if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.

Charles Bukowski - so you want to be a writer?

I was at a reading tonight where a friend read this poem, one of his favourites. The audience cheered. Part of me cheers too, finding congruence with Keats writing to his publisher: if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all. I certainly feel like cheering when I get to this bit:

don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.

But he is wrong. Seductive, but wrong. The poem ends like this:

and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

A dictum that would have condemned Elizabeth Bishop, who spent years looking for the right word, to silence. And think of Plath, whom Hughes described working with a thesaurus on her lap.

The thing that most riles me - for a moment - is the prescriptivism. One of the chosen defines who else is chosen. It would be tempting to discuss the soteriology underlying that word "chosen" if one could have more confidence that the word itself had been chosen rather than simply occurred as, say, leaves to a tree.

Romantics. Men channelling the collective unconscious. Duende. Let them talk for themselves. But they are not simply talking about themselves, they are also talking about the way they would like to write. Or at least, the way they'd like to be seen to write. The skill is in making it look natural. Poetry favours the prepared mind. Those poems that come quickly and seem to need little revision - don't they arouse suspicion? It shouldn't be that easy. That way lets in cliché, lazy thinking, push-button emotions, rhymes that are there for no other reason than the sound.

Keats was one of my first loves. Bukowski bores me. I'm irritated at the dismissal of work. Keats took dictation from his prepared mind. Bukowski, not so much. Bishop took the protestant work ethic to an extreme. Hey, even the sainted Don Paterson claims to write dozens of drafts. There's room for everyone.

Poetry can come from the head, the heart, the toil or the soil - what matters is where it lodges. It doesn't matter how long it took to fashion the arrow, if it finds its mark.

Andrew Philip

Congratulations to Andrew Philip for making the Aldeburgh shortlist against stiff competition from 92 other first collections.

I highly recommend The Ambulance Box. The Squared interview with Andy is here.

The final winner will be announced at Aldeburgh Poetry Festival on 7 November.

Boys

"We didn't see a big splashy plume like we wanted to see," said Michael Bicay, director of science at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Ames Research Center.

Hundreds of space enthusiasts in parkas and sleeping bags gathered in the early morning to watch the impact on a big outdoor screen at the Ames Research Center, housed on an old dirigible field in Silicon Valley.

"You're going into a place where the sun hasn't shined for a billion years," Morrison said.

(Paragraphs reordered)

See How I Land

"Come, talk, laugh and break isolation"

- Vahni Capildeo ("Filda's Workshop")

This book collects new writing arising from the Oxford Poets & Refugees project - an initiative of the Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre and the Oxford-based charity Asylum Welcome.

In See How I Land the intersection of arts and human rights is vividly demonstrated… It asks us to think again about what it is that we, as humans, value, what it is that we share, and what it is that we desire to protect and to celebrate: freedom, safety, family, and love.

– Shami Chakrabarti

Asylum seekers and poets are both searching. Refugees are trying to find a haven for themselves and their families, writers a home for stories, dreams and ideas… When Oxford Brookes brings these two worlds together they give us ‘outsiders’ a place where all our words, and all our lives, are valued.

– Benjamin Zephaniah

I'll be writing about it soon.

Misunderstood

I don't often do quizzes, but this one appealed.

Your recommended philosophy-guru is EPICURUS.

Key fact: Epicurus, founder of Epicureanism, is probably the most misunderstood philosopher of antiquity.

Must have: A delight in the countryside and gardens.

Key promise: Peace and tranquillity.

Key peril: Boredom.

Most likely to say: "The true hedonist can find as much pleasure in a glass of chilled water as in a feast for a king."

Least likely to say: "He who tires of the city, tires of life."


Via.

Ars longa, vita brevis

Petition for Roman Polanski

We have learned the astonishing news of Roman Polanski’s arrest by the Swiss police on September 26th, upon arrival in Zurich (Switzerland) while on his way to a film festival where he was due to receive an award for his career in filmmaking.

He's a great film maker.

His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating from 1978

an awfully long time ago. Don't you think we can just let bygones be bygones?

against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

We don't judge other people by standards of bourgeois morality.

Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States and around the world are dismayed by this decision. It seems inadmissible to them that an international cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest contemporary filmmakers, is used by the police to apprehend him.

He's a great film maker. We all think so. You can't go around arresting great guys like that. Film festivals are sacrosanct. This is tantamount to arresting a priest in church.

By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world over have always permitted works to be shown and for filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when certain States opposed this.

We claim diplomatic immunity for our event. Otherwise, what next? They will be arresting people for showing films that someone doesn't like. This is like McCarthysism.

The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country,

Switzerland was neutral in WWII, and is not a member of NATO or the EU and it's um we think it's probably therefore neutral in the enforcement of cases of morals

where he assumed he could travel without hindrance,

He's been able to get away with it for so long he thought he could get away with it this time.

undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions of which no one can know the effects.

What next? They will be arresting people for showing films that someone doesn't like. This is like McCarthysism.

Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renowned and international artist now facing extradition.

He should be immune from your bourgeois American moral judgements.

This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom.

And he should be free, because he's a great film maker.

Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians—everyone involved in international filmmaking — want him to know that he has their support and friendship.

He is one of us. He is our friend.

On September 16th, 2009, Mr. Charles Rivkin, the US Ambassador to France, received French artists and intellectuals at the embassy. He presented to them the new Minister Counselor for Public Affairs at the embassy, Ms Judith Baroody. In perfect French she lauded the Franco-American friendship and recommended the development of cultural relations between our two countries.

We appeal to all enlightened French-speaking people

If only in the name of this friendship between our two countries, we demand the immediate release of Roman Polanski.

* * *

If a friend of mine were threatened with jail I'd go to some lengths to help keep them out, and if they went to jail I'd go and visit. (Assuming they hadn't done something so gross I didn't want to stay friends.) I'm not going to boycott anyone for signing this petition. There are many people I like and admire who support it. I just think their arguments are woolly.

It's a long time ago.
OK, so you want a statute of limitations for rape. Some jurisdictions have that. No doubt some elderly clergymen wish they had the benefit of a statute of limitations. But you will have to make a better argument than this. He's hardly Jean Valjean is he.

Hollywood, rock stars, the golden days - everyone was messing around with kids back then.
There have been powerful people indulging their urges since time immoral, and society sometimes lets them get away with it. Then people start thinking you can get away with it if you're rich and influential enough. There is never a shortage of victims. There should have been a lot more prosecutions. Why should an auteur be treated differently from a priest, or someone who lives in a trailer?

Her mother knew all about it.
The victim was thirteen. I don't know what her mother has to do with it. (It's a pity she didn't stay around during the shoot.) The sexuality of children isn't - in western society at least - the property of their parents. How many times did that kid say No? I've lost count, but it was a lot.

The victim wants it dropped.
And some offences are so difficult or humiliating that the victim may not want to talk about them. But unless the offence is really trivial, the victim shouldn't have a say in the matter. Otherwise the perp would be able to intimidate the victim into dropping charges, or if they were rich enough, buy the victim off.

But he's Roman Polanski! He makes great films! What about Chaucer, Villon, Marlowe, Byron, Wilde, Eric Gill &c, &c?
Let's separate the man from his work.

And why focus on him when there are all these other guys running around evading prosection?
Because of the petition. People like me are sounding off because we don't think the petition should be unchallenged. We may speculate on why it's taken the US so long to catch him, and why now. They need to catch the other guys as well.

Feelings are running high. There's wild talk of witch hunts, of pitchforks and torches, of lynch mobs. This isn't Salem, it isn't McCarthyism, and it trivialises what the Ku Klux Klan did. It's not even as if Polanski can be claimed an innocent man. It's not totally unreasonable, is it, to call these celebs out on their assumption of entitlement to immunity?

[Edited to remove link to victim's testimony.]