Review
Poems of the Decade
Published by Forward Books
Price £9.95
Each year, a distinguished panel of judges uses its own initiative and reputation to choose nations best poems submitted for entry to the Forward Poetry Prizes. This indicates that the selection of 120 poems in this book (selected by William Sieghart, the prize's founder) should reflect the type of poetry preferred and popular in Britain today.
Judging from this selection, the nations most admirable form of art is in trouble. Out of 120 poems and just as many poets, only a handful is worth noting.
Yet from many poets included here, one mostly gets poems on
gardening, bus riding, and airports. This selection shows that
poetry has become plain, exclusively narrative and tediously
descriptive. Poems seem to describe either a specific event (as
exciting as a bus ride or a phone call), or a specific scenery
(such as a man sitting in a garden or family watching a film). Such
poetry fails to give any point or thought below the surface.
The handful of poems worth reading is Burnside's Asylum
Dance, Donaghy's My Flu, Farley's
Treacle, Muldoon's Wire and
only a few others. These really do give the reader a new and fresh
angle of looking at things and thoughts surrounding us. They are
truly modern and motivating, appealing and memorable.
Conversely, poems like Sylvia Dann's Back to
Nature and Benjamin Zaphaniah's Man to
Man, fail to show any quality, either poetic or
imaginative. Indeed, there are few less known poets that show
talent, but regrettably they are given almost no public or media
attention.
Due to the laziness of many writers and apprehension of many
readers, most poems of today are simple. The readers are afraid
they may not understand the poem, and the writers fear their poetry
will not be widely read in such a case. Poetry, as a result, loses
its uniqueness and becomes too ordinary and monotonous, to plain
and obvious.
Obviousness is in itself a finished idea and requires no
elaboration in a poetic form. An obvious thought or an image is
superfluous in a poem. Writing so plainly, as many do in this book,
is simplifying and falsifying the reality, which is in itself quite
complex. Reality is not simple and straightforward, so why should
poetry be. The purpose of poetry is pushing the boundaries of
imagination, not taking things for granted.
For a poet, a bird may not be a bird, word not a word. The poets in
this collection fail to see this, and write only poems that, in
their opinion, satisfies the public on the first reading. Forward
pride themselves on most of the poems included here, but
considering the lack of profound quality of poetry included, one
may with good reason question the significance of Forward Prize
overall.
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