October 2005

By the time you read this I hope I will be safely at home away from the insanity of the book tour.
It is my fault, of course, I have travelled too much this year, and am beginning to feel like a lunatic. Now that personal circumstances are conspiring to keep me at home rather sooner than I had planned, I am looking forward to being grounded. Even as I write the word, ‘grounded’, it has an interesting feel. Flying from place to place is not grounded. Indeed, as I landed at another dark airport to take another closed car to another air-conditioned hotel, I did wonder what planet I was on.

‘Where are you from?’ asked a very drunk Swede in the lift of the improbably named Gothia Towers
‘Mars’ I replied
‘Are you sure?’ he said
‘From Mars or on Mars, one or the other, yes, I am sure.’

Albert Camus said that it’s not one thing or the other that leads to madness, but the space in between them.

Writers are by nature solitary and hermit-like. Then we have to go out and become chat show guests and gurus. For a time, that is fine, and suddenly, absurdity sets in, and it’s not fine anymore.
I love meeting my readers, talking to you, signing books. I am always overwhelmed by everyone’s warmth and kindness. The problems start when I start saying ‘No.’ Publishers always want you to say ‘Yes’, and of course, ‘yes’ is more attractive than ‘no’.
But from now on, it has to be no.
So I won’t be around much for a while.
In any case, it is time to write a new book. Start date November 7th.

You will see that this month’s POEM is by Carol Ann Duffy from her new collection – RAPTURE. I can’t shout enough about this book. It really is wonderful, and I want everyone to buy it.
My interview with her for The Times is up on the site this month.

As you know, as far as I am concerned, poets are gods. It was great to go Carol Ann’s launch and meet Don Paterson, another of my all time life-loves. I am excited about what is happening in literature right now. This is a good time, an abundant time. We are lucky and we are blessed in our writers. Any talk of the death of poetry or the death of the novel is complete rubbish. Just when we thought TV and film and media were taking over – the word is fighting back. That’s healthy.

The planet is less healthy. News that the ice-melt at the Pole may be irreversible is depressing. I am trying to work out how to reduce my own emissions and use less energy. The trouble is that I read that in the UK, the Government’s commitment to reducing emissions by 60% over the next decade will be impossible if they are also committed to expanding air travel – which they are. It is very difficult for us all to do our bit if our government is refusing to take on the bigger picture.

As someone who travels a lot by air, I never choose budget airlines because I know that they do not represent the true cost of my flight, and as I am travelling for work, mostly, I think the true cost should be paid. When I travel for pleasure I try and take the train, but now that sleeper services are being axed, this too is becoming a tougher option, just when we need it to be a real option. I think some of my forthcoming hermit days will have to be spent lobbying about transport. God know, we need a planet in good shape to pass on to our kids.

If any of you are in Paris this month – there is a wonderful show on at Theatre de Chaillot. Deborah Warner and Fiona Shaw doing a night called READINGS, which is really going to be favourite poems. And for one night only, on October 13th, there will be a special event – A CURVE IN TIME, the Goldberg Variations, for string trio, with the sublime Natalie Clein on cello, and, er, text by me, read by Fiona Shaw.

This is very much work in progress, in the little studio, not the main auditorium, but I think it will be interesting…

Housekeeping. I have made a change. My friend, my editor, now become an agent, will be looking after my interests from the UK.

If you need to get in touch for work, you can still go through Suzanne Gluck in New York, but you can also go through Caroline Michel in the UK. cmichel@wma.com

And I hope you like the audio on the site this month. I am thinking of doing an on-line question time, for an hour, maybe in December? If you think this is a good idea, tell Tom, our Webmaster. If no one wants to talk to me, I might as well not bother, so we will see what the take-up is like.

Meanwhile, there is a lot of journalism this month, and I hope you find the new look site to your taste. Go well, go easy, the leaves are falling, the nights are getting darker, time to curl up with a good book.