I’d like
to talk a little bit about my PhD research, and quite a lot about Belfast,
which I visited for the first time this week. I hope not to sound too
solipsistic.
There is
a strong and inclusive poetry community in this city, which stretches back a
long time, through poets such as Louis MacNeice, Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon,
to newer names, such as Sinéad Morrissey and Leontia Flynn, and to those
newer-still, such as my hosts/drinking buddies/suppliers of fine, Northern
Irish hospitality: Stephen Connolly, Manuela Moser, Padraig Regan and Tara
McEvoy.
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| Queen's University |
I
apologise that the “older” of those names were supplied rather arbitrarily. I
do not mean to offend, but it really would be specious to reel off every
Northern Irish poet I could. The latter four – Stephen, Manuela, Padraig and
Tara – were part of the reason I was in Belfast in the first place: for the
first Northern Bridge conference of the academic year. (Actually, Stephen
technically wasn’t, though he’s also doing his PhD at the Heaney Centre, so it’s
fine).
Northern
Bridge, as some of you will know, is a Doctoral Training consortium and partnership
between Queen’s, Newcastle and Durham Universities. They are very kindly
funding me for the next three years to undertake my own PhD, with big
get-togethers at the partner institutions being ideal opportunities to
network/drink dandelion wine into the small hours.
Upon
arriving in Belfast, and thanks to the wonders of social media, I received
tweets from both Padraig and Stephen, first welcoming me to their city, then
subtly suggesting that I might want to knock the official conference dinner on
the head and attend a poetry open-mic instead. Cue apology to the Northern
Bridge directors: I’m sure your Italian was gorgeous, and I appreciate the
offer, but listening to poems and reading my own to a sympathetic audience is
me networking, honestly.
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| Jo Clement reading at Bookfinders. 60 people in this room, 50 turned away at the door. Incredible. |
I met
Stephen, Tara and Padraig in the Woodworkers on Tuesday night (Aye, I was that
man who had to go up to each table and ask “do you know Stephen Connolly?”)
Handily, on my second request, Tara told me he was just at the bar and
would be back soon. The Woodworkers is basically to Belfast what Lady Grey’s is
to Newcastle: one of the new breed of craft beer bars which have popped up
across all UK cities in the past few years, but one in which honest conversation
– and not pretentious wankers quaffing ten pound bottles of Mikkeller – still dominates.
Fast-forward
to Wednesday night, conference meal skipped (after the free wine reception,
obviously) and a short walk to Bookfinders. Padraig, Tara and I had had coffee
with owner, Mary Denver, earlier that afternoon. Taking up Stephen’s plea to
seek out Muldoon’s Selected, I asked
Mary if there might be a copy lurking amid her shelves and pile of boxes. “I
know I have one somewhere, Jake, I’ve definitely seen it recently.” She
promised to dig it out, and, true to her word, it was waiting for me on the
counter at 11am the next day. Five pounds, with a Club biscuit and a cup of
tea.
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| A gem of a place. |
For
thirty one years, Mary has been proprietor of Bookfinders, but it is probably
safe to use the oft-deployed (and, hence, weakened) term and call her a living
legend. Queen’s English Society have been running open-mics in the back room of
her shop for years now. Everyone has been through: Michael Longley and Ciaran
Carson locally; Hannah Lowe not-so-locally. If the walls of Bookfinders could
talk (and, in a way, they do, with their framed images of famous writers), they’d
tell of lost evenings and candle-lit readings. Poets incanting poets; wine
being spilled and slugged.
As is to
be expected with a combination of a hangover, four hour’s sleep and being made
to converse about your own research after a fairly dire continental breakfast
with a load of archaeologists, my enthusiasm to discuss ‘space, place and
landscape’ at 11am was about as strong as my desire to eat my own fist.
Apologies to all the NB archaeologists, but discussing the poets who’ve graced
the packed nights of Bookfinders was much more up my avenue.
I gave
Mary a copy of my new pamphlet, thanked her for her kindness, payed for
Muldoon, and headed back to the conference and to what turned out to be a
stunning talk by Professor Richard Clay, on re-coding space. *Tangent claxon* Mixing
Thomas Spence’s radical messages carved into coins with the street art
chicanery of Sowat and Lek’s Paris mausolée – a mass street art exhibition in a
disused supermarket originally squatted by a group of Romani people – Clay told
us how graffiti artists, radicals and self-styled street artists reconfigure
public space and attitudes towards ownership and hierarchy (now, via social
media) in often tiny, but sometimes large, acts of space re-coding, which is
not vandalism, he asserts.
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| Boundary Brewing: re-coding beer. |
After that,
I was full: brain a heavy sponge, hangover in full-swing, belly grumbling from
low-grade croissant consumed four hours earlier. So, Jo Clement and I retreated
to Belfast’s other great book shop: No Alibis, which – as the name implies – is
a crime fiction specialist, but should be better imagined as a safe haven for
book readers and thinkers of all credence, age and background. I picked up one,
two, then three books (would I have stopped? No, but my bag was already full to
bursting, and I had a flight to catch), approached the counter, whereupon I
spotted a signed poster by Boundary Brewery.
“Is that
a Belfast-based workers co-operative craft brewery?” I enquired, placing my
to-be-purchased pile on the bench.
“Yes, it
is. Are you getting these?”
“Aye,
please.”
“Well, I’m
going to make your day!”
David
then handed me and Jo a bottle each of Boundary’s IPA, which we dutifully
supped while he showed us some of his more beautiful tomes; for instance,
Michael Longley’s Sea Asters,
complete with pen and ink illustrations by his daughter, Sarah. Beautiful as
the book was, £110 on the card would have been – I don’t want to say ‘something
I’d come to regret’ – but perhaps slightly unnecessary.
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| JC, JC, David. |
David’s
wife/business partner, Claudia, also showed Jo a limited-edition they’d published by a crime writer,
complete with its own set of bespoke engravings. Jo being a Bewick enthusiast,
the delight on her face was evident. She was then diligently aided in searching
for poetry collections incorporating engravings (ones that didn’t cost
three-figures) while children and their families browsed around us and
80-year-old men brought in orders and women asked if they could advertise for
their local markets.
I wanted
to end with a quote: some perfectly suitable line from one of the names I
mentioned at the start, but the truth is I don’t know one. My knowledge of
Irish Literature, being an Englishman (though, wey, I’d say Geordie), is akin
to Patrick Cotter’s thoughts in his introduction to the Young Irish Poets
edition of Poetry Magazine (September
2015): “The Irish know more about Britain than the British know about Ireland,
and Irish speakers in Ireland know more about the world of their monoglot
Anglophone compatriots than the latter do about the discourse taking place in
the minority Irish-speaking networks and communities.”
Though I
only half agree with this statement (for the whole Geordie issue alluded to
above, though for which I will, on this occasion, spare the reader from) I
wanted to use it because while I think it is half wrong, it is definitely also
half right: there is a very strong and very rich community of poets here.
Manuela and Stephen, who run The Lifeboat series of readings, and who are
branching further into pamphlet production next year, are just one example of
many; Mary’s Bookfinders and No Alibis being two more. There is a sense, I
think, that Belfast takes its poetry seriously. Not like it’s a duty, but
something similar, civic pride, perhaps. In any case, it is both heartening to
witness and a joy to behold. I look forward to getting more involved with it
the next time I’m in the city, which I expect will be soon.
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| Poetry. |
