I’m very pleased to announce that Mark McGuinness’ excellent poetry podcast, A Mouthful of Air, which has recently featured poets such as Mona Arshi, Judy Brown, Rishi Dastidar, Ian Duhig, Mimi Khalvati, Clare Pollard, Tom Sastry, and Denise Saul, has recorded a discussion about my new Salt collection, Between a Drowning Man.
Mark’s method is to focus on one particular poem and between us we chose the poem ‘you are not in search of’, on page 57 of the new book, from the latter end of the ‘Works and Days’ sequence. You can listen to the podcast here. It’s about 40 minutes in length and includes a reading of the poem at the beginning and end. There is also a helpful transcription of our discussion.
Here is the poem text – though without the indents which are hard to reproduce here:
‘you are not in search of’
‘There has to be / A sort of killing’ – Tom Rawling
you are not in search of a gilded meadow
though here’s a place you might hope to find it
the locals point you to Silver Bay
x
to a curving shingled beach where once
I crouched as if breathless as if I’d followed
a trail of scuffs and disappointments
x
and the wind swept in as it usually does
and the lake water brimmed and I knew the thrill
of its mongrel plenitude as colours
x
of thousands of pebbles like bright cobblestones
slid uneasily beneath my feet—
imagine it’s here I want you to leave me
x
these millions of us aspiring to the condition
of ubiquitous dust on the fiery water
one moment—then dust in the water the next
x
then there’s barely a handful of dust
compounding with the brightness of water
then near-as-dammit gone—
x
you might say this aloud—by way of ritual—
there goes one who thought much of life
who found joy in return for a little gratitude
x
before its frugal bowls of iron and bronze
set out—then vanished—then however you try
to look me up—whatever device you click
x
or tap or swipe—I’m neither here nor there
though you might imagine one particle
in some stiff hybrid blade of grass
x
or some vigorous weed arched towards the sun
though here is as good a place as any
you look for me in vain—the bridges down—