Graham's blog

A place for poetry at Rimbaud's house

Poet in the City has recently been involved in a campaign to ensure that the house at 8 Royal College Street in Camden, once occupied by the French poets Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, should become a venue for poetry and culture.

In 1873 the two poets lived for a year in the house near Kings Cross and St Pancras stations. The poets had scandalized French literary society by running away together to the grubby streets of Victorian London, where they were astounded and fascinated by the uninhibited advance of industrialisation and urbanization. Their period living in Camden gave birth to some of their most important and influential poetry, as well as to the some of the most fascinating anecdotes about their lives. Most famously the poets eventually fell out over a herring, purchased by Verlaine from Camden Market!

Rimbaud in particular, the original enfant terrible, revolutionized French poetry and served as a harbinger for the modern age. Behaving rather like a Rock Star, long before such musical prodigies appeared, Rimbaud took drugs, trashed rooms and went out of his way to scandalize those in authority. As a result he has not only been celebrated by poets and writers but also by musicians like Jim Morrison and Patti Smith. My friend at Christie’s tells me that Rimbaud manuscripts, on the rare occasions on which they come up for sale, reach very high process at auction.

For a number of years Gerry Harrison, a former Camden councillor, has been championing the idea of turning the house, which retains many of its original features, into a cultural centre. Starting with the modest proposal of a blue plaque (approved by Camden Council in 2003) the campaign later attracted the support of many actors and writers, including Simon Callow and Julian Barnes. At one point it even looked as though a purchase of the house might be possible. More recently the poets Aidan Dun and Niall McDevitt have been active in organising public manifestations and a new round of press coverage about the house. Gerry Harrison, in particular, deserves enormous praise for his superb efforts.

It is possible that all these efforts may be about to bear fruit at last. The house was purchased recently by a freeholder who combines business pragmatism with a long-standing commitment to the arts. Poet in the City is actively involved in the search for a development plan for the property that will meet both the legitimate business requirements of the new owner and realise the potential of the property as a centre for the promotion and study of poetry.

In the meantime the modern map of London is changing. 8 Royal College Street, a reminder of two of France’s greatest poets, is situated a mere 500 yards from the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras, which will shortly be disgorging millions of French visitors onto the streets of the capital. It would be great if – in the future - a small metal sign could draw some of these visitors to the house where two of their compatriots once transformed the poetic landscape, and helped to give birth to the modern age.

Making flowers grow

I had lunch with the famous actress the other day, who used to be on the TV and a household name. I like actors because they practice their craft with great commitment to the effects they produce. They are, in other words, very professional. They know that their job is to persuade. They know that they must make the best of even unpromising material. And they know that, come what may, the show must go on. There is no danger of disappearing up a cul-de-sac of their own making because audiences are so unforgiving. To paraphrase my actress friend, their job is to make flowers grow, even on the plains of Armageddon.

I rather like it when poets adopt this attitude too, submitting themselves to public scrutiny, not just the skewed appraisal of their peers, and squeezing meaning even from unpromising material. Actually, for the bold and the talented, this is not as difficult as you would think. Not all those who wear suits are philistines. Passionate artists lurk even in offices and on trading floors. Poet in the City exists to bridge the gap between poetry and these other communities. The poets we work with regularly demonstrate that poetry has the ability to burst out of the narrow confines of the poetry ‘club’ on to a much larger stage.

The best recent example was the commissioning of new poems by Poet in the City as part of a sponsorship by Lloyd’s of London, the insurance market. This involved the poets Patience Agbabi, Matthew Hollis and John Burnside. Lloyd’s asked for poems that would help to raise awareness of climate change. Rather than regard this as a corporate brief the poets involved treated this as what it was, an artistic opportunity. After all, the constraints were hardly tight. In the event all of the poets produced excellent work. Indeed the poems from the commission appear in ‘Earth Shattering’, a new anthology of eco-poems published by Bloodaxe, are being read at poetry readings, and have even being translated into Chinese. In other words they have effortlessly entered into the literary mainstream.

In fact the commission raised the question of why more contemporary poets are not writing, even in an oblique way, about subjects like climate change. Is this not an urgent requirement for poetry in the 21st Century? Poetry can address any subject, and is perhaps uniquely suited to stepping back from such subjects and communicating important insights and unorthodox perspectives. So let’s see poets satirising our politicians when they are caught with their trousers down, challenging the assumptions underlying modern life, or protesting at failed military adventures. Let’s see poetry bursting into the zones of modern life that they rarely visit.

In the next twelve months Poet in the City is planning such forays into areas as varied as medicine, the built environment and dance. The charity very much hopes that some or all of these forays may involve the commissioning of new poetry from a range of exciting contemporary poets. Poetry has a lot to contribute to all these subject areas.

But can poets really write poetry to order? Is not poetry essentially about the individual expressive voice saying what it likes, in defiance of political power, corporate dominance, and social or economic gain? Yes, of course it is all those things. But sometimes the artistic integrity argument is used as an excuse not to engage with a wider world and a wider audience. And does a commission from a corporate patron really involve a sell-out? If Caravaggio could paint masterpieces when his subject matter was limited to Biblical themes and portraits of Cardinals, modern poets can certainly produce masterpieces within the far less onerous constraints of enlightened corporate sponsorship.

Poetry is a living art form, and one that needs to elbow its way back into the forefront or cultural relevance. It should regard such commissions as a challenge, and make flowers grow in the world of business and elsewhere. There are plenty of corporate sponsors and City workers who welcome such work with open arms!