“The Death Issue” December 2015 1

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sudoku, can be done in seconds”, or do you find one that says super fiendish difficult? You don't chose the first one because you want a challenge. People chose poetry they say, is it accessible poetry? Oh I don't know about any of that fancy poetry that doesn't say anything. And you say, why don't you treat a poem the way you treat a sudoku, that you want a challenge? OV: do you think that we – in general -, are not equipped by schools, the way poetry is taught in schools, equipped to treat it as a 'whole thing'. I always found that when we were taught poetry, it was line by line, what's this line saying what technique are they using, etc. JB: I think it can be quite useful to do that kind of close reading, of any text. I think we should teach close reading of Orwell's essays, or the newspaper. What I think schools should do – and it's the one thing they don't do, and they're paid not to do – is to teach every child how to do critical thinking, whatever they're looking at. Whether reading a report in the Guardian, reading a new poem by Mark Doty, or looking at a picture, or looking at a photograph. Watching a movie. Looking at green-washing in an airport. What our schools should be doing is creating, educating, creating a basis for people to live as citizens, and that is to teach you how to do critical thinking, and how to enjoy it, and to give them the sense that they are free to do think critically. And that would apply to a poem, and if you had a really genuine critical thinking society, everything would carry a poem in it the way every newspaper carries a – well, not everything does now -, but everything carries a sudoku or a puzzle of something. There might be a poem in it. And the poem might be very straight forward, or it might be something more complex and difficult to understand. OV: it's only now a handful of newspapers that – Morning Star – that carries a poem JB: but it's probably one of those very obvious, accessible poems isn't it? I used to write a poem, I had great fun writing a poem every Sunday for a while, not for very long, and it had to be for sport. In the sport pages. And that was a very enlightened editor, so many pages of sport writing to run. And said it was worth having space for a poem there. So he'd call me up and say, could you write a poem about a sporting event that happened in 31
the last month, or general thing, so I remember for example Saturday frankly de Tori rode seven winners all in the day – do you remember that, or too young? [too young, almost. Ed.] nobody had ever ridden seven winners all in the same cart. Every horse he got on to he won with. So I write a perfectly accessible poem, hasn't got any loss of flow because of that, isn't compromised because of that. An exuberant little piece of excitement. And another one would be a lament for a critical match years ago, who missed a penalty […] everyone in Scotland was “agh!”, all at once, watching this, and the guy was usually reliable – Gary someone -, but he missed that one time and it was the most critical penalty he ever took probably, and he missed. And Scotland went out, against England. But, erm, that was fun doing that. OV: absolutely, if you go back to Pindar and his Olympic odes, or someone like – the best boxing writer as someone like Bert Sugar, who were incredibly lyrical in writing about boxing that blew any other writer out the water, seeing it as requiring this artistic language that he addressed to it - JB: well it did as, there's, two men going into a ring and going to do some brain damage or death, if you're talking about heavy weights anyway. I wrote about heavy weights anyway, boxing. Because it's – I love boxing actually, growing up -, I got wonderful lesson boxing when I was a student, from the guy that did the physical work, and he said “you like boxing don't you?” and he said “have you ever boxed at all?” and I said just a little bit, and he said “I've got this guy, he's Mexican, he needs a sparring partner and you're too big but I can't find somebody else” and I said well, i'm too big […] so much difference, just let him go in the ring with you, get some in, the kid was brilliant. He had me all over the place. But that was wonderful just to see the art, see it close up. And that's why some guys are great sparring partners and they've got the challenge and couldn't handle it, and they were here to witness this ritual, something greater than them. Some did, but I remember several Muhammad Ali sparring partners end up being champion for six months because they thought they could be Ali. And nobody could be Ali. Yeah, that's the way of celebrating. I think poets in history have celebrated everything from bull fighters to boxers to chocolate makers to cooks to a girl that you see walking along a street, and she's holding a red 32
Page 2 and 3: A LITERARY MAGAZINE OF POETRY, INTE
Page 4 and 5: CONTENTS Editorial - p. 4 HARKview
Page 6 and 7: “when I say that poetry makes not
Page 8 and 9: language and kind of professional a
Page 10 and 11: OV: and in actually writing your po
Page 12 and 13: they came from, patent shreds of Ba
Page 14 and 15: do you see the role of those, of th
Page 16 and 17: going along a street in Berlin, you
Page 18 and 19: - do you find that's where your pol
Page 20 and 21: If you can get someone like that to
Page 22 and 23: different from that solitary experi
Page 24 and 25: go, and the guy will always say, ra
Page 26 and 27: and something like a fox scouting f
Page 28 and 29: And I don't care what anybody says,
Page 30 and 31: things, pursuing sex, pleasure all
Page 34 and 35: alloon, and it -it's a boy actually
Page 36 and 37: pool, as “a moon affected by the
Page 38 and 39: All Kinds of Old Feeling John Burns
Page 40 and 41: Exile Nels Hanson My farming life i
Page 42 and 43: Island Ryan Van Winkle when the wat
Page 44 and 45: Catcher Hugh McMillan (In his log,
Page 46 and 47: Inherent Vice Constantin Preda When
Page 48 and 49: Mother Roux Katarina Boudreaux Five
Page 50 and 51: Encore Bacchus descends from the st
Page 52 and 53: Minnows’ Ladder James Reidel Minn
Page 54 and 55: Not that I saw Him arrive or leave,
Page 56 and 57: factory, lights a cigarette. “I'm
Page 58 and 59: at 1406 today. Northwest gale 8 to
Page 60 and 61: The Organ Recital Simon Ward They d
Page 62 and 63: church's décor. Between the organ
Page 64 and 65: “Michelle,” he whispers, ”did
Page 66 and 67: Contributors KATARINA BOUDREAUX is
Page 68: RYAN VAN WINKLE is a poet, live art

“The Death Issue” December 2015 1

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