There doesn't seem to be much going on in the literary world today. No seminal letters in the TLS co-authored by me that rewrite Shakespeare biography, no, nothing like that.So, I thought I'd mention the forthcoming South Downs Poetry Festival and the 'Desert Island Poems' event in Petersfield on July 23rd. I might get along to that to listen to some good people interview some other good people on the subject. Three poems, a luxury and a record when they already have the Complete Beethoven and Bob Dylan.
Not having been selected for interview, not surprisingly for any number of reasons, I thought I'd interview myself on the subject.
Three poems- two of which will come as no surprise-
Thom Gunn's My Sad Captains, an all-time favourite, atmospheric, precise and measured.
Philip Larkin's At Grass, one of his major masterpieces but the one about horse racing and, perhaps 'existentialism', whatever that might be.
And then Julia Copus' Stars Moving Westwards in a Winter Garden, which I read at Poetry Club a little while ago on an evening of 'favourite poems'. Denise had said she liked poems that made her cry. I immediately thought, oh, no, not me, that's not the point of it at all. But then when just over halfway through reading Julia's poem, I had to stop and collect myself because that was exactly what was threatening to happen. So maybe it's not just about putting words together, then. Maybe it can have a real emotional impact. Who would have thought that.
My luxury would be the internet if it were allowed on the island and e-mail was disabled so I couldn't write to anybody to come and save me. Not that I can think of anybody who would. But if not that, then a painting and thus Vermeer's A Street in Delft. It's been on my wall for so long now, in a cheap print, that I'd be lost without it and it would be nice to have the real thing on my island.
The music is a harder choice and the shortlist would extend to several hundred titles. To get value for money, the set of Buxtehude's Opera Omnia by Ton Koopman would be a great idea and being stranded on a desert island would be an easier way to get it than trying to win the price of it on horse races. Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 is one piece that would provide plenty of music and never run out, as would The Well-Tempered Klavier by that lad from Leipzig.
I'm not going to pretend to be exclusively highbrow just because the TLS will no longer seem worth reading unless I'm in it just because I personally have been instrumental in raising the bar for them, so The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs; I Want You Back, I'm Still Waiting, Walk Away Renee, The Tracks of My Tears, Just My Imagination - any of those Motown classics would be fine. Or just The Liquidator, or, quite appropriately, Tired of Being Alone, although I might not be.
But they'll want one piece, won't they, and forever is quite a long time. It's going to be Spem in Alium, isn't it.
