| I read recently that among the Tuareg the traditional job of the poet
is to remember the names and the whereabouts of the water holes. The idea
appealed to me first with its metaphoric implications. It suggested how
poetry seeks out sources of imaginative sustenance and refreshment and
makes of them a common resource. It connected in my mind with Eliot’s
phrase about poetry purifying the dialect of the tribe, implying that
poetry is an atavistic activity, while also being a way of encountering
the modern world.
But for a nomadic people living off the Sahara, and surviving there into
the twenty-first century, it has had no doubt – and continues to
have – a specific usefulness. Its art of memory is perfectly aligned
with the economic good of the group. I wondered if there was any sense
in which the contemporary practice of poetry could be so joined with our
daily business?
I don’t think so. These days, at Poetry London, we find ourselves
much entangled in the business end of things. We’ve moved to new
premises. People will notice progress towards giving the magazine a fresh
look. Several other things are changing too. In the past year Poetry London
has become a registered charity. It is now run by a board of trustees
and we hope in the future we will be able to raise money to pay more to
staff and to our contributors. We are hopeful, too, there are those out
there, readers and organizations, who are taking notice and will help
us to achieve this.
Such changes are the consequence of a success story. As it is, the circulation
of the magazine is thriving. Sales in bookshops have more than doubled
in the past year. Poetry London is now in a vigorous stage of growth.
It’s the one with the hormonal fire in its loins. There is no reason
after all why London should not be the home of a major poetry magazine.
There is no good reason, indeed, why one with this title should not be
the poetry magazine of the English-speaking world.
But all this ambition involves spread sheets, liquidity, flow charts
– why does the vocabulary of the office so often evoke the open
sea? I’m afraid the only thing nautical about it is that the paperwork
is indeed overwhelming. Nonetheless, the underlying editorial direction
of our activity is simple enough. We seek to attract the best poems of
the best poets writing in English. We also want to foster emerging writers
– and we have a sense now that there are several new poets on the
cusp of producing important work. We want these poets to take their place
beside the established names, and we intend to review their pamphlets
and first collections as they come along.
In the midst of all this, I confess some envy for the Tuareg’s
single task of combining the common good with the pleasure of remembering
and naming. I’ve no doubt we’re forever alienated from such
unity of purpose. The poems in this issue were assembled at intervals
over the summer in a process that sometimes felt hurried and sporadic,
and lacking the seasonal rhythm that is perhaps proper to the job. Even
so, each poem was set aside in the belief that it made some small, but
daring, raid on the inarticulate, or opened some window of perception
– so that, I trust, they add now to ‘our stock of available
reality’.
|