John Glenday: Grain

I forgot to mention that yesterday I got home from work to find a brown Jiffy envelope with John Glenday's recent collection 'Grain' inside.

I can't wait to start reading it later if I'm feeling better. I am particularly interested to see how, if at all, his work as a counsellor influences his poetry.

Many of the poems in my own pamphlet and forthcoming collection were written before I started working as a counsellor. Since then I've noticed my poems becoming less egocentric.

By that I mean I'm now less concerned with bringing a direct first-person lyrical response into a poem, and more concerned to create room for whatever is in the poem to express itself. Of course I still mediate the expression, but there is a narrowing of the gap between subject and object.

In a curious way my poems have become more impersonal but my relationship to them has deepened.

Comments

  1. Michelle16 February 2010 at 10:53

    I've thoroughly enjoyed Grain.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dan Wyke17 February 2010 at 02:08

    Hi Michelle, I didn't get a chance to read it after all yesterday, but am going away to the Peak District next week so will take it with me.

    ReplyDelete

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