Mark McGuinness, poetry

Review – Voice Recognition anthology, Sarah Jackson, Andrew Elliott

by Mark McGuinness on 7 March, 2010

Magma 46 has just been published – it includes my review of Voice Recognition, an excellent anthology of young poets edited by Clare Pollard and James Byrne; Sarah Jackson’s pamphlet Milk; and Lung Soup by Andrew Elliott, which is like nothing you’ve ever read. (I published two of Elliott’s poems in Magma 34, and found the book-length experience even more rewardingly strange.)

There’s a launch reading for Magma 46 tomorrow at the Troubadour. Wild horses etc.

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Emily Dickinson on Poetry

February 13, 2010

If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can warm me, I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other [...]

Alice Oswald — ‘River’

December 15, 2009

In the black gland of the earth
the tiny inkling of a river
The first impression of these opening lines is of symmetry and contrast: one line for earth, one for water; the silvery tinsel of the river against a black background. And notice how ‘inkling’ is perfect for the hesitant, broken thread of the river, glimpsed [...]

Simon Armitage on Poetry

December 12, 2009

Poetry is about manner as much as it is about matter – the manner in which words behave under certain conditions and in particular surroundings
From the Introduction to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Poem — Okuizome Haiku

December 5, 2009

A little poem for my children’s Okuizome (お食い初め) – a Japanese ceremony performed when children are 100 days old. They are given their first chopsticks and ‘eat’ their first piece of fish. I use inverted commas, as they only pretend to eat!
According to my wife, fish used in Japanese ceremonies must be very fresh, and [...]

James Merrill, ‘Matinees’

December 1, 2009

Das Rheingold condensed to two lines:
Until with pulsing wealth the house is filled,
No-one believing, everybody thrilled.

Haiku of Issa

October 31, 2009

If you’re remotely interested in haiku, you should sign up to receive a daily poem by the haiku master Issa, via e-mail. (You can also pick them up on Twitter, by following @issa_haiku. And there’s an enormous searchable archive of Issa haiku on the site.)
What better way to start the day than by reading something [...]

The Smiths — ‘I Want the One I Can’t Have’

August 28, 2009

And if you ever need self-validation
just meet me in the alley by the railway station
The greatest rhyme in English — surely?

T.S. Eliot Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature

August 24, 2009

Reporter: Mr Eliot, for which of your works were you awarded the Nobel Prize?
Eliot: I assume it was for the entire corpus.
Reporter: When did you publish that?
Priceless.
(Via the wonderful Ackroyd biography.)

T.S. Eliot and the Business of Poetry

August 24, 2009

I’ve just written a piece for Lateral Action, one of my other blogs, about T.S. Eliot’s route to fame, inspired by the excellent Ackroyd biography.
The T.S. Eliot Guide to Success
If you like that, you might like this piece about the other great poet-businessman of the English language:
The Shakespearean Guide to Entrepreneurship

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