Obiter Dicta

Monday, October 24, 2011

This week I shall be considering precisely what I’m going to talk about at the Edinburgh Writers’ Club whenI judge their poetry competition next month. I’m expected to give them something of an address before I announce any results.

I shall have to curb my natural tendency to lay about me when I discuss their work, I fancy. I did point out to their President, when I accepted the gig, that my reputation as poetry critic for the (now  sadly defunct) Scottish literary magazine, Cencrastus, was that of a harsh judge. I did say, too, that I have not had a collection of poetry published in the last 8 years (although I have one ready), so she might not really want old Obsolete Sarky Drawers around the tender sensibilities of her writers.

Heres’s an example, one of the few I could find after all the years. It’s actually praising the work of Alan Spence. Kind of.

His book of poetry, Glasgow Zen, irritated me. It irritated me because he made me like it, and I am primed to sneer at mock-Oriental woofle. Too many Western writers think a mystical message (“Only in darkness can one see the light”) and Willow Pattern imagery make them wise and exotic. I should have known. Spence is far better than that.

I will, of course, encourage and exhort rather than excoriate this time. Its important to encourage people to write. I am, I have to say, not convinced that writing – or, more accurately, the ability to write creatively – is something that can be taught. But exemplars can be held up and tips can be given, I suppose. I’ve just never read many tips by other writers that work for me. You have to work it out for yourself, as the prophet Brian said.  The most important thing – and I’ll say this to them – is to find your own voice. However long that takes.

I wonder how they’ll react to my judgements. I know that, any time I’ve entered a literary competition, (not often), I’ve felt the slow cigarette-burn of disappointment at not winning. How could the judges be so obtuse as to discard my masterpiece and give the palm to that heap of ordure? People’s tastes are bizarre. I often think. I have no doubt that my victims will think the same of my preferences.

What will I be looking for? I’ll know it when I find it. Best not to preconceive any ideas. I’ll hope to find something with a genuinely original spark, whether that be turn of phrase, imagery or whatever. And, with the writer’s permission, I’ll blog the winner.

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On a related topic, if more grandly related - I was gratified to see Julian Barnes win the Booker for ‘The Sense of an Ending’. Despite the reservations of some of my followers among the Twitterati, I think it’s a fine work. As I’ve written earlier, I think the ending is truly magnificent. Shocking. Full of despair. Tragic, in the proper sense of the word, not only for itself, but for how it impacts upon the character and self-awareness of Tony. It has some insightful things to say about aging and the process of memory too. I would urge all those who have not already done so to read it now.

I am reading ‘The Sisters Brothers’ now. I enjoyed the first half immensely. Wry and funny. I like the character of the narrator, Eli Sisters, and much of the dialogue. But, as I go on, I am finding it increasingly less appealing. Now it just seems like the middle of a spaghetti Western. I think it could have done with some judicious editing, to be truthful.

And now to draft some ideas for my address.

I really should do some of my own writing too. I will, sure I will. Even if Ali phones and suggests going to the pub, I’ll work instead.

Won’t I?

See you next week. Till then, think of the world.