Staying Alive

"Staying Alive , a prequel to Being Alive , is published by Bloodaxe, a powerhouse in the poetry world. What’s really fantastic about this anthology is the range of poets from all over the world and the way it’s organised thematically. You can have a theme of personal journeys and you’ll find all these different poems on that theme. The other great thing about it is that different poems have a conversation with each other, just because of the way the book has been ordered. For some reason it really captures people’s imaginations and it was one of these poetry anthologies that really took off. All sorts of people backed it and it was exciting and groundbreaking. Yes. The roads and journeys section. There’s a poem by Mary Oliver, ‘The Journey’, which I love. It works on so many different levels and I think people identify with it. There are lots of poems from this book which I really like: the poems about wasps and bees and the body and soul section. It’s an anthology that I often use in workshops. I did one in Ilkley the other day on the theme of doppelgangers, and there were a couple of poems that I thought were perfect for that theme. Then there are poems like Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’, so the classic poems exist alongside poets people wouldn’t have heard of."

"Yes, that’s done very well and deservedly so, for the same sort of reasons. This was published by Bloodaxe of course, and Neil Astley, the editor, has been a great mover and shaker in poetry and publishing and he’s done a tremendous job with his Bloodaxe list. With this, again, there’s a spiritual sense, not a religious sense, of poetry where you stop and listen. It’s Robert Frost, it’s life-affirming. I think it’s an important book and a lot of people know that because it’s been a great success. The journeys, the headings, give you some sense of what to find, but I’m afraid I don’t have the book in front of me! It is. She was three when I wrote it and now she’s 20, going off to university, because I really thought when I was writing the poem… I was 53 when I had Issie, and that was the age my father died. So you can imagine these feelings…how many years do I have with her? Very much so. It is. R S Thomas is a fabulous poet. His poetry wasn’t stuffy; it was reaching out, in a way, like the book does. Yes, good quote."