One great advantage of publishing a first collection in one's fifties is that there is still everything to select from so it comes as no surprise that Richard Williams's first book doesn't look like a debut and hits the ground very sure-footedly. It's a bit hard to believe that it is his first collection but maybe the point is that the point isn't to stack up titles and ISBN numbers in a back catalogue or curriculum vitae and simply write, take part and do it. Richard has for some time been a much-admired contributor to a poetry community in Portsmouth that few similar places have.That is one way in which we differ. Another is that, not being native to the city, Richard has whole-heartedly adopted it and regards it as his proper home, whereas I'm not able to do that. But, having worked with him on a poetry project a couple of years ago, I know we don't 'differ' as such, only as far as he's a 'top bloke' whereas I'm reluctant to be anything of the sort.
He also has a tremendous, very independent publisher, committed to doing what they believe in and, having met them on Thursday, irrepressible. One is very grateful that such people should be living at this hour.
But, oh, yes, there is some writing to say about. In 56 pages, plus two photographs, Landings covers a lot of ground without ever losing a consistent, recognizable tone or doing the same thing twice.
There are fine 'page' poems but, if anything, having now heard several 'in performance', Richard isn't overly besotted with formal constraints and those that work best are those that work 'live' in what one like me might call the acceptable face of performance poetry.
There are prose poems, which immediately present a difficulty for one whose definition of poetry is 'writing where the author decides where the lines end rather than the typesetter'. But prose poems were originally largely a French thing, thus chic and sophisticated, and anybody who tries to define poetry will sooner rather than later be subverted by work that doesn't comply with their definition. So, it's writing, isn't it, and we should worry less about such arcane niceties because I don't think Richard does.
Early doors we have a gob-stopper as trope or extended metaphor which I'm not aware even John Donne ever did; more intimately,
An argument that can't be undone,
that time has knotted into a scar
as much a tattoo as any ink
are apparently understated but powerful lines that look very natural and could have come easily, which the best lines usually do; You is also tender but it's difficult to decide whether or not the extended meditations, as in the title poem, aren't more successful.
We are taken from the very local to the vastness of space travel, from the grass roots of 'proper' football to a very decent lament for where a series of wrong turnings have led us. Because Richard hasn't lost much of his early political faith.
His reading in the Square Tower on Thursday was a gathering of a variety of what might have once been called 'free thinkers' but by now, circumstances being what they are, with all the 'make-believe authenticity' we are surrounded by, have become almost re-disenfranchised. And what is there to do about it beyond record it meaningfully. I don't know either.
Press on regardless. Don't go away. Keep Hope Alive.
I don't envisage any 'difficult second album' syndrome afflicting Richard Williams, whenever he cares to consider the option.
