The Swift Report 2006

Each year I write a report to my friends, summing up the year that has been, and looking forward to the next. 2006 was the saddest year of my life, although in some other, lesser ways a good and important one. Three close family members as well as four friends died this year. Most significantly, my wonderful father, Thomas Edward Swift, died of brain cancer, on September 9, at the age of 66. I had spent weeks with him in hospital in Montreal. It has been a very difficult time, and I miss him so much (he is pictured here). His memorial service was very moving, and many friends and colleagues of his (and mine) attended, to celebrate the kind and exceptionally generous man he was. I am quite concerned for my mother, for the other two relations who died this year were her father and brother (my grand-father and uncle Ian and Edward Hume). As well, my good friend, the poet Rob Allen, died of cancer, start of November.

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In 2006 I turned 40. In the spring, I moved to Maida Vale with my wife. My father was very proud to know that I had begun my PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA), and that poems of mine appeared in some very good journals and papers, such as New American Writing, Poetry Review and The Guardian. Other poems of mine were this year published in Iota and The Cimarron Review. I have accepted poems forthcoming in Acumen, Chapman, The Manhattan Review and Vallum. I continue to be a Core Tutor for The Poetry School. I also began lecturing on the MA in creative writing course at Kingston University. This year I also published reviews in Books in Canada, The Globe and Mail and Poetry Review. My father was also very proud of the Oxfam CD I edited this year, Life Lines, and launched in summer 2006, featuring over sixty major UK poets, including the poet laureate Andrew Motion, Wendy Cope, Simon Armitage, David Harsent, Anne-Marie Fyfe, Al Alvarez, Dannie Abse and Fleur Adcock. It has so far sold over 5,000 copies. I also edited an e-book anthology with funds to the Red Cross, Babylon Burning, for nth position, to note the 5th anniversary of 9/11. At the end of 2006, my-coeditor Jason Camlot and I turned in our manuscript to our publisher Vehicule Press, for Language Acts, the major new study of Anglo-Quebec poetry, the first of its kind in 40 years, to be launched spring 2007. In the autumn, a good-looking pamphlet of new poems of mine, Natural Curve, was issued by the small Alberta press, Rubicon.

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Things I look forward to next year: working on my manuscript for the Carcanet Book of 20th Century Canadian Verse, which I am editing. Doing further research for my PhD. Maybe doing some more teaching at university level. Doing poetry readings, as both host and reader. Writing some more reviews. Launching Language Acts in Quebec. And most of all seeing my mother and brother and his wife again, back home.

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One thing. I have yet to finalize news of the publication of my fourth collection of poetry. Hopefully, early in 2007, I will be able to do so.

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In the most difficult times, kindness, even gentleness, can make the smallest difference seem a vast improvement. Hope, even faith, is also a welcome traveller to bring along. I wish you God, or at least grace. And as much light and peace as can be found in this dark world. Be well in the new year.

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....

Poetry vs. Literature

Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"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...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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