I would like to think that this website was closer to Radio 3 than any other part of the BBC's output but you will be the judge of that. What I mean is, that using a picture of Sally Bretton here, Lucy from Not Going Out, does not mark a departure into the gratuitous use of pictures of eye candy young ladies but a completely justifiable and relevant illustration of one of the reasons to be a devoted viewer of the recently finished fifth series of the situation comedy.The art of Sitcom was widely thought to be dead and probably to have died as My Family went from acceptably inane to dire. But I'm not convinced that an art form can ever be dead and Lee Mack has taken it up and made it essential viewing again. Not only that, but he forgot to turn up as Danny Baker's guest on Radio 5 a few weeeks ago on Saturday morning as if to suggest that the slacker image is one he can live down to in real life.
Would I watch it if it wasn't well written and made me laugh out loud once or twice each episode. Well, no, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would not. My Family had a sexy girl in it as well but when I realized it wasn't funny, I stopped watching it.
At the Portsmouth Poetry Society last week, the subject was American Poets. It is the usual protocol for whoever had the idea for the meeting's theme to do an introduction to it but that person wasn't there. So I was flattered to be invited to say a few words at the drop of my hat. I think I got away with it and was glad that it developed into an open discussion that meant I wasn't required to reach a conclusion. But Doris, who I usually sit next to, wasn't sure which poets in the anthology she had brought along were American. I am nothing if not helpful in such circumstances and so picked for her a well-known piece by William Carlos Williams for the first half and then North Labrador by Hart Crane. Great poem and a welcome impetus for me to get into Hart Crane further who, as a depressed, difficult, alcoholic, young suicide ticks several very promising boxes in the poet profile. His Complete Poems arrived today and look as if they will provide the finest of bedtime reading.
It would be interesting to know how many pages of all the poetry books I have remain unread. I can't claim to be avid. I just think I know what I like and I know what I think but I'm not devoted to the subject in a way that makes me spend all night consuming poetry as if it were the very essence of life itself. It isn't that for me.
And so it makes it scary that a new, young generation of poets, born into a genre that has Paul Muldoon as a central figure is even more playful, allusive and deliberately outre than ever before. I don't know if I'm up to it. C'est magnifique, one might say, but ce n'est pas la guerre, as the cavalry are shot down by weapons from the age that was to succeed them. If I do it quietly, can I be allowed to stay with Hart Crane and poets born before, say, 1965.
But, then again, it's always been like that. Every generation has been welcomed in as if they were new and sexy and nothing that had come before them was relevant any more. Thom Gunn was as cool and sexy as the Elvis Presley and Beatles that he took the trouble to write about, famously turning 'revolt into a style', but at that stage he did it in iambic pentameter.
I'm yet to be convinced that anything drastically important has happened beyond some young people wanting to wilfully assert their newness, a phenomenon that has always been with us. Only the very best poets have alerted us to their significance and potential importance before they were 30. Muldoon and Gunn were two of them. It might be wise to give the latest crop a chance to prove themselves. It can be very damaging to be told you are destined for great things before you've achieved them.
I know that.
