New Poem by Sam Buchan-Watts

Worship Services

If I draw out London like a cross

the Old Kent Road would stretch

the length of Christ’s sick body.

Catching the 453

like a potential virus,

I’m a slow shot up his spine.

But the bus stops

with deliberate ache of reason.

The perpetrator has called it

and drags my eyes to an ungodly paradox

-church shop and ASDA side by side-

where He stands (dispersed in glossy paperbacks)

author of all; beaten by showcards.

Through this valediction of faith

thanks be to yellowed window, I witness

the plastic gore of 4-way adaptors.

Next door: Grisham tops some trial,

life as I want to see it, loud and taut.

Warm green colour schemes

balance Mum with Dad,

my potential kids well fed,

not realising, that they themselves

are a kind of food.

I think of my mother, ten

years back. Weekend day mistook-

she got the wrong kind of mass-

Attending Tescos for my

weekly refill, of re-healing.

poem by Sam Buchan-Watts. He recently graduated from Goldsmiths College and co-runs Clinic Presents which publishes a biannual anthology of the best new contemporary poetry art and photography, and through which are put on gigs and exhibitions of the best new poets/bands/artists in anything from an abandoned strip-club in Mayfair to a private school in Berkshire.

Comments

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...".

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