Skip to main content

THE SWIFT REPORT 2010

It seems like a very long time since my last Swift Report - and this was quite a year.  The year when Eyewear THE BLOG had its fifth birthday.

It began with my esophagitis out of control, and my being treated with an experimentally high dose of medication to control the production of acid in my stomach.  I was in pain all the time, and lost a lot of weight due to problems with digestion and not wanting to eat; I was facing depression.  I was off work.  Fortunately, an excellent team of doctors in London centered in and around Harley Street established the correct treatment regime, and I am much better a year later.  I've put on some weight again, and am no longer in physical pain.  I went back to work  slowly, part-time at first in the winter semester at Kingston, but by the summer was back to regular duties.

In April I turned 44, in the desert of Oman - I had wanted to kick-start my turn back to health with an adventure holiday.  The beauty and hospitality of Oman lifted my spirits greatly.  I also got new glasses, which John Hegley praised when we bumped into each other at Paddington.  Nothing like approval from the master!

In the summer, I travelled to Hydra, which I love, and also to Ireland, for the wedding of my wonderful brother-in-law, James, to the superb Michelle.  My wife and I drove around the Ring of Kerry.

I became a Catholic on the summer solstice, under the guidance of my dear friend Fr. Oliver Brennan.

I blogged for a week for The Best American Poetry blog, on The Young British Poets - twice.

I met with Al Alvarez to discuss my new work.  Two poems were accepted by Poetry, forthcoming early 2011.  I also had a poem in Poetry Review.  I published an online e-book, Experimental Sex Hospital.

In the autumn, I was very pleased to read for the Maastricht International Poetry Nights, and to meet poets from Iceland, Holland, South Africa, and Australia.

In October I received a kind and supportive letter from John Ashbery.

In November, Evan Jones and I launched Modern Canadian Poets, from Carcanet, in Manchester and London.  It was a treat to have David McGimpsey and George E. Clarke over too.  It was the first such publication in Britain in 50 years.  The book sparked controversy in Canada's leading papers, and was mentioned in the FT.

In December I wrapped up another successful year of Oxfam readings (this year supported by Kingston University) which featured leading poets such as David Lehman, Philip Gross, John Glenday, and Jen Hadfield, among others.

I am looking forward to seeing my little nephew Alex at Christmas, as well as his parents.

What else?  It's been a tough year.  I never thought I'd be up and out and about again, working as hard as before.  But here I am.

Plans for 2011?  Completion of my PhD (I am in my final months of writing up).  Maybe a new book of my own poetry out end of 2011.  An anthology of Young British Poets for Cinnamon and Oxfam in the works.  I may start a small poetry press.  I have a novel in mind....

On the shortest day of the year, let me offer you this small bit of wisdom: it does get brighter in the darkness, eventually, and slowly, surely.



Comments

Anonymous said…
Happy New Year Todd and all the best for 2011!

Victor

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".