Having written about acquiring a copy of Ted Hughes’ single poem pamphlet ‘Football’ a few posts ago, I was reminded of this from the wonderful Remains of Elmet.

[Not necessarily a ‘top’ ten, but not necessarily not. There is no such thing anyway when there is so much. But these choices/recommendations have words, so that’s something to go on. Posted between now and the end of the month, so that will be two on the 31st, and those two are actually my top two]

Mahatmosphere – Beautiful Dirt

Dirt Beautiful – That’s Called Inversion

In this year’s GCSE English Literature examination, one of the unseen poems was The Richest Poor Man in the Valley, and students engaged wonderfully with its anti-materialism stance and ideological message about finding contentment in the simple things of life. They also grappled well – because they have been taught to – with the oxymoron of the title, a reference to subject terminology that will score marks. Of course, those who extrapolated [and many, many did] will have moved on explicitly or intuitively to express understanding of the inherent juxtaposition and contrast of material wealth with soulful wealth. It can be quite heart-warming, especially at a time of Tory continuance where the only inherent message of note is the celebration of the self and selfishness. Where Harry in the poem is ‘fat with sun’, these newly elected, some more than others, are fat with duplicity, denial and dreadfulness. And as many students would tell you, that is alliteration.

Not an idle observation, but one exploited to make a political point. Of apt substance, the poem’s oxymoronic title links to Mahatmosphere’s album title Beautiful Dirt, though this is perhaps more paradox. But that is for students working at higher levels to argue – and again, many, many can and do.

The album opens with Watching the Skies (Over Syria) and begins with looping electronic landscapes that merge into open plains of scorching guitar, punchy bass riding the loops, and percussive rhythms that keep the fusion focused and dynamic. I’m no expert on distinguishing all instruments from the ‘FX, Vocoder & Soundscape’ but it is an amalgam that pulses strongly.

The following title track Beautiful Dirt is very much the performance of its paradox: a layer of ambient sound in the stratosphere is constantly punctuated by bursts of sound/noise, much the excellent percussion from Marco Anderson. Al Swainger bowls in and out with bass throws, and Mark Lawrence cuts tears with jagged guitar slices. Yes, there is beauty from the scuffs into the earth of this soundscape. Much like next Stealth Blade that has a similar mix, the guitar here more in waves of sound, and the drums a distant, echoed interruption, the bass in bubbles of bursting through. Always the ambient layer like an embroidered cloth draped above.

Fourth No Me He De Regressar is more overall an ambient ascension of the soundscaping, and this is quite sweet. Here as elsewhere, I hear Terry Riley, not in looping, but in the prettiness of melody. We find things as they come to us, and hearing is one of these wonderful accidents. The eventual long guitar lines are also beautifully resonant in their organic additions. Fifth Mahatmafunk Intercession is bass-funk deep, and a return to the fusion elements of the album. Final Heavy is. With expression.

Pleased to be at Stride today, and previous two, with new found prose poems. Thank you Rupert.

Many Red Fish by Steve Spence, Knives Forks and Spoons Press

Three Wannabes [The Rink by Aaron Kent; Poem, A Chapbook by Timmy Reed; Lou Ham: Racing Anthropocene Statement by Paul Hawkins] – Dostoyevsky Wannabe

Letters from the Underground – Alan Baker – The Red Ceilings Press

Bull by James Roome – The Red Ceilings Press

Any Change? Poetry in a Hostile Environment edited by Ian Duhig – Forward Arts Foundation/Strix Leeds

Atha by Sally-Shakti Willow – Knives Forks and Spoons Press

Micro Event Space by Robert Sheppard – The Red Ceilings Press

Mutant Summers New Histories by Peter Dent – The Red Ceilings Press

Rough Breathing:Selected Poems by Harry Gilonis – Carcanet

Somnia by Maria Stadnicka – Knives Forks and Spoons Press

at first it felt like flying by Charlie Baylis and Andrew Taylor – Indigo Dreams Publishing

swimming by Charlie Baylis – The Red Ceilings Press

the hall of several tortures by Reuben Woolley – Knives Forks and Spoons Press

MISE EN ABTIME by Luke Kennard – Tungsten Press

[Image by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]

More welcome than another immediate bus, and hot on the heels of my Luke Kennard book reference from yesterday’s posting, this is my second [and only second] ‘treat’ of this year in terms of a special edition poetry booklet, this a single poem by Ted Hughes.

What makes it particularly welcome is I was unaware of its existence until doing some research yesterday. It is a lovely pamphlet, and has an unusual concertina method of opening, not that this has to be used and I won’t, again, because it isn’t straightforward to put back easily!

Another to add to my TedShelf,

I am not a significant collector of limited-edition, hand-crafted poetry pamphlets, but I have a few from across many years. My most cherished is Peter Reading’s Shitheads – designed, made and published by Michael Caine [read more here]. I am not going to account for the others – not even a ‘best of’ – but would stress that they range from the simple/straightforward to more complex, and all are equally pleasing for being tactile, carefully produced/presented and a special focus from and for each writer.

I was therefore pleased to receive yesterday my latest, Luke Kennard’s MISE EN ABYME, via Jett. W. Whitehead, Bay City, Michigan, and designed by C.W. Swets at Tungsten Press, The Netherlands [there’s the geography]. Typefaces and papers and cover material and stitching are of further interest if you wish to search out details online. For me, I enjoy the simplicity of seeing and touching this, but first it is the unwrapping from the careful packaging and that initial seeing.

Sounds a bit fetishist, I know. But I have just recalled and typed quite calmly. Really.

Contents are as critical, clearly, and I haven’t ordered any such pamphlets/presentations without knowing the poets’ work. I’ve reviewed Luke Kennard once before [here] and have other of his poetry collections so I knew what kind of innovative and enjoyable writing I would be getting: this linked to a personal liking for prose poems so I was especially looking forward to reading the 19 in this collection.

They are teasing, funny and sometimes provoking.

As with other reviews of late from me, what follows is a flavour of this particular book’s delightful contents, prose poems that occupy mystery and the oblique with humour and introspection as well as conversational to lyrical storytellings of this, and more:

In GREY ROCK, the grey rock methodology gets a fond delineation that traces effect and impact through domesticity referencing and the beauty of an idea; in CRISIS MEANS DECISION MEANS JUDGMENT we read how a head injury leads to confusion over whether a head injury ever existed – and that goes for the ducks as well, and in NEW INSIGHT INTO HOW ENDANGERED SPECIES ARE MAKING DRASTIC CHANGES TO THEIR LIFESTYLES there is a knowing mix of factual detail, tender urgings to a grey whale and occasions of that lyrical wrapping already mentioned to push us as readers through its questioning to a concluding [possibly concluding] exasperation.

I think I have mentioned before on this blog because it annoys the hell out of me, but in a world where anyone who is being interviewed on TV and asked a question about an unusual/special experience they have actually experienced – I mean in real life and literally, factually not figuratively – and the reply is always the awe-eyed expression ‘it was/is surreal’, we get within the many prose poem narratives collected here a genuine and so much more delightful encapsulation of this otherwise descriptive all-embrace, like,

‘I blew away the catkins which had collected in the dent of my fedora and told them I could tell the difference between one piano showroom and another – what did they take me for? I had to memorise a sad piano line to play to my contact.’

[IT IS IMPORTANT YOU SELECT A CODE FITTING FOR THE SITUATION]

There are similar and different treats throughout the rest of this collection, for example, the questioning insights from ‘The Oracle of The High Fantasy Landscape In The Heart’ [A DEFECT OF THE LANDSCAPE], and there is extrapolation on a hymn’s post-pause in TO SEE THE TASK, TO SET ABOUT IT where loneliness, lunching/dining on oxtail soup, and making an observation on the amount of support bars in a home provide a palpable pathos to the mystery of its storytelling. In TRUE STORY OF MY OWN DEATH #4, what is ‘spread on the beach’ is just like what is spread throughout these unravelling tales – the poetic dissection and disembowelling and playing with the entrails of reality to present another kind, though that is a generalising exaggeration to bounce off this poem’s moribund-made-michievous metaphor.

Anyway, I’m just off to wash my hands for another read, all part of the careful procedure [no, not fetish] when reading such an engaging hand-crafted poetry pamphlet like this.

I’ve championed on this blog before, and I’ll mention again that looking out for the inexpensive deals on hardback, glossy photobook offers is well worth it for getting individual copies of writing produced.

They’re simply keepsakes, but they genuinely do make work/writing done – as here with erasures, not artistic but colourful – much more presentable than lurking in the hard-drive!