2016-10-06 - NATIONAL POETRY DAY (Southbank Centre, London)

[GlitterInTheirEyes]

Thank you, everyone, for posting all this: I've only just got back from holiday and seen it (and heard the clip). The line about the 'haunted sheep farm' strikes me as very much tongue-in-cheek (I laughed, anyway - sheep are inherently unspooky), but the poem is rather lovely. It may not be straightforwardly 'about' her, though, unless she's moving towards being more comfortable with personal detail.

I think the t-shirt/top Polly's wearing is the one with an illustration (and lines) from William Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience', which she's worn before for literary/artistic occasions.

Ohh it's a Blake illustration! Now I see. I was looking at that shirt in other photos trying to
figure out who/what it was. So thanks for clearing that up.

I agree that the poems most likely wont be obviously about herself. They will most likely be ambiguous. The same as her other work.
The line between her own experience and thoughts has always been blurred very well with her creative story writing and her own dreams or creations. As well as her observations of other people and the world around her.

[AineteEkaterini]

^I believe it is the top in question, I've remarked that as well, and I wish I had one like that too.

Ah, I didn't realise. I hope you don't mind me repeating you!

[Mr. Badmouth]

^I believe it is the top in question, I've remarked that as well, and I wish I had one like that too.

Ah, I didn't realise. I hope you don't mind me repeating you!

Don't worry, I've only remarked it in my head

[AineteEkaterini]

The Alt-PJH page on Facebook has only just posted the official National Poetry Day reports that Polly was going to be 'collaborating' with refugees on a poetry project in connection with the event, but of course that doesn't seem to have happened. Nevertheless unhelpfully the original report is still all over the media. I don't suppose anyone has stumbled across a reason for this not going ahead? Perhaps it was based on a misunderstanding and was never actually going to.

[Kuk91]

...Perhaps it was based on a misunderstanding <...>

I think it is misunderstanding (or simply a speculation):

Also, there's this: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/ ... g-refugees.

It says "Singer PJ Harvey will collaborate with young poetry producers who will be curating readings, films, performances and workshops facilitated by the Poetry Society and Southbank Centre", but doesn't gives any further information onto how collaborate.

I also saw some different article entitled "How UK celebrates National Poetry Day", which was almost word-for-word like this Guardian one, but also mentioned Prince Charles, and generally was a short summary of events which will take place all over UK on this day. So "PJ Harvey will collaborate" might be not about some future events, but about this particular reading at Southbank Centre, which is now in the past.

[AineteEkaterini]

...Perhaps it was based on a misunderstanding <...>

I think it is misunderstanding (or simply a speculation)

I think you're right. This is from the cached version of the National Poetry Society's original press release:

"Channel 4’s continuity team will be giving the mic to young refugee and migrant poets – 18-year-old Afghan Shukria Rezaei, the recipient of the first Forward Prizes studentship, and 17-year-old Vivien Urban from Hungary - who have been invited to foreground a different side of Britain post-Brexit. Their poems will replace the introduction on the idents throughout the day.

"In London, poets and poetry readings abound. The Poetry Society and Southbank centre are handing over the reins of the year’s biggest poetry events of the year to young poetry producers who will curate a day of free poetry readings, films, performances and workshops featuring the Mercury Prize-winning artist PJ Harvey, and Children’s Laureate Chris Riddell"

So Polly's contribution was only ever going to be a reading, by the sound of it, and journalistic garbling turned it into something more. I can see that confusing the biographers in years to come!

[Kuk91]

File name is "2016/10/06_PoetryDay":

http://www.hayleymadden.com/2016/10/10/pj-harvey

Spoiler! :

[sanvean]

Polly read 6 or 7 poems from The Hollow of The Hand then 4 new poems:

Grouse Pen
Stations of Ira

Things I Found In The Forest April Third
A young soldier
With a gash in this neck
Who tried to beg
And through the blood
It sounded like
Love me tender

Randy In Ecstasy
Thou shalt not turn thy back on the ram
He arrived, rope tied to the back seat of John Andrews' Austin 55 saloon
And spent the next four years chasing our fleeing backsides down the pasture
He yearned to bash his head against anything that moved
I think it gave him orgasms

[Kuk91]

I don't mind the poems being short, plus these are interesting, and the last one is even humorous. But I do hope PJ realizes that to call it an actual book there should be much more poems than in "The Hollow of the Hand".

P.S.: There's an audio bootleg of her 2008 solo show in Warsaw, and she said how the title "Nina in Ecstasy" was inspired by a porn movie title ("I wasn't choosing... "), which she noticed while flipping thru channels in some hotel room (around 1995, I guess, because in 2007 "Yahoo!" interview she said this was the year for this song). Apparently, that's why goat's orgasms = "Randy In Ecstasy". )))

[bruise]

Ahahah nice piece of information!

[Kuk91]

http://poetrysociety.org.uk/projects/na ... -messages/







UHQ:

Spoiler! :