The Artist in Real and Virtual Company 1edited text of keynote delivered at Inonu University, Turkey

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
of their most secret heart.

So begins Dylan Thomas’s famous poem that is referred to by its first line “In my craft or sullen art”. The craft or sullen art is exercised at night under the moon by a solitary poet. The poet labours by singing light: the lovers for whom he sings represent the common wages of a secret heart.
The Chinese poet, Li Po, rises after a drunken wine party and writes

When I arose, still drunken,
The birds had all gone to their nests,
And there remained but few of my comrades.
I went along the river—alone in the moonlight.

The American poet, Jean Valentine, in her poem ‘Sanctuary’ writes of

The uses of solitude. To imagine; to hear.
Learning braille. To imagine other solitudes.

It is not only poets who value solitude of course. Most tasks that require concentration involve a shutting out of distractions. Dylan Thomas’s lovers are elsewhere, Li Po leaves his drunken companions asleep and the very purpose of Jean Valentine’s studying of silence, or what she calls “learning braille” is to communicate with other solitudes elsewhere. The rages of the moon in Thomas isolate the individual, affirm his solitude. Everything is ‘elsewhere’.

Nevertheless the others involved in this act of concentration - the lovers, the drunken sleeping companions, the other solitudes - constitute a presence-in-absence, or, as my title has it, virtual presence. These figures are imagined and, usually, unspecific or, if specific, unaware of the condition of the poet. In one of the most beautiful poems of solitude, Coleridge’s Frost at Midnight, Coleridge is alone with his sleeping infant, conjuring solitude at the side of a precious unspeking other, his infant son..

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the intersperséd vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!

The poem ends with the fanous “secret ministry of frost” and, once again, the moon, We might argue that this vision of writing alone, by moonlight, with a sense of sleeping or absent others is a specifically Romantic trope and there may be something in that, but it is not only the poets of the Romantic period who employ it.  Li Po and Jean Valentine are not Romantic poets, neither is Alexander Pope who writes an early Ode to Solitude, nor for that matter are T S Eliot or Michael Hofmann who also write about and out of the condition of being alone.

We should, of course, mark a difference between the writer as a figure in a condition of social isolation and the kind of isolation involved in the act of writing. Writing itself, the act of writing is,  so most people think, ideally conducted in isolation. Proust’s famous cork-lined room, Schiller sealing himself off behind a drawerful of rotten apples, the very idea of avoiding distractions or at least reducing the number of distractions seems more than sensible, somehow necessary.

My aim in this talk is to bring together, or at least touch on, the isolated act of writing with the notional presence of others under four particular headings: the sense of an audience or auditor in the solitary act; the idea of writing alongside others, the idea of performing writing as in slams and cabaret, and as a function of new technologies. I am deeply aware that this is to stretch material very thin, but since these areas seem to me to be related, I would like to think of it as a relatively large scale map that one might occasionally zoom in to.

At Lumb Bank 4

Walk along the river, mroning

This from home, about a five hour journey. I generally attend my fellow tutor's sessions but the pattern this time was not to do so, however I did attend Monique's workshop on persona and character which began with archetypes as the basis of all fiction and moved onto stereotypes. We considered the relationship between persona and character-as-reality, and how the former would slip under stress to reveal the latter.. We looked at two pieces of literature: the entrance of Sally Bowles in Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, and the very beginning of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. We were then invited to consider the figures of Bowles and Ignatius J Reilly in terms of archetype and how the characters became fascinating through their departure from but reference to archetype (Bowles as whore, Reilly as clown).

After that Monique asked us to choose from among a series of photographs of people and to fill in a questionaire relating to pissible background, character traits and so on. It was very interesting and I'm sure everyone found it helpful.

I'm not a novelist, of course, and it may be because I have no great belief in the idea of a 'real' character under a specific 'persona'. I don't expect that is the only reason though I fully accept that it is what makes fiction work. It may also explain why I am not primarily a reader of fiction.  The great books are, of course, the great books, and outstanding novels are outstanding. They do, no doubt, involve the creation of great characters but have always seemed to me the creation of a world that does not claim to be a copy of ours but the creation of a new one that is a product of the imagination.

My doubts about persona and character, other than as conventions, proceed out of the suspicion that we have various personae in various situations and have little sense of the character as truth. I have no real grasp on the 'real' character of even my nearest and dearest, not even of myself. A proposition such as 'the braggart X is eventually shown to be a coward' fills me with uncertainty about either side of that proposition.

It is the convention of realistic fiction that hazes me a little.  The 'let's pretend it's real' element is too conspicuous for me. Mine is a purely personal feeling, of course and is probably what made me a poet than a novelist in the first place.

Having said that both Toole and Isherwood are wonderful writers and afford enormous pleasure at real depth. That is, in all likelihood, a product of the archetypes at play (I have no quarrel with archetypes at all) but also becaue both writers are in thrall to something in the world itself, in other words, with a sort of poetry.

I am aware that this is far from a convincing case but the truth I am seeking is somewhere in it.

But the chief point of Monique's workshop is absolutely convincing: it is hard work, proper research, sheer graft. No short cuts, no just starting and hoping. Very true.

The afternoon one-to-ones were followed by the evening readings. Spirits did not needto be raised but these would have raised anyone's. People just starting to write had made enormous strides - not so much strides as leaps. How extraordinary that thin line between between incomprehension to understanding, from little idea to shows of considerable skill. It is, I think, not so much the gaining of something new but a removal of something that serves as an obstacle.

This morning the farewells, warm and genuine. I am a firm believer in Arvon. I should try to write another post explaining why. In the meantime thank you, Arvon, thank you dear students, thank you, Monique.

Interlude: face it, do it!

A bigger loss than anticipated.

You ask yourself where you live. It is a country of raised eyebrows, deep scepticism, and of keeping things as they are in case they get worse. It is a country that believes in the NHS but will risk its future because it is sceptical about threats to demolish it. It is a country with a fragmented working class base with a fragmented sense of identity. It has no great opinion of itself but will not be told by others that it should have a low opinion of itself. Fuck you, it replies. It is several countries not one. Its sleep too is fragmented. In the morning it raises its eyebrows while one part then another breaks off. It needs to be addressed patiently, with deadly honesty, with some appreciation of its intelligence, even with some affection, especially by those who want it to change, to move from acts of individual altruism (of which it has plenty) to one of socially cohesive altruism. It needs stop raising its eyebrows. It needs to see the greater good against the cost. It needs to say, now and then, fuck the cost. The gain is greater.

Go on Labour! Address it!

At Lumb Bank 2/3

The drive at Lumb Bank

End of Thursday.  The days are too full to keep track of at night, nor is this exactly early at 11:30 and it is Election Night. One student is listening to the radio in the main sitting room. This is the office where I have access, a separate building at the end of the drive.

Today we had sun and no rain. Yesterday morning, while Monique was doing her workshop, I was writing the last blog, reading student work and writing a little myself. The afternoon was one-to-one tutorials talking over a poem or two or an idea in the usual way. It is a good tempered group, all starting from zero, at least officially, though some have been writing foryears and they have all read substantially.

Wednesday evening is when the visiting writer comes and this time it was Matthew Welton on his way down to a conference at Goldsmiths. We had only met briefly before so when he arrived at the cottage where the tutors and visiting writers stay we sat down, Monique poured some wine and we talked an hour or so. before going overfor dinner and the reading.

Monique being a little hard of hearing we are doing readings in the sitting room not the barn and it gets pretty cosy and packed there. Matthew reads a range of work along the lines of Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue which is apparently our headline tag for the course. So he begins with some older poems, then some new ones, some in which he borrows lines from Jon McGregor and ends with a poem composed entirely of four letter words in which the consonants have been exchanged, in effect a sound poem that we know contains the dreaded four-letter words. The reading is funny and inventive and technically brilliant at times, but always edging towards language rather than subject. The poems, I feel, especially those clipped from Jon McG have a kind of abrupt gentleness which may be an attribute retained from the original book or something more to do with the selections from it. The humorous, the arbitary and the obsessive, as well as the collaborative run through everything. Although this is experimental work in certain senses it is not the least rebarbative. It is, rather, playful, in the way a child may be playful given the components of some inexhaustible machine. I like it very much. I, of course, was born into a world of subjects where language was the prime mediator and guide but not in itself the subject so my later more 'experimental' work is never entirely free of themes or thematic areas.

Afterwards a few of us, including Matthew and Jack, the co-Course Director, sit around for a while with glasses of wine and keep talking. This is Arvon as I know it. The late conversations, the eventual retiring to bed.

*

This morning it is my turn again, this time to talk about form. Despite a very late night I wake early and am very much awake by 6, write a little then get up, shower, wash my hair and, having decided to have bacon for breakfast head over to the main kitchen to get some bacon from the communal fridge. The idea is to bring it back but once I'm there there is company and conversation so I find the bacon and fry it there. Eventually I return to the cottage to get my thing together and we make a start.

I have written on form before. This session starts by them reading their haiku chains which seem to have turned out very well. Those who hadn't really 'got' poetry before are getting it. It's encouraging. From haiku I move to epitaph and epigram, and get them to write some similar quatrains, complete with pointed rhymes and though they only have a few minutes to do this they come out with some crackers. Thence to Emily Dickinson and the use of counterpoint and finally to sonnets, to the three-stage-poem and to beginnings and endings. To get them started I send them back to the library to take out a book - any book - to find page 57 and look in the direction of the 12th line for a line that might serve to begin their own poem. The sheer arbitrariness of this takes attention away from the heavy responsibility of choosing a heavyweight subject. Once again, they produce some fine things, in some cases the least promising of them. Understanding poetry is really a matter of not misunderstanding it. Once the misunderstandings thin out actual poetry can make its entrance.

After lunch I have the four tutorials but by the fourth I am dead on my feet so return to my room to snooze and very quickly fall asleep (hence the wakefulness now, close to midnight). Tonight was the anthology reading. I always enjoy these - and some have a real gift for recitation too. Tomorrow we end. The end always comes abruptly. Now post this (I will add a picture as soon as I can) and to return the office key.

It's thick dark out there. Maybe the white cows will emit a faint radioactive glow - if they are still there.

At Lumb Bank 1

View from tutor's window

 
I still intend to post the keynote talk from Malatya but this week I am away at Lumb Bank teaching a Starting to Write course with Monique Roffey who is doing fiction while I do poetry. The days are full as ever, and though I wrote the brief account below late last night this morning is my first opportunity of posting it. There is no wifi in the place apart from in the office to which tutors have access and if one stays up relatively late talking to students the time is pretty well taken up.

We have fifteen students, one having cried off late. Thirteen of them are women, mostly on the younger side of older, and two men. The proportion is not untypical. The reasons for that must be long and complex but the territory the reasons cover is hard to venture into, chiefly because it is mined and will remain so for a long time. I will venture into the territory at some point but not now. It is late, I am back in my room. Monique and I have just done our readings and have sat around to chat, partly about novels generally, then about romance, romantic love, Le Rouchefoucauld, Robert Graves and the White Goddess even touching on Fifty Shades of Grey.

It is the end of the first full day of teaching. I have taken the first morning session on, essentially, imagery, This is preceded by a good deal of talk about the nature of the poetic process and enterprise and on the kind of things it may produce given certain circumstances. What are the differences between poems and stories. What about the relationship with language as both the visual and the auditory. I give them Karl Shapiro’s prose notes for his poem, The Fly. We talk about Imagism and Haiku. I set them a haiku to do, and suggest they extend it to a series, then we look at Vasko Popa. This is old ground to me but new to them.

This being a Starting to Write group the assumption must be that they haven’t done much writing. None of them have been on an Arvon Course before. I myself have never been on one as a student but I have been teaching them for well over thirty years. Nevertheless it is a new start every time because the people are new, the chemistry is new, the fellow tutor is new, possibly the course director is new. Jack, our cook is a virtuoso at quickly producing a classy meal out of whatever is to hand. We eat well. He just cooks the first night, the rest of the dinners are produced by teams according to set recipes, but Jack does produce the lunch.

The rain has been falling lightly, as if finely sieved, on and off most of the day. It seems appropriate here. I can hear the water gurgling in streamlets and channels. First days are ice breakers and openings that don’t mean we fall through the ice and drown.

As for me, I float. It is all floaty. One touches on things then they are gone and we’re elsewhere. Something accumulates though we can't be certain what. I write when I can. There was a poem this morning. About rain. And lo! there was rain.

To Mount Nemrut: eight photographs

At the necropolis of Perre

Room inside, bring own bedding

Boys among tombs

Climbing 1

Climbing 2 - at Cendere Bridge

Climbing 3 - at this stage with barrier

Climbing 4

From near the top of Mt Nemrut

Farewell to Turkey: 'Does the road wind uphill all the way?'

What we might have seen on Mt Nemrut on a sunny day without snow.

"For an uncatlike
Creature who has gone wrong,
Five minutes on even the nicest mountain
Are awfully long"

- W H Auden, 'Mountains' from Bucolics

Is one entirely an "uncatlike creature', a sort of pusscat under tons of elephant hide, as Auden was?

Never having lived among mountains, to me a mountain range has been what we call 'scenery', a visually realised romantic notion of something breathtaking yet essentially dreadful, like being among red-faced people who shout or yodel all the time. It is not so much the height. I have been to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago and on the roof terrace of the tallest building in Singapore and have long conquered my childhood vertigo, the sense that if there was a ledge the only thing to do was to step off it, and the succeeding youthful dreams of precipices with a noisy chaos at the bottom, experiencing the dizzy temptation of taking flight but running instead into a dark fast-moving forests. I have toured in mountainous regions and slept in dry thunder. Still, I am not familiar with them.

The last day in Malatya involved a romantic excursion by minibus, in fact a litter of four minimbuses, to Mount Nemrut by way of Gölbasi, the ancient necropolis city of Perre, thence across the Cendere Bridge - the second largest Roman bridge still in existence - then ascending ever higher, glimpsing Kahta Castle perched on its unlikely promontory, until we reached the top of Mount  Nemrut, or as far as vehicle could reach, then to climb the rest on foot and watch the sun set from the peak which was a Commagene burial site complete with statues of the kings,  and of course the most spectacular views while drinking a glass of wine and eating a sandwich.

It was a beautiful idea which was no less beautiful despite the fact that not everything went to plan. Two of the drivers refused to take their vehicles up the steep narrow loose tracks that constituted a road in progress and the other two hesitated, or rather their occupants, including me, hesitated before resolving to go on. There were the precipices and ledges right next to us with no barricade and the track strewn with fallen rocks. But this is nothing out of the ordinary for visitors to the mountain and we reached the top as the sun began to set. Unfortunately the wine and sandwiches had remained in one of the buses that refused the ascent but there was coffee to be had where the driving ended before the climb on foot.

I confess I didn't quite make it to the top. My diabetes (type 2) makes breathing at 7,000 feet a little difficult and the best I could do was to tackle it in short runs with long hesitations. Iain Galbraith, who is a hardier man than I am, and Robyn Rowland, who is a hardier woman, did get there. I was fairly close before my chest got the better of me and I started down.  I wasn't dressed for the cold anyway because I am a careless reader of long emails.

At the coffee camp I was asked to tell a lovely woman's fortune from coffee dregs which I duly did despite having not the least notion of what I was doing. I hope my 100% intuitive predictions prove true (she was to remarry in three years time and have a second child). You know who you are. Do let me know.

On the trickier way down - in the dark this time - one of our party began to feel alarmingly ill so an ambulance had to be called and the shortest way to meet it was along another mountain path. It did meet us there and our dear leader and friend had to go with her so we never had a chance to say goodbye. (The ill person recovered after a while we are glad to say.) Our driver was marvellous. He was used to driving trucks on roads more precipitous and looser gravelled than this.

Thus the farewell next morning without proper goodbyes, departing the hotel early with John and Iain, flying first to Istabul then in our various directions. I liked them very much. I hope to see them again, as I do Berkan and many of our hosts and fellow contributors.

A post follows this, just personal photos and captions of the last day. Thank you Inonu, Malatya, Turkey. Thank you all our kind friends.