David Swann on Tony Hoagland's poem 'The Neglected Art of Description' and his own poem 'The Last Day of Summer'

The Two-Way Poetry Podcast

In this episode, I spend time with Dave Swann (on his, and his wife, Ange's allotment) as we reflect on Tony Hoagland's poem 'The Neglected Art of Description' and his own poem 'The Last Day of Summer'.

In the podcast, Dave talks about meeting Tony Hoagland at a poetry reading in London. He discusses how he got over balancing his work life and writing life by going on writing courses. He mentions how, on one of these residencies, he met the poet Mimi Khalvati who introduced him to the idea of schwa vowels, and how this made him view his poetry in a different light. He talks about the importance of description, professional noticing, and daydreaming. He then goes on to discuss Tony Hoagland's 'plate spinning', the technical 'tight-rope act' he enacts from poem to poem. He talks at length about 'The Neglected Art of Description', how it hovers around those different points of describing detail through 'sleights of hand' and rhetorical flourishes (and Zen Buddhism). How it can only go so far. He goes on a detour - focusing for a while on the descriptive power of Mark Doty's poem 'Two Ruined Boats'.

He then goes on to explore his own poem 'The Last Day of Summer' and the choices of language he made in this piece. What is poetry supposed to do in the world? He talks about sleights of hand in his own poetry, how and why he focuses on the film Paths of Glory, and on the case of a political prisoner (Reyhaneh Jabbari) being executed for her own beliefs. He talks at length about the technical decisions that he makes in the poem. He explores the idea of being 'bombarded' by news and information, and how as individuals (and writers) we have to negotiate this stream of words in our lives. How do we sift out the words that are important to us? He discusses the importance of poetry in people's lives too. Finally, he explores the different (prose and poetry) collections he is currently writing for publication - including his allotment poems.

Tony Hoagland's poem 'The Neglected Art of Description' can be found in Application for the Release from the Dream (Bloodaxe, 2015). Dave also reads from 'Two Ruined Boats' from Mark Doty's collection Atlantis (Cape, 1996).

Dave also mentions in the podcast Hoagland's book Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft (Graywolf Press, 2006).
David Swann began his writing life as a reporter for the local newspaper in Accrington. After working in nightclubs, warehouses, and magazines in Amsterdam, he became the writer in residence in a prison. A book based on those experiences, The Privilege of Rain (Waterloo Press, 2009) was shortlisted for The Ted Hughes Award. Dave's stories and poems have been widely published and won many awards, including eleven successes at the Bridport Prize and two in The National Poetry Competition. His novella Season of Bright Sorrow (also available from Ad Hoc Fiction), won the 2021 Bath Novella-in-Flash Competition.
David's own poem, 'The Last Day of Summer', comes from his last published poetry collection, Gratitude on the Coast of Death (Waterloo Press, 2017).

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The Last Day of Summer

If the clock-radio wasn't chanting its old lament
I'd spend the summer's finale under our duvet

but the year's last light is falling, and, here, it's all war,
famine, Ebola. And Iran has hanged Reyhaneh Jabbari.

There's a better place than this, but I can't find it
anywhere in our house, so I carry my tea

into the yard and listen while a neighbour's child
calls to her vanished cat. 'Gucci!' she cries,

on the brink of tears. 'Gucci, where are you, dear?'
The mallow's crazy bloom has dimmed now

and the sunflowers have lost interest in the sky.
I follow their hunched gaze to where indestructible snails

lumber like tanks over the paving stones, and think
of that moment in Paths of Glory when cockroaches

scuttle through a cell. Tomorrow, when's he dead,
those things will continue to live, the condemned man

tells his jailers, unable to imagine the world
bearing his absence. Around me: a citadel

of living spiders. They have strung their cables
over our tiny lawn. The grass has gone on growing

and these cobwebs are thicker than I've known.
Global warming? Upstairs, the clock-radio

drones while a child's voice rises through its scales.
'Gucci,' she sings. 'Come home now, Gucci!'

Our words have travelled vast distances,
that's what I tell the kids I teach. They have come to us

on journeys and their bags are full of secrets.
Rose, for instance. Or musk. Or path.

Or assassin. These words are from Farsi,
words from the land that has hanged

Reyhaneh Jabbari. For two months she was held
alone, beyond reach of lawyers and family,

and she went to her death still protecting
the name of the man who saved her

from rape by the government agent.
These are not the words of a poem

and that is not the name of a cat. Let me sit here
with my tea and forget this winter. Send us down
the old books, containing the old worlds.
You know the ones: jasmine, shawl, peach.