Weekend Creative Corner 4th August

I have finished reading ‘On Poetry’ by Glyn Maxwell, published by Oberon books in 2012. It was a Foyles purchase made whilst waiting for my phone repair in Westfield Stratford, and well worth reading. Certainly Adam Newey at The Guardian thought so, as proudly inscribed on the front cover.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jul/13/on-poetry-glyn-maxwell-review

First a little about the author, Glyn Maxwell is a poet, playwright, novelist, librettist and critic and the book has a whimsical style, that reflects the different bodies of water into which he swims. It took me a short minute to dive in. This book is not a how to of prosody and is a collection of short essays. The chapters are listed as White, Black, Form, Pulse, Chime, Space and Time.

In the chapter ‘White’, Maxwell writes about creating poetry in a white space, stepping into nothing.

For a poet it’s half of everything…line break is all you’ve got

It describes this creation through giving examples of different poems. The theme of a poem being a creature is developed throughout the book. In ‘Black’, Maxwell paints his four elements of poetry with ‘The Ancient Mariner’; solar, parts of a poem that are clearly visible in the sunlight; lunar, the echo and resonance, musical, the musicality of a poem and finally visual, how a poem appears in the white space.

‘Form’ describes how form helps poets master time. Time within the poem, and time in the way a poem is routed in a particular era. Although I disagree that poetry is a unique medium for its relationship with time.

Maxwell encourages poets to be unafraid of form. Form can support the meaning of the poem. He includes a famous encounter W.H. Auden had with a pupil. The pupil answered Auden’s question about why he wants to be a poet with, he has a lot to say. Auden responded that he’d rather the boy said he just playing with words.

‘Pulse’ – gives examples of rhythm, ‘Chime’ of rhyme, however, he states that poetry is creaturely and prosody and rhyme is not exact.

This book has helped me view poetry through a different lens, revisit form, and the idea that poetry is simply playing with words, but being committed to doing so.