My week of guest blogging at Best American Poetry has now officially ended, with me writing one last final post today since I saw I was still live. It’s been a CRAAAAZY week; it was also a big promotional week at work, which involved (after weeks of preparation) a massive step-up in all kinds of activity, but especially blogging. (As we have a thing at work called the Four Pillars - which is how we deliver our work, not a Greek restaurant – you could say I’ve gone from pillar to post all week. Couldn’t you.) (I have no one to make jokes to now, so you, the internet people, will have to suffer.) And in the middle of all that I’ve taught one evening, been to see Krapp’s Last Tape one evening and been to the first night of Poetry International yesterday evening. But Friday night, yesterday, and now today: very, very quiet. I’m a mushroom. (Except that mushrooms are normally with other mushrooms.) Ay see no vun…
Anyway, you can share in the rollercoaster fun, as here are my posts from Best American Poetry:
Lewis Carroll, WN Herbert, and how to use your silver spoon
Poetry class: Our Lady of Pain (and a cat)
Krapp’s Last Tape at the Duchess: a trinket-free zone
A blue butterfly to go home with
Darks arts for dark days: Poetry on All Hallows’ Eve
I should say that it’s been great – you do write slightly differently for a different audience, and different ideas come to you. I’m thrilled to have been asked back. And now, for the sake of my energy and health, with any luck at all, we will now see a resumption of something like normal service. Whatever that turns out to be.
Dear Katy
I used to leave comments on American poet Adam Fieled’s blog ‘Stoning the Devil’ until he suddenly abandoned it. (Nothing to do with me, I hope!) The thing that struck me was that British and American poetry seem to have almost nothing in common. American poetry still seems to embody a Whitmanesque verbosity whereas British poetry is generally striving for economy. One thing he did say that impressed me was that printed volumes were dying on their metrical feet, whereas poetry on the web would only go from strength to strength.
Best wishes from Simon
Dear Katy
Two early casualties of the current BBC strike have been Carcanet poets Les Murray (Front Row) and Ian MacMillan (Desert Island Discs). Scant reward for editor Michael Schmidt’s sterling efforts on Round Britain Quiz (BBC Radio 4) where he surpassed himself this year by not coming last.
Best wishes from Simon