Important Poems

Lately I have been listening and re-listening to Joe Dunthorne's After I have written my important poem' on the A Poem a Week podcast. You'll find the episode here. In the poem Joe discusses ideas for poems that he'll write after he's written his important poem, which I find wildly, and joyfully optimistic (he is also really confident about capturing his reader's interest, which I also find fabulous). This poem is from Joe's pamphlet, published by Faber and Faber, O Positive, which I highly recommend. I'd lend you my copy, but I've lent it to someone.

Anyway, Joe has got me thinking about important poems, and what makes them important. My first thoughts about what's officially important is the stuff we teach our children - mainly old (preferably dead) white guy's poems. Having spent January and some of February supporting my nine year old daughter in memorising a poem by Robert Burns (she got through to the Cronies, and got a certificate - you'll only understand this if you've encountered Scottish childhood) I am not feeling this theory. My daughter had to memorise Robert Burns' poem Willie Wastle, which you can find here if you want, but I wouldn't bother, it's a misogynistic roast poem which doesn't even have the grace to name its victim, and tbh I'm horrified that this is the kind of thing our schools are telling people is our culture. I am not saying that Burns was not a great poet, but he was also a philandering man of his time, and it often shows. Surely there is something else that we can call important?

So let's ask another question, what's important to me? I've been thinking about it and here is my entirely subjective current (likely to change tomorrow) top 5:

FIVE

• After I have written my important poem by Joe Dunthorne, for giving me the idea.

FOUR

• Wild Geese - by Mary Oliver (she's reading it in the video embedded below). This is in a frame on top of my desk. If I ever got to go on The Poetry Exchange podcast I would choose this as the poem that had been a friend to me. I've not known it very long, but it feels like it's always been there for me. It's very American, in its spaciousness and with its prairies, but the pebbles of the rain certainly speak to me on the west coast of Scotland. I love that sharing our despairs is normal, I love that she starts from not having to be good. That should be a school motto.

THREE

• Cimex Lectularius by Jacqueline Saphra, from her book All My Mad Mothers, published by Nine Arches Press. I can't find this online anymore I'm afraid, but it's worth getting the book. I love the way she seems to be rambling on in it, but uses key turns of phrase to move from one thing to another, looping back, casually mentioning things which end up seeming important. This poem has helped me to write better.

TWO

• Black Marilyn by Theresa Lola, I read it in The Guardian, and Theresa shared it on Twitter, click on the link to see the whole thing. Theresa is the Young People's Laureate of London, and this poem shares her subjective experience of things we were all told we weren't supposed to talk about, but we really are, and people are getting that now, thank goodness. This is the stuff that people used to tell women they couldn't be as good as men because they were too subjective. The personal is political though, whoever you are, what we look like is really important, whoever we are. This poem is worth reading and rereading, and taking to bits and having an argument with. Love it. 

Poem::: 'Black Marilyn' pic.twitter.com/8hkac8lr3O

— Theresa Lola (@theresa_lola) May 9, 2018

ONE 

• American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin [But there never was a black male hysteria] by Terrance Hayes, from the book of the same title. You'll find this poem here. It is so hard to pick a single poem from this marvellous book, which reinvigorates the sonnet form, thoroughly explores the state of the American nation (it was published in 2018), and works beautifully with interweaving themes from one poem to another throughout the bookwhich features seventy sonnets with the same title. This one in particular has made me think about the stories we've been told and end up retelling ourselves. It's challenging and welcoming, and dares us into radical compassion. 

What are the poems that are important to you?

I like my version of important poems better than the more traditional one. Hopefully one of the poems that are piled up waiting to be improved on my desk, or one of the ones that's already made its way out into the world (more info on where to find my poetry here) will be an important poem for someone. I should maybe go work on those, but first...