I stand on the shoulders of other poets and peer into the twenty-first century. I regard the enduring human condition and the rapidly changing planet and try to comment on the gulf between them with the words that I have.
My first collection, the pamphlet, The Thin Veneer is fast approaching selling out. I’m still marketing it. I’ll be doing several reading events this year. Poems in this book that are popular with readers and audiences include: Doodlebug, Enduring Solitude, and Requiem for a Kayaker. A poster exhibition in a local town centre went up this month featuring one of the best poems: Terra Incognita, which is set in Australia but implicitly warning of the droughts we might see in Europe in years to come. So dear followers and readers now is the time – it’s available through Waterstones, all good bookshops, and of course through the publishers Dempsey&Windle.
The Thin Veneer by Clifford Liles |
A distinctive poetry collection that explores themes such as the fragility of our existence and relationships, the power of nature, the impact of technology and the climate breakdown using traditional poetic forms, especially the sonnet form
ISBN: 978-1-913329-81-5. RRP £8.50, July 2022 High-grade paperback, 210 x 148mm, 42 pages Available from good bookshops, Amazon and |
By the end of this year, I’m hoping to get my second collection published. The works in it are the fruit of over five year’s work. Over a third of the poems in the typescript have been published individually in literary journals, national or international. I have work coming out soon in Poetry Salzburg Review and Obsessed with Pipework. So that project is well on track.
https://www.poetrysalzburg.com/psr-no41.htm
This month I thought I’d do a more conversational blog since I usually cover craft and process. So, I going to try out the one-minute interview format:
What book are you reading at the moment?
Don Paterson’s The Poem, a door stopper but a comprehensive treatise on what a poem is in terms of trope, lyric and metre. Oh, and for light reading a thriller by M.W.Craven called Fearless.
What poem influenced you the most?
Maybe not a poem but Eric Shipton’s quote from Upon that Mountain inspired me towards adventuring in my early years. This is it:
He is lucky who, in the full tide of life, has experienced a measure of the active environment he most desires. In these days of upheaval and violent change, when the basic values of today are the vain and shattered dreams of tomorrow, there is much to be said for a philosophy which aims at living a full life while the opportunity offers. There are few treasures of more lasting worth than the experience of a way of life that is in itself wholly satisfying. Such, after all, are the only possessions of which no fate, no cosmic catastrophe can deprive us; nothing can alter the fact if for one moment in eternity we have really lived.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
Reading my first poem from twenty-five years ago again!
What was your favourite music last year?
Dobrinka Tabakova’s Tectonic from her Earth Suite, a dynamic and motivating work and also Sibelius Tapiola. evoking the vast boreal forests of the north.
What is your favourite cinema film last year?
I thought Triangle of Sadness was excellent.
Was there any standout piece of theatre for you last year?
I do not get to the theatre as much as I would like. Streamed theatre is nearly as good as the real thing in the right sort of independent cinema. I did see Jack Absolute Flies Again this year and was greatly entertained.
What work of art would you like to own?
It would have to be either a Böcklin, like Isle of the Dead, or any Edwin Hopper.
Who would you invite to a fantasy dinner party?
Just my wife.
And the music you’d put on …
Post Modern Jukebox. Maybe a little romantic Satie afterwards.
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That’s it for this month’s blog. Speak to you again next month.
Clifford Liles 