{"id":8307,"date":"2019-09-12T12:10:14","date_gmt":"2019-09-12T12:10:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/?p=8307"},"modified":"2025-02-03T11:50:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-03T11:50:07","slug":"summer-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/2019\/09\/12\/summer-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Summer 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u2018I think this is a really good time for poetry. If anybody ever thought poetry was a luxury, that\u2019s gone. Poetry is a necessary remedy to a lot of the darkness we are subject to.\u2019 Tracy K Smith, USA Poet Laureate,\u00a0The Observer<\/em>\u00a030.06.19<\/p>\n

The Rialto<\/em>\u00a0No. 92 is now out in the world. It\u2019s an issue I particularly like and am particularly pleased to have been involved in creating. If you start reading it from the back, which is the way I usually approach magazines, you\u2019ll find, as usual, the contributors biographies and then there\u2019s news of the recent Pamphlet Competition, followed by an Appreciation of the late Les Murray. The first poems you\u2019ll come to are by Helena Nelson, ten of them. Reading backwards, the one you come to first is called \u2018On Being Dead\u2019. Since dying and being dead is one of the more important things we do as humans, it\u2019s difficult to flick past this poem.<\/p>\n

Visually the poem has a very loose looking structure, but as I begin to read it I realise it\u2019s, at least initially, in couplets, and that the wide spaces are stretched caesuras. It also uses rhyme, though as the poem progresses these rhymes tend to be repetitions of one or another word (\u2018happen\u2019 \u2018happen\u2019, \u2018being\u2019 \u2018being\u2019). It\u2019s quickly apparent that the poem is a conversation between the poet and a \u2018sister\u2019, who is absent, and there\u2019s such an urgency to it that I interrupt my backward reading and turn to page 53 where the poem(s) begins.<\/p>\n

The title is \u2018Sonnets for Louise\u2019. I find I\u2019ve looked at the first line of the first sonnet, \u2018I have a sister called Louise. She died.\u2019 And then at the first line of the next one, \u2018Yes I had a sister once. She died.\u2019 Hammer blows of grief, the nails going home. In my experience it\u2019s difficult to get through life without encountering the unexpected death of someone you\u2019ve given your heart to. And it\u2019s this piercing loss that Helena is working with in these ten skilful and deeply felt poems.<\/p>\n

Sonnets were originally celebrations of love (\u2018Quando Amor i begli occhi\u2026\u2019) but they quickly became discursive and, because of the limitation imposed by the form, great places to sort things out. In these ten brief spaces (mostly tightly formal) Helena articulates the love of the sisters, the swiftness and ferocity of Louise\u2019s sickness and death, the emptiness of absence (It\u2019s shit.<\/em>\u00a0Death is shit.\u2019<\/em>). What\u2019s more she uses this most boundaried form to explore what happens at the boundary of death and life – hence the last two poems where the sonnet shape begins to dissolve.<\/p>\n

If, however, you read the magazine from front to back you\u2019ll find on the title page Charlotte Mew\u2019s poem \u2018The Cenotaph\u2019 which is dated September 1919. We were, before Brexit divided the kingdom and dominated our dreams, commemorating the 1914-18 Great War. I thought it reasonable to mark the end. On page 2 is our usual baggage of information \u2013 which in its generic generality has given some readers the impression (see \u2018Contributions\u2019) that we have re-opened Submittable. Not quite yet. Page 3 is the Contents, page 4, \u2018From The Editor\u2019, which I hope gives some explanation of how things are at\u00a0The Rialto<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Pages 5 to 8 have work by Pascale Petit, mostly her longer (160 or so lines) poem \u2018In The Forest\u2019, which comes from the same field as William Blake\u2019s \u2018A Robin Red breast in a cage\/ Puts all Heaven in a rage,\u2019 (\u2018Auguries of Innocence\u2019 lines 5,6). The poem races along with angelic fury, part myth making, part documentary about the exploitation of endangered animals, \u2018How many rupees for the galaxies\/ in a gall bladder?\u2019<\/p>\n

Pascale has created a context in which to make explicit the juggernaut of cruelty and disrespect which places human need above the vast intelligent beauty of all other life forms. She also makes clear how silent we have become \u2013 \u2018and with resin from the tree of love\/ I glued my lips\u2019.<\/div>\n
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If it were possible to remake the creature<\/div>\n
from its pelt I would do it<\/div>\n
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but the man sold the pelt<\/div>\n
because his family was hungry.<\/div>\n
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And I vowed then never to eat again.\u2019<\/div>\n
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Please read this poem: it is written without a word astray and is a celebration of who we could be as well as of the radiance of the things we destroy.<\/div>\n
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Please also note that we have placed Patrick Deeley\u2019s \u2018Two Hundred Million Animals\u2019 immediately after Pascale\u2019s poems: and that we have placed Joshua Judson\u2019s \u2018Trap\u2019, immediately before Helena\u2019s sonnet sequence. This poem works its way through fifteen accurately evocative skateboarding lines to a\u00a0 wonderful four line conclusion where you don\u2019t know whether the \u2018and one of them will have gone too far\u2019 refers to some Damascene moment or to death.<\/div>\n
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If you want to start reading towards the middle of the magazine ( and why not?) try page 30 and Arji Manuelpillai\u2019s \u2018Because It\u2019s In The Lonely Planet Top Five Places To Visit.\u2019 Technically beautifully paced this poem hovers on the boundary between verse and prose poem. Like much else in Rialto 92 it doesn\u2019t pull its punches. Arji weaves together the blissed out meditations of a traveller in love \u2018he and her spent that whole evening staring out to sea\u2019 with the reflections of the narrator on the brutal ending of the conflict (largely forgotten, which is the way with many wars now) between the Tamils and the Sri Lankan authorities \u2013 \u2018where bombs rained in no fire zones \u00a0 where bodies are hidden sixty to a hole.\u2019 The poem ends with this (bearing in mind Trump\u2019s supporters recent chant) brilliant shock:<\/div>\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know why you don\u2019t move back there?\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m not really Sri Lankan.\u2019 I reply.<\/p>\n

The magazine is a celebration of diversity and creativity, of that liberalism that President Putin and others would prefer to have had its day: freedom is at risk, it\u2019s important that, at the very least, we give voice to basic decencies.<\/p>\n

The Pamphlet Competition judging finished some weeks ago, and we announced the shortlist and the winner on our website.\u00a0 In case you missed it here\u2019s the information again (it\u2019s also in R92).<\/p>\n

Richard Scott, chose to shortlist the following twelve titles and poets (in no particular order).<\/div>\n
William Stephenson \u2018The Butterfly Factory\u2019<\/div>\n
Rachael Matthews \u2018Naming Boats\u2019<\/div>\n
Anita Pati \u2018Dodo Provocateur\u2019<\/div>\n
Kat Dixon \u2018Letters to Ex-Lovers I Will Never Send\u2019<\/div>\n
Patrick Davidson Roberts \u2018The Scraped White\u2019<\/div>\n
Nicola Bray \u2018Boi\u2019<\/div>\n
Claire Collison \u2018Fantastic Voyage\u2019<\/div>\n
Majella Kelly \u2018Love,\u00a0Sin, Repeat\u2019<\/div>\n
Amaan Hyder \u2018when it is beyond\u2019<\/div>\n
Rebecca Hurst \u2018Mapping the Woods\u2019<\/div>\n
Georgie Hill \u2018My Mother\u2019s Extraordinary Hair\u2019<\/div>\n
Robert Hamberger \u2018Nude Against a Rock\u2019<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The judging was, of course \u2018blind\u2019 (i.e., the names were withheld).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The winner is \u2018Dodo Provocateur\u2019 by Anita Pati.<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Anita Pati was born and grew up in a northern seaside town. She now lives in London where she has worked variously as a library assistant and a journalist. Her poems have appeared in\u00a0Poetry London, Poetry Review, The Rialto, New Statesman, The Best British Poetry<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Butcher\u2019s Dog<\/em>, among others. She has been a Jerwood\/Arvon mentee, one of the Poetry Trust\u2019s Aldeburgh 8, won the Wasafiri New Writing Prize and was a winner of the inaugural Women Poets\u2019 Prize.<\/div>\n
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Anita\u2019s poetry is great, full of spark and surprise. We\u2019re getting on with the pamphlet preparation. The shortlisted poets will have work in the next issue of the magazine.<\/div>\n
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With the next issue we will be increasing our prices. Always a difficult subject. As you know we have for most of our history had a discounted subscription rate for anyone on a low income. This we will be continuing to do. I know what it is to be unemployed or to be working in low paid work with no sense of getting anywhere. I am also very aware of the way that the gap between the living standards of richer people and of the rest of us has stretched and stretched.\u00a0 Enough. The prices we\u2019ve so far decided are as follows.<\/div>\n
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The Cover Price will go up to \u00a39 per copy.<\/div>\n
The UK Subscribers rate will be \u00a325 for three issues.<\/div>\n
The UK Concessionary (Low Income) rate will be \u00a319 for three issues. We don\u2019t require proof of your status, you can self assess this.<\/div>\n
The Rest of the World Subscribers rate will be \u00a345 for three issues.<\/div>\n
The Europe Subscribers rate is yet to be decided (as is the nation\u2019s relationship to Europe).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
For Institutions, (Libraries and Universities etc.,) we are introducing a new multi-use rate<\/div>\n
of \u00a360 for three issues. We\u2019ve been generously out of step with other magazines forever\u2026<\/div>\n
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Costs for Single issues (UK, Europe, Rest of the World) will be posted on the website shop once we have researched them.<\/div>\n
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Those of you whose subscriptions are currently (R92) needing renewal (and thanks to all the prompt renewers) can still renew at current prices.<\/div>\n
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If you have the new issue you will have read that we had our Grant Application returned. We are encouraged to re-apply, and have been given helpful advice on how to improve our chances of success. Meanwhile we continue to use our financial reserves (and the generosity of all involved in producing it) to support the magazine.<\/div>\n
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I know I keep saying this but it is astonishing how difficult it is to sell poetry, given that it is generally acknowledged to be a Good Thing and one of the star strings holding up Our Cultural Heritage. The new Poet Laureate will receive the salary of \u00a35,750 from the DCMS (plus the barrel of sherry, I suppose). It\u2019s a paltry sum, undermining any respect for poetry that the office might be supposed to be honouring. What would be wrong with \u00a3100,000 a year?<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n
Here is a piece of writing I wanted to share with you. It\u2019s part of the promotional material for the new issue of\u00a0Irish Pages<\/em>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u2018This is how hard it is for at least some of the politicians on both sides of the sectarian divide. The violence was local, intimate, not international. The killer lives, not in a distant country, but in a neighbouring village or street. Revenge is instinctive, peace-making counter-intuitive. In the\u00a0Iliad<\/em>, incensed by the fact that Hector had killed Achilles\u2019 friend Patroclus, Achilles has disrespected and defiled his victim\u2019s body by dragging it by the heels behind his chariot below the walls of Troy. Priam comes to Achilles to ask him for Hector\u2019s body, so that it can be given a proper burial. Achilles, overcome with compassion, accedes to the request, has the body washed and laid out in uniform\u2026 There is no question but that, in his encounter with the conqueror, the hero, Achilles, it is Priam who is the greater human being. This moment in the\u00a0Iliad\u00a0<\/em>might even represent a genuine leap in human consciousness.\u2019
\nfrom \u201cOn the Nobility of Compromise,\u201d by Moya Cannon<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Michael Mackmin<\/em><\/div>\n
July 30 2019<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018I think this is a really good time for poetry. If anybody ever thought poetry was a luxury, that\u2019s gone. Poetry is a necessary remedy to a lot of the darkness we are subject to.\u2019 Tracy K Smith, USA Poet Laureate,\u00a0The Observer\u00a030.06.19 The Rialto\u00a0No. 92 is now out in the world. It\u2019s an issue I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8307"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8309,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8307\/revisions\/8309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therialto.co.uk\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}