artist friend Gabrielle Warr sent me the above picture, which of course went perfectly with the poem. So I asked her if I could add it to this entry and she agreed.

'Northern Line' is my contribution to the mythology of the London Underground. It is also based on something that really happened to me and which later, in my head and heart, became something greater and stranger than the actual event.

I would like to write a whole series of poems on the Underground. It could happen some day.

As for the quotation which gave this entry its title, it is from American poet James Tate.