In Focus (Vol 8, No 3)

In Focus is "a quarterly magazine on literature, culture and the arts in Cyprus" and is published in Nicosia by The Cyprus PEN Centre and Armida Publications. Its current issue reproduces the feature on my work originally published in January for 3:AM Magazine's 'Maintenant' series: an interview conducted by Steven Fowler, accompanied by five poems.

In Focus features fiction, poetry, artwork, essays, reviews, interviews and non-fiction pieces. Some of the material is very good - an interview with a maker of theatre masks from a few issues ago springs to mind. But it is of a conservative bent, and with a tone that can appear overly formal, or sentimental.

Editor Panos Ioannides has published work of mine before, and I'm grateful that he has sought our permission to bring the feature to the attention of the magazine's readers. But it's impossible to ignore that a lot of what it publishes is at odds with the gist of what I say in the very interview it reproduces - or with what I hope my work represents. For example, in another interview from the current issue, with the singer Alexia, which pointedly takes place in the city of Ammochostos/Famagusta (since 1974 standing north of the Cypriot divide) there's the following exchange:

ALEXIA: Let's see what song is played at the beach bar of the new tenants.
MARIOS (interviewer): Whatever it is, I hope they won't stay for much longer and that soon we'll get to hear some Greek tunes instead... perhaps some of your music!
ALEXIA: Thank you Marie! Yes, let's hope so!

Then, in an essay that offers a reading of the poem 'The Stone' by Sophocles Lazarou - an intriguing-sounding poem which I'd like to track down and explore further - the essay's author Andreas Petrides writes:

"And if I express myself in this almost dithyrambic tone, dragging out a poem from the past, it is because my soul thirsts every so often for one, albeit fleeting, return to good poetry, beyond the suffocating grip of the modernistic or philosophical, without real inspiration, contemporary constructs."

It's not the case that In Focus juxtaposes differing approaches to writing and art, or contrasting sociopolitical attitudes, to offer a critique or a questioning of each position: I find the majority of what it publishes tending towards the nostalgic, the self-consciously poetic, the insularly nationalistic. Which makes the reproduction of the feature hard to interpret.

Scrutinising Ireland's President-Poet

It was amusing to read the comments that predictably flooded in from indignant folk, mainly out of or related to Ireland, following Carol Rumens' deconstruction of Michael D Higgins' poem 'When Will My Time Come?'. "Mean-spirited", "churlish", "nasty" and "mad woman" were some of the epithets used with reference to the article or its author, both in the chain of comments below the piece and on other forums.

The first I knew of Rumens' piece on The Guardian website (which I often read) was from a parochial defence of Higgins in the following Saturday's Irish Times (which I often don't). For what it's worth, I feel there's an issue with Rumens' article in that its title (possibly not her own choice) and first paragraph question the very claim that Higgins is a poet, rather than what he writes or his approach. (Interestingly, on her own website Rumens begins her welcome note with "I hate attaching labels to myself. Am I a poet? I hope so but how can I be sure?") But this kind of ultra-defensive reaction a critical piece elicited from people interested in poetry was rather revealing.

What was particularly notable was how, even in such minds, the poetry got relegated to insignificance the moment its maker attained a national office - even one of a largely ambassadorial nature. Few, if any, confronted the poem itself or its deconstruction. This lack of belief in the relevance of poetry brought to mind a disparaging comment made about Barack Obama by one of his opponents in the run up to the 2008 US presidential election: "he's a poet, not a fighter".

Michael D Higgins has been a politician and a public figure for a long time, with a real, active and well-documented championing of human rights and the arts. His poetry is viewed as something he does in parallel, and harmless - though published by relatively mainstream presses. As far as I'm aware there's been little serious critical attention given to it (the pats on the back of the sure-isn't-he-great-writing-poems-too sort don't really count).

Isn't the very reason he has now been voted president of a state enough to make his words and how he has used them ripe to be scrutinised - harshly, if necessary? It's not OK for arts bodies, other poets etc just to publicise and celebrate the fact that they have a president who has also written poems. I hope, without holding my breath, that in publishing the "offending" article Carol Rumens and The Guardian end up causing a critical shift beyond their initial intention.

The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master, by Thomas Brezing

Thomas Brezing's exhibition The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master opens on Saturday 12 November 2011 at the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, Co Louth, and runs until 11 January 2012.

Brezing's painting 'Skylloura', which provides the cover for my book Spitting Out the Mother Tongue, will be on show.

There's a full programme of public events planned around the exhibition, two of which include my participation:

On Saturday 26 November, at 3pm, I will be taking part in a panel discussion with title 'the influence of literature on art and art on literature'. Artist David Newton will be contributing chair, with the panel also including Thomas Brezing and artist Mary Kelly. (A full colour catalogue accompanying the exhibition, with essay by Cliodhna Shaffrey, will be launched at this event.)

And on Saturday 10 December I will be present in the gallery from 11am until 2pm, in the Artist's Shack, for an intervention, where I intend to engage the public into the surrealist game 'exquisite corpse' to produce collaborative poems around the works in the exhibition.

Reading in Balbriggan Library

On Wednesday 9 November I will be reading from Spitting Out the Mother Tongue in the public library in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Start time is 7pm.

eternal torture

"Translation is not just important: I would go so far as to say that without translation we wouldn’t have literature, not as we know it. I think a good form of torture for any serious writer would be to deny them reading anything other then works produced in their own language or country. For eternity. Translation is the lifeblood that sustains the conversations crucial not only to literary creation, but cultural understanding and development."

- John Holten, interviewed by Karl Whitney for 3:AM Magazine. Holten's first novel is The Readymades (Broken Dimanche Press, 2011), with artwork by Darko Dragičević.