“For me, inspiration for poems tends to arrive when you least expect it and I find that my mind is particularly receptive to ideas when it’s in ‘neutral’ or ‘resting’ mode. Which is why this one came to me while I was queueing up to be served in Ashton’s Fish stall at Cardiff Market one Saturday afternoon”
History
Marlon the joker, a swish of the fin, always a jibe–
poking his head in your side to signify no offence.
How could we take any?
Sally loved him. We all knew but
no one spoke. One day it would be clear. She kept her
stripes shiny. For him. Patient.
Jealous Wayne showed off– one flick flying
him up to the tip of the world. Bravado.
Although wary of the shadows above.
I was the scribe. Recorder of the shoal.
Trapped on the hooked pole, they thrashed.
I escaped. Told the others
how it will be. Robed in ice. Their eyes fixed on
some sad freedom. Sally picked up.
Weighed. Cleaned. Pin-boned.
Euron, your poem ‘History’ is intriguing. At one level, it describes fishing with each catch being a larger-than-life specimen. We have Marlon ‘the joker, swish of the fin’ and ‘Jealous Wayne’. On another level, I read this poem as being about a love triangle, with the mysterious Sally at the centre of the action, and the voice of the speaker and independent witness ready to pass on the story. Is this an accurate reading and what is the significance of the title?
For me, inspiration for poems tends to arrive when you least expect it and I find that my mind is particularly receptive to ideas when it’s in ‘neutral’ or ‘resting’ mode. Which is why this one came to me while I was queueing up to be served in Ashton’s Fish stall at Cardiff Market one Saturday afternoon. I observed all the fresh mackerel, still glistening and lovingly arranged in such a way by the fishmonger as to present prospective customers with the illusion of a living shoal. But of course, they were all dead. Their eyes shone but their mouths were open almost in an expression of shock or surprise. Can fish register these emotions? I wasn’t sure. I’m not a fish expert. But I wondered if they were just like us – members of a community, each with foibles, obsessions, roles and personalities of their own. To us, as humans, all mackerel tends to look the same and we just perceive them as food but what if our perspectives were widened and if these dead fish were once blessed with personalities as distinct as our own? Our view of nature is (inevitably perhaps) human centric but, in its own way, isn’t a spider’s web just as much of an achievement as Michaelangelo’s famous ceiling?
I wanted to present a snapshot of what I imagined ‘mackerel society’ might be if we could understand it. Perhaps it wouldn’t be too different to ours. The idea of one mackerel being in love with another may be ridiculous on the face of it but how can we be sure that our view of their aquatic world is the true one? And what if this society had a poet, a scribe whose job it was to record their story for posterity? History is often used by us as a yardstick to measure our own notions of morality. These days it’s not unusual for an idea or a person to be condemned as being ‘on the wrong side of history’. But history is not a science. Two historians can look at the same event and interpret it in completely different ways. The idea of mackerel having their own history distinct and alien to our own was an attempt to make us question our perception of our own world and our own history. Because, even in the human world alone, we are surrounded by various kinds of ‘histories’ which we have no understanding of. If we widened our scope to include the natural world then our ignorance is magnified a thousandfold.
I found your last stanza an apt description of the poetic process for so many writers – ‘I was the scribe. Recorder of the shoal. / Trapped on the hooked pole, they thrashed’. It reminded me of one of Eliot’s poems where the speaker describes ‘when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin’ by a poet’s vision. How is the poetic process for you? Do you have any ethical concerns with how writers capture their subjects?
The purpose of a poem for me, as Philip Larkin once wrote, is to record an event. But to write poetry I think you have to be patient. It’s not like sitting down to write a daily quota of 500 words for a novel or something. Poems are hard to catch. Like sticklebacks in a moving stream. When I do manage to land one it becomes special. I take care of it. Hone it. Keep it warm and let it mature in its own time. I like poems to be accessible. For me I don’t see the point in Prynne-like experiments in theory or linguistic games. My aim is to make the poem true to the event or thought that inspired it and, if I feel that this event or thought might resonate with others, then I chip away at it until it’s as clear as I can make it and pass it on to editors in the hope that they’ll feel able to ‘broadcast’ it to as wide a readership as possible.
Is this comic, narrative poem typical of your work or something different for you? How would you summarise what you write about?
I don’t think I have a ‘typical’ subject matter. That day I had no idea that I was going to write a poem inspired by fish! (Even though, as I’ve explained above, it’s not really about fish… but you get my drift here!). If a poem surprises me then there’s a good chance it will surprise any potential reader too. And I’m a sucker for surprises.
