Sean O'Brien and Don Paterson,
Cheltenham Literature Festival, October 12.
Like the old cricket double act when Ian Botham and Allan Lamb toured with their show of debonair humour, or a pairing from further north than Radcliffe and Maconie, I could see O'Brien and Paterson being a ticket that would work tremendously well, perhaps reviving the Music Hall in a post-Variety world. Except that this was a double bill rather than a double act but the two humanely acerbic poets go together well with their idiosyncracies and their likeness.
With Don on first, darkly and sharply funny but with a world view that regards us human beings as no more than portions of gloop that have somehow become sentient (and that is my precis rather than his words), the robust and usually unconsoled Sean followed in seemingly almost mellow mood. That was until he read his Jubilee poem on 1985- Don had been given his own year by Ms. Duffy and you don't argue once you've been told- in which he fought a great rearguard action in establishing that the devil (in this case, Don) doesn't have all the angriest music but, invoking Auden, they must both know that 'poetry makes nothing happen'. In fact, one might say that 'what Paterson fails to realize is that poetry makes nothing happen' however unremitting he might think.
But there was more humour and laughter in this show than you might have thought, or in a lot of other shows. They are both dab hands at the pointed throwaway remark. I don't laugh out loud as much as admire. Don made a number of points that I take as truisms already- that the introductions to poems in a poetry reading are usually more interesting than the poems, and that he doesn't enjoy poetry readings much and he doesn't know any roofers or other tradesmen who go to watch others do the same job in their spare time. Sean for his part reports from a residential creative writing course. I could write poems about my day job but don't. If I did, I'd have more to complain about than lasagne.
Sean's Scottish accent, as he reads his Marmite poem, The Plain Truth of the Matter, has possibly improved since last year, in an area that he would accept himself that there was room for improvement. But at a reading ostensibly taking place to promote a recent Selected and a due Collected, both of these starry, starry names dwelt less on past glories but gave over much of their time to new work and so I can give advance notice that the next books from both of them are not going to disappoint. This world was never meant for two as implacable as them. In particular, Paterson's new sonnets see him in the form of a David Gower (just to bring back the cricket motif for the sake of it) at the height of his powers, making everything look very easy to do to those who can't do it at all.
Don finished with two of the best from Rain, including Rain. He should have been reading there the day before when nature would have provided an appropriate percussion on the roof of the marquee.
But it was a masterclass from two class masters, growing gradually older more gracefully than they might allow. The way that bleakness and good humour can mix so well reminded me of something Sean once wrote about poetry being like the mix of water in an estuary, the different tides combining to produce a new 'pull'. I don't know if that's quite what he said. If he didn't say it, then I just did and I'll have it.