WEBVTT
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There is a mad set of myths and fairy tales. I mean,
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now it's changing a little bit, but still written
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into them is the basic understanding that there
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is danger out there, there is darkness, you know,
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and if you go too close to it, you'll be pulled
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in or whatever. Welcome to The Glimpse. I'm your
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host, Hannah Lowe. Arji Manuelpillai is a
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poet, a podcast host, a performer and a creative
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facilitator. His first collection, Improvised
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Explosive Device, was shortlisted for the Derek
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Walcott Prize. He's created poems for organisations
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including the Baring Foundation, Wedgwood and
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was asked to write for the Princess of Wales.
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Arji Manuelpillai is our guest today on The
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Glimpse. Arji Manuelpillai's poems are electric,
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tender and charged with performance. There is
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a fearless openness in his work, a willingness
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to inhabit vulnerability, while also questioning
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the narratives that shape us: of masculinity,
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race, family and belonging. Arji draws on the textures
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of everyday life and transforms them into something
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vivid and communal, poems that feel as alive
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on the page as they do in the room. These are
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poems that invite us in, disarm us and stay with
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us, full of heart, sharp insight and a deep generosity
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of spirit. I'm so glad to have him here on The
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Glimpse with us. Arji, welcome. I hear you've been
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writing for the Princess of Wales. You've got
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to start with that one, Arji. You met the Princess
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of Wales and wrote a poem for her, to her. Yeah,
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it was actually... For her and with her. Was
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it with her? Yeah, it was a little bit with her.
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I mean, I say that very loosely. And one of the
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interesting things about working with the Princess
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of Wales was there's a lot of myth and wonder
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that surrounds the Princess of Wales. So I did
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a lot of interviews about it. And they always
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said, like, you can't say too much about the
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time that you spent with the Princess of Wales.
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I mean, obviously, I can tell you, I didn't spend
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that much time with her. How long did you spend
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with the Princess of Wales, like in minutes?
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About 25 minutes. Yeah, I mean, most people have
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not had that experience. No, exactly. And the
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best thing was that when the Princess of Wales
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met me, she walked up and she was like, Arji!
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That was the best thing about it. Because she
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actually knew my name. I was like, oh my gosh,
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she knows my name. It was mad. It was mad. Yeah,
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totally mad. So that's because you were poet
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in residence at the Arboretum. Yeah, the National
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Memorial Arboretum. And I just watched a video
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of you, the Princess of Wales poem. yeah you'd
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well smartened up for that video I bought a suit
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that was the first suit I've ever bought new
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and um yeah you're looking good and a tie I know
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and I met a guy you know when you meet a salesman
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and you're like this guy knows stuff so I just
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said to him like kick me out I don't care what
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it costs like I'm going to meet the Princess
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of Wales you need to sort it out. So he just sorted
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me this outfit out and then um Yeah, and then
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it was a whole thing. But the writing of it as
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well was, it was a real moment. Not really so
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much. It was a big moment for me, but it was
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a big moment for my parents. Because for the
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first time, they actually had heard of the person
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I was writing the poem for. So my mom rang up.
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She was like weeping on the phone. She was so
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proud. It was a big thing in the Sri Lankan
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community, it was massive. Yeah, I bet she rang
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you and then she's going through her phone book,
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phoning all her friends as well to tell them.
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Hannah, before that, I'll tell you, I was a blip
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in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora community. After
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that, I had made the whole community proud. Oh,
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that's amazing. You're the main man. It's incredible.
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So long may that last. I don't know how long
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that lasts. That could last forever, I feel.
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It's definitely one that goes on the bio, doesn't
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it? So that's positive. Yeah, it's got to go
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on the bio. You know, I was thinking about you
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and commissions because you do quite a lot of
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them. And I was thinking, do you feel like under
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that pressure that I, well, I know you do because
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you actually told me and I put in a poem, it's
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like full disclosure. I remember you once saying
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to me, at Arvon, you were a poet in residence
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at Wedgwood. And you said, like, what
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do I know about Wedgwood? Yeah. Which is like
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a pottery factory. And at the time I was doing
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a commission about Chinese wallpaper. And I was
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like, yeah, like, what do I know about Chinese
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wallpaper? I was really glad of the commission.
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But do you ever get that kind of like, okay,
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I've done all the research. I've spoken to the
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right people. I've got the whole thing going
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on, but now I've got to write a poem. It's quite
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hard. It is quite hard. But you know what? This
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time, this time at the Arboretum, I felt a level
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of calm about it of certainty or self -confidence
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Yeah I reckon you've got the confidence and that's
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exactly the right place to be when you're writing
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a poem with yeah the Princess of Wales that's
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I mean you know what i was in Great Yarmouth
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which was in winter is one of the most dilapidated
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seaside towns of England And I don't think it's
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an insult to Great Yarmouth. There's a big crack
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problem there. It's a lot of alcoholism. And
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I was there and I was doing a five -day project
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in schools when they rang up. So then I said,
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oh, I've got this five days in schools. And they
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said, well, just take one day off and say it's
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by royal appointment. No. So, yeah. See you later,
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great Yarmouth. Exactly. So I spent one day, so I
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basically had 24 hours to knock a few drafts
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together. And I did the process, you know, like
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running, stretching, drinking. smoking like all
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of these different levels to make something happen
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and sure enough it did so maybe it's not being
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confident in what I do it's being confident within
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the process of doing it. You know, confidence in
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the process I mean it's also being able to keep
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an eye on it you know like watch what works because
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our processes are always changing so that's interesting
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as well. But we need to hear your poem and then
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talk about its composition, how it came to you.
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So you're going to read it for us, The Crocodile?
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Yeah, I'll read this poem called The Crocodile.
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It's from a new collection that I'm currently
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sort of finished slash working on. The Crocodile
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is prehistorically violent. So a daughter going
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drinking shouldn't walk past a particular swamp
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at a particular time. The father says that would
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be as good as asking for it, but... There's a
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town somewhere in Africa, the daughter replies,
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where crocs live with people. In and out of houses,
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they feed them so the crocs no longer want to
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eat them. The daughter slams the door like she's
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holding nine pints of meat. And what father wouldn't
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be anxious unable to sit still? What father
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wouldn't drive to the bar to watch? No one knows
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crocodiles like crocodiles. All those teeth through
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the jawline like a child's eyes through its fingers.
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The leather-bag-backs shining till the ridges
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look like claws. The daughter won't ever find
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out about the hours he sat there on the corner.
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watching his little girl grow into a woman, remembering
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what he is and what she has now become. And his
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daughter won't ever find out about another woman.
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on the same road, in and out of another building,
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Another beautiful woman who he can't take his
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eyes off, leaning into cars like drivers were
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taking tiny bites from her breasts. And in the
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doorway another man of the same age watching.
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The door behind him heavy enough to crack a leg
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open. Wow, thanks, Arji. This poem is like, it
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just takes you from like, I mean, I smell a rat
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the moment the line "that would be as good as
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asking for it" arrived. That's like in the third
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line of the poem. But it takes you to like very
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unexpected. Although there's also a kind of sense
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of inevitability about it. So tell me, how did
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it come to you? Did you think, OK, I'm going
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to take this extended metaphor, the crocodile,
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I'm going to make the crocodile. Well, I'm sort
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of presuming the crocodile is substituting for
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a certain kind of man. Have I got that right?
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Yeah, I would say that that is true. I mean,
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I don't even know certain kind of man or every
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man. Well, I didn't want to say that. yeah yeah
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obviously I mean yeah one thing I love to do
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is like go down rabbit holes I think poets share
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this like rabbit holes of factual stuff about
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animals or about natural wonder and then take
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those and sort of digest them and write about
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them and then see how that speaks to something
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else so basically like the building of a big
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metaphor and the metaphor is like a super intimate
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thing in many ways and it's almost at the center
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of poems because it's saying like here's one
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thing and here's another thing and then by the
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end of the poem you suddenly realize oh they're
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quite similar you know so in this it's all
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about finding the connections between the crocodiles
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and the father but there is actually a town in
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Ghana where the crocodiles roam in and out people's
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houses. So it's interesting to read it when if
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if the crocodiles are men because in that town
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and you say in Africa but maybe Ghana it's like
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where men live with people in and out of houses
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and they feed them so the men no longer want
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to eat them That's kind of blowing my mind. I
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was trying to map that, you know, the two parts
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of the metaphor, the tenor and the vehicle. I
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was like, how much do you want us to, you know,
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stick to that? There was a little bit more flexibility.
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And it feels a bit unfair to Ghanaians. But if
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we were to take Africa and Ghana out of this
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poem, like because partly I didn't choose to
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put the word Ghana in there for this reason,
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is that, well, it's talking about to what extent.
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Do we feed hungry men? So do we provide porn?
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Do we legalise prostitution? Do you know all
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the acceptance of that? Because if we are feeding
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them, to what extent will that stop violence
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against women in real life? Do you know what
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I mean? Those are the questions it's posing as
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opposed to me saying, this is what I think. Yeah,
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and maybe not even just violence against women,
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but just a kind of crossing of boundaries. with
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with women but that's what it it felt like to
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me. T he daughter is like quite kick -ass that
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line there that the daughter slams the door like
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she's holding nine pints of meat she's like feisty
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in this poem and yet there's quite a lot of the
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suggestion that she doesn't really know what's
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going on in the world. Do you think she's feisty
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because I thought the nine pints of meat is alluring
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to the crocodile so really in my mind the daughter
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was slamming the door like she's holding nine
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pints of meat. The dad is thinking like, you're
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not going out like that, that sort of vibe. Well,
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the daughter kind of embodies that sort of, yeah,
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like feisty energy of a teenage girl who doesn't
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care what her dad says. So there's a sort of,
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yeah, there's a kind of feeling of risk, like
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she doesn't know what the world is that she's
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entering. She doesn't know everything about that
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world. Oh, yeah, completely. And also... And
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no one knows crocodiles like crocodiles. The
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dad knows. I mean, I've got a daughter. I haven't
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come to that stage. She's only five. But there
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is a fear. And I think the fear is what we remember
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what it is to be a teenager. It's grim. Yes, it's
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the Wild West. It's grim, man. But from the middle
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onwards, from that line, no one knows crocodiles
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like crocodiles. That's so kind of... unexpected
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it was unexpected and inevitable because basically
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as you say the guy is then out watching another
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woman and the poem really opens up into a bit
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a different world, yeah like it moves away from
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the father -daughter relationship yeah for sure
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I think even though the father's observing
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the daughter he's also observing the other woman
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who's leaning in and out of cars so possibly
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some sort of prostitute or escort, and some other
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man is watching that woman. So the question is,
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is like the differences in relationship there,
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the feeling of ownership, how it is being used
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in different predicaments, is really interesting
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to me. Yeah, this strong feeling of voyeurism,
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obviously, with all the kind of watching. But
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it's also about what is the power of the look?
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Where does it sit on the trajectory between harmless
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and harmful? Yeah. And I think this is so interesting
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at the moment because now with AI and stuff,
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it really shifts how we look, our relationship
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with being voyeurs, like looking at something.
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Because in this poem, they're looking in real
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life. But now we're looking at things that might
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not even be the real person. Yeah, absolutely.
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And also, I do think the world is changing. Like
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AI has opened everything up and now like anything
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is possible and you can basically look at anything
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and you can also create the sorts of things that
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you want to look at, whatever your cup of tea
00:14:50.549 --> 00:14:54.669
is. Where does that leave poetry? I mean, when
00:14:54.669 --> 00:14:57.509
everything is being edited, so photos are being
00:14:57.509 --> 00:14:59.970
changed, words are being changed, they go through
00:14:59.970 --> 00:15:02.730
ChatGPT and then it comes out the other side.
00:15:02.929 --> 00:15:06.440
Loads of students are using it. It's a big responsibility
00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:10.460
not to cheat. Yeah. You know. Absolutely. In
00:15:10.460 --> 00:15:14.460
my investigations to AI, that AI cannot write...
00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:18.919
Good poems. Yeah. It can't yet. It can't yet
00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:20.379
because it doesn't have a human sensibility.
00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:24.360
It can't make the millions of different connections
00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:27.399
that a human brain would idiosyncratically make.
00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:31.059
No, that's true. But back to your poem, right?
00:15:31.139 --> 00:15:33.320
Because in a way, your poem is sort of touching
00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:37.000
on... Ideas of morality and people's moral conduct
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.679
and our moral consciousness, right? So each person
00:15:40.679 --> 00:15:43.740
is responsible for their own conduct and their
00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:45.460
own, you know, the kind of moral composer of
00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:48.279
each individual. So the idea of like good and
00:15:48.279 --> 00:15:52.320
bad in this poem is quite tricksy, right? Because
00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:54.940
the father ostensibly is being a good protective
00:15:54.940 --> 00:15:57.379
father, you know, on the terms of what a good
00:15:57.379 --> 00:16:02.429
man is in patriarchy. But he's also... participating
00:16:02.429 --> 00:16:08.129
voyeurism he's spectating. It's just a suggestion.
00:16:08.129 --> 00:16:11.009
It's all in the white space I think. And the ending
00:16:11.009 --> 00:16:13.190
of the poem I really want to talk to you about
00:16:13.190 --> 00:16:16.190
that because I didn't quite know what was being
00:16:16.190 --> 00:16:20.269
said but I liked it. It's ominous, it's visceral,
00:16:20.269 --> 00:16:23.389
physical so you've got the idea it's like the
00:16:23.389 --> 00:16:26.009
last two lines really it's the introduction of
00:16:26.009 --> 00:16:28.629
the other man watching and but it's
00:16:28.629 --> 00:16:31.169
not the man, it's the door behind him that's
00:16:31.169 --> 00:16:34.330
heavy enough to crack a leg open. I just wondered,
00:16:34.429 --> 00:16:36.870
you know, what your intention is with that ending.
00:16:37.350 --> 00:16:40.950
Yeah, I've always been uncertain. It's been about
00:16:40.950 --> 00:16:44.169
50 -50 on that line when I ask people about it.
00:16:44.509 --> 00:16:47.129
One is like the cracking of the leg open means
00:16:47.129 --> 00:16:51.350
something is being forced. And two is the darkness
00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:55.519
of, the ominousness of the door itself. And it's
00:16:55.519 --> 00:16:58.820
those big heavy doors like you get in escort
00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:01.799
or brothel houses or whatever. So that's sort
00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:04.839
of weight of it. But yeah, I have often thought
00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:07.539
what image to hold right at the end. Because
00:17:07.539 --> 00:17:10.359
actually probably the most important image is
00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:13.519
of the man watching. So everyone is watching
00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.940
something because the theme of voyeurism is probably
00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:19.980
the most powerful movement in the whole poem.
00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:22.480
Yeah, I mean, we're not going to do any live
00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:26.690
editing of your poem. No, no, no. But I think
00:17:26.690 --> 00:17:30.869
for me it had sexual resonances. I love the ending
00:17:30.869 --> 00:17:33.210
because it's well ambiguous. It's definitely
00:17:33.210 --> 00:17:36.170
ominous. It's sinister. Yeah, I hear you. The
00:17:36.170 --> 00:17:38.730
poem sort of gets more and more sinister as it
00:17:38.730 --> 00:17:42.009
goes through. Yeah. This poem is very new and
00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:44.150
fresh and I can't wait to read the collection. But
00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:48.880
on the kind of idea of the forest and what lurks
00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:51.380
within it, we'll take a break now. And after
00:17:51.380 --> 00:17:53.240
the break, we'll come back and be talking about
00:17:53.240 --> 00:18:07.039
the poem that has inspired you, Arji. We hope you're
00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:09.900
enjoying this season of The Glimpse. It's just
00:18:09.900 --> 00:18:13.019
one small part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry
00:18:13.019 --> 00:18:16.579
Foundation. We're the founders, Peter and Cathy
00:18:16.579 --> 00:18:20.660
Halstead. Our goal is to make great poetry more
00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:24.279
accessible to everyone. And we do that in a variety
00:18:24.279 --> 00:18:28.180
of ways through partnerships, our film series,
00:18:28.500 --> 00:18:32.819
this podcast, and our website, brinkerhoffpoetry
00:18:32.819 --> 00:18:36.920
.org. We hope these works will lure you into
00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:40.569
a parallel universe the way a Mobius strip brings
00:18:40.569 --> 00:18:43.470
you into another dimension without leaving the
00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:46.150
page you're on. Thank you so much for listening.
00:18:47.950 --> 00:18:51.150
Welcome back to The Glimpse. Today, I'm joined
00:18:51.150 --> 00:18:54.670
by Arji Manuelpillai. And Arji, we're going to talk
00:18:54.670 --> 00:18:57.730
now about a poem that has inspired you. So if
00:18:57.730 --> 00:18:59.089
you'd like to introduce the poem, and if you
00:18:59.089 --> 00:19:01.349
want to say anything about the poem, please do
00:19:01.349 --> 00:19:05.619
before you read it. I am a really big fan of
00:19:05.619 --> 00:19:07.819
the poet Matthew Dickman, so I'm really happy
00:19:07.819 --> 00:19:13.240
to read this poem, Goblin. In each of the stories
00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:16.619
where children are led out of their beds at night
00:19:16.619 --> 00:19:21.079
by a broken father or angry stepmother and marched
00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:23.920
off to be fed into the mouth of a dark wood,
00:19:24.059 --> 00:19:28.210
the children are supposed to die. In some stories
00:19:28.210 --> 00:19:31.430
they do, in others they survive but must kill
00:19:31.430 --> 00:19:34.710
a witch or an animal in order to live which is,
00:19:34.789 --> 00:19:38.549
to be fair, a different kind of death but a death
00:19:38.549 --> 00:19:42.970
all the same. Imagine the fog around their small
00:19:42.970 --> 00:19:47.109
ankles like a shoreline in the dark. Imagine
00:19:47.109 --> 00:19:50.369
how cold their skin would be beneath the thin
00:19:50.369 --> 00:19:53.549
overcoats of their nightshirts, the little heat
00:19:53.549 --> 00:19:56.650
the parents are giving off beginning to dissipate
00:19:56.650 --> 00:20:00.130
like dew as the children take that last step
00:20:00.130 --> 00:20:03.269
into the copse of trees and are swallowed up.
00:20:04.190 --> 00:20:10.029
There are so many ways to eat the young. Yesterday,
00:20:10.210 --> 00:20:13.930
Owen was riding his red Radio Flyer tricycle
00:20:13.930 --> 00:20:16.829
around and around our red dining room table.
00:20:17.269 --> 00:20:21.490
Get me, poppa! Get me! You're a gob-a-lin! Come get
00:20:21.490 --> 00:20:25.390
me! And I know I shouldn't have really become
00:20:25.390 --> 00:20:29.049
a goblin. But that was not what he was asking
00:20:29.049 --> 00:20:33.450
for. He wanted his poppa and a funny voice. Instead,
00:20:33.630 --> 00:20:36.410
my body grew like a shadow and turned green,
00:20:36.650 --> 00:20:40.990
craven and heavy. You can't run from the gob-a-lin,
00:20:41.089 --> 00:20:43.849
the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin, I sang and chased him
00:20:43.849 --> 00:20:46.529
round the table. You can't run from the gob-a-lin,
00:20:46.589 --> 00:20:49.529
I'm going to eat your skin. Then he stopped.
00:20:50.490 --> 00:20:53.450
Knowing that I was no longer there and looked
00:20:53.450 --> 00:20:56.630
up at my face and not seeing my face began to
00:20:56.630 --> 00:21:00.730
cry and shake. I knelt down and held him and
00:21:00.730 --> 00:21:04.630
said, I'm sorry, it's just poppa. Was that too
00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:08.490
scary? We won't play that anymore. And he calmed
00:21:08.490 --> 00:21:11.769
a little and said, I don't want him, poppa. Tell
00:21:11.769 --> 00:21:16.390
the gob-a-lin not to come back. When you ask parents
00:21:16.390 --> 00:21:19.609
how they ever raise their children, they will
00:21:19.609 --> 00:21:23.369
often say, half the time I had no idea what I
00:21:23.369 --> 00:21:27.430
was doing. But I think we do know what we are
00:21:27.430 --> 00:21:32.890
doing. And so does the forest, and the dark in
00:21:32.890 --> 00:21:36.210
the forest. and the wind in the dark and the
00:21:36.210 --> 00:21:40.750
beasts, the broken fathers, the angry stepmothers,
00:21:40.910 --> 00:21:47.410
the unconditional bond become errant. Thanks,
00:21:47.490 --> 00:21:51.069
Arji, for reading that. There's a poem of yours
00:21:51.069 --> 00:21:54.589
in your first collection where a character goes
00:21:54.589 --> 00:21:57.089
into Foyle's Bookshop and the shop assistant
00:21:57.089 --> 00:22:00.269
recommends they read Matthew Dickman. And then
00:22:00.269 --> 00:22:03.369
the character's like reading the book. He likes
00:22:03.369 --> 00:22:04.970
it so much, he reads it over and over again.
00:22:05.009 --> 00:22:09.930
So your fandom is evident in your poems. Tell
00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:13.349
us about this poem and what you're getting from
00:22:13.349 --> 00:22:16.390
it. And there's so many things about Matthew
00:22:16.390 --> 00:22:18.990
Dickman that gets people back up. He was the
00:22:18.990 --> 00:22:21.069
Super Bowl poet. He's done all these big scale
00:22:21.069 --> 00:22:25.450
poems. But his level of craft is incredible.
00:22:25.509 --> 00:22:28.890
And actually, it's that jump in between narrative
00:22:28.890 --> 00:22:34.569
and wider metaphor that is so exciting in a similar
00:22:34.569 --> 00:22:37.529
way to someone like Sharon Olds, but probably
00:22:37.529 --> 00:22:41.980
with a slightly different, lighter touch. So
00:22:41.980 --> 00:22:44.960
I think this poem does that really well. It never
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:51.759
really unpacks what is the goblin or how he actually
00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:54.779
became the goblin. He actually becomes the goblin.
00:22:54.779 --> 00:22:58.500
He doesn't say, "I acted like the goblin." Instead,
00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:01.400
he said, "Instead, my body grew like a shadow
00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:05.400
and turned green, craven and heavy. You can't
00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.700
run from the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin,
00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:10.160
I sang and chased him around the table. You can't
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:12.680
run from the gob-a-lin. I'm going to eat your skin."
00:23:13.460 --> 00:23:17.980
So he's really like playing or fulfilling that
00:23:17.980 --> 00:23:21.440
expectation. He terrifies his own child, you
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:24.970
know. Yeah. And then kind of admits that he
00:23:24.970 --> 00:23:26.970
did know what he was doing. That's what's really
00:23:26.970 --> 00:23:28.490
interesting because there's an idea. I mean,
00:23:28.509 --> 00:23:30.650
I think the poem is all about power. It's about
00:23:30.650 --> 00:23:34.049
the power that adults have over children and
00:23:34.049 --> 00:23:37.650
the vulnerability of children. But it would be
00:23:37.650 --> 00:23:39.950
one kind of poem if he said, oh, and then I went
00:23:39.950 --> 00:23:42.690
a bit too far and Owen cried and I sat him on
00:23:42.690 --> 00:23:45.009
my lap and it was all good. There's this whole
00:23:45.009 --> 00:23:48.230
other bit where he says... So you would probably
00:23:48.230 --> 00:23:52.599
say the turn is "when you ask". "When you ask parents
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:54.119
how they ever raised their children, they will
00:23:54.119 --> 00:23:56.839
often say, half the time I had no idea what I
00:23:56.839 --> 00:23:59.339
was doing." Yeah, that bit. Yeah. That bit is
00:23:59.339 --> 00:24:03.579
like, whoa. I know. And then, "but I think we
00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:07.039
do know what we are doing." That admission. So
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:10.039
I guess the admission is saying, I did know I
00:24:10.039 --> 00:24:13.900
was the goblin and I do have the power. That's
00:24:13.900 --> 00:24:15.819
what I love about this book. It's like super
00:24:15.819 --> 00:24:18.180
vulnerable. I agree with you. It's a brilliant
00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:20.740
book. I think it's a brilliant book. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:20.839 --> 00:24:23.799
And he'd written other stuff that was pretty
00:24:23.799 --> 00:24:28.460
heavy and, you know, his other books. And they're
00:24:28.460 --> 00:24:30.819
very, like, academic in that way. But this feels
00:24:30.819 --> 00:24:34.619
kind of personal. And it's also a subject matter
00:24:34.619 --> 00:24:37.960
that isn't written about a lot. So, yeah, when
00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:41.279
he says, and so, "but I think we do know what
00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:44.539
we are doing. And so does the forest. And the
00:24:44.539 --> 00:24:48.019
dark in the forest." I mean. It goes beyond the
00:24:48.019 --> 00:24:50.720
goblin. That's what makes those last eight or
00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:53.720
whatever so cool. Yeah, definitely. And also
00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:58.019
he's calling, I mean, the poem opens with references
00:24:58.019 --> 00:25:00.160
to, you know, children's fairy tales and all
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.019
that kind of stuff. And it goes back to them
00:25:02.019 --> 00:25:04.220
at the end with the "wind in the dark and the
00:25:04.220 --> 00:25:05.960
beasts." But then it brings it down to the really,
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:08.500
you know, the kind of the domestic, the tertiary,
00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:11.380
"the broken fathers, the angry stepmothers." I
00:25:11.380 --> 00:25:13.299
mean, they exist as the angry stepmothers, of
00:25:13.299 --> 00:25:16.049
course, already exist in our culture. but not
00:25:16.049 --> 00:25:18.869
so much the broken fathers, which I think is
00:25:18.869 --> 00:25:23.390
him slightly pointing a finger at himself. I
00:25:23.390 --> 00:25:27.509
know. That's what's so sad about it. You know
00:25:27.509 --> 00:25:32.910
what? Also, errant is the word I had to, when
00:25:32.910 --> 00:25:36.829
I first read it, look it up to sort of... Sort
00:25:36.829 --> 00:25:39.069
of just understand where that word is used, like
00:25:39.069 --> 00:25:41.809
an errant child, like something that's left.
00:25:41.890 --> 00:25:47.009
So "the unconditional bond become errant." So we
00:25:47.009 --> 00:25:49.769
should love our children, perhaps unconditionally.
00:25:50.549 --> 00:25:56.589
Perhaps we just can't sometimes. Yeah, maybe
00:25:56.589 --> 00:26:01.869
sometimes our own power gets the better of us.
00:26:01.910 --> 00:26:05.009
I've definitely, I recognise something. Tell
00:26:05.009 --> 00:26:07.650
me about the power thing. I'm trying to follow
00:26:07.650 --> 00:26:10.430
it. Well, just that when you've got little children,
00:26:10.549 --> 00:26:12.609
you've got incredible power over them and they
00:26:12.609 --> 00:26:15.029
rely on you for everything. You know, it's like
00:26:15.029 --> 00:26:17.549
classic attachment stuff. You know, if they haven't
00:26:17.549 --> 00:26:21.569
got your love, then they don't have shelter.
00:26:21.769 --> 00:26:23.369
They don't have, you know, it's all that. You
00:26:23.369 --> 00:26:27.670
know, will they be able to survive? And there's
00:26:27.670 --> 00:26:30.250
something about that power. It's almost could
00:26:30.250 --> 00:26:32.230
be like walking on a cliff edge, you know, because
00:26:32.230 --> 00:26:35.039
you know you've got it. And how easy it would
00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:40.660
be to abuse it. Yeah. Even in a playing, really,
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:43.500
what he's describing, that game where he maybe
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:46.339
just knows he's going a little bit too far. I
00:26:46.339 --> 00:26:49.619
think the idea that we all know what we're doing
00:26:49.619 --> 00:26:51.519
or we don't know what we're doing as parents
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:53.480
is really interesting here. Because I would say
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:57.660
in my own experience of being a mom, I haven't
00:26:57.660 --> 00:27:00.000
known what I was doing, but I've learned very
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:02.799
quickly. I've learned very quickly, if I could
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:06.500
scare my own son, after I'd experienced that,
00:27:06.579 --> 00:27:08.880
I hope I wouldn't want to do it again. But there's
00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:13.339
just the sense of how power can go wrong here.
00:27:13.619 --> 00:27:18.640
Yeah, and how power can poison us. So perhaps
00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:23.720
sometimes people can let the power, what you
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:26.500
described there, the responsibility go beyond
00:27:27.390 --> 00:27:30.650
what is safe and fair for a child. And then we
00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:32.750
say, "oh, you know, most of the time I didn't
00:27:32.750 --> 00:27:35.289
really know what I was doing or..." Yeah, to absolve
00:27:35.289 --> 00:27:37.890
ourselves of it. Exactly. Yeah, to absolve. Because
00:27:37.890 --> 00:27:39.990
we don't want to face up to the reality that
00:27:39.990 --> 00:27:44.230
we did it. You're right, though, to point out
00:27:44.230 --> 00:27:46.609
the stories at the beginning, though, because
00:27:46.609 --> 00:27:49.750
I hadn't thought... I mean, one thing is the
00:27:49.750 --> 00:27:52.970
circle that leads us back at the end. Yeah. And
00:27:52.970 --> 00:27:57.259
Dickman's like pretty... like that's sort of
00:27:57.259 --> 00:28:00.920
a go -to is swinging it back at the end but
00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:04.420
you're right the broken father or angry stepmother
00:28:04.420 --> 00:28:07.259
marched off to be fed into the mouth of a dark
00:28:07.259 --> 00:28:11.640
wood is beginning the poem as a myth and then
00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:15.000
it's almost to say it's not a myth like none
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:17.920
of those are myths the dark forest exists and
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:22.019
whenever we want to we can pull our most loved
00:28:22.019 --> 00:28:24.779
into that dark forest. Yeah, it's like he pulls
00:28:24.779 --> 00:28:28.539
the kind of mythology, the fairy tales, sinister
00:28:28.539 --> 00:28:31.559
fairy tales from the forest right into his kitchen
00:28:31.559 --> 00:28:35.500
in that moment where he's playing with his son.
00:28:35.799 --> 00:28:39.119
I also like the way in the first section of the
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:43.380
poem when he's kind of re -narrating, you know,
00:28:43.380 --> 00:28:45.559
"in others they survive but must kill a witch
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:47.900
or an animal in order to live." And then it's
00:28:47.900 --> 00:28:50.240
almost like in parentheses, "which is to be fair,
00:28:50.339 --> 00:28:53.160
a different kind of death, but a death all the
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:56.259
same." He's sort of trying to, I think, say, you
00:28:56.259 --> 00:28:59.039
know, these fairy tales where someone needs to
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:01.839
be slain and the children are part of that are
00:29:01.839 --> 00:29:05.680
actually stories of real trauma. It's never talked
00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:07.859
about, you know, it's not. Yeah, that's true.
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:12.700
It is a mad set of myths and fairy tales. I mean,
00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:16.150
now it's changing a little bit. But still written
00:29:16.150 --> 00:29:21.329
into them is the basic understanding that there
00:29:21.329 --> 00:29:24.230
is danger out there, there is darkness, you know,
00:29:24.230 --> 00:29:28.609
and if you go too close to it, you'll be pulled
00:29:28.609 --> 00:29:31.589
in or whatever. Exactly. So it's all really about
00:29:31.589 --> 00:29:33.390
a kind of, you know, in a very simple way, it's
00:29:33.390 --> 00:29:35.930
a kind of stay in your lane. It's a sort of conform
00:29:35.930 --> 00:29:41.289
doctrine. Yeah. Where... Women particularly are
00:29:41.289 --> 00:29:44.509
posited as being scary and dangerous. But what's
00:29:44.509 --> 00:29:46.910
more dangerous, the forest or the broken fathers
00:29:46.910 --> 00:29:50.369
and the angry stepmothers? Yeah, I think that's
00:29:50.369 --> 00:29:53.130
a big shift, that ending. But you know what?
00:29:53.170 --> 00:29:55.849
A really strange bit is after where we've just
00:29:55.849 --> 00:29:59.950
been. So "imagine the fog around their small ankles
00:29:59.950 --> 00:30:04.970
like a shoreline in the dark," which is... a wild
00:30:04.970 --> 00:30:08.109
thing it's like "a shoreline in the dark" it's
00:30:08.109 --> 00:30:11.809
like a major shadow "imagine how cold their skin
00:30:11.809 --> 00:30:14.410
would be beneath the thin overcoats of their
00:30:14.410 --> 00:30:18.950
night shirts" it's just so you're right to say
00:30:18.950 --> 00:30:22.130
it's almost like the poem is stepping into a
00:30:22.130 --> 00:30:25.319
darker part of the forest or whatever "The little
00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:27.579
heat the parents are giving off beginning to
00:30:27.579 --> 00:30:30.500
dissipate like dew as the children take that
00:30:30.500 --> 00:30:33.680
last step into the copse of trees and are swallowed
00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:36.859
up." Yeah, he really lingers there in that moment,
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:38.660
doesn't he? He really lingers there. And it's
00:30:38.660 --> 00:30:41.980
a very sort of kind of gothic, almost horror
00:30:41.980 --> 00:30:45.160
film image. And then he does such a brilliant
00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:49.220
swing. Yesterday, Owen was riding his red radio
00:30:49.220 --> 00:30:52.279
flyer tricycle. Yeah, that is so sweet, isn't
00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:54.519
it? "There are so many ways to eat the young."
00:30:54.910 --> 00:30:58.390
So blasé about that and then "yesterday Owen was
00:30:58.390 --> 00:31:01.549
riding..." oh my gosh yeah and he just gets completely
00:31:01.549 --> 00:31:03.630
carried away with it you know ending with that
00:31:03.630 --> 00:31:06.910
"I'm going to eat your skin" yeah and I think this
00:31:06.910 --> 00:31:09.630
son at this point is like very young yeah and
00:31:09.630 --> 00:31:13.190
then that just that line "knowing that I was no
00:31:13.190 --> 00:31:16.430
longer there and he looked up at my face and
00:31:16.430 --> 00:31:20.569
not seeing my face began to cry." So this sort
00:31:20.569 --> 00:31:23.329
of the fear of the child that the father was
00:31:23.329 --> 00:31:26.109
completely absent in his own body and his role.
00:31:26.410 --> 00:31:30.130
Oh, yeah. Not seeing my face is such a deep thing.
00:31:30.210 --> 00:31:31.789
You know, when you're really angry, you've got
00:31:31.789 --> 00:31:34.849
road rage. And I'm like, "what the f-ck ?!" I'm shouting.
00:31:35.009 --> 00:31:37.349
And then I look back at my child and she's seen
00:31:37.349 --> 00:31:40.970
me like that. Oh, my gosh, you're failing. Yeah,
00:31:41.029 --> 00:31:42.829
I've definitely had a few moments. You know what
00:31:42.829 --> 00:31:45.670
I mean? You're like, ugh!. Yeah, I've definitely
00:31:45.670 --> 00:31:47.230
had those moments with my son. And it's probably
00:31:47.230 --> 00:31:50.109
important that. children do see their parents
00:31:50.109 --> 00:31:52.690
safely experiencing a full range of emotions
00:31:52.690 --> 00:31:55.289
yeah it's true I can't be sure that i've always
00:31:55.289 --> 00:31:57.269
been that safe but I can't be skipping around
00:31:57.269 --> 00:32:00.210
like Mary Poppins all the time I'm a poet for
00:32:00.210 --> 00:32:03.190
god's sake. No exactly I mean maybe that's part
00:32:03.190 --> 00:32:07.369
of it in it and also we know he's extremely successful
00:32:07.369 --> 00:32:11.190
and that can be really difficult .I mean we don't
00:32:11.190 --> 00:32:14.019
see those parts you know I just found the whole
00:32:14.019 --> 00:32:15.420
book brilliant. I thought it was fascinating.
00:32:16.259 --> 00:32:19.259
And I've really enjoyed talking to you about
00:32:19.259 --> 00:32:21.539
it, Arji. We should probably be wrapping up now.
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:24.900
But before we finish, I need to ask you, what
00:32:24.900 --> 00:32:26.720
are you working on now? I mean, I know you're
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:29.759
working on your poetry collection. You seem to
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:31.670
me like one of the... busiest men in poetry.
00:32:31.890 --> 00:32:34.529
Is that true? I am. I mean, I've got a lot of
00:32:34.529 --> 00:32:37.029
things. They don't always burn at the right time.
00:32:37.250 --> 00:32:40.829
So I am a theorist of if you chuck loads of stuff
00:32:40.829 --> 00:32:43.650
at the wall, something will happen. So I've got
00:32:43.650 --> 00:32:47.549
a... I've actually got a graphic novel on fatherhood,
00:32:47.670 --> 00:32:49.690
which is like three quarters of the way. It's
00:32:49.690 --> 00:32:52.309
got some poems in it. Oh, mad. Which is really
00:32:52.309 --> 00:32:54.930
cool. Oh, it sounds brilliant. Yeah, it's really
00:32:54.930 --> 00:33:00.539
mad. And then I've got a... poetry how -to guide
00:33:00.539 --> 00:33:03.759
for young people which is like horrible histories
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:06.920
but it's for poems. That's probably the most sellable
00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:10.019
thing i've ever created in my life. Sounds fantastic.
00:33:10.019 --> 00:33:13.640
So those two things are in the motion and then
00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:16.740
I'm doing a baby show so there's a player here
00:33:16.740 --> 00:33:20.569
called the Yoto player. So we've made some poems
00:33:20.569 --> 00:33:25.069
and some songs for babies and their parents so
00:33:25.069 --> 00:33:27.309
there's a lot of different things for different
00:33:27.309 --> 00:33:30.029
age groups. You've got a goblin song in there?
00:33:30.029 --> 00:33:35.910
Not yet. Gonna eat your skin? Not yet. That's one
00:33:35.910 --> 00:33:39.089
to think about. Yes we've got the tickle monster
00:33:39.089 --> 00:33:41.470
actually that's the closest we've got.
00:33:41.470 --> 00:33:44.569
Sounds much much more pleasant okay Arji Manuelpillai
00:33:44.569 --> 00:33:46.490
it was great to talk to you today. Thanks for
00:33:46.490 --> 00:33:56.049
joining me on The Glimpse. Thank you so much. Thanks
00:33:56.049 --> 00:33:58.609
for joining us today. I'm your host, Hannah Lowe.
00:33:59.329 --> 00:34:02.690
Arji's poem, The Crocodile, was used with his permission.
00:34:03.589 --> 00:34:06.710
Matthew Dickman's poem, Goblin, is from Husbandry,
00:34:06.849 --> 00:34:10.309
published by W .W. Norton and Company, copyright
00:34:10.309 --> 00:34:16.239
2022, and was used with his permission. Coming
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:19.460
up next week, Menna Elfyn talks about the politics
00:34:19.460 --> 00:34:22.380
of writing in Welsh, why translators deserve
00:34:22.380 --> 00:34:25.039
more recognition, and the power and humility
00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:29.840
that comes with embracing another language. Make
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:32.260
sure to subscribe to The Glimpse wherever you
00:34:32.260 --> 00:34:35.079
get your podcasts. You can also find episodes
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:39.179
on our website, brinkerhoffpoetry .org slash podcast.
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:43.099
We'd also love to hear from you. Drop us an email
00:34:43.099 --> 00:34:47.500
at theglimpsepoetrypodcast at gmail .com. The
00:34:47.500 --> 00:34:50.219
Glimpse is a production of the Adrian Brinkerhoff
00:34:50.219 --> 00:34:53.400
Poetry Foundation. I'm your host, Hannah Lowe.
00:34:53.619 --> 00:34:57.369
Our senior producer is Jennifer Wolfe. Kat Yore
00:34:57.369 --> 00:34:59.809
is our technical director and mixing engineer.
00:35:00.590 --> 00:35:03.769
Editorial director Amanda Glassman is our curator
00:35:03.769 --> 00:35:07.429
and production coordinator. Amy Holmes is the
00:35:07.429 --> 00:35:10.869
foundation's executive director. And our co -founders
00:35:10.869 --> 00:35:14.250
are Cathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks for listening.
00:00:05.450 --> 00:00:09.710
There is a mad set of myths and fairy tales. I mean,
00:00:09.730 --> 00:00:13.130
now it's changing a little bit, but still written
00:00:13.130 --> 00:00:17.089
into them is the basic understanding that there
00:00:17.089 --> 00:00:19.989
is danger out there, there is darkness, you know,
00:00:19.989 --> 00:00:23.210
and if you go too close to it, you'll be pulled
00:00:23.210 --> 00:00:29.089
in or whatever. Welcome to The Glimpse. I'm your
00:00:29.089 --> 00:00:32.560
host, Hannah Lowe. Arji Manuelpillai is a
00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:35.579
poet, a podcast host, a performer and a creative
00:00:35.579 --> 00:00:38.840
facilitator. His first collection, Improvised
00:00:38.840 --> 00:00:41.119
Explosive Device, was shortlisted for the Derek
00:00:41.119 --> 00:00:44.320
Walcott Prize. He's created poems for organisations
00:00:44.320 --> 00:00:47.600
including the Baring Foundation, Wedgwood and
00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:49.579
was asked to write for the Princess of Wales.
00:00:50.020 --> 00:00:53.140
Arji Manuelpillai is our guest today on The
00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:58.490
Glimpse. Arji Manuelpillai's poems are electric,
00:00:58.850 --> 00:01:01.950
tender and charged with performance. There is
00:01:01.950 --> 00:01:04.810
a fearless openness in his work, a willingness
00:01:04.810 --> 00:01:07.969
to inhabit vulnerability, while also questioning
00:01:07.969 --> 00:01:10.670
the narratives that shape us: of masculinity,
00:01:11.129 --> 00:01:15.969
race, family and belonging. Arji draws on the textures
00:01:15.969 --> 00:01:19.049
of everyday life and transforms them into something
00:01:19.049 --> 00:01:22.409
vivid and communal, poems that feel as alive
00:01:22.409 --> 00:01:25.829
on the page as they do in the room. These are
00:01:25.829 --> 00:01:29.250
poems that invite us in, disarm us and stay with
00:01:29.250 --> 00:01:33.049
us, full of heart, sharp insight and a deep generosity
00:01:33.049 --> 00:01:36.469
of spirit. I'm so glad to have him here on The
00:01:36.469 --> 00:01:40.230
Glimpse with us. Arji, welcome. I hear you've been
00:01:40.230 --> 00:01:43.349
writing for the Princess of Wales. You've got
00:01:43.349 --> 00:01:46.250
to start with that one, Arji. You met the Princess
00:01:46.250 --> 00:01:51.609
of Wales and wrote a poem for her, to her. Yeah,
00:01:51.609 --> 00:01:55.359
it was actually... For her and with her. Was
00:01:55.359 --> 00:01:57.620
it with her? Yeah, it was a little bit with her.
00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:00.640
I mean, I say that very loosely. And one of the
00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:02.900
interesting things about working with the Princess
00:02:02.900 --> 00:02:08.039
of Wales was there's a lot of myth and wonder
00:02:08.039 --> 00:02:11.419
that surrounds the Princess of Wales. So I did
00:02:11.419 --> 00:02:13.319
a lot of interviews about it. And they always
00:02:13.319 --> 00:02:15.840
said, like, you can't say too much about the
00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:17.900
time that you spent with the Princess of Wales.
00:02:20.080 --> 00:02:23.099
I mean, obviously, I can tell you, I didn't spend
00:02:23.099 --> 00:02:25.879
that much time with her. How long did you spend
00:02:25.879 --> 00:02:28.060
with the Princess of Wales, like in minutes?
00:02:29.259 --> 00:02:33.800
About 25 minutes. Yeah, I mean, most people have
00:02:33.800 --> 00:02:36.360
not had that experience. No, exactly. And the
00:02:36.360 --> 00:02:38.199
best thing was that when the Princess of Wales
00:02:38.199 --> 00:02:41.400
met me, she walked up and she was like, Arji!
00:02:42.159 --> 00:02:45.860
That was the best thing about it. Because she
00:02:45.860 --> 00:02:48.539
actually knew my name. I was like, oh my gosh,
00:02:48.639 --> 00:02:52.120
she knows my name. It was mad. It was mad. Yeah,
00:02:52.139 --> 00:02:54.139
totally mad. So that's because you were poet
00:02:54.139 --> 00:02:57.360
in residence at the Arboretum. Yeah, the National
00:02:57.360 --> 00:03:00.659
Memorial Arboretum. And I just watched a video
00:03:00.659 --> 00:03:04.860
of you, the Princess of Wales poem. yeah you'd
00:03:04.860 --> 00:03:07.620
well smartened up for that video I bought a suit
00:03:07.620 --> 00:03:10.599
that was the first suit I've ever bought new
00:03:10.599 --> 00:03:16.159
and um yeah you're looking good and a tie I know
00:03:16.159 --> 00:03:18.379
and I met a guy you know when you meet a salesman
00:03:18.379 --> 00:03:21.520
and you're like this guy knows stuff so I just
00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:24.340
said to him like kick me out I don't care what
00:03:24.340 --> 00:03:26.340
it costs like I'm going to meet the Princess
00:03:26.340 --> 00:03:28.919
of Wales you need to sort it out. So he just sorted
00:03:28.919 --> 00:03:33.050
me this outfit out and then um Yeah, and then
00:03:33.050 --> 00:03:35.229
it was a whole thing. But the writing of it as
00:03:35.229 --> 00:03:39.449
well was, it was a real moment. Not really so
00:03:39.449 --> 00:03:41.409
much. It was a big moment for me, but it was
00:03:41.409 --> 00:03:43.210
a big moment for my parents. Because for the
00:03:43.210 --> 00:03:47.370
first time, they actually had heard of the person
00:03:47.370 --> 00:03:52.210
I was writing the poem for. So my mom rang up.
00:03:52.250 --> 00:03:54.330
She was like weeping on the phone. She was so
00:03:54.330 --> 00:03:58.009
proud. It was a big thing in the Sri Lankan
00:03:58.009 --> 00:04:00.270
community, it was massive. Yeah, I bet she rang
00:04:00.270 --> 00:04:01.750
you and then she's going through her phone book,
00:04:01.830 --> 00:04:04.430
phoning all her friends as well to tell them.
00:04:05.210 --> 00:04:10.509
Hannah, before that, I'll tell you, I was a blip
00:04:10.509 --> 00:04:14.490
in the Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora community. After
00:04:14.490 --> 00:04:18.189
that, I had made the whole community proud. Oh,
00:04:18.189 --> 00:04:21.189
that's amazing. You're the main man. It's incredible.
00:04:21.870 --> 00:04:24.350
So long may that last. I don't know how long
00:04:24.350 --> 00:04:27.209
that lasts. That could last forever, I feel.
00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:30.740
It's definitely one that goes on the bio, doesn't
00:04:30.740 --> 00:04:33.319
it? So that's positive. Yeah, it's got to go
00:04:33.319 --> 00:04:34.779
on the bio. You know, I was thinking about you
00:04:34.779 --> 00:04:36.519
and commissions because you do quite a lot of
00:04:36.519 --> 00:04:39.420
them. And I was thinking, do you feel like under
00:04:39.420 --> 00:04:42.300
that pressure that I, well, I know you do because
00:04:42.300 --> 00:04:44.720
you actually told me and I put in a poem, it's
00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:47.560
like full disclosure. I remember you once saying
00:04:47.560 --> 00:04:49.699
to me, at Arvon, you were a poet in residence
00:04:49.699 --> 00:04:52.300
at Wedgwood. And you said, like, what
00:04:52.300 --> 00:04:54.759
do I know about Wedgwood? Yeah. Which is like
00:04:54.759 --> 00:04:57.399
a pottery factory. And at the time I was doing
00:04:57.399 --> 00:05:00.160
a commission about Chinese wallpaper. And I was
00:05:00.160 --> 00:05:02.180
like, yeah, like, what do I know about Chinese
00:05:02.180 --> 00:05:04.079
wallpaper? I was really glad of the commission.
00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:06.160
But do you ever get that kind of like, okay,
00:05:06.180 --> 00:05:07.920
I've done all the research. I've spoken to the
00:05:07.920 --> 00:05:10.560
right people. I've got the whole thing going
00:05:10.560 --> 00:05:12.439
on, but now I've got to write a poem. It's quite
00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:15.759
hard. It is quite hard. But you know what? This
00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:20.819
time, this time at the Arboretum, I felt a level
00:05:20.819 --> 00:05:27.069
of calm about it of certainty or self -confidence
00:05:27.069 --> 00:05:29.649
Yeah I reckon you've got the confidence and that's
00:05:29.649 --> 00:05:31.649
exactly the right place to be when you're writing
00:05:31.649 --> 00:05:35.209
a poem with yeah the Princess of Wales that's
00:05:35.209 --> 00:05:37.550
I mean you know what i was in Great Yarmouth
00:05:37.550 --> 00:05:41.730
which was in winter is one of the most dilapidated
00:05:41.730 --> 00:05:45.970
seaside towns of England And I don't think it's
00:05:45.970 --> 00:05:48.089
an insult to Great Yarmouth. There's a big crack
00:05:48.089 --> 00:05:51.629
problem there. It's a lot of alcoholism. And
00:05:51.629 --> 00:05:54.410
I was there and I was doing a five -day project
00:05:54.410 --> 00:05:58.850
in schools when they rang up. So then I said,
00:05:58.949 --> 00:06:01.990
oh, I've got this five days in schools. And they
00:06:01.990 --> 00:06:03.949
said, well, just take one day off and say it's
00:06:03.949 --> 00:06:10.519
by royal appointment. No. So, yeah. See you later,
00:06:10.579 --> 00:06:14.500
great Yarmouth. Exactly. So I spent one day, so I
00:06:14.500 --> 00:06:17.860
basically had 24 hours to knock a few drafts
00:06:17.860 --> 00:06:21.980
together. And I did the process, you know, like
00:06:21.980 --> 00:06:27.139
running, stretching, drinking. smoking like all
00:06:27.139 --> 00:06:31.439
of these different levels to make something happen
00:06:31.439 --> 00:06:34.839
and sure enough it did so maybe it's not being
00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:38.040
confident in what I do it's being confident within
00:06:38.040 --> 00:06:40.600
the process of doing it. You know, confidence in
00:06:40.600 --> 00:06:44.120
the process I mean it's also being able to keep
00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:47.000
an eye on it you know like watch what works because
00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:49.740
our processes are always changing so that's interesting
00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:53.779
as well. But we need to hear your poem and then
00:06:53.779 --> 00:06:57.079
talk about its composition, how it came to you.
00:06:57.319 --> 00:06:59.579
So you're going to read it for us, The Crocodile?
00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:03.660
Yeah, I'll read this poem called The Crocodile.
00:07:03.720 --> 00:07:09.399
It's from a new collection that I'm currently
00:07:09.399 --> 00:07:13.939
sort of finished slash working on. The Crocodile
00:07:13.939 --> 00:07:18.639
is prehistorically violent. So a daughter going
00:07:18.639 --> 00:07:21.839
drinking shouldn't walk past a particular swamp
00:07:21.839 --> 00:07:26.240
at a particular time. The father says that would
00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:29.660
be as good as asking for it, but... There's a
00:07:29.660 --> 00:07:32.120
town somewhere in Africa, the daughter replies,
00:07:32.500 --> 00:07:36.660
where crocs live with people. In and out of houses,
00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:39.920
they feed them so the crocs no longer want to
00:07:39.920 --> 00:07:43.740
eat them. The daughter slams the door like she's
00:07:43.740 --> 00:07:47.769
holding nine pints of meat. And what father wouldn't
00:07:47.769 --> 00:07:51.389
be anxious unable to sit still? What father
00:07:51.389 --> 00:07:55.490
wouldn't drive to the bar to watch? No one knows
00:07:55.490 --> 00:07:59.790
crocodiles like crocodiles. All those teeth through
00:07:59.790 --> 00:08:02.910
the jawline like a child's eyes through its fingers.
00:08:03.189 --> 00:08:06.990
The leather-bag-backs shining till the ridges
00:08:06.990 --> 00:08:11.129
look like claws. The daughter won't ever find
00:08:11.129 --> 00:08:14.370
out about the hours he sat there on the corner.
00:08:14.829 --> 00:08:18.750
watching his little girl grow into a woman, remembering
00:08:18.750 --> 00:08:23.870
what he is and what she has now become. And his
00:08:23.870 --> 00:08:27.410
daughter won't ever find out about another woman.
00:08:27.589 --> 00:08:31.050
on the same road, in and out of another building,
00:08:31.069 --> 00:08:35.149
Another beautiful woman who he can't take his
00:08:35.149 --> 00:08:38.870
eyes off, leaning into cars like drivers were
00:08:38.870 --> 00:08:43.029
taking tiny bites from her breasts. And in the
00:08:43.029 --> 00:08:46.879
doorway another man of the same age watching.
00:08:47.840 --> 00:08:51.740
The door behind him heavy enough to crack a leg
00:08:51.740 --> 00:08:56.299
open. Wow, thanks, Arji. This poem is like, it
00:08:56.299 --> 00:08:59.820
just takes you from like, I mean, I smell a rat
00:08:59.820 --> 00:09:03.220
the moment the line "that would be as good as
00:09:03.220 --> 00:09:06.179
asking for it" arrived. That's like in the third
00:09:06.179 --> 00:09:08.500
line of the poem. But it takes you to like very
00:09:08.500 --> 00:09:12.450
unexpected. Although there's also a kind of sense
00:09:12.450 --> 00:09:15.049
of inevitability about it. So tell me, how did
00:09:15.049 --> 00:09:17.210
it come to you? Did you think, OK, I'm going
00:09:17.210 --> 00:09:19.610
to take this extended metaphor, the crocodile,
00:09:19.730 --> 00:09:22.710
I'm going to make the crocodile. Well, I'm sort
00:09:22.710 --> 00:09:26.950
of presuming the crocodile is substituting for
00:09:26.950 --> 00:09:29.889
a certain kind of man. Have I got that right?
00:09:30.509 --> 00:09:33.669
Yeah, I would say that that is true. I mean,
00:09:33.690 --> 00:09:36.070
I don't even know certain kind of man or every
00:09:36.070 --> 00:09:38.779
man. Well, I didn't want to say that. yeah yeah
00:09:38.779 --> 00:09:43.659
obviously I mean yeah one thing I love to do
00:09:43.659 --> 00:09:47.279
is like go down rabbit holes I think poets share
00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:51.059
this like rabbit holes of factual stuff about
00:09:51.059 --> 00:09:56.919
animals or about natural wonder and then take
00:09:56.919 --> 00:10:01.539
those and sort of digest them and write about
00:10:01.539 --> 00:10:04.379
them and then see how that speaks to something
00:10:04.379 --> 00:10:09.100
else so basically like the building of a big
00:10:09.100 --> 00:10:12.580
metaphor and the metaphor is like a super intimate
00:10:12.580 --> 00:10:16.019
thing in many ways and it's almost at the center
00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:18.659
of poems because it's saying like here's one
00:10:18.659 --> 00:10:21.139
thing and here's another thing and then by the
00:10:21.139 --> 00:10:24.139
end of the poem you suddenly realize oh they're
00:10:24.139 --> 00:10:27.759
quite similar you know so in this it's all
00:10:27.759 --> 00:10:31.000
about finding the connections between the crocodiles
00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:34.899
and the father but there is actually a town in
00:10:35.480 --> 00:10:38.779
Ghana where the crocodiles roam in and out people's
00:10:38.779 --> 00:10:42.379
houses. So it's interesting to read it when if
00:10:42.379 --> 00:10:45.259
if the crocodiles are men because in that town
00:10:45.259 --> 00:10:48.679
and you say in Africa but maybe Ghana it's like
00:10:48.679 --> 00:10:51.840
where men live with people in and out of houses
00:10:51.840 --> 00:10:55.539
and they feed them so the men no longer want
00:10:55.539 --> 00:10:58.179
to eat them That's kind of blowing my mind. I
00:10:58.179 --> 00:11:00.000
was trying to map that, you know, the two parts
00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:02.059
of the metaphor, the tenor and the vehicle. I
00:11:02.059 --> 00:11:04.960
was like, how much do you want us to, you know,
00:11:04.960 --> 00:11:07.360
stick to that? There was a little bit more flexibility.
00:11:08.139 --> 00:11:12.460
And it feels a bit unfair to Ghanaians. But if
00:11:12.460 --> 00:11:15.059
we were to take Africa and Ghana out of this
00:11:15.059 --> 00:11:17.200
poem, like because partly I didn't choose to
00:11:17.200 --> 00:11:19.179
put the word Ghana in there for this reason,
00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:23.779
is that, well, it's talking about to what extent.
00:11:24.360 --> 00:11:28.879
Do we feed hungry men? So do we provide porn?
00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:33.120
Do we legalise prostitution? Do you know all
00:11:33.120 --> 00:11:37.360
the acceptance of that? Because if we are feeding
00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:39.879
them, to what extent will that stop violence
00:11:39.879 --> 00:11:42.279
against women in real life? Do you know what
00:11:42.279 --> 00:11:44.960
I mean? Those are the questions it's posing as
00:11:44.960 --> 00:11:47.779
opposed to me saying, this is what I think. Yeah,
00:11:47.799 --> 00:11:50.159
and maybe not even just violence against women,
00:11:50.220 --> 00:11:52.950
but just a kind of crossing of boundaries. with
00:11:52.950 --> 00:11:55.529
with women but that's what it it felt like to
00:11:55.529 --> 00:11:57.970
me. T he daughter is like quite kick -ass that
00:11:57.970 --> 00:12:00.129
line there that the daughter slams the door like
00:12:00.129 --> 00:12:04.330
she's holding nine pints of meat she's like feisty
00:12:04.330 --> 00:12:06.570
in this poem and yet there's quite a lot of the
00:12:06.570 --> 00:12:08.370
suggestion that she doesn't really know what's
00:12:08.370 --> 00:12:11.009
going on in the world. Do you think she's feisty
00:12:11.009 --> 00:12:15.730
because I thought the nine pints of meat is alluring
00:12:15.730 --> 00:12:20.779
to the crocodile so really in my mind the daughter
00:12:20.779 --> 00:12:22.500
was slamming the door like she's holding nine
00:12:22.500 --> 00:12:25.059
pints of meat. The dad is thinking like, you're
00:12:25.059 --> 00:12:28.519
not going out like that, that sort of vibe. Well,
00:12:28.580 --> 00:12:30.899
the daughter kind of embodies that sort of, yeah,
00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:34.240
like feisty energy of a teenage girl who doesn't
00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:37.440
care what her dad says. So there's a sort of,
00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:40.320
yeah, there's a kind of feeling of risk, like
00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:42.759
she doesn't know what the world is that she's
00:12:42.759 --> 00:12:44.820
entering. She doesn't know everything about that
00:12:44.820 --> 00:12:48.940
world. Oh, yeah, completely. And also... And
00:12:48.940 --> 00:12:50.960
no one knows crocodiles like crocodiles. The
00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:54.779
dad knows. I mean, I've got a daughter. I haven't
00:12:54.779 --> 00:12:58.059
come to that stage. She's only five. But there
00:12:58.059 --> 00:13:02.600
is a fear. And I think the fear is what we remember
00:13:02.600 --> 00:13:07.120
what it is to be a teenager. It's grim. Yes, it's
00:13:07.120 --> 00:13:10.799
the Wild West. It's grim, man. But from the middle
00:13:10.799 --> 00:13:13.679
onwards, from that line, no one knows crocodiles
00:13:13.679 --> 00:13:16.639
like crocodiles. That's so kind of... unexpected
00:13:16.639 --> 00:13:19.320
it was unexpected and inevitable because basically
00:13:19.320 --> 00:13:24.340
as you say the guy is then out watching another
00:13:24.340 --> 00:13:26.620
woman and the poem really opens up into a bit
00:13:26.620 --> 00:13:29.899
a different world, yeah like it moves away from
00:13:29.899 --> 00:13:32.700
the father -daughter relationship yeah for sure
00:13:32.700 --> 00:13:36.000
I think even though the father's observing
00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:39.700
the daughter he's also observing the other woman
00:13:39.700 --> 00:13:42.460
who's leaning in and out of cars so possibly
00:13:42.460 --> 00:13:45.559
some sort of prostitute or escort, and some other
00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:50.259
man is watching that woman. So the question is,
00:13:50.259 --> 00:13:53.360
is like the differences in relationship there,
00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:57.080
the feeling of ownership, how it is being used
00:13:57.080 --> 00:14:00.419
in different predicaments, is really interesting
00:14:00.419 --> 00:14:04.860
to me. Yeah, this strong feeling of voyeurism,
00:14:04.860 --> 00:14:08.059
obviously, with all the kind of watching. But
00:14:08.059 --> 00:14:10.460
it's also about what is the power of the look?
00:14:10.659 --> 00:14:13.279
Where does it sit on the trajectory between harmless
00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:18.320
and harmful? Yeah. And I think this is so interesting
00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:21.360
at the moment because now with AI and stuff,
00:14:21.480 --> 00:14:26.480
it really shifts how we look, our relationship
00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.539
with being voyeurs, like looking at something.
00:14:29.659 --> 00:14:31.799
Because in this poem, they're looking in real
00:14:31.799 --> 00:14:34.659
life. But now we're looking at things that might
00:14:34.659 --> 00:14:38.070
not even be the real person. Yeah, absolutely.
00:14:38.389 --> 00:14:41.570
And also, I do think the world is changing. Like
00:14:41.570 --> 00:14:44.009
AI has opened everything up and now like anything
00:14:44.009 --> 00:14:45.950
is possible and you can basically look at anything
00:14:45.950 --> 00:14:47.909
and you can also create the sorts of things that
00:14:47.909 --> 00:14:50.549
you want to look at, whatever your cup of tea
00:14:50.549 --> 00:14:54.669
is. Where does that leave poetry? I mean, when
00:14:54.669 --> 00:14:57.509
everything is being edited, so photos are being
00:14:57.509 --> 00:14:59.970
changed, words are being changed, they go through
00:14:59.970 --> 00:15:02.730
ChatGPT and then it comes out the other side.
00:15:02.929 --> 00:15:06.440
Loads of students are using it. It's a big responsibility
00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:10.460
not to cheat. Yeah. You know. Absolutely. In
00:15:10.460 --> 00:15:14.460
my investigations to AI, that AI cannot write...
00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:18.919
Good poems. Yeah. It can't yet. It can't yet
00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:20.379
because it doesn't have a human sensibility.
00:15:20.440 --> 00:15:24.360
It can't make the millions of different connections
00:15:24.360 --> 00:15:27.399
that a human brain would idiosyncratically make.
00:15:27.840 --> 00:15:31.059
No, that's true. But back to your poem, right?
00:15:31.139 --> 00:15:33.320
Because in a way, your poem is sort of touching
00:15:33.320 --> 00:15:37.000
on... Ideas of morality and people's moral conduct
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:40.679
and our moral consciousness, right? So each person
00:15:40.679 --> 00:15:43.740
is responsible for their own conduct and their
00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:45.460
own, you know, the kind of moral composer of
00:15:45.460 --> 00:15:48.279
each individual. So the idea of like good and
00:15:48.279 --> 00:15:52.320
bad in this poem is quite tricksy, right? Because
00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:54.940
the father ostensibly is being a good protective
00:15:54.940 --> 00:15:57.379
father, you know, on the terms of what a good
00:15:57.379 --> 00:16:02.429
man is in patriarchy. But he's also... participating
00:16:02.429 --> 00:16:08.129
voyeurism he's spectating. It's just a suggestion.
00:16:08.129 --> 00:16:11.009
It's all in the white space I think. And the ending
00:16:11.009 --> 00:16:13.190
of the poem I really want to talk to you about
00:16:13.190 --> 00:16:16.190
that because I didn't quite know what was being
00:16:16.190 --> 00:16:20.269
said but I liked it. It's ominous, it's visceral,
00:16:20.269 --> 00:16:23.389
physical so you've got the idea it's like the
00:16:23.389 --> 00:16:26.009
last two lines really it's the introduction of
00:16:26.009 --> 00:16:28.629
the other man watching and but it's
00:16:28.629 --> 00:16:31.169
not the man, it's the door behind him that's
00:16:31.169 --> 00:16:34.330
heavy enough to crack a leg open. I just wondered,
00:16:34.429 --> 00:16:36.870
you know, what your intention is with that ending.
00:16:37.350 --> 00:16:40.950
Yeah, I've always been uncertain. It's been about
00:16:40.950 --> 00:16:44.169
50 -50 on that line when I ask people about it.
00:16:44.509 --> 00:16:47.129
One is like the cracking of the leg open means
00:16:47.129 --> 00:16:51.350
something is being forced. And two is the darkness
00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:55.519
of, the ominousness of the door itself. And it's
00:16:55.519 --> 00:16:58.820
those big heavy doors like you get in escort
00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:01.799
or brothel houses or whatever. So that's sort
00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:04.839
of weight of it. But yeah, I have often thought
00:17:04.839 --> 00:17:07.539
what image to hold right at the end. Because
00:17:07.539 --> 00:17:10.359
actually probably the most important image is
00:17:10.359 --> 00:17:13.519
of the man watching. So everyone is watching
00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:16.940
something because the theme of voyeurism is probably
00:17:16.940 --> 00:17:19.980
the most powerful movement in the whole poem.
00:17:20.759 --> 00:17:22.480
Yeah, I mean, we're not going to do any live
00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:26.690
editing of your poem. No, no, no. But I think
00:17:26.690 --> 00:17:30.869
for me it had sexual resonances. I love the ending
00:17:30.869 --> 00:17:33.210
because it's well ambiguous. It's definitely
00:17:33.210 --> 00:17:36.170
ominous. It's sinister. Yeah, I hear you. The
00:17:36.170 --> 00:17:38.730
poem sort of gets more and more sinister as it
00:17:38.730 --> 00:17:42.009
goes through. Yeah. This poem is very new and
00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:44.150
fresh and I can't wait to read the collection. But
00:17:45.720 --> 00:17:48.880
on the kind of idea of the forest and what lurks
00:17:48.880 --> 00:17:51.380
within it, we'll take a break now. And after
00:17:51.380 --> 00:17:53.240
the break, we'll come back and be talking about
00:17:53.240 --> 00:18:07.039
the poem that has inspired you, Arji. We hope you're
00:18:07.039 --> 00:18:09.900
enjoying this season of The Glimpse. It's just
00:18:09.900 --> 00:18:13.019
one small part of the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry
00:18:13.019 --> 00:18:16.579
Foundation. We're the founders, Peter and Cathy
00:18:16.579 --> 00:18:20.660
Halstead. Our goal is to make great poetry more
00:18:20.660 --> 00:18:24.279
accessible to everyone. And we do that in a variety
00:18:24.279 --> 00:18:28.180
of ways through partnerships, our film series,
00:18:28.500 --> 00:18:32.819
this podcast, and our website, brinkerhoffpoetry
00:18:32.819 --> 00:18:36.920
.org. We hope these works will lure you into
00:18:36.920 --> 00:18:40.569
a parallel universe the way a Mobius strip brings
00:18:40.569 --> 00:18:43.470
you into another dimension without leaving the
00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:46.150
page you're on. Thank you so much for listening.
00:18:47.950 --> 00:18:51.150
Welcome back to The Glimpse. Today, I'm joined
00:18:51.150 --> 00:18:54.670
by Arji Manuelpillai. And Arji, we're going to talk
00:18:54.670 --> 00:18:57.730
now about a poem that has inspired you. So if
00:18:57.730 --> 00:18:59.089
you'd like to introduce the poem, and if you
00:18:59.089 --> 00:19:01.349
want to say anything about the poem, please do
00:19:01.349 --> 00:19:05.619
before you read it. I am a really big fan of
00:19:05.619 --> 00:19:07.819
the poet Matthew Dickman, so I'm really happy
00:19:07.819 --> 00:19:13.240
to read this poem, Goblin. In each of the stories
00:19:13.240 --> 00:19:16.619
where children are led out of their beds at night
00:19:16.619 --> 00:19:21.079
by a broken father or angry stepmother and marched
00:19:21.079 --> 00:19:23.920
off to be fed into the mouth of a dark wood,
00:19:24.059 --> 00:19:28.210
the children are supposed to die. In some stories
00:19:28.210 --> 00:19:31.430
they do, in others they survive but must kill
00:19:31.430 --> 00:19:34.710
a witch or an animal in order to live which is,
00:19:34.789 --> 00:19:38.549
to be fair, a different kind of death but a death
00:19:38.549 --> 00:19:42.970
all the same. Imagine the fog around their small
00:19:42.970 --> 00:19:47.109
ankles like a shoreline in the dark. Imagine
00:19:47.109 --> 00:19:50.369
how cold their skin would be beneath the thin
00:19:50.369 --> 00:19:53.549
overcoats of their nightshirts, the little heat
00:19:53.549 --> 00:19:56.650
the parents are giving off beginning to dissipate
00:19:56.650 --> 00:20:00.130
like dew as the children take that last step
00:20:00.130 --> 00:20:03.269
into the copse of trees and are swallowed up.
00:20:04.190 --> 00:20:10.029
There are so many ways to eat the young. Yesterday,
00:20:10.210 --> 00:20:13.930
Owen was riding his red Radio Flyer tricycle
00:20:13.930 --> 00:20:16.829
around and around our red dining room table.
00:20:17.269 --> 00:20:21.490
Get me, poppa! Get me! You're a gob-a-lin! Come get
00:20:21.490 --> 00:20:25.390
me! And I know I shouldn't have really become
00:20:25.390 --> 00:20:29.049
a goblin. But that was not what he was asking
00:20:29.049 --> 00:20:33.450
for. He wanted his poppa and a funny voice. Instead,
00:20:33.630 --> 00:20:36.410
my body grew like a shadow and turned green,
00:20:36.650 --> 00:20:40.990
craven and heavy. You can't run from the gob-a-lin,
00:20:41.089 --> 00:20:43.849
the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin, I sang and chased him
00:20:43.849 --> 00:20:46.529
round the table. You can't run from the gob-a-lin,
00:20:46.589 --> 00:20:49.529
I'm going to eat your skin. Then he stopped.
00:20:50.490 --> 00:20:53.450
Knowing that I was no longer there and looked
00:20:53.450 --> 00:20:56.630
up at my face and not seeing my face began to
00:20:56.630 --> 00:21:00.730
cry and shake. I knelt down and held him and
00:21:00.730 --> 00:21:04.630
said, I'm sorry, it's just poppa. Was that too
00:21:04.630 --> 00:21:08.490
scary? We won't play that anymore. And he calmed
00:21:08.490 --> 00:21:11.769
a little and said, I don't want him, poppa. Tell
00:21:11.769 --> 00:21:16.390
the gob-a-lin not to come back. When you ask parents
00:21:16.390 --> 00:21:19.609
how they ever raise their children, they will
00:21:19.609 --> 00:21:23.369
often say, half the time I had no idea what I
00:21:23.369 --> 00:21:27.430
was doing. But I think we do know what we are
00:21:27.430 --> 00:21:32.890
doing. And so does the forest, and the dark in
00:21:32.890 --> 00:21:36.210
the forest. and the wind in the dark and the
00:21:36.210 --> 00:21:40.750
beasts, the broken fathers, the angry stepmothers,
00:21:40.910 --> 00:21:47.410
the unconditional bond become errant. Thanks,
00:21:47.490 --> 00:21:51.069
Arji, for reading that. There's a poem of yours
00:21:51.069 --> 00:21:54.589
in your first collection where a character goes
00:21:54.589 --> 00:21:57.089
into Foyle's Bookshop and the shop assistant
00:21:57.089 --> 00:22:00.269
recommends they read Matthew Dickman. And then
00:22:00.269 --> 00:22:03.369
the character's like reading the book. He likes
00:22:03.369 --> 00:22:04.970
it so much, he reads it over and over again.
00:22:05.009 --> 00:22:09.930
So your fandom is evident in your poems. Tell
00:22:09.930 --> 00:22:13.349
us about this poem and what you're getting from
00:22:13.349 --> 00:22:16.390
it. And there's so many things about Matthew
00:22:16.390 --> 00:22:18.990
Dickman that gets people back up. He was the
00:22:18.990 --> 00:22:21.069
Super Bowl poet. He's done all these big scale
00:22:21.069 --> 00:22:25.450
poems. But his level of craft is incredible.
00:22:25.509 --> 00:22:28.890
And actually, it's that jump in between narrative
00:22:28.890 --> 00:22:34.569
and wider metaphor that is so exciting in a similar
00:22:34.569 --> 00:22:37.529
way to someone like Sharon Olds, but probably
00:22:37.529 --> 00:22:41.980
with a slightly different, lighter touch. So
00:22:41.980 --> 00:22:44.960
I think this poem does that really well. It never
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:51.759
really unpacks what is the goblin or how he actually
00:22:51.759 --> 00:22:54.779
became the goblin. He actually becomes the goblin.
00:22:54.779 --> 00:22:58.500
He doesn't say, "I acted like the goblin." Instead,
00:22:58.680 --> 00:23:01.400
he said, "Instead, my body grew like a shadow
00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:05.400
and turned green, craven and heavy. You can't
00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:07.700
run from the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin, the gob-a-lin,
00:23:07.720 --> 00:23:10.160
I sang and chased him around the table. You can't
00:23:10.160 --> 00:23:12.680
run from the gob-a-lin. I'm going to eat your skin."
00:23:13.460 --> 00:23:17.980
So he's really like playing or fulfilling that
00:23:17.980 --> 00:23:21.440
expectation. He terrifies his own child, you
00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:24.970
know. Yeah. And then kind of admits that he
00:23:24.970 --> 00:23:26.970
did know what he was doing. That's what's really
00:23:26.970 --> 00:23:28.490
interesting because there's an idea. I mean,
00:23:28.509 --> 00:23:30.650
I think the poem is all about power. It's about
00:23:30.650 --> 00:23:34.049
the power that adults have over children and
00:23:34.049 --> 00:23:37.650
the vulnerability of children. But it would be
00:23:37.650 --> 00:23:39.950
one kind of poem if he said, oh, and then I went
00:23:39.950 --> 00:23:42.690
a bit too far and Owen cried and I sat him on
00:23:42.690 --> 00:23:45.009
my lap and it was all good. There's this whole
00:23:45.009 --> 00:23:48.230
other bit where he says... So you would probably
00:23:48.230 --> 00:23:52.599
say the turn is "when you ask". "When you ask parents
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:54.119
how they ever raised their children, they will
00:23:54.119 --> 00:23:56.839
often say, half the time I had no idea what I
00:23:56.839 --> 00:23:59.339
was doing." Yeah, that bit. Yeah. That bit is
00:23:59.339 --> 00:24:03.579
like, whoa. I know. And then, "but I think we
00:24:03.579 --> 00:24:07.039
do know what we are doing." That admission. So
00:24:07.039 --> 00:24:10.039
I guess the admission is saying, I did know I
00:24:10.039 --> 00:24:13.900
was the goblin and I do have the power. That's
00:24:13.900 --> 00:24:15.819
what I love about this book. It's like super
00:24:15.819 --> 00:24:18.180
vulnerable. I agree with you. It's a brilliant
00:24:18.180 --> 00:24:20.740
book. I think it's a brilliant book. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:20.839 --> 00:24:23.799
And he'd written other stuff that was pretty
00:24:23.799 --> 00:24:28.460
heavy and, you know, his other books. And they're
00:24:28.460 --> 00:24:30.819
very, like, academic in that way. But this feels
00:24:30.819 --> 00:24:34.619
kind of personal. And it's also a subject matter
00:24:34.619 --> 00:24:37.960
that isn't written about a lot. So, yeah, when
00:24:37.960 --> 00:24:41.279
he says, and so, "but I think we do know what
00:24:41.279 --> 00:24:44.539
we are doing. And so does the forest. And the
00:24:44.539 --> 00:24:48.019
dark in the forest." I mean. It goes beyond the
00:24:48.019 --> 00:24:50.720
goblin. That's what makes those last eight or
00:24:50.720 --> 00:24:53.720
whatever so cool. Yeah, definitely. And also
00:24:53.720 --> 00:24:58.019
he's calling, I mean, the poem opens with references
00:24:58.019 --> 00:25:00.160
to, you know, children's fairy tales and all
00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.019
that kind of stuff. And it goes back to them
00:25:02.019 --> 00:25:04.220
at the end with the "wind in the dark and the
00:25:04.220 --> 00:25:05.960
beasts." But then it brings it down to the really,
00:25:06.039 --> 00:25:08.500
you know, the kind of the domestic, the tertiary,
00:25:08.680 --> 00:25:11.380
"the broken fathers, the angry stepmothers." I
00:25:11.380 --> 00:25:13.299
mean, they exist as the angry stepmothers, of
00:25:13.299 --> 00:25:16.049
course, already exist in our culture. but not
00:25:16.049 --> 00:25:18.869
so much the broken fathers, which I think is
00:25:18.869 --> 00:25:23.390
him slightly pointing a finger at himself. I
00:25:23.390 --> 00:25:27.509
know. That's what's so sad about it. You know
00:25:27.509 --> 00:25:32.910
what? Also, errant is the word I had to, when
00:25:32.910 --> 00:25:36.829
I first read it, look it up to sort of... Sort
00:25:36.829 --> 00:25:39.069
of just understand where that word is used, like
00:25:39.069 --> 00:25:41.809
an errant child, like something that's left.
00:25:41.890 --> 00:25:47.009
So "the unconditional bond become errant." So we
00:25:47.009 --> 00:25:49.769
should love our children, perhaps unconditionally.
00:25:50.549 --> 00:25:56.589
Perhaps we just can't sometimes. Yeah, maybe
00:25:56.589 --> 00:26:01.869
sometimes our own power gets the better of us.
00:26:01.910 --> 00:26:05.009
I've definitely, I recognise something. Tell
00:26:05.009 --> 00:26:07.650
me about the power thing. I'm trying to follow
00:26:07.650 --> 00:26:10.430
it. Well, just that when you've got little children,
00:26:10.549 --> 00:26:12.609
you've got incredible power over them and they
00:26:12.609 --> 00:26:15.029
rely on you for everything. You know, it's like
00:26:15.029 --> 00:26:17.549
classic attachment stuff. You know, if they haven't
00:26:17.549 --> 00:26:21.569
got your love, then they don't have shelter.
00:26:21.769 --> 00:26:23.369
They don't have, you know, it's all that. You
00:26:23.369 --> 00:26:27.670
know, will they be able to survive? And there's
00:26:27.670 --> 00:26:30.250
something about that power. It's almost could
00:26:30.250 --> 00:26:32.230
be like walking on a cliff edge, you know, because
00:26:32.230 --> 00:26:35.039
you know you've got it. And how easy it would
00:26:35.039 --> 00:26:40.660
be to abuse it. Yeah. Even in a playing, really,
00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:43.500
what he's describing, that game where he maybe
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:46.339
just knows he's going a little bit too far. I
00:26:46.339 --> 00:26:49.619
think the idea that we all know what we're doing
00:26:49.619 --> 00:26:51.519
or we don't know what we're doing as parents
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:53.480
is really interesting here. Because I would say
00:26:53.480 --> 00:26:57.660
in my own experience of being a mom, I haven't
00:26:57.660 --> 00:27:00.000
known what I was doing, but I've learned very
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:02.799
quickly. I've learned very quickly, if I could
00:27:02.799 --> 00:27:06.500
scare my own son, after I'd experienced that,
00:27:06.579 --> 00:27:08.880
I hope I wouldn't want to do it again. But there's
00:27:08.880 --> 00:27:13.339
just the sense of how power can go wrong here.
00:27:13.619 --> 00:27:18.640
Yeah, and how power can poison us. So perhaps
00:27:18.640 --> 00:27:23.720
sometimes people can let the power, what you
00:27:23.720 --> 00:27:26.500
described there, the responsibility go beyond
00:27:27.390 --> 00:27:30.650
what is safe and fair for a child. And then we
00:27:30.650 --> 00:27:32.750
say, "oh, you know, most of the time I didn't
00:27:32.750 --> 00:27:35.289
really know what I was doing or..." Yeah, to absolve
00:27:35.289 --> 00:27:37.890
ourselves of it. Exactly. Yeah, to absolve. Because
00:27:37.890 --> 00:27:39.990
we don't want to face up to the reality that
00:27:39.990 --> 00:27:44.230
we did it. You're right, though, to point out
00:27:44.230 --> 00:27:46.609
the stories at the beginning, though, because
00:27:46.609 --> 00:27:49.750
I hadn't thought... I mean, one thing is the
00:27:49.750 --> 00:27:52.970
circle that leads us back at the end. Yeah. And
00:27:52.970 --> 00:27:57.259
Dickman's like pretty... like that's sort of
00:27:57.259 --> 00:28:00.920
a go -to is swinging it back at the end but
00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:04.420
you're right the broken father or angry stepmother
00:28:04.420 --> 00:28:07.259
marched off to be fed into the mouth of a dark
00:28:07.259 --> 00:28:11.640
wood is beginning the poem as a myth and then
00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:15.000
it's almost to say it's not a myth like none
00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:17.920
of those are myths the dark forest exists and
00:28:17.920 --> 00:28:22.019
whenever we want to we can pull our most loved
00:28:22.019 --> 00:28:24.779
into that dark forest. Yeah, it's like he pulls
00:28:24.779 --> 00:28:28.539
the kind of mythology, the fairy tales, sinister
00:28:28.539 --> 00:28:31.559
fairy tales from the forest right into his kitchen
00:28:31.559 --> 00:28:35.500
in that moment where he's playing with his son.
00:28:35.799 --> 00:28:39.119
I also like the way in the first section of the
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:43.380
poem when he's kind of re -narrating, you know,
00:28:43.380 --> 00:28:45.559
"in others they survive but must kill a witch
00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:47.900
or an animal in order to live." And then it's
00:28:47.900 --> 00:28:50.240
almost like in parentheses, "which is to be fair,
00:28:50.339 --> 00:28:53.160
a different kind of death, but a death all the
00:28:53.160 --> 00:28:56.259
same." He's sort of trying to, I think, say, you
00:28:56.259 --> 00:28:59.039
know, these fairy tales where someone needs to
00:28:59.039 --> 00:29:01.839
be slain and the children are part of that are
00:29:01.839 --> 00:29:05.680
actually stories of real trauma. It's never talked
00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:07.859
about, you know, it's not. Yeah, that's true.
00:29:08.400 --> 00:29:12.700
It is a mad set of myths and fairy tales. I mean,
00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:16.150
now it's changing a little bit. But still written
00:29:16.150 --> 00:29:21.329
into them is the basic understanding that there
00:29:21.329 --> 00:29:24.230
is danger out there, there is darkness, you know,
00:29:24.230 --> 00:29:28.609
and if you go too close to it, you'll be pulled
00:29:28.609 --> 00:29:31.589
in or whatever. Exactly. So it's all really about
00:29:31.589 --> 00:29:33.390
a kind of, you know, in a very simple way, it's
00:29:33.390 --> 00:29:35.930
a kind of stay in your lane. It's a sort of conform
00:29:35.930 --> 00:29:41.289
doctrine. Yeah. Where... Women particularly are
00:29:41.289 --> 00:29:44.509
posited as being scary and dangerous. But what's
00:29:44.509 --> 00:29:46.910
more dangerous, the forest or the broken fathers
00:29:46.910 --> 00:29:50.369
and the angry stepmothers? Yeah, I think that's
00:29:50.369 --> 00:29:53.130
a big shift, that ending. But you know what?
00:29:53.170 --> 00:29:55.849
A really strange bit is after where we've just
00:29:55.849 --> 00:29:59.950
been. So "imagine the fog around their small ankles
00:29:59.950 --> 00:30:04.970
like a shoreline in the dark," which is... a wild
00:30:04.970 --> 00:30:08.109
thing it's like "a shoreline in the dark" it's
00:30:08.109 --> 00:30:11.809
like a major shadow "imagine how cold their skin
00:30:11.809 --> 00:30:14.410
would be beneath the thin overcoats of their
00:30:14.410 --> 00:30:18.950
night shirts" it's just so you're right to say
00:30:18.950 --> 00:30:22.130
it's almost like the poem is stepping into a
00:30:22.130 --> 00:30:25.319
darker part of the forest or whatever "The little
00:30:25.319 --> 00:30:27.579
heat the parents are giving off beginning to
00:30:27.579 --> 00:30:30.500
dissipate like dew as the children take that
00:30:30.500 --> 00:30:33.680
last step into the copse of trees and are swallowed
00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:36.859
up." Yeah, he really lingers there in that moment,
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:38.660
doesn't he? He really lingers there. And it's
00:30:38.660 --> 00:30:41.980
a very sort of kind of gothic, almost horror
00:30:41.980 --> 00:30:45.160
film image. And then he does such a brilliant
00:30:45.160 --> 00:30:49.220
swing. Yesterday, Owen was riding his red radio
00:30:49.220 --> 00:30:52.279
flyer tricycle. Yeah, that is so sweet, isn't
00:30:52.279 --> 00:30:54.519
it? "There are so many ways to eat the young."
00:30:54.910 --> 00:30:58.390
So blasé about that and then "yesterday Owen was
00:30:58.390 --> 00:31:01.549
riding..." oh my gosh yeah and he just gets completely
00:31:01.549 --> 00:31:03.630
carried away with it you know ending with that
00:31:03.630 --> 00:31:06.910
"I'm going to eat your skin" yeah and I think this
00:31:06.910 --> 00:31:09.630
son at this point is like very young yeah and
00:31:09.630 --> 00:31:13.190
then that just that line "knowing that I was no
00:31:13.190 --> 00:31:16.430
longer there and he looked up at my face and
00:31:16.430 --> 00:31:20.569
not seeing my face began to cry." So this sort
00:31:20.569 --> 00:31:23.329
of the fear of the child that the father was
00:31:23.329 --> 00:31:26.109
completely absent in his own body and his role.
00:31:26.410 --> 00:31:30.130
Oh, yeah. Not seeing my face is such a deep thing.
00:31:30.210 --> 00:31:31.789
You know, when you're really angry, you've got
00:31:31.789 --> 00:31:34.849
road rage. And I'm like, "what the f-ck ?!" I'm shouting.
00:31:35.009 --> 00:31:37.349
And then I look back at my child and she's seen
00:31:37.349 --> 00:31:40.970
me like that. Oh, my gosh, you're failing. Yeah,
00:31:41.029 --> 00:31:42.829
I've definitely had a few moments. You know what
00:31:42.829 --> 00:31:45.670
I mean? You're like, ugh!. Yeah, I've definitely
00:31:45.670 --> 00:31:47.230
had those moments with my son. And it's probably
00:31:47.230 --> 00:31:50.109
important that. children do see their parents
00:31:50.109 --> 00:31:52.690
safely experiencing a full range of emotions
00:31:52.690 --> 00:31:55.289
yeah it's true I can't be sure that i've always
00:31:55.289 --> 00:31:57.269
been that safe but I can't be skipping around
00:31:57.269 --> 00:32:00.210
like Mary Poppins all the time I'm a poet for
00:32:00.210 --> 00:32:03.190
god's sake. No exactly I mean maybe that's part
00:32:03.190 --> 00:32:07.369
of it in it and also we know he's extremely successful
00:32:07.369 --> 00:32:11.190
and that can be really difficult .I mean we don't
00:32:11.190 --> 00:32:14.019
see those parts you know I just found the whole
00:32:14.019 --> 00:32:15.420
book brilliant. I thought it was fascinating.
00:32:16.259 --> 00:32:19.259
And I've really enjoyed talking to you about
00:32:19.259 --> 00:32:21.539
it, Arji. We should probably be wrapping up now.
00:32:21.599 --> 00:32:24.900
But before we finish, I need to ask you, what
00:32:24.900 --> 00:32:26.720
are you working on now? I mean, I know you're
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:29.759
working on your poetry collection. You seem to
00:32:29.759 --> 00:32:31.670
me like one of the... busiest men in poetry.
00:32:31.890 --> 00:32:34.529
Is that true? I am. I mean, I've got a lot of
00:32:34.529 --> 00:32:37.029
things. They don't always burn at the right time.
00:32:37.250 --> 00:32:40.829
So I am a theorist of if you chuck loads of stuff
00:32:40.829 --> 00:32:43.650
at the wall, something will happen. So I've got
00:32:43.650 --> 00:32:47.549
a... I've actually got a graphic novel on fatherhood,
00:32:47.670 --> 00:32:49.690
which is like three quarters of the way. It's
00:32:49.690 --> 00:32:52.309
got some poems in it. Oh, mad. Which is really
00:32:52.309 --> 00:32:54.930
cool. Oh, it sounds brilliant. Yeah, it's really
00:32:54.930 --> 00:33:00.539
mad. And then I've got a... poetry how -to guide
00:33:00.539 --> 00:33:03.759
for young people which is like horrible histories
00:33:03.759 --> 00:33:06.920
but it's for poems. That's probably the most sellable
00:33:06.920 --> 00:33:10.019
thing i've ever created in my life. Sounds fantastic.
00:33:10.019 --> 00:33:13.640
So those two things are in the motion and then
00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:16.740
I'm doing a baby show so there's a player here
00:33:16.740 --> 00:33:20.569
called the Yoto player. So we've made some poems
00:33:20.569 --> 00:33:25.069
and some songs for babies and their parents so
00:33:25.069 --> 00:33:27.309
there's a lot of different things for different
00:33:27.309 --> 00:33:30.029
age groups. You've got a goblin song in there?
00:33:30.029 --> 00:33:35.910
Not yet. Gonna eat your skin? Not yet. That's one
00:33:35.910 --> 00:33:39.089
to think about. Yes we've got the tickle monster
00:33:39.089 --> 00:33:41.470
actually that's the closest we've got.
00:33:41.470 --> 00:33:44.569
Sounds much much more pleasant okay Arji Manuelpillai
00:33:44.569 --> 00:33:46.490
it was great to talk to you today. Thanks for
00:33:46.490 --> 00:33:56.049
joining me on The Glimpse. Thank you so much. Thanks
00:33:56.049 --> 00:33:58.609
for joining us today. I'm your host, Hannah Lowe.
00:33:59.329 --> 00:34:02.690
Arji's poem, The Crocodile, was used with his permission.
00:34:03.589 --> 00:34:06.710
Matthew Dickman's poem, Goblin, is from Husbandry,
00:34:06.849 --> 00:34:10.309
published by W .W. Norton and Company, copyright
00:34:10.309 --> 00:34:16.239
2022, and was used with his permission. Coming
00:34:16.239 --> 00:34:19.460
up next week, Menna Elfyn talks about the politics
00:34:19.460 --> 00:34:22.380
of writing in Welsh, why translators deserve
00:34:22.380 --> 00:34:25.039
more recognition, and the power and humility
00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:29.840
that comes with embracing another language. Make
00:34:29.840 --> 00:34:32.260
sure to subscribe to The Glimpse wherever you
00:34:32.260 --> 00:34:35.079
get your podcasts. You can also find episodes
00:34:35.079 --> 00:34:39.179
on our website, brinkerhoffpoetry .org slash podcast.
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:43.099
We'd also love to hear from you. Drop us an email
00:34:43.099 --> 00:34:47.500
at theglimpsepoetrypodcast at gmail .com. The
00:34:47.500 --> 00:34:50.219
Glimpse is a production of the Adrian Brinkerhoff
00:34:50.219 --> 00:34:53.400
Poetry Foundation. I'm your host, Hannah Lowe.
00:34:53.619 --> 00:34:57.369
Our senior producer is Jennifer Wolfe. Kat Yore
00:34:57.369 --> 00:34:59.809
is our technical director and mixing engineer.
00:35:00.590 --> 00:35:03.769
Editorial director Amanda Glassman is our curator
00:35:03.769 --> 00:35:07.429
and production coordinator. Amy Holmes is the
00:35:07.429 --> 00:35:10.869
foundation's executive director. And our co -founders
00:35:10.869 --> 00:35:14.250
are Cathy and Peter Halstead. Thanks for listening.
