Saturday 22 March 2008

Ex-lush tells all

Here's a question...what is more stressful (a) a virtual debate on the no-win subject of what is and isn't poetry or (b) organising a real-life birthday party for a girl who will be 8? I can't decide. Maybe I will invite poets to eat cake and pull each other's hair (well, if they have hair) whilst the wee girls go off to the pub and talk literary technique over a few pints. I didn't start drinking alcohol quite that young (I at least made it to secondary school before turning into a lush) but you know...times have changed...maybe infantile alcopops are the way forward.
But I digress (and I start a sentence with 'but' - something my studious seven year old would never do!) and, for the record, I am no longer a lush. It got boring eventually.
This week I have been reading the two books I bought in St Andrews. I started with Janice Galloway's 'The trick is to keep breathing' - bought largely because of its great title and because a lot of the poetry on the same shelf in the shop wasn't grabbing me firmly enough. As I got into it I did wonder if it had been a wise choice...books detailing mental crises are not necessarily good for people who live in an on/off mental crisis pretty much all of the time. But I stuck with it and I'm glad because it is a good read - the humour in it is especially well timed and executed and this is important because crazy people don't always lose their sense of humour...sometimes it is all that is left. This book also reminded me how rubbish psychiatrists can be...sometimes it's quite amazing how people can be so spectacularly mis-employed. Couldn't give a toss about individual human beings - hey, psychiatry could be the profession for you!
Speaking of mental crises...the other book I bought was Don Paterson's 'The Blind Eye'. It is his second book of aphorisms and I picked it up because he read an aphorism at the acoustic evening in Dundee the other week that really did grab me, shoot me through the heart, beat me over the head, fill me with hope...you know, the whole package. But (this is a habit now this 'but' thing) the work of art in question must be in the first book because I've read 'The Blind Eye' now and it's not in there. Still, there are lots of other reasons to keep hold of book two (and not give it away to someone else as a present). Sometimes Paterson is too crazy and mindbending and overthought (even for me) but somehow I let it go because of the horrible honesty, the evil humour, the best and cruellest choice of words, the understanding of what a writer is (a lazy arse a lot of the time) and then there's that strangely appealing mix of self-belief and self-loathing and self-fatigue. Really there is so much in it you just have to read it for yourself (though perhaps not on a plane) but here is an excerpt from one of the longer pieces of 'late advice' that I particularly liked on first read:
"Our error lay in our sentimental desire to read him as a recursive series, with each nested personality revealing a deeper truth. He was merely, like everyone else, a complete mess; an answer we are never satisfied with."
It's odd what we find comforting. Those lines comfort me. A bit. Their author might hate that (I suspect he hates most things at least some of the time) but it's OK - I'm pretty sure he won't be reading me, especially in a blog.
And I forgot...small girl quote of the week...We were walking to school and she asked me what was under the pavement. I answered her as well as I could...stuff about layers and soil and rock. She looked a bit disappointed so I said 'what were you hoping for?' She was way ahead of me. 'A magical kingdom of dogs,' she answered with big hopeful eyes and the widest smile. I felt very mundane.

5 comments:

Colin Will said...

I've got the Don Paterson aphorisms book, and I love it, but sometimes I wish there could be an irony warning on some of them - I take them too literally. Very clever though. I hadn't met Janice Galloway before her session on Edward Lear, but I immediately liked her. She's also made me think about raising the profile of children's poetry at future StAnzas.

Rachel Fox said...

Yes...more children around might help the grown-ups...chill out a bit!
x

Rachel Fox said...

Well, me anyway. I find worrying about the child helps me relax no end.

Colin Will said...

That's a beautiful quote, by the way - magical kingdom of dogs. Clearly a poet in the making.

Rachel Fox said...

It's the way she tells 'em. I'm not sure I was ever that sweet...in fact I know it for sure...