Begin, again
The end of the teaching term at university, and although there is much admin and marking still to do, crossing the last class off my 'summer countdown calender' still felt like something of a closure and a welcome change of gear. Not that the classes aren't absolutely great, some of them: this morning during our first year workshop we looked at some really intelligent and witty student work, followed by a lively discussion of ethical issues in writing. I'm quite tempted to blog about that discussion, and probably shall in the future. But for now, I'm suspended in a kind of semi-enjoyable exhaustion, an extended-weekend lull before the new pace of a summertime schedule.
It's the shorter 'half' of the academic year, five months out of our twelve where one can pretty much be an introvert as regards working environment. There's always plenty to do, of course. And I'm prone to harbouring mirage-like fantasies of 'all the many things I'm going to do/ read/ write' come the summer. But even so, that performance-level classroom exhaustion is for now truly paused. Perhaps (aspiring) writers who are academics are quite suited to this split-level working life, its intense, edgy absorption and negotiation of knowledge and skill in the concentrated social dynamics of a class; followed by full-on withdrawal, cogitation, self-regulated periods of putting one's own words on the page; finding one's own voice in the silence again. Anyway, with spring in full force, summer nearly here, beginnings rather than endings should be the order of the day. Something I should remember to hold on to should we have to make our move from this lovely little house. In my end is my beginning.
Speaking of beginnings, great to have the official confirmation of Carol Ann Duffy as poet laureate. It's been a long time coming but well worth the wait; I enjoyed seeing her interviewed on Channel 4 News just now and didn't even mind when she said she was accepting the award on behalf of her 'fellow' women poets. No hard questions about her 'knife-crime' poem being removed from the GCSE schedule, but I suppose this wasn't quite the time. That particular poem was an early Duffy dramatic monologue of course. One waits to hear whether she'll marry her skill in that particular form with her obligations to produce verse for royal occasions. Roger McGough suggested to Jon Snow that we might expect monologues in the voice of a corgi...well, Virginia Woolf did something similar with her novel written in the voice of Flush, beloved dog of Elizabeth Barret Browning! We shall see. Here's Brian Patten's advice to Duffy, which I found on the BBC website: 'One thing about poetry's eternally true: The best reminds us of what we forgot we knew.' Traditional sentiments in a way but nicely indicating how newness in language and writing can sometimes seem to provide the best route home.
I was very saddened to hear about the death of U A Fanthorpe though, whose bright, lucid, accessible poems are a delight in classroom or for personal dipping-in. As Duffy generously indicated, U A Fanthorpe was always a kind of unofficial laureate in her own right. An ending and a beginning in the poetry news then.
And back to beginnings - yes, I do want to make the most of this summer. The last few seem to have been compromised by various practical difficulties. Even though we're all tired and taught out, there's the unignorable glimmer of a change. It's a symbolic beginning and poets are fond of symbols. None more so than Brenden Kennelly in his well-known 'Begin': never saccharine as one might fear from its undoubted optimism, it's a hopeful poem shot through with high quality wisdom. It ends thus - almost a mandate, come to think of it, for blogging; that new post which might say the same thing all over again but still offers a chance for new thoughts to flourish.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
That always seems about to give in
Something that will not acknowledge conclusion
Insists that we forever begin.
It's the shorter 'half' of the academic year, five months out of our twelve where one can pretty much be an introvert as regards working environment. There's always plenty to do, of course. And I'm prone to harbouring mirage-like fantasies of 'all the many things I'm going to do/ read/ write' come the summer. But even so, that performance-level classroom exhaustion is for now truly paused. Perhaps (aspiring) writers who are academics are quite suited to this split-level working life, its intense, edgy absorption and negotiation of knowledge and skill in the concentrated social dynamics of a class; followed by full-on withdrawal, cogitation, self-regulated periods of putting one's own words on the page; finding one's own voice in the silence again. Anyway, with spring in full force, summer nearly here, beginnings rather than endings should be the order of the day. Something I should remember to hold on to should we have to make our move from this lovely little house. In my end is my beginning.
Speaking of beginnings, great to have the official confirmation of Carol Ann Duffy as poet laureate. It's been a long time coming but well worth the wait; I enjoyed seeing her interviewed on Channel 4 News just now and didn't even mind when she said she was accepting the award on behalf of her 'fellow' women poets. No hard questions about her 'knife-crime' poem being removed from the GCSE schedule, but I suppose this wasn't quite the time. That particular poem was an early Duffy dramatic monologue of course. One waits to hear whether she'll marry her skill in that particular form with her obligations to produce verse for royal occasions. Roger McGough suggested to Jon Snow that we might expect monologues in the voice of a corgi...well, Virginia Woolf did something similar with her novel written in the voice of Flush, beloved dog of Elizabeth Barret Browning! We shall see. Here's Brian Patten's advice to Duffy, which I found on the BBC website: 'One thing about poetry's eternally true: The best reminds us of what we forgot we knew.' Traditional sentiments in a way but nicely indicating how newness in language and writing can sometimes seem to provide the best route home.
I was very saddened to hear about the death of U A Fanthorpe though, whose bright, lucid, accessible poems are a delight in classroom or for personal dipping-in. As Duffy generously indicated, U A Fanthorpe was always a kind of unofficial laureate in her own right. An ending and a beginning in the poetry news then.
And back to beginnings - yes, I do want to make the most of this summer. The last few seem to have been compromised by various practical difficulties. Even though we're all tired and taught out, there's the unignorable glimmer of a change. It's a symbolic beginning and poets are fond of symbols. None more so than Brenden Kennelly in his well-known 'Begin': never saccharine as one might fear from its undoubted optimism, it's a hopeful poem shot through with high quality wisdom. It ends thus - almost a mandate, come to think of it, for blogging; that new post which might say the same thing all over again but still offers a chance for new thoughts to flourish.
Though we live in a world that dreams of ending
That always seems about to give in
Something that will not acknowledge conclusion
Insists that we forever begin.
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