In these troubled times we need good poets more than ever

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/17/troubled-times-good-poets-poetry

Version 0 of 5.

“If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,” said the American poet Emily Dickinson, “I know that is poetry.” I’m not sure that’s exactly what happened to me last Sunday, but it wasn’t that far off. It’s 50 years since Ted Hughes started Poetry International. It’s nearly 30 years since it was resurrected on the South Bank Centre in London by the poet Maura Dooley. I worked with her on the festival in the 90s for several years. We met and heard some of the greatest voices in 20th-century poetry, from Hughes and Seamus Heaney to Derek Walcott, Sharon Olds and Octavio Paz.

The “world poetry summit” had some of the new greats. The Icelandic poet Sjón has worked with Björk, and is one of the few poets to have won an Oscar. Anne Carson is still writing brilliant, blazing poems 25 years after I first heard her read. Claudia Rankine’s bestselling Citizen: An American Lyric has changed the way many Americans (and Brits) look at race. These were voices from the frontline of poetry, reminding us of its ability to cross borders and break through barriers of culture and power.

But the event that gave me the full Dickinson (or something like it) wasn’t with the stars. It was a reading by Ten: Poets of the New Generation, all included in a new Bloodaxe anthology of the same name. These are poets from diverse and black and minority ethnic backgrounds who have been involved in a national mentoring scheme. And my God, they are the real McCoy. Will Harris, Ian Humphreys, Yomi Sode and Raymond Antrobus were among the poets whose work brought tears to my eyes. I have been to an awful lot of poetry readings in my life. Trust me, most don’t make me cry.

Great writing – even very good writing – often does. Some of the fiction up for Wednesday’s Man Booker prize does. Writing good prose is hard; writing good poetry is even harder. It’s a craft you have to study and practise and hone. It’s the opposite of instant. It’s all about nuance and music and metre. It’s all about layering. It’s all about depth.

We need fewer instant thoughts on everything. We need more complexity and more depth. We need this because opinions are not all equal and art is not all good. “Good poetry,” as Hughes’s good friend Seamus Heaney once said, “is not just expectoration or self-regard or a semaphore for self’s sake. You want it to touch you at the melting point below the breast-bone and the beginning of the solar plexus.” You need, in other words, to engage your brain if you want to capture the human heart.

In praise of snowflakes

Like everyone else in this country, I’ve read and heard a lot in the past few years about this strange new species, the millennial. I know, for example, that they’re delicate creatures who have to be wrapped in swaddling clothes as they face the shocking rigours of office life. Last week I was trained by some in a new digital skill. I got flustered, missed a deadline and felt like flashing a sick note from my mum. The young ’uns kept the office running smoothly as they nursed me through my ordeal. They were patient. They were efficient. They were kind. Time, perhaps to ditch the dissing and recognise that some people’s “snowflakes” are made from sour grapes.

Now try washing your hands

It used to be relatively straightforward to nip to the loo. Now washbasins seem to be masterpieces of minimalism. Somewhere, there is water. Somewhere there is soap. Somewhere, there is even air. Quite where is anyone’s guess. Perhaps you’re meant to say abracadabra as you scour the place for sensors and wave your hands. At the Olympic park the other day I went through the ritual. Soap. Good. I waved my hands again. No water. Not a drop. I’m afraid I couldn’t help blaming Boris Johnson as I tried to find somewhere to wash off the sticky slime.

• Christina Patterson is a writer, broadcaster and columnist