Friends,
There is a tendency, or maybe I just get a sense, that we are inclined to celebrate more than appreciate, give rewards rather than offer support and that increasing importance is placed on the provision of a platform for art rather than on the art itself. I’ve not been stood in line when they came round handing out honours but last year I did pick up a few prizes. And it was rather nice.
If you ever dare mention in public, or in private, that you’re a poet (really it isn’t a wise thing to do) you will invariably be met with the question, “Are you published?” It is an important question but this response has always fascinated me. Publication is like planning permission, a process that is supposed to ensure a measure of quality control. A quick look around your urban locale and you’ll understand the vetting system is flawed. Ugly buildings abound. Architecture, thankfully, will crumble, it can be knocked down, demolished but bad poetry tends to hang around and stink the place up. There are an abundance of printer / publishers happy to typeset and distribute all manner of wordage. From the ‘small press’ to the grand ‘publishing house’ books are currency and still the favoured format for poetry. Even in a digital age we are obsessed with edifice, with object, with product.
I came to poetry (or it came to me) because it was the only artwork that could not be directly sold or traded, whose value could not be measured in monetary terms, in sales, by price, in returns. It was an art-form generated entirely by the imagination. It could be made anywhere, by anyone, without budget. You didn’t do it for the money because you couldn’t do it for the money. But a problem arose (beyond paying the rent) and that was, how do you expose something without substance to an audience? Get it to market so to speak.
Over the last few years I have made poetry in film, theatre and audio formats and it was imensely pleasing to receive some recognition for making work that didn’t come with a hard binding. I found the nature of these awards interesting too. The film of my poem ‘My Name Is Swan’ won ‘Best Narrative’ at the Los Angeles International Poetry Film Festival, this after long being told that it was a non-narrative film. I won the ‘Silver Wyvern’ at Poetry on the Lake (with Carol Ann Duffy and Imtiaz Dharker) for lending ‘drama to poetry’ and this despite advice (or accusation) that ‘theatrics detract from the work’. Lastly ‘Body 115’ won the ‘Innovative Play’ category at the London Pub Theatre Awards. Innovative, I believe, because it isn’t really a play at all, it’s a poem. Yes, I brought a poem into a theatre and this is considered innovation. Now I’m going to ask you to do something just as innovative. I want you to follow the poem into the theatre with me. For this you will receive no award. You may, however, come away with something as immeasurable as poetry.
‘Body 115’ opens at the Jack Studio Theatre, London 7-11 May.
JAN NOBLE 