Kim Moore

As you probably know by now, I usually read prose. That is to say, 'a form of language that has no formal metrical structure. It applies a natural flow of speech, and ordinary grammatical structure, rather than a rhythmic structure. Normal everyday speech is spoken in prose and most people think and write in prose form', according to Google. So this blog is basically prose.

The thing I don't usually read (or listen to) is poetry. It's not that I am allergic to poetry, as some people are, finding it boring or slow or pretentious, it's just that it not something I really come across in my everyday life.

The big exception to this is Dichters in de Prinsentuin (Poets in the Prince's Garden), a poetry festival in Groningen each summer. It takes place in the Prince's Garden, which is a beautiful garden in the centre of the city, protected from the hustle and bustle around it by high walls. I should really go there more often, but because it is so secluded, you actually forget it's there. During the festival, the poets perform on what is known as the 'tea field' near the tea house, and also in the 'loofgangangen', which are the circular hedges that you can get romantically lost in. These hedges have little 'windows' behind which the poets stand and recite their poetry. The great thing about this festival is that it combines famous and published poets with amateurs, and puts them all on the same level in the loofgangen.

Last year, someone shanghaied me into volunteering, and I enjoyed it so much I did it again this year. Not because I care so much about the poets (I don't know about 90% of them, which doesn't really come in handy when they get free access and I still try to get them to buy tickets because I don't recognise them), but I really love the atmosphere this little festival generates, and being outside a whole day, and just helping out in such a great initiative.

But this year, there was a poet who really grabbed me. Now most of the festival is in Dutch, but the first evening was in another location, and it was an international event, with one poet from Iraq, one from the UK, and one from Macedonia. The poets first read in their own language, followed by their official Dutch translator reading the same poem in Dutch. Which wasn't really necessary for the English poet, because most people can understand English pretty well. At the moment I didn't know whether it was because you could actually understand her, or because the poems were just so great, but I really really loved the British poet, Kim Moore.

I don't know what it is about English, but somehow everything sounds more beautiful in it. Stuff that would be sappy and cliche and sometimes even plain horrible in Dutch, is romantic and thoughtful and deep in English. I think in in part it has something to do with the rhythm of the language, the way the stresses are placed, and part with the fact that we Dutch are just way too 'nuchter' (down to earth) to really get lost in poetry. One of my favourite poems, The Lady of Shalott, could never ever exist in Dutch, because it is way too flowery and romantic.

Anyway, back to Kim Moore. She looks so typically British it is almost deceiving. Most of the poets on these festivals have something weird or typically 'them' (funny hair, hats, weird habits or a funny way of talking), but she just stood there in jeans and a tank top, reading some of the most beautiful poems I've ever heard. So following her performance, I did something I've never done before, which is to buy a poetry book. And then I had another first, as I actually went up to Kim Moore, and asked her to sign the thing. Which she gladly did, although I felt bad about distracting her from her friends and her beer, so I babbled something incomprehensible, and then I left.

And then I started to read.

I know the thing about poems is that you should read them very slowly and thoughtfully, and reread, and try to grasp its meaning and deeper layers before moving on to the next. Also, you should go through the book in sequence, because the poet is actually meaning something with that sequence, and each poem will add something to the next. 

Of course, I did neither of those things; I just started reading and reading, gobbling up the poems, somethings skipping a few and reading ahead, or going back to read a short one that caught my eye. Doesn't matter, they were all great. The subject matter is familiar and recognisable, the sentences are down to earth, but the rhythms and cadence are just right, the figurative language is spot on, and the message is something anyone can understand. These are small, tiny things, that pack a whole history in a few lines. I wish I could share all of them with you, but that would be unfair to Kim, as nobody would buy her book anymore. So I'm just going to give you the first one:

And the Soul

And the soul, if she is to know

herself, must look into the soul...

- Plato

And the soul, if she is to know herself

must look into the soul and find

what kind of beast is hiding.

And if it be a horse, open up the gate

and let it run. And if it be a rabbit

give it sand dunes to disappear in.

And if it be a swan, create a mirror image,

give it water. And if it be a badger

grow a sloping woodland in your heart.

And if it be a tick, let the blood flow

until it's sated. And if it be a fish

there must be a river and a mountain.

And if it be a cat, find some people

to ignore, but if it be a wolf,

you'll know from its restless way

of moving, if it be a wolf,

throw back your head

and let it howl.

Now from the outside, this poem has everything to be pretentious and woolly; there is a quote by Plato, it has these sentences that end in funny ways, it is weirdly repetitious until suddenly it isn't, and it's about souls. Really, if you're a poetry hater, this is the perfect example. 

Still, I think this poem actually proves all of that wrong. I think this is a really accessible poem, which doesn't really look like very heavy stuff because of all the animal imagery (she really likes her wolves, by the way), but when you think about it, it actually is about something. So you can just read it, have a nice picture in your head, and move on. But you can reread it, and then you start to see other thing in it, and think about what it means, and start to think about souls, and how a soul could look into a soul, and what kind of animal your soul would be, and whether animals have souls, and whether that is what they mean with a soul looking into a soul; you can only think about these things because you are human, etc etc. So there are lots of layers to the poem, but still when you read it, it is this beautiful image of the soul as different animals.

And that's just the first one!

Anyway, that's my poetry lecture for today. Go and read her stuff, if I've inspired you. She keeps a blog about poetry, which is a lot better than what I've just told you, and will probably lead you on to other great poets. Or even better, you could turn off your electronics, buy her book, and read some of her poems while sitting in a nice city centre garden, sipping tea and being totally away from it all.