Skip to main content

Historic Recording for Oxfam

On Friday, February 24, the largest single gathering of famous and popular British and Irish poets for one recording session occured - with readings for an Oxfam CD, and a Talking Book for the blind. The event was conceived and planned by me, with the support of Martin Penny and Su Lycett of Oxfam, and help on the day from New York writer Thaddeus Rutkowski.

The day was mostly a huge success - from mad-genius John Hegley (pictured here) bringing along his tuba-playing partner, to legends Al Alvarez, Dannie Abse and Alan Brownjohn reuniting after decades, to young rising stars like Nick Laird, Owen Sheers, Annie Freud and Patience Agbabi performing their fresh new work.

The assembled poets agreed it was the most impressive single gathering of poets in one room for a recording in British poetry's history.

The 52 poets in attendance - including Wendy Cope, George Szirtes, Pam Ayres, Eric Ormsby, Jo Shapcott, Jamie McKendrick, Helen Farish, David Harsent, Sophie Hannah, Alan Jenkins, and many many more - who came from across the UK, and some as far as Italy and Galway for the day, spilled out into the usually quiet, calm halls of the Royal National Institute for the Blind's Camden Talking Books state-of-the-art recording studio, and recorded over 100 poems in a frenzied marathon between 10 am-5 pm, in two very busy studios.

One engineer, Dale, said it "was mad" to bring so many talents in on one day. Poet Laureate Andrew Motion read his masterpiece on visiting Anne Frank's House, and Mario Petrucci read a new poem written especially for the day.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".