I have noticed other Retirement Diaries among 'poetry bloggers'- if that is such that I am here, but not that they are finishing the day job or packing up the blog job. Some are taking a summer break and one can't blame them. It's been some time since there was a new book or record to talk about, what poetry activity there is is virtual or online and my friends in Portsmouth Poetry Society wouldn't be meeting again until September anyway. However, there is something vaguely like being in touch with a certain community here, whoever you may be, and a Cartesian ontological point of knowing that one must exist because who else is it writing this Retirement Diary.
It's been great, not far off idyllic, so far but I know not to tempt fate. Going out to bat thirty years ago with a few good scores behind me, confidence veered dangerously into the illusion of invincibility and, needless to say, a sequence of low scores followed. Despite several successful years of turf investment, there is nothing like horse racing to make one aware that disaster is waiting for you at every turn and so, having been beaten a length and a quarter today, we tentatively begin Goodwood with Space Blues in the 2.45 tomorrow just hoping to recover the same minus position I've been stalled at for some weeks now.
I took a similarly defensive attitude towards my precious rating of 1898 in 10-minute chess games at Lichess. One more win would push me through the 1900 barrier, achieve a personal best ahead of the 5-minute game rating of 1903 and so I avoided rated games for a couple of days and bided my time, like Achilles in his tent refusing to fight. But it was not to be and I'm back down on a (highly respectable for me) 1870. But last night I tuned into some 'streaming' and found Gata Kamsky chatting casually while disposing of his opposition in 3+3 games. I had wondered who these top rated players were and thought, if Kamsky's not top - he was once no. 4 in the world- who can it be, this Dr. Nykerstein, who is over 100 points clear on the leaderboard.
Yes, according to various places on the internet, it is Magnus Carlsen. So it's interesting (for me if nobody else) to note, if it is in any way comparable, that my chess rating there compared to the world champion is roughly in the same proportion as my 12 hour rides on a bicycle were to the competition record. Having been listening to the sort of questions they ask statistician, Andy Salzman, on Test Match Special, all of which he seems to be able to answer, one can start to get a taste for this sort of abstruse number crunching. I can't believe that such numerology is the point of cricket, chess or cycling but some people clearly think it is.
-
But, expanding slightly on the recent point that Anne Stevenson wanted to write about Elizabeth Bishop 'uncategorically', I perhaps ought to say something about poetry even if I don't think I am categorically a 'poetry blogger' even if I ever meant to be. The world simply doesn't work like that, or shouldn't be expected to, and neither do I. I don't devote that much time to poetry these days and most of that time is, I hope, devoted to other people's rather than my own. However, it presumably remains one of my main interests, probably ahead of other writing, music, pop music, The Times crossword (in which last Saturday NDJAMENA was the hardest answer to get I've yet seen), chess, horse racing or other sport.
Anne says, in her essay Living with the Animals, that,
Elizabeth Bishop thought of 'Roosters' as her war poem, though like her depression poem, 'A Miracle for Breakfast', it is hardly the kind of political writing we are used to today.
Presumably because it is so much more than a single-issue poem, as the best poetry needs to be.
If it only has one thing to say it is polemic rather than poetic and drags the idea of 'poetry' down to something less than it could be. I'm not saying such things are not poetry - anything can be if it wants to be- but the likes of Elizabeth and Anne are great because they know that any art worthy of our attention as art does more than one thing at a time.
As you can see, Anne's book is going down very well. There's nothing quite as satisfactory as being the converted that are being preached to.