<h1>David Harsent Q&A</h1>
<h2>Rachel Dyer talks to David Harsent about his latest poetry
collection, Fire Songs, in time for his live reading at The Coronet</h2>
He is widely considered to be one of the greatest voices in British poetry,
with ten gleamingly successful collections already under his belt. His
most recent, Night, for example, won the Griffin International Poetry
Prize, as well as being shortlisted for various others. But he has out-done
himself with Fire Songs, his new collection, which has already been
hailed as his finest yet.
David Harsent will read Fire Songs to an audience at the Print Room, The
Coronet on 4 December, alongside Ruth Padel who will also read her
latest collection of poetry.
What was your selection process for the collection?
The Fire Songs (there are four) are the collection’s lynchpins. I thought,
to begin with, that I was writing one very long poem. I managed to get
some time away at a retreat to focus on what I had in hand, and
(eventually) saw that there were four poems there, all on the same
subject but each with a different emphasis. The collection is thematic: a
characteristic of my work. In fact, I have written three book-long
sequences; another collection (Marriage) consisted of two extended
sequences; and in virtually all my books, the poems in some way belong
to one another in terms of theme, method and mood. I took out a few
poems that worked well enough but seemed out of place, removed
others at the suggestion of my editor, Matthew Hollis, whose sharp eye
was crucial to the final shape of the book, and arrived at the final
running order with Matthew, again, making invaluable suggestions.
How much of it is fresh material?
Some of the poems (quite a few) had been first published in journals this is usual. One brief passage is borrowed from a previous collection.
Some readers might spot it.
Did the title Fire Songs come before or after you had decided what was
going in to the book?
A long time after. I agonised over a title and finally settled on ‘Standing
Shadows’. In fact it was, I think, announced as such and listed
accordingly by certain bookshops and on Amazon. I was never really
happy with that title, but couldn't think of a better. Then Matthew
(again!) said: ‘You could have called it Fire Songs, of course.’ Brilliant! I
pleaded with him to make the change and the Faber sales and publicity
departments agreed. It was very late in the process, and I think they
went to a lot of trouble. Faber & Faber is a terrific publisher to be with.
Did you have a preconceived concept of what you wanted the book to
say, or did it evolve naturally?
I once asked Harrison Birtwistle – with whom I have collaborated on
seven operatic, or words-for-music, pieces – whether he sat down to
start work with some kind of a plan: what the film-world would call a
treatment. He said, ‘No – do you?’ My answer was the same as his. I
suggested that we might write an opera called ‘Flying by the Seat of My
Pants.’ My collections shape up by means of a sort of gradual cumulative
process in which theme, image and method shuffle and shift and
somehow coalesce.
You have included Icefield in the collection, which features alongside a
photographic image by your son, Simon Harsent, in a WWF poster.
Which came first, the poem or the photograph?
Oh, the photograph. It was a commission. Simon has an international
reputation. He’d been commissioned to supply three images for the
WWF campaign – Ocean, Icefield, Rainforest. They wanted some text to
go with each shot and Si asked me if I would write poems to accompany
his images, which I did. Of the three, Icefield was the poem that worked
for the collection. The other poems are fine, I think, but stood slightly
outside the 'Fire Songs' tone: a bit too agitprop, perhaps. It's not the first
time I've worked with Simon, but I was particularly stirred by these three
photographs, and Icefield most of all. Simon produced a breathtaking
photographic essay on icebergs – it’s on his website – a really significant
work of art. I was thinking back to some of those stunning images when I
wrote the poem.
How do you manage your writing time?
I get up every day to write. Or, at least, intending to write. For the most
part, I try not to divide my attention. An essential aspect of writing is
focus. (Another is rewriting.) I used to write commercially (thrillers and
TV) to make a living. I no longer have to do that, nor have for some time,
so apart from a couple of current (possibly pointless) diversions, my
writing life is (at last!) divided between poetry and libretti. At the
moment, I’m in the middle of a collaboration with Harrison Birtwistle on
a chamber opera and all my attention lies there.
When did you realise that you were a good poet? Do you remember
writing your first poem?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. The first piece I can recall
was a story I wrote at school when I was about seven. The narrative is
still with me: it concerned a working man (a road-mender) and an
intervention by creatures with magical powers. I knew I had a gift for
poetry when I was in my teens. It remains for critics to decide how
significant a gift it is.
Who are your old favourites?
Well, it’s every writer I ever read who had an effect on me. If I gave you
a list it would fill the page and I would have missed half of them. In
general, poetry is more important to me than prose, though there are,
of course, significant exceptions to that. But I read many fewer novels
than collections of poetry. When, in my late teens, I was introduced to
the poétes maudits. I was quite taken by the idea of absinthe and exotic
lovers and serial bad behaviour. Favourites are not necessarily the
writers who had the greatest influence on me, odd though that might
sound. Since I first discovered them, at about the age of eleven, I have
always regularly gone back to the border ballads: traditional poems
written by anonymous poets of the 15th and 16th centuries. They concern
loss and murder and blood feuds and betrayal and forbidden love and
things both witchy and demonic. Try them.
When (or where) do you feel most inspired?
Inspiration’s an odd word. It sounds like a gift freely-given, but poems
are harder-won than that. The painter, Paul Klee, spoke of ‘taking a line
for a walk’. He meant a line on a canvas, but it might equally apply to a
line of poetry. Once the first mark is made, the rest follows: it has to
follow. That first defining mark dictates how the painting/poem will
progress. ‘Inspiration’ has something to do with the arrival of that first
mark. It might be a word, an image, an idea, a memory, an event,
something read, something heard, something coming back at you from
the past… It can happen anywhere.
Do you think listening to poetry read aloud improves or alters the
understanding of it?
The purpose of poetry readings is to send those who come to the
reading back to the page (supposing they like the poems they hear). I
don’t think that hearing a poet reading his/her work is likely to improve
your understanding of the poem (if it’s a poem you already know) simply
because it’s being read aloud, but hearing it read might deepen your
understanding simply because you’re re-visiting it.
Do you think ‘we murder to dissect’ when it comes to poetry?
‘Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.’ So said T.S.
Eliot. But while it’s proper (no, it’s essential) to approach a poem with
that notion in mind, and while I’m sure that word-choice and ‘palette’
and image can deliver the poem through mood and essence (and also
deliver meaning), close-reading is another way in to the poem. That sort
of investigation can, after all, be subtle in its own way. ‘Dissection’ holds
an echo of ‘destruction’. Close-reading doesn’t have to be that violent.
What do you view as the greatest achievement in your career?
Greatest is a loaded word. Each new collection is an achievement and (I
hope) ‘greater’ than the last. That’s the way it’s supposed to work,
anyway. I’ve been given some prizes and awards that demonstrate, I
suppose, the good opinions of others. I quite enjoyed taking bows on the
stages of the Royal Opera House and Carnegie Hall.