Lesley writes regularly for The Herald, The Scotsman, The Independent on Sunday and The Financial Times.
Some recent reviews:
For the Independent on Sunday (May 2009)
Review of The Verse Revolutionaries: Ezra Pound, H.D. and The Imagists by Helen Carr (Jonathan Cape)
It’s significant that Helen Carr opens her account of the Imagist movement with a personal detail: the moment in 1912 in the British Museum tearoom, when Ezra Pound read his one-time fiancée, Hilda Doolittle’s completed poem, ‘Hermes of the ways’, and, on the strength of it, pronounced her, ‘H.D. Imagiste’. Whether or not this really marks the beginning of the Imagist movement, literary history hasn’t been too concerned to investigate – the romance and the drama of it have been more than adequate an explanation.
But recounting this moment is significant for Carr’s magnum opus (and at just under 900 pages, her study is just that) because it’s an emphasis on the personal, and that emphasis throughout gives her work depth as well as breadth. Many of the now-forgotten figures of Imagism, like Desmond Fitzgerald and Frank Stock Flint, are resurrected here and given more than quick, potted biographies: they are placed at the heart of an artistic theory that leant on Pater and Nietzsche, that was influenced by Maupassant and Stravinsky, and they are shown as real, living, breathing intellectuals.
Above them all, though, towers Ezra Pound: the dandyish poet who wore billiard-green trousers and blue capes, who carried a cane and sported an ear-ring; the provincial American who found his home among London literary circles; the ‘ladies’ man’, of whom H.D. was to recall, “one would dance with him for what he might say” – and Pound was a terrible dancer. Carr’s sympathy for Pound here, before the fascist ravings in Italy during the war and his subsequent incarceration in an American asylum, is clear from the outset, but she admirably refuses to take sides on many of the central quarrels and tragedies that emerge.
There are two crucial personal interactions during the birth of Imagism and they both involve Pound - his relationship with Margaret Craven, who was, unbeknownst to many, his benefactor, and who killed herself, possibly when it became clear he was involved with Dorothy Shakespear and would likely marry her (which he eventually did); and his battle with Amy Lowell, the wealthy American poet and patron who eventually wrestled the Imagism movement from Pound’s grasp, leaving him to turn to Wyndham Lewis and the Vorticists, in frustration and disappointment with those he had considered his friends.
Carr doesn’t blame Pound for Craven’s suicide, although without her financial support, it’s possible Pound would have had to return home and Imagism wouldn’t have been born at all, so her investment in him is certainly significant enough to compound feelings of rejection. She is also fair to Lowell, often viewed as a figure of fun because of her size and manliness, who proved herself more than capable of carrying on the Imagist movement without Pound.
But like so many movements, there was a temporariness to Imagism. Carr cites its three ‘stages’, the final one being without Pound, and does an excellent job convincing us of its importance and place in literary history, in spite of its brevity. It may well be that other players like T.E. Hulme and Richard Aldington are no longer read but their break from traditional poetic forms and embracing of French symbolism paved the way for modern poets like T.S. Eliot, and it’s doubtful the kind of contemporary poetry we have today would have happened without them.
Such large claims aside, it is, of course, the relationship between Pound and his fellow expatriate in London, H.D., that controls the narrative flow of Carr’s book. The dynamism that existed between them was a complex one – Pound the more assertive, bombastic presence who would score through H.D.’s poems, as patriarchal an act as initialising and labelling her in the British Museum tearoom had been, was also sensitive and generous, offering to type up her poems for her (in literary partnerships of the twentieth century, it’s nearly always the women typing up the words of their men). H.D., considered by many now to be an even greater poet than Pound, was not a clubbable woman but she needed her literary influences. Her appeal for Pound is clear here, as is his for her.
Some may find the personal overwhelmed here by the sheer weight of detail and the huge cast of characters, and that’s a risk Carr has taken by trying to be as expansive as possible, wanting to give her Imagists the epic structure she clearly feels their story deserves. I think she’s pulled it off, managing to be both particular as well as wide-ranging. For me, this is the non-fiction book of the year. I don’t see how it can be bettered.
From The Herald, November 2009:
What determines “renaissance” in Scottish poetry? It’s a question being asked on this 25th anniversary of the Scottish Poetry Library, and on the eve of this Homecoming Year’s St.Andrew’s Day celebrations. For most, that renaissance period lasted from the death of Hugh MacDiarmid in 1978, until Devolution in 1997. Twentieth-century Scottish poetry is defined for many of us by Scotland’s great Modernist on the one hand, and a politically agitated age that established the status of poets like Norman MacCaig, Edwin Morgan, Sorley Maclean and Iain Crichton Smith, on the other, poets who had begun writing long before the 80s and who helped give Milne’s Bar on Rose Street its iconic, bohemian poet status as far back as the 50s and 60s.
And yet, and yet. Could it be that that long thirty-year period, when Scottish poetry flourished so well and produced so many great names, is about to be trumped? Is the real renaissance in Scottish poetry actually happening right now? All the signs suggest that it is. Look at the prizes alone: this year’s T.S. Eliot prize went to Jen Hadfield, a 30-year-old woman living in Shetland, for Nigh-No-Place; this year’s Forward poetry prize went to Don Paterson, from Fife, for Rain (he has also won the T.S. Eliot award, for Landing Light).This year was the second time Paterson had won this prestigious award (he first won for his collection in 1993, Nil Nil) which has also been awarded to Robin Robertson in the past (for Swithering in 2006). Fellow Fifer John Burnside has been shortlisted for both prizes and he won the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2000 for his collection, The Asylum Dance. Douglas Dunn and Robert Crawford, who have been instrumental in attracting poets to teach at their Creative Writing course at St Andrews University, have won the Hawthornden Prize, the Whitbread prize (for Dunn’s 2001 Elegies) and been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize (Crawford’s Full Volume, published last year) between them.
And that’s not to mention Kathleen Jamie, who has also won the Forward twice, been nominated for the T.S. Eliot prize three times and won a Geoffrey Faber memorial award or Carol Ann Duffy, who is the new Poet Laureate. The sheer amount of awards and prizes that these poets have clocked up between them in a little over a decade is quite astonishing.
Now let me be honest, however embarrassing this may prove to be. I am too young to have known the MacCaig generation personally, and perhaps it’s because of that, although probably more due to shortcomings of my own, that I have never really been able to connect with their work. Dreadful to admit I know, but for me they personify a past I never found appealing in their poetry, or in the slightly ‘boys-club’ myths that grew up around them. The present generation, however, I am closer to in age; I have worked for a short time in the same department as Crawford and Dunn; as a feminist I want to cheer now that we have the first woman Poet Laureate. Jen Hadfield is the youngest T. S Eliot award winner (and a woman, too!). And I think John Burnside is the best poet of his generation, and possibly of any other generation. These are all poets of international standing; London literary circles might never have known of Sorley Maclean but they know of Don Paterson and Carol Ann Duffy. Does that matter? Only if breaking glass ceilings and stealing all the prizes matter.
So I feel a connection, however tenuous, with this generation of poets that I simply didn’t feel with the last, and I can’t help wondering if their unstoppable prize-winning juggernaut will not only out-do what has come before, but will set impossible standards for what, and who, will come next. At the last Stanza poetry festival it was mooted that the younger generation was lacking somehow: who were the names of tomorrow? John Burnside voiced to me his concerns that nothing was really “jumping out and gobsmacking me”, apart from Hadfield, from the younger generation.
And Robin Robertson, prizewinning poet and editor at Jonathan Cape, someone who has been partly responsible for publishing the kind of work we are currently celebrating, is expressing his concern that we’re publishing too much poetry. “There’s too much bad poetry being published, polluting the pool. That would be acceptable if there were arbiters in place, like editors in publishing companies. Now, in many cases, ‘gatekeepers’ are waving people through.” And that’s if they’re there at all. In the book trade, he says, there is a “spectacular lack of interest in poetry.” Buyers can’t make the decisions on what books to buy, or they just don’t know where to start, he argues. Broadsheets, which in the past might have showcased new poetry or backed new poets “have a lack of knowledge, or interest in poetry being important in its pages.”
It’s hard to dismiss Robertson’s complaints when much of the evidence is there before our very eyes. The problem of earning a living as a professional poet is still a very real one, however gilded it may have looked in the past: Ted Hughes, i suggest, seemed to have managed in his early writing life with Sylvia Plath, living on prize money and publications, but Robertson doesn’t agree. “Hughes didn’t really win any major prizes until the end of his life – he bought a farm and made a living out that before.” Some poets do manage to live on their earnings from publications alone, like Seamus Heaney, Carol Ann Duffy or Simon Armitage (although I suspect much of Armitage’s income comes from the more bookbuying-friendly fans of his prose).
Robert Alan Jamieson, the highly acclaimed Shetland poet and currently lecturer in creative writing at Edinburgh University has a more positive outlook. His view may indicate some split between the publishing world and the teaching one, where the latter perhaps gets more of a chance to educate and enthuse a new generation. “This is certainly a very fertile period for Scottish poetry,” he says. “And there is a new generation coming through – Jen Hadfield, of course, but also Andrew Phillips, Rob McKenzie and Jane McKie” (the latter won the Saltire first book award with her poetry), “serious writers, as opposed to hobbyists.” Jamieson agrees that there is a great deal of “activity on the ground” and highlights the democratising effect of the Internet. “It’s possible now for anyone to be published, anyone can ‘make’ a book nowadays, with desktop publishing, or putting it out online.”
Is that not what Robertson is complaining about? “There may not be the same level of quality control that there used to be, but it is more democratic: it is no longer due to an elite to decide what is good. People are emerging from all sorts of routes, not just the best publishing houses.” He highlights the importance of places like the Scottish Poetry Library, who “from the outset have tried to reach out further. It shouldn’t be underestimated, it’s important there’s a place where those who are interested in poetry can go.” The director of the library, which celebrated its 25th year this year, Robin Marzac, is very excited about the possibilities the Internet, for instance, gives poets and feels that “there is no saturation point” when it comes to the question of too much poetry. “It can always go on being made. Small presses, pamphlets, self-publishing all make it easier for people. This is what makes the culture of poetry, for both writers and readers.”
John Burnside also highlights the importance of the Scottish Poetry Library and the part it plays in what he feels are the two most important aspects to a nation’s poetic consciousness: diversity and openness. “There was a spell when we weren’t open at all,” he says, “but thankfully we’re through that stage.” Scottish poets are looking to the U.S., they’re writing in Scots or Gaelic or English, and are less formally conservative than their English counterparts. The Scottish Poetry Library’s ability to reach out, along with festivals like the Edinburgh International Book festival, is, he says, crucial to continuing to the development of our culture. There may well be a golden moment in Scottish poetry right now, he says, “but it would be a shame to think this is our moment, and that’s it.”
It’s possible the hope of the next generation lies in the fact that the present one is also busy teaching and editing and publishing it, and setting it examples of what can be done, how far it can go. Golden moments may not last forever, but they can cast a glow for a long time.