Pondering Poetry

Pondering Poetry

Pondering poetry is something I do from time to time: I like to read poetry, I like to read about poetry, think about it, play about with the sound and feel of poetry. I sometimes even have a go at writing poetry, but all too frequently emerge from my scribbling and pondering feeling at worst frustrated at my pathetic effort, and at best flat, staring at my attempt much as a fishing enthusiast will gaze at a tiddler with a sense of emptiness after an eight hour stint by the water.

This feeling of inadequacy at my own clumsy attempt at stringing words together was heightened this weekend, when, browsing my bookshelves, I found a copy of Seamus Heaney's The Haw Lantern and decided to indulge myself to an afternoon of poetry in a shady corner, away from the hullabaloo of the beaches and the scorch of the August sun. By the time I had read to page 3 and the closing line of the first poem, "Alphabets", I was close to tears: tears of joy at experiencing again the genius of Heaney, and of melancholy that try as I might, I know I will never have the skill to even come close to displaying a fraction of similar talent. What an imposter you are, Anderson, I chastised myself at the presumption that I, too, could even attempt to call myself a poet. Not even a modest writer of poetry (is that different to a poet? Does the reordering of those words add a subtle layer of meaning that distinguishes the true poet from the writer of poetry - something to be discussed at length over several bottles of fine wine, perhaps?).

Besides sheer pleasure, reading poetry also serves to help a poet learn; how to build an image, how to express emotion, how to use rhyme, rhythm, pace, line length, enjambement and other techniques. A good poem stops you in your tracks, gives you a hitherto unknown insight into the world, into humanity. It makes you question, it makes you think, it ignites emotion. A great poem will leave you breathless. It may even inspire you, which is how I felt at the close of The Haw Lantern.

Inspired, because, of course, my poetry will never equal Heaney's in standard. Nor will it reach the beauty of Lorca's images, the wisdom of Neruda, the poignancy of Yeats, the passion of Byron. But every clumsy attempt at shaping up a set of words, at moulding meaning into them, at distilling down an image, or an emotion or a moment in time into its pure essence and conveying it with precision and music and beauty, takes me a step closer to producing something that might be worth reading.

Knowing my shortcomings is what makes it so difficult to decide to submit a poem for publication, or for peer review, or to collect and publish my own work. Who do you think you are, Anderson, yells my imposter syndrome voice at me (she's far louder than the quiet muse of inspiration that gently nudges me into persisting).

This is why I was quietly delighted at reading The Crooked Timber by Giordano Durante and Gabriel Moreno, two writers whose poems I read, enjoy and admire. In this slim book, the two Gibraltarian poets discuss not just the craft of poetry, but what it means to be a poet in Gibraltar, a place where there is not yet a tradition of poetry, where the Gibraltarian poem has not quite emerged but is being birthed slowly, laboriously under the pens of those Gibraltarians who study and write it and who dare to consider themselves poets. There is a good deal of material in The Crooked Timber to spark discussion, but this section resonated with me. Moreno is writing about feelings of frustration at what he calls "the limitations of our genius" and how easy it is to feel diminished in the presence of the great poets and he says:

"It is on these occasions that I repeat to myself, like a mantra: they felt the same awkwardness in respect to their masters. The were equally ashamed and terrified even if they would not admit it!

"And it is with this exercise in self-delusion that I am enticed to continue to type and thread words on my computer screen hoping that, one day, they might reach someone who actually needs them." (Durante and Moreno, Pg 13).

En serio, Durante and Moreno, with their musings on poetry, have managed to rescue me from the depths of a despair so deep that I almost burned pages and pages of poetry that I deemed worthless. (Actually, that's a bit extreme; I probably would only have deleted them off my laptop, not actually chucked my MacBook on a bonfire).

And maybe, just maybe, when I get my breath back from the brilliance that is Heaney, I might just start pushing and pulling words around my computer screen to see if I can shape a half-decent poem out of them.

The Crooked Timber, annotated and tabulated and highly recommended

References:

Heaney, Seamus, The Haw Lantern (1987), Faber and Faber Limited, London.

Durante, Giordano and Moreno, Gabriel, The Crooked Timber: Letters between two Middle-Aged Poets (2025) Patuka Press.

Gibraltar's short stories 2025

I've been slowly (very slowly) reading the winning entries in this year's Gibraltar Spring Festival short story competition. No excuses, I am busy, but I also like to take my time with these matters, savour the stories slowly, a good while after the publicity machine has lauded the writers, the judges, the event, the government and everyone else that played a part in it. Taking my time and above all, ignoring commentary and social media, means that I can make my own mind up about the stories I read.

As in other years, this year's batch of entries was numerous and that is a positive; it shows that there is an eagerness in the local community to write, to read and to take part in this initiative. After over a decade either taking part myself or generally just enjoying the fruits of others' story telling, I still think that it is a good thing that there is a local competition that arouses in the community the will to write down their stories, whatever those might be. It is still the case that there are few stories in the world that are Gibraltarian stories, by Gibraltarian authors. By this, I don't mean stories about, or set in Gibraltar, but those works of fiction or poetry that open a window to a place, a time, a zeitgeist. 

What is encouraging, however, is that this small number of works is growing year on year. Not just because of the short story competition - a short story competition is a small element in helping focus attention on literature as part of a community's culture - but because every year there seems to be another flurry of publishing by local authors and therefore a greater number of works available to build up that picture of a place. Whether a thriller by a Gibraltarian author is set locally or set in a far off country, in another time, or place or galaxy or dimension, that novel will still say something about the writer and their provenance, about the place where it was written, or the place that influenced the write. That is one of the joys of indulging in reading; the discovery of the other: the other place, the other perspective, the other world of imagination. 

Back to this year's batch of winning entries, which I very much enjoyed reading. The link to the Gibraltar Cultural Services website page is below and I would encourage everyone to drop by and read at least some of them. Firstly, they are worth those five or ten minutes each, perfect coffee break reads. Secondly, it is wonderful for writers to know that their work is being read. Sometimes it doesn't even matter if the reader doesn't like it - just the knowledge that someone has taken the time to read your work and respond to it is good enough. No-one is going to like everything anyway.

2025 Gibraltar Spring Festival Short Story Competition Winners.pdf      

I love that these days there is a Llanito category. It is a difficult language to write. Given that it is mainly oral, there is a tendency to need to 'hear' it and so the written version must somehow 'sound' true. That is a tough call and I am not entirely sure that this year's winners quite mastered this aspect of it. But they gave it a good go and in many ways, that is good enough for me, because it means that there is more Llanito out there written and published and therefore skills in writing it will only improve. No apologies for being critical - criticism is much needed in the literary sphere - and no apologies for not writing in Llanito myself. I speak it but writing it is just not my bag. At least, not for now.

I also loved the variety of themes and settings. Sometimes writing to a theme is a great discipline and perhaps the competition organisers might give that some thought for a future competition, or create a themed competition for a special event. It helps focus writers and it makes them hone their writing far more carefully than an open theme. What I do like about an open theme is the variety of stories that it produces. This means that this year's batch included work on mental health, on memory and migration, on desire and danger, on family and loss among other themes, some are set in Gibraltar, in the present, in the past, in Tangiers, in La Linea, in the upper town, at the border...you get my point.

My favourite...so hard to choose. The overall winner, I think, was a great story: The Rock in my Tea Cup by Daniel Francis Brancato. It caught me up in the first sentence and held me to the end. Loved it. I also really enjoyed Stephen Perera's Shining a Light on the 70s...I loved the humour and the language and it took me right back to familiar days of the 70s (el gordito siempre acababa de portero...bueno, y la gordita igual!). But all the stories are worth a read and they open a window on Gibraltar and its writers in 2025. 

A brief word about the entries by the school children. This is a category that I particularly enjoy because it gives us a glimpse into the future. I haven't done any research but I do wonder if any of the finalists of previous competitions have gone on to be writers. I think Louis Emmitt-Stern stands out; I remember him winning at least one poetry competition and he may well have won more - Louis, if you read this, let us know in the comments! I hope this year's entrants keep writing; there is talent lurking there.

If you haven't already read this year's short stories, please do. It is not enough just to read Instagram and Facebook and what these say about who won with what story. It is important to support local writing and the best way this is done is by reading local writers.