Well... I got myself and my partner tickets (the last two tickets in fact!)
to see the last event in the South Bank Centre's Poetry International
Festival. Readers were (in order): Don Paterson, Adam Zagajewski, Wendy
Cope, Simon Armitage, Charles Simic, Alice Oswald. Did anyone else go?

Now, I really went along to see Alice Oswald, whose work I've been following
since her wonderful first collection The Thing in the Gap-Stone Stile. Her
recent book Dart proved, by winning the T.S. Eliot, that she is one of the
most important 'experimental' poets to cross over into the 'mainstream' and,
I hope, popularity.

The only performer I didn't know before was Adam Zagajewski - a Polish poet
who read some of his poems in his mother tongue with an English translation
projected behind him. He was thoroughly boring. As was, disappointingly,
Charles Simic. I have his Jackstraws book on my shelf and like it. He also
went way overtime, which I think cut Alice's set quite a bit. I warmed to
Don Paterson on stage and he had a couple of really strong poems, but
nothing to write home about.

Before the reading, I had been ranting to my girlfriend about Wendy Cope.
I've seen her read once before and also had the pleasure of spending two
hours drinking with her. She is, quite simply, a dull person. And an even
duller poet. Anyway, my girlfriend always takes what I say with a pinch of
salt. But it was obvious to us both that night that Cope has absolutely no
talent whatsoever. She is dreadful. If I had more conviction I would have
walked out during her set. Clunky, obvious rhymes (is she stuck in the 50s
or what?); dreary, unmodulated performance; indulgent, self-satisfied poems;
cliche-ridden... I could go on. In one poem, she declared: 'On Waterloo
Bridge / I was almost tempted to skip'. Well that pretty much sums up just
how exciting she is. So sad that this 'arts n craft' poet is one of the most
popular we have in the country.

The real star of the evening was a surprise to me. Alice Oswald was good,
and I liked the new poems she read (and watching her tap out the beat with
her booted foot). But the Purcell Room is not the right venue for her. She
needs intimacy and intensity. Anyhow, as a leaner towards the 'alternative'
(whatever that silly word means), I'm naturally quite suspicious of popular,
GCSE syllabus, media-savvy poets like Armitage. I was expecting an assured
but ultimately unexciting performance. Boy was I wrong. The guy has more
wit, insight and intelligence in one introductory comment than Cope has in
her entire repertoire. His performance showed a real grasp of what poetry
can do - psychologically, intellectually, linguistically and - most
surprisingly from my snobbish perspective - vocally. His poetry is much,
much more than the drab, easy-going subLarkinesque drivel I assumed it would
be. So, time for me to be better informed. I'm off to buy his Selected
Poems.

PS: My own event, penned in the margins, is on Bonfire Night. Stay tuned for
more info or check out the website. www.pennedinthemargins.com

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