Words
are wonderful
phrases
are fabulous
sinewy and flexible
adapting
to changing times
to
cultural settings –
and
informing identity politics
demolishing
class boundaries –
liberating
perceptions
and
breaking down borders
I am increasingly fascinated –
even preoccupied – by the shaky borderline between prose and poetry, between
memoir and fiction, between poetry written and poetry performed, between people
performing poetry and stand-up comedians,
Recently in one of my regular
talk among the trees @whitworthhall with Avril Joy [1] we
wandered into the fuzzy area between fact and fiction, truth and invention within the prose and
poetry universe which we both inhabit.
After
writing three well-received novels (Including the winner of the People’s Prize, the
stunning Sometimes a River Song) and winning national prizes for her for subtle and surprising short
stories, Avril Joy has now returned to a
first and favourite literary form: poetry.
In this Whitworth conversation Avril reminded me that years ago I quoted to her John Braine’s
assertion [2] that
the task of the novelist was ‘to move people through time and space’.
She went on to discuss some poems she had been reading where on a second
and third reading she noticed that the writer subtly established movement
through time. Hence the reference to John Braine.. And
so I learned that this can be a mantra for poets as well as prose writers like me.
Avril
is now developing a subtle and insightful collection of unique poems inspired
by her many years’ uniquely perceptive experience with women in prison; the metaphor of ‘moving through time’ is
exceptionally appropriate here. I’m now looking forward to the publication of
this illuminating collection.
As for myself I would always identify as
a writer of long fiction with the occasional dart into the short story form. Of course even in the short story I see narrative
and character to be the most important elements. At the same time I’m perpetually concerned
that the prose style is graceful and elegant enough to carry truth in the narrative with
its various layers and characters with their unique identities
But then occasionally I feel the need to write
very short because that seems to me to be the only way to express the
explosions, reaction emotion and feeling that that are scattered through the observed life.
I would never have the nerve to call these ‘poems’. I label them ‘short lines’ or ‘short pieces’. As regular readers here will know I have paraded samples of these pieces here on Life Twice Tasted. I have assembled two small collections of
these pieces, one of which was a result of trawling my notebooks going back
many years.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that I am drawn to poetry which seems to have an
underlying narrative - from the Victorian narrative poets to the
evocative modern poetry of the American Robert Hass[4].
Thinking
it through I suppose in my writing I’m preoccupied with the storying of either my
own life or that of the characters in places and times which spring out of my
imagination. The evidence for this is in all my novels, not least my latest novel, Becoming Alice. And this in itself is the outcome of a long life closely observed and
freely interpreted.
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