{"id":118,"date":"2014-02-02T21:12:14","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T21:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/?p=118"},"modified":"2014-02-02T21:12:14","modified_gmt":"2014-02-02T21:12:14","slug":"spring-reading-series-simon-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/spring-reading-series-simon-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Reading Series: Simon Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seats and floor space were at a premium in Eliot SCR on Wednesday evening as the centre\u2019s own Simon Smith<\/b> launched his new collection, 11781 W. Sunset Boulevard<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/a>

Simon Smith reading from 11781 W. Sunset Boulevard<\/p><\/div>\n

Patricia Debney introduced Smith. \u2018He lives, breathes, reads and writes poetry like no one else I have ever known\u2019, she said, and praised his \u2018always evolving poems\u2019, each work seeming to \u2018start afresh\u2019.<\/p>\n

Smith explained how the book, in two distinct parts, contains poems \u2018about transport, rather than transfiguration\u2019. A modest claim typical of Smith, though it was apparent as the evening went on that change and movement in these poems was about more than the mechanics of wheels and engines.<\/p>\n

The collection\u2019s title, 11781 W. Sunset Boulevard<\/i>, is the address of the Getty Institute\u2019s Accommodation in LA, which Smith visited in 2011 when his wife was a Getty Scholar. What first appears to be a rather static title for such a restless collection \u2013 a place fixed down by numbers, a point on a map \u2013 quickly gathers meaning. This address is more than a destination. It becomes the centre point of a frenzy of writing: 17 poems in 10 days, according to Smith. It is a springboard for departure, back into the poems of Kent and London in the second half of the book. And it is here that Smith spent a day with the archives of poet and translator Paul Blackburn, a catalyst for his current work on Blackburn and an experience explored in the breathless poem \u201811\/1\/11\u2019.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s reading began with the first poem in the collection, a response, he said, to his hatred of flying. Written on the plane, \u2018Ode: Sat Nav Narrative on Flying into LAX\u2019 builds up details like dabs in a pointillist painting. Here are times, speeds and distances, precisely measured: \u2018450 m.p.h. of ground speed dip down at \/ James Bay distance to LA 2513 miles local \/ time at present position 12.30p.m.\u2019 Against this catalogue of control the poet\u2019s eyes are \u2018gritty-tired, \/ dogged, filled with the hours bursting \/ the grit full hours\u2019. A curl of hair acts as a bookmark. The earth curves. Thoughts of home are suspended at 38,000 feet, where \u2018everything\u2019s made to look smaller\u2019. Still, but hurtling forward: \u2018now \/ is the moment for change & everything shifts forward next\u2019.<\/p>\n

And everything did shift forward. Smith gave us poems of the moment, postcards of fleetingly glimpsed places, impressionistic brushes with found text, street signs, song lyrics, news stations. Smith delivered them baldly, lines running together, taking us from the convoys of \u2018muscle cars\u2019 and motorcades past Pacific Coast palm trees and onto the plane home, a \u2018long haul long hop deep breath\u2019 of experience. \u2018All these things really happened\u2019 Smith explained, making the collection \u2018almost like a diary\u2019.<\/p>\n

When the plane touched down, we were back in home territory, with part two of the book, \u2018Gravesend\u2019. Here was Smith\u2019s \u2018A Theory for a Materialist Poetics\u2019, a poem detailing \u2018experience crammed in as far as the eye can see\u2019. Smith\u2019s South East is a landscape of train stations, sweet wrappers and Paul Weller lyrics: washing on the line, brambles and railway sidings, a barely concealed threat of malice. \u2018We don\u2019t stop at Deptford. No one dare.\u2019 \u2018This is Dartford. This is Dartford. Heed the warning.\u2019 Between the PVC and ice-cream van jingles, glimpses of Catullus, Dickens, Henry VIII. And through these detailed despatches recording the \u2018ring-pull moment of chance\u2019, the voice of the poet: clear, insightful, and always \u2018in pin-sharp form\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"signing\"<\/a>

Simon signing books; some familiar faces from the Centre for Creative Writing<\/p><\/div>\n

There were many questions, not least from poets in the audience. From Smith\u2019s answers, a piece of distilled advice to keep in any writer\u2019s pocket: \u2018If you think it\u2019s a poem, it\u2019s probably not. If you think it\u2019s not, it probably is.\u2019<\/p>\n

11781 W. Sunset Boulevard<\/i> is published by Shearsman.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Next up<\/b>, readings from the anthology In Protest: 150 poems for human rights<\/i><\/b>, featuring poets Kate Adams, Alia\u2019 Afif Kawalit, Hubert Moore and Caroline Rooney. Eliot SCR, 6pm, Wednesday 5th<\/sup> February.<\/p>\n

Until then.<\/b><\/p>\n

Sonia<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Simon Smith is a senior lecturer in Creative Writing at Kent. His previous\u00a0poetry collections\u00a0are Fifteen Exits<\/i> (Waterloo Press) and Reverdy Road, Mercury <\/i>and London Bridge<\/i> (published by Salt). His forthcoming The Books of Catullus<\/i> will be published by Carcanet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seats and floor space were at a premium in Eliot SCR on Wednesday evening as the centre\u2019s own Simon Smith launched his new collection, 11781 W. Sunset Boulevard. Patricia Debney introduced Smith. \u2018He lives, breathes, reads and writes poetry like no one else I have ever known\u2019, she said, and praised his \u2018always evolving poems\u2019, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38085,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[49745,21640,49732,49744,8814,49741,1225,49743,48315,49728,49725,49742,49163,46589,49731,49727,74,49726],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38085"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}