Again, again.

It was my good fortune to be present when Tony Harrison read here last week, for the Robert Woof Memorial Reading. Every morning, when I check the museum before opening, I put each audio system to my ear and check they are still reeling round. In the far corner, under some of the most austere visions of Wordsworth committed to paint, is a set that constantly play a few of Keats' sonnets, read by Harrison. I always linger longer than I should here, hearing the each word tripped out as though it were never written, never spoken before; the form capturing that true brilliancy of strict meter where it spools out naturally, as though birthed from the Poet's mouth each time.

Harrison's ability to read form well, I suppose, comes from the fact he writes so steadfastly in it, and knows it's a mechanism there for a reason and you just let it do the work for you. Other than looking to the punctuation and at the words themselves, you are led by the tongue through the sound-shapes you need to reproduce to the audience.

I've heard form read very badly too. Often by people who don't understand how it works, how simple it is to bring into being. They act the piece and get put off by punctuation, linebreaks and will end up mis-stressing and even mis-reading words. When we're confronted with a poem not in anything we can put can label as in a specific form the problems increase. Readers become obsessed with the line. Even where the line is not end-stopped they build to it, letting the intonation congeal at the end of each line, like wax dripping down a candle. This is considered good reading, it makes for an ominous, poetic style that supposedly captures an audience. In reality, that stress isn't there in most lines of most poems, the enjambment is lost, and the listener looses the natural flow of the poem, channelled away by the reader. I've heard people do this with their own poems.

And so my vitriol sighs and expires, patient reader. I do not claim to be a great performer of poetry, but I feel these issues should be addressed. There's enough to put people of coming to poetry readings (or worse yet 'recitals') as it is without bad performances.

Up-to-date

Having resolved to keep a journal Dorothy Wordsworth wrote that she continued to do so "because I will not quarrel with myself". An excellent determination for a diarist and a sentiment that I think a good one generally.

In my first post I wondered whether the fires had been lit for the Wordsworth's arrival in darkest last winter of the eighteenth century. I now know that they were welcomed by the warmth that had been fostered for them by Molly Fisher, who lit the fires in the cottage for two weeks before they came. Welcomes here are still warm, and we even have a Molly amongst us, though in our house the fires are thanks to Mark Ward who makes these happen as well as poems and many other things. It's been a fortnight since I arrived here and a happily busy one, so apologies for the lack of frequent posting to those of you who have complained which flatters me and scares me at the thought that my little blog has readers. Town End as it is now appears to me a fitting tribute to the Wordsworths and their poetic community. Living, working and writing together gives the place a lively and unique atmosphere.

The only slight disappointment has perhaps been the postponement of the Tony Harrison Robert Woof Memorial Reading, but this will still take place on March 3rd. There is also the exciting 2009 programme of 'summer' poetry readings now up on the website to look forward to.

So, I shall be back soon with more to say. If you want to read about anything in particular let me know and I shall endeavour to satisfy your curiosity.

For now,
Emily xx

Read and recommended

Jonathan Morley's 'Backra Man'--buy it and buy me the accompanying CD.
Mario Petrucci's 'somewhere is january'--looking forward to the extended sequence and frankly in love with Perdika Press.
Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Grasmere Journals' as edited by Pamela Woof--strikingly beautiful introduction.
Thomas De Quincey's 'Lives of the Lake Poets'--TDQ's a master of the anecdote though hardly the most reliable, like Heat but with literacy.
Selima Hill's 'Gloria' and Christopher Middleton's 'Collected Poems'--working my way through both of these hefty portions. Hill's poems are a constant delight, Middleton I'm newer too but like very much.