A new phase for poetry

Although it’s been getting lots of press and I may not be saying anything original by mentioning it, I’m really excited and pleased that Carol Ann Duffy is the new Poet Laureate. You can honestly say that she deserves it. As a female poet myself, it is of course also most gladdening to know that Duffy has bucked the white male trend of the last 350-plus years. Laureate history might not be packed with the kind of exploitation that merits a Michael Moore-expose kind of rant – a power elite constructing a culture of fear around the creative output of female poets (maybe…); female poets losing hope and rebelling against The Man in a gun-toting killing spree (less likely – although there may have been some hairy moments with a fountain pen) – poetry is a gentler art than politics; however, it is sadly significant that it has taken us into the new century for a woman to get the top job.

I can also well understand that Duffy prevaricated over taking the role: as someone whose job features manipulating language in new and rebellious ways, the expectations of the Laureate are somewhat conservative – she will be required to write poems for state occasions, hardly the way forward as far as pushing the boundaries of poetics go. However, it is her symbolic role as Laureate in the breadth of history that is revolutionary. Previous Laureates have also involved themselves in education work (for instance, the Writing Together project coordinated by Booktrust – www.writingtogether.org.uk ), and this too is a place where Duffy can continue to inspire and innovate. I’m sure that her current inclusion on exam syllabi has inspired some young people – just the knowledge that the poet is still alive and making her living as a writer – and is also kind of rock n’roll – surely makes being a poet more accessible for kids and, dare I dream it, cool.

Even if cool is slightly out of reach (I hope it isn’t), this really seems to be a gentle dawn of a new phase in poetry, and I welcome it. A new Laureate appointment could even mark the beginning of a more inclusive understanding of all approaches to poetry rather than those areas just concerned with versification or rhyme. I don’t know how optimistic this is, but these are strange times, and increasingly verdant, lush, springy times for creativity.

Some proof that new approaches are filtering through to public awareness can be seen, albeit liminally, in the BBC’s upcoming Poetry Season which includes a poet actually doing something non-paper based and that doesn’t involve rote learning and reciting poetry classics. Glory be! In his introductory documentary to the season, Griff Rhys Jones –

'helps get commuters at Euston Station to collectively perform WH Auden's 'Night Mail', and encounters experimental poet Valerie Laws during the creation of a random poem, using a dozen beach balls, a swimming pool and a marker pen. Laws' concept is that verse does not necessarily need to have rhyme or metre but can be made through chance. Laws writes a haiku onto 11 balls and lets water and nature do the rest – with more than 40 million possible outcomes.'

I wish I’d been at Euston that day. Do you think there was a certain amount of commuter coercion? Surely this could only be achieved with a combination of sticky buns (carrot) and train cancellations (stick). Comments please.

This is precisely the more experimental approach I hope the public will start to understand, helped by the current heightened media interest in poetry. There is a whole world of work out there that doesn’t sit obediently on the page, left justified, black ink on white page (even the swimming pool haiku, though completely brilliant, is still foregrounding the making of poetry with traditional poetic forms). Digital poetics is an expanding and divergent field, as is performance poetry, both from the poetry slam angle but also from the more live art-inspired route, where poetry is often made in the process of performance. Techniques such as William Burroughs-inspired cutups and poets working with chance procedures are increasingly popular and form a modern movement in poetry that challenges the norm.

It may be too much to hope that as Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will promote avant-garde approaches to writing, but I’m hopeful that a general and more accepting national attitude to poetry, coinciding with her appointment, will make collaborative poems in train stations, among other poetic projects, meaningful and magical and more of a means to enjoy language for everyone.