Where are all the happy poems, when is Poetry Unplugged returning (?) and my future plans for this long neglected substack.

Well, hello there...

Recently, the poet Paul McGrane took to Facebook to request possible themes for the Waltham Forest Poetry Competition and, being a Dad, I resorted to my internal retinue of recycled jokes. I replied that if he didn't want to go through too many entries then he could always choose "Happiness" as a theme.

Anybody that has been a semi regular attendee of Poetry Unplugged (more about this later) has endured this gag from me on a number of occasions. Even if you're slightly in the dark about fluctuations within the poetry scene, you'll have an inkling that there aren't many happy poems out there and the ones that are written on the subject of happiness tend to be the most miserable. I always think of Balloons by Sylvia Plath, a poem that seems to take great joy in its subject matter and gives every indication that it might indeed be a happy poem about happiness but then ends with the angry, violent image of a red shred clutched in an infant's fist. It's still one of my favourite poems and, despite the overwrought mythos surrounding its creator, strikes a happy chord whenever I read it.

I've been out of the loop with contemporary poetry for a while and am now catching up on my poetry book backlog after a year spent mostly reading poems by long-dead monks and mendicants from China and Japan. One thing I love about these particular poems is their lightness. Not the kind of lightness that we might associate with the light verse of Brian Bilston or Roger McGough, but rather a lightness of style and attitude that seem capable of taking in the best and worst of corporeal existence with a certain breezy attitude. These poems are open-hearted in their outlook, striking a contrast with what is often the knowing, wry register of light verse. My current obsession is with the 19th Century itinerant monk and "great fool" Taigu Ryokan. Here's the poem that he's best known for:

The thief left it behind--
  the moon 
at the window

(trans. John Stevens)

The poor guy was robbed of the little that he possessed but was still most concerned with the things that remained while wondering if it would be enough to satiate the impulses of his trespasser.

I mention this because, well, the contemporary poetry I'm catching up on is pretty heavy and I'm genuinely surprised at how hard I found it to read. No artist is duty bound to tiptoe around the feelings of their reader and the most pained self expression is capable of triggering a kind of ecstatic release within those who harbour similar feelings. But I have to put my hand up and admit to finding some of it to be a bit of a slog. I think it's because I've been spoiled by that light but open-hearted aspect of all those silly monks and wanderers.

I've been thinking about my own poetry recently, which works as a roundabout way of saying that I haven't been writing any. Part of it comes from the simple fact that I'm just nowhere near as popular as I once was while at the same time being ill at ease with the kind of poetry that I have written. The publisher of all of my books, Nii Parkes, once described me as a juggler of angst and humour and that description was pretty accurate. But I'm tired of the angst now, my own and everybody else's. I really can't bring myself to write poems that demand some kind of emotional labour from the reader. Despite my life not being a rollicking somersault from win to win, I just don't feel angsty about it.

For a while I thought that maybe the idea might be to write "happy poems". Surely there might be a market for that? But what seems like an untapped market is often the signifier of an impossible task or a lack of public interest. So I look to those silly dead monks and realise that it wasn't the happiness of their work that lifted me but their levity. Therefore, as I start writing and sharing poems again, I'll try and do so from that particular place, the weightless centre that all the churn of the world and its attendant emotions pass through.

I don't really call out for comments very much but if you're reading this and have your own favourite happy poem, then please let me know what it is.

Is Poetry Unplugged ever returning?

I know that a lot of people have been asking about Unplugged and I haven't been great at replying to emails about it. I have every intention of bringing back Unplugged to the Poetry Cafe. The thing is that the Poetry Cafe has been closed since the pandemic began and currently remains so. Most of us seem to have moved on.

The issue here is that it's easy for me to rock up to a venue, put out some chairs and tell rubbish jokes between poets. It's a much bigger challenge to relaunch a branch of a business, balancing the books while restocking the bar and rehiring staff and management.

The Poetry Society is a registered charity which runs a number of initiatives and, as much as the Poetry Cafe has been a part of its fabric, if running a licensed establishment in central London ends up putting too much pressure on other responsibilities, then I understand if the board and management might be hesitant to throw the doors open. There are many practicial and logistical hurdles to tackle before this can happen.

I wish I could give you something more substantial but that's all I have for now. That said, I'm eager to get back on the job and am more happy to look at alternatives. If I did something else at another place, it probably wouldn't go by the name of Poetry Unplugged as, despite our time at the Betsey Trotwood during a long refurbishment, I think it should always be a part of the Poetry Cafe for as long as there is a chance of it reopening there.

Rusty Niall lives!

You might have noticed that this is the first post on this Substack since January when I last posted my monthly podcast. I've just finished up lecturing for the year and have a bit more time on my hands and therefore am able to write more posts. I have also been quite ruminative about the platforms that I post on and I've not always been completely on board with the aims of Substack. At the same time, Substack is currently the only place that allows me to publish unlimited posts and audio without having to pay while also building a mailing list that (mostly) evades the spam filters of most email providers.

That said, I am finally planning to bring in a paid subscription option. The posts, occasional poems and podcasts will continue to be available to all but I will also periodically publish a digital poetry pamphlet with accompanying audio that will be available in full to all paid subscribers. I will also make these digital pamphlets and audiobooks available for individual purchase too. I won't be introducing this paid tier until the first digital pamphlet drops. Which might be by the end of the month. Or later. Or never.

Thanks for reading this

Niall