More is becoming less and less

On my trip to London last Friday, I spent the first hour or so in the Poetry Library. I like to take the opportunity to look through the magazines there when I can but now, with my subscriptions to poetry magazines at an all time low of none at all but with a concurrent need to make a shortlist of the best poems I have read in any given year, I felt a need to have a few titles to consider as it is now July and my notebook doesn't have many candidates on its shortlist in progress.
The first thing I noticed was that the Poetry Library's shelves of current magazines had some slightly out of date issues on them - 2011 in at least one case, I think- and that I couldn't see Poetry Review there.
The next thing was how quickly one starts skimming through poems, discarding them very early on a 'just not my sort of thing' basis as I'm sure I would if editing a magazine ever again or judging a pile of poems in a competition. It is to be hoped that those who do such jobs do it with more of a conscience than I would. And I'm sure they do.
I did find some poems I liked and I made a note of two of them but these were not world shattering discoveries. They were by poets that are long-standing favourites anyway. The David Green Books Awards will rightly become regarded, if regarded at all, as the least adventurous prizes in poetry. And why not.
Then, on Sunday, I let Radio 3 offer its stream of music enlighten, entertain or just close out the silence for me but this week didn't have much that I liked. So I began to wonder how, since I put poetry and music down as two of my main interests, I can be apparently so little interested in so much of it. I like horse racing but am almost exclusively interested in jump racing and then only certain sorts of races; I like cricket but these days don't really look for much beyond Chris Gayle, the Nottinghamshire result and England test matches and in football, I honestly couldn't name much more than half of any team Fulham are likely to field and it is just one perpetual grind of something I really can't convince myself to care about.
And, so, which of these things am I really interested in and should I really put them on my CV the next time I apply for a job. When one says one is interested in Poetry, does one mean that one can't wait to read the next poem whatever it might be. You lay yourself open to all kinds of compromising situations then. Anytime in the next week someone will hear you say it and they will offer you a sheaf of their poems and expect you to declare that you've never been quite so moved or seen metaphors of such dexterity. No, by my rough estimate, something like 50% of poetry is not of much interest, perhaps 20% is downright awful, which leaves 20% to be acceptable and out of the 10% that you really like, maybe only half of it is written by Julia Copus, David Harsent, Don Paterson or the sort of poets you really take part in the game to enjoy reading.
In the early hours of a sleepless night last night, I had changed to Radio 3's Through the Night because, no offence intended, I couldn't bear to listen to Radio 5 talk about Andy Murray any more. I heard a concert of the very little known Jose de Nebra (1702-1768), very much in the area of things I think of as 'music'. And what a great discovery that was. But I'd have soon been retuning the wireless yet again if I had stumbled on a night long exploration of Bruckner.
So, if and when we say we are interested in poetry, or music, is that what we mean. Or do we mean that there are just some special bits of it we like but that they are incredibly precious. I'd even be suspicious of anyone who claimed to like it all because surely then there is no discrimination going on (and discrimination can be a good thing if not an essential one in such circumstances) and certainly no notion that one is taking part in the process oneself and finding a personal sympathy with some things but not others.
And well-meaning relations who don't quite understand might waste money on buying you just what they think you want for Christmas.
Well, I know you like pop music and I sneaked a look at your records. I know this is very popular and you don't seem to have it and so I thought I'd get it for you.
Oh, that is lovely. Queen's Greatest Hits.
How could I possibly thank you for that.