Death of poetry, rise of loneliness, and a very sexy schnozz
Septembers are weird
Hello from the other side.
Attentive readers will remember from the last dispatch that I was about to move. I am now at my new address, the place still not quite feeling like home, but I’m working on it.
Expect interrupted service this month, for a number of reasons. Apart from the disruption of the move, there’s the little matter of deadlines for other people. I’ll have a Q&A with Jason Guriel in this weekend’s Globe (already online) in which we probe why the angloworld stopped reading poetry. Until about the 1700s we’ve read nothing but – everything was in verse – but then the novel and the prose take over. (In a lot of other countries, in which cultural nationalism is still alive and well, poetry remains hugely prominent. This includes the one I come from, where poetry is regularly cited in public life and political debates.) Jason’s theory is that the second half of the twentieth century added the final blow, with free verse and confessional poetry and the MFAs and the esotericism. Poetry, it’s no exaggeration to say, has become an academic discipline: read by the people who work in the academe, and written by those same people. It’s less read today than even the classics or philosophy. There wasn’t too much space, the Globe Q&As are under 900 words usually, so here’s the bit that I left on the cutting room floor. After you reach the end of the published piece, the conversation continues thusly:
Maybe this is a misguided want, but I want my locale in my content. And you do have that. You haven’t moved the proceedings to NYC or LA.
I pull in various local bits. In Forgotten Work, Montreal is a crater but I also reference The Word which is a terrific used books store in Montreal. Even though I'm writing sci-fi, I am trying to preserve something of our world. There are Canadian poets I love; Bruce Taylor wrote a beautiful poem about Canada called “Social Studies” which I think is a masterpiece. He also pulls in all the traditional tools that in the 60s and 70s were seen as old school and not the Canadian free verse of the moment. Poets like Bruce Taylor were not venerated like Atwood was, or Al Purdy. That has changed somewhat. I do think there are some terrific Canadian poets but they’re not necessarily consciously pursuing a national program. They do what Chester Brown did in Louis Riel. Brown started as an underground cartoonist, became quite acclaimed, and wrote this wonderful biography of Louis Riel in graphic novel form. It's telling a story about Canada but he’s operating at the top of his skill as a premier cartoonist. So you would look for the Canadian poets that are telling those great stories but are also operating at the peak of craft.
Rupi Kaur: net positive or net negative for poetry?
What I've seen is not impressive to me. To my mind, it’s its own product. It needs Instagram for delivery; it functions on a platform. But it's also a bit of a challenge to step up our game. She is connecting in some way. Is she connecting because it’s haiku-like and looks good on Instagram and she built up a huge following? I don't know the exact moves that got her to that level of success, but I feel that poets could be doing a lot more to entertain and reach an audience.
Then mid-month, I’ll have something in The Catholic Register: an interview with Dr Sam Carr of Bath University in the UK, about his socio-psychological research into loneliness. Dr Carr and his team interviewed 80 elderly people living in care homes and asked them about loneliness, missing friends and family, engagement outside the home, civic life. Some of that material went into his upcoming book All The Lonely People, which also contains what he learned from his research into attachment and relationships. We had a good conversation. Few outlets are willing to cover sociological and philosophical issues in this way and I find that religious and church media are probably the last places willing to give this kind of stuff any amount of space.
I’m also finalizing a piece for the Canadian Notes & Queries, on why there’s less and less Canada in Canadian literature. To even ask that question has become incredibly square. But we are cosmopolitan! And internationally established! We can be cool about it! It doesn’t matter that five out of six Giller shortlisted authors last year had zero to do with Canada! Yeah, no. This has been a massive peeve and I’m glad I’ll have a chance to explain what I mean. I’ll link to it if it comes online.
There’s at least one more thing that I need to file with the Globe before I leave for Europe on September 17 for a two week holiday (work-ation?), and this is why everything bunched up to the last three weeks. Freelancers never stop working, so we’ll see what I manage to get out of the trip. The itinerary is 4 days in London, 2 days in Halifax (Yorkshire), 3 days in Dublin. The friend I’m travelling with really wanted to do the Anne Lister pilgrimage and I’ll be glad to return. (Back when Xtra wasn’t a trans-activism outlet but actually centred the LGB people, I was a contributor, including this 2015 piece on the “first modern lesbian”. This was way before Americans got into Lister, thanks to the HBO-BBC co-pro Gentleman Jack. Now Lister is an internet phenomenon, with armies of volunteer transcribers of her diaries, and scores of Shibden Hall visitors who are fans of the show.)
And you already know all about my Irish plans. I’ve received some good suggestions via email. From Zsuzsi:
You must read Kevin Barry (the short stories -- I'm sure you've come across him in the New Yorker) -- has a huge following in and outside of Irelend, lives in Sligo
And a new/ish young writer with two story collections: Colin Barrett -- Young Skins collection really good
Can't miss with any Wiliam Trevor story collection…
Some wonderful poets…: Roisin Kelly, Gerry Murphy, the incomparable Matthew Sweeney, who died a few years back.
This poetry is a great survey (I went to the launch while I was there): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32920125-on-the-banks
And from Julie:
Are You Somebody by Nuala O’Faolain
She is terrific.
How is autumn shaping up for you, arts and culture-wise? There’s definitely The Lehmann Brothers to look forward to at Canadian Stage in October, and the Kidd Pivot new work after that, but this month there’s the Michael Healey play at the Crow’s about how Alphabet tried and failed to sell the city of Toronto the “smart waterfront” concept. I don’t know that this is particularly fascinating, but I’ve liked everything I’ve ever seen by Healey so perhaps I’ll manage to smuggle this one in before I go. The Michael Healey of Twitter is inexplicably woke and has pronouns in his 4-word bio, but I’m counting on Twitter/X not being real life etc.
I don’t have much to say about Tiff except maybe to quote a guy from Twitter/X: Tiff is worse than the Air Show. I said what I said. He’s right - if we talk about the disruption and the palaver. Now that I live close to King St, I know what he means.
Also, Maestro, the Bradley Cooper biopic of Leonard Bernstein, is not coming to Tiff. For some reason. It premiered in Venice (“You will be floored”, sez the London Times film critic) and will be screened in a NY film festival but here, nada. Some festivals get some films exclusively and maybe Venice put its foot down and said, either us or the Canucks, take your pick, Cooper. So here we are. No Maestro for us before the wide release in November; meanwhile, here’s the trailer. I’m glad the Bernstein offspring defended Cooper’s use of the schnozz and asked everyone to calm the fk down about the “Jewface”. I can get used to this, one major budget conductor movie per year. (Last year it was Tar, for the back of the class.) I’m all for it. Next up: Furtwangler & Karajan: Who was an actual Nazi and who was unfortunately saddled with the reputation of a Nazi?
PS: The Giller people still believe that Eleanor Catton is a Canadian writer. Who’s going to tell them?
PPS: A new Zadie Smith is out this fall. She’s great and one of the very few authors Vogue wants to feature in glam fashion photos.
