{"id":3967,"date":"2015-04-05T02:24:14","date_gmt":"2015-04-05T02:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=3967"},"modified":"2015-12-26T17:38:05","modified_gmt":"2015-12-26T17:38:05","slug":"poetry-life-and-times-an-interview-with-marie-marshall-poet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/poetry-life-and-times-an-interview-with-marie-marshall-poet\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Life and Times &#8211; An Interview With Marie Marshall &#8211; Poet"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Poetry Life and Times &#8211; An Interview With Marie Marshall &#8211; Poet<\/strong><P><\/p>\n<p><em>by Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of Poetry Life and Times<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bio \u2013 Marie Marshall<\/strong> (3rd person)<\/p>\n<p>MM is a middle-aged Anglo-Scottish author, poet, and editor, who says little about herself, preferring to let her writing speak. She has had three novels published, two of which are for the young adult \/ older children readerships. Both of her collections of poetry are currently in publication. Naked in the Sea (2010) in its 2nd imprint, is available in e-book form direct from publishers P\u2019kaboo and in Kindle version on Amazon; the 1st imprint may still be available in print, if you enquire at Masque Publishing of Littlehampton. I am not a fish, nominated for the 2013 T S Eliot Prize, may be bought direct from publishers Oversteps Books. Marie has had well over two hundred poems published in magazines, anthologies, etc., but has not submitted anything since 2013. The most unusual places in which her poetry has appeared are on the wall of a caf\u00e9 in Wales, pinned to trees in Scottish woodland, and etched into an African drum in New Orleans Museum of Art.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Hi Marie, welcome aboard PLT, we&#8217;re so glad you agreed to do this interview.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<strong>Marie.<\/strong> It\u2019s kind of you to invite me.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> I first became aware of your work as a poet, when I discovered you were a Co-Editor of Richard Vallance&#8217;s Anthology of Sonnets, <em>The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes<\/em>. It&#8217;s going back a bit but how did that come about?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> Richard and I go back further than that. Somewhere in 2007 or 2008 I submitted some sonnets to <em>Sonnetto Poesia<\/em>, the magazine that Richard edited. At the time I was eating, breathing, dreaming in iambic pentameter, using the sonnet form to sharpen up the technical power of my writing. Anyhow, Richard was so enthusiastic about my sonnets that I believe he included some in an issue of the magazine without running them by the other members of the editorial team. Not long after that he asked me to become an associate editor of<em> Sonnetto Poesia<\/em>, and shortly after that an associate editor of <em>Canadian Zen Haiku<\/em>. I served in that capacity for about three or four years until Richard decided to retire.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><em>The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes<\/em> was Richard\u2019s \u2018swan song\u2019, and in fact the amount of hard work he put into it was unbelievable. I was amongst those drafted in as part of the editorial team, and as such didn\u2019t do much more than anyone else on the team. Somehow I fell into the role of reining in some of the hyperbole in the introductory text to the anthology, rewriting much of it, and at the end Richard wanted to reward me by raising my status to something like co-Editor. However, I hadn\u2019t done nearly enough work to justify that, so we settled on \u2018Deputy Editor\u2019 \u2013 I made the proviso that I would only accept that title if everyone else on the team agreed. I don\u2019t think anyone objected.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>I\u2019m proud of the anthology \u2013 I made sure that copes were lodged at the Scottish Poetry Library and the National Library of Scotland, both in Edinburgh. It\u2019s good. It\u2019s not perfect, but it\u2019s good.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Ah, yes, I remember<em> Sonnetto Poesia<\/em> and <em>Canadian Zen Haiku<\/em>. I monitored the latter for some years on line and enjoyed working with Richard in my contribution of the Spanish chapter to that anthology. In fact, we&#8217;ve published a Sonnet of yours from that anthology here at PLT,<em> Closing Time at Laugharne<\/em>. Pronounced \u2018larn\u2019 to rhyme with yarn, that boozy Celt at the Boathouse, I loved the imagery.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> I\u2019m glad I\u2019m a poet and can get away with calling someone a boozy Celt.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> You&#8217;re not only an editor of your own online poetry periodical (<a href=\"http:\/\/thezenspace.wordpress.com\">thezenspace.wordpress.com<\/a>) but a translator, novelist, essayist, and poet; would you give the reader a little background to these activities.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> First off, I don\u2019t erect any significant \u2018Chinese walls\u2019 between them. I write, I deal in words, end of. Perhaps the editorship of <em>the zen space <\/em>is the odd one out, a little anyway, because there I\u2019m dealing with other people\u2019s words, not my own. It all started when I sent in a<em> haibun <\/em>to an e-zine that specialised in such things. I got an email back from the editor in which he expressed a wish to publish my submission, but he wanted to tinker with the words. Now, normally that\u2019s an acceptable prerogative of an editor, but in the case of something as in-the-moment as a<em> haibun<\/em>, I resisted. He got shirty. I asked him if he knew of the principle of<em> mono no aware<\/em>, and of the origin of<em> haiku<\/em> and such like in<em> Zen<\/em>. He said no he didn\u2019t, and in any case all of a sudden he wasn\u2019t going to publish my stuff after all. Well, having exposed his ignorance, I decided to start my own<em> haiku<\/em> e-quarterly. You might think I would be bound to seed it with my own work, but in fact I don\u2019t. Leaving aside the buzz of reading through people\u2019s work and putting a quarterly Showcase together, the main selfish reason I keep it going is so that I can still hang out a virtual shingle saying \u2018Editor\u2019.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>Translating is a very, very minor string to my bow. I have a reasonable knowledge of French. I have translated a little of G\u00e9rard de Nerval and Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. I have written some parallel poems in English and French, English and Scots, and even had a shot at translating something from Welsh. My main influence was the late Vera Rich, who seemed to appreciate my skill as a poet. We worked a little together, and she passed on to me her principles of reproducing not only sense, register, voice, and so on, but the actual metric structure of the original. I can tell you that\u2019s not an easy skill, but Vera had it in spades! Just before she died, she had passed her first draft of her translation of Ivan Franko\u2019s Death of Cain over to me to read through and comment on. I had made a list of queries and suggestions for her when I learned of her death. Her first draft is blogged somewhere, but I have been wanting to put together a re-edited version for some time \u2013 I had questions for her about her choices of words in some places, when compared to other versions and to the original words in Ukrainian, but of course these will never be answered now. Anyhow, her influence is very strong for me, even though I do so very little translation.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong>  I remember very well reading the translation, it seems to me a pity you&#8217;ve buried it from publication over a comparatively small detail, when a few footnotes would have sufficed  and who knows perhaps get an answer from that, but sorry to interrupt.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> No, the questions I had for her were much more than one \u2018comparatively small\u2019 detail. And in any case, Vera herself still had to check with her academic source in the Ukraine, but passed away before she could do so. I may do something public with it in May 2016, which is the centenary of Ivan Franko\u2019s death, but anything I might do would be entirely without authorisation. We\u2019ll see.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>Anyhow, I\u2019m intrigued that you call me an essayist. I suppose that we\u2019re all essayists these days, given  the universality of the blog, and I do put the occasional essay on the blog section of my web site. I have touched on aspects of English grammar, taxonomy, whether \u2018modern literature\u2019 exists, art graffiti, and I have written reviews. So maybe I\u2019m an essayist of sorts.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>I don\u2019t know what to say about my being a novelist and a poet. These are the most obvious of my activities, so perhaps they need the least saying about them! I\u2019m actually best known in Scotland as a writer of macabre short stories, but that\u2019s another thing entirely.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Now comes the star pin question, take it or leave it: as you are a bit of a mystery \u2013 don&#8217;t get me wrong, I think it&#8217;s cool a writer shrouds herself in a bit of mystery \u2013 but you did start writing very late in life, and with incredible success from the start, which is unusual. What started that?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> There are a number of questions hiding in there! Two at least. I\u2019ll deal with the last one first \u2013 what started me writing? You\u2019re right, of course, I started writing when I was already in my late forties. One day I was reading stuff on a web site \u2013 I have absolutely no recollection why, or how I came to be on that page \u2013 that was touting itself as \u2018erotic writing\u2019. Short stories. Most of them were dire, just an excuse to \u2018talk dirty\u2019, any plot in them was simply a set-up for a graphic sex-scene, nothing there that one could dignify with the term \u2018literary merit\u2019. I said to myself \u201cI could do better than that!\u201d and so I got on my keyboard and did just that. My principle was that the story should carry sex, be sexy, rather than be an excuse for sex. It worked, it worked well, but before long the story took over from the erotic content, and \u2013 bingo! \u2013 I found out I was a mainstream author.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>Now, why do I have this shroud of mystery about me? The answer is, I\u2019m afraid, rather prosaic. I have a number of psychological problems which make me severely agoraphobic, almost a recluse. I am painfully shy about speaking in public, about being the centre of attention, about being photographed, and so on. So making a virtue out of a necessity, I have turned this into a mystique, made it a selling point, made it an essentially part of Marie Marshall the author and the product.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Despite your other pursuits, it seems to me you feature mostly as a poet. So let me jump in at the deep end with you with a question framed in two parts: What are the qualities you think are needed to give birth to a poet; and how does the theme of any poem develop in your mind?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> Neither of these is particularly simple to answer. I could say this: that the essential quality needed in a poet is an almost total disregard for what everyone else says poetry is. Along with that, a total disregard for the sanctity of language. Of course that won\u2019t do for most people, they\u2019ll find it an unsatisfactory answer; but to me, unless you have something like these essentials in your nature, you will write poetry that is clearly dictated by the rules, by the form \u2013 and don\u2019t forget that \u2018free verse\u2019 is a form too \u2013 rather than letting the form carry what you want to say.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul> Usually what comes to me initially is a handful of words, a way of describing something \u2013 a sight, a sound, a feeling \u2013 that is distinctive. I remember them, or write them down, and then I see what grows around them. Sometimes this only results in a few lines. At other times it develops into an extended theme, with recurring tropes in a whole series of poems. Sometimes I write about something that is obsessing me; I think my \u2018Veronica Franco\u2019 poems are like that.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>I think the only reason I\u2019m best known as a poet is because I have set myself the task of writing something vaguely poetical, if only a fragment, every day. In fact, as I said before, I don\u2019t really draw a distinction between writing poetry and writing anything else. In fact one prominent review of my first novel,<em> Lupa<\/em>, makes a point of saying that it is no surprise to learn that I\u2019m a poet, as my prose is \u2018full of passion and rhythm\u2019<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> I&#8217;d like to ask you more questions about the Veronica Franco poems, but I&#8217;ll return to that later. Nowadays, perhaps because of the media and population increase in the world, more poetry is being written than ever before and fame cannot be again what it was. Do you think the poet and poetry in general play any particular role in the modern world, can they influence the course of events, for example. I call to mind WH Auden, who did much to diminish the myth of poetry, insomuch he claimed just that, the creations of the poet could not really influence the course of affairs in the world&#8217;s history. So perhaps the trend in modern poetry is just towards stylistics rather than any realistic view of crisis in the human condition.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<strong>Marie.<\/strong> Still, if we poets all jumped up and down at the same time, we could tumble the castles of the powerful.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>Let\u2019s face it, Robin, there is more of everything out there these days. It\u2019s the world we live in. I am currently preparing an essay on \u2018cultural appropriation\u2019 in which I say \u201cthe walls are down\u201d. Maybe you\u2019re right, maybe Auden is right. But on the other hand, look at poetry after Auden. Dylan Thomas devised a poetic radio drama that became as popular as any work of literature; Allen Ginsberg delivered a slap to America\u2019s face with \u2018Howl\u2019; Bob Dylan\u2019s songs caught the imagination of a generation; Gil Scott-Heron was in the vanguard of Black Consciousness; John Cooper-Clarke\u2019s sarky piss-takes on petty-bourgeois life, sink estates, and trends, are now household stuff\u2026 What I\u2019m saying is that poets can still emerge. How far that emergence can be an influence I don\u2019t know. Maybe Bob Dylan\u2019s major influence was not on his own 1960s generation, but on the conservative backlash and consolidation! We live in a time where power has a grip of steel, and perhaps it would take more than a poet to break that grip now; but should that happen, there will be another Rouget de Lisle to provide the stirring accompaniment, of that I\u2019m sure.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>As for stylistics, let me ask you whether what I\u2019m doing is merely stylistics. Another question \u2013 do you believe that poetry should deal exclusively with the human condition? Is that what poetry is for?<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> I&#8217;m saying that stylistics is a trend asked for in contemporary poetry and given priority over context.  I mean by concerning the crisis of the human condition that nowadays more than ever the nature of consciousness, existence and reality is more enigmatic than before and should be given a context or at least an emergent voiced image, if that&#8217;s what poetry can do.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> Asked for by whom and given priority by whom, I wonder. I also wonder whether I\u2019m the right person to ask about the general human condition etc.. What I write is deeply personal, even the inconsequential bits of froth I write are personal, so if I have a perspective on the human condition it is based right here, in the experience of being me. Right here is also where I explore consciousness, existence, and reality. Things outside me have an existence of their own that does not depend on how I see them. I quarrel with the notion of rationality, with the notion that we are rational beings, because when we exercise this \u2018rationality\u2019 we perceive things \u2013 let\u2019s say the laws of the universe \u2013 as being just so, not because that\u2019s the way they are, but because that\u2019s who we are. They\u2019re not just filtered through our physical senses, but they\u2019re filtered through our human-ness.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Again, I appreciate your comments about spontaneous use and growth of language in the development of poetics, but do you think linguistic theory has any bearing on poetics?  There&#8217;s been a trend in contemporary philosophy to make linguistics central to inquiry and some poets adhere to such theorists as muse to their work in language, famously, Chomsky, Derrida, Wittgenstein  etc., Do you have any special views on the relationship of linguistics to poetics either for or against?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong>  Linguists study how language is used. Poets use it.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> But I would say they implicate a world view that the poet who follows derives  from. Perhaps also what I&#8217;m getting at is language itself, put basically, some thinkers hold language is central to the mind, whilst others hold that it fades.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> It doesn\u2019t fade. It slips through your fingers.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> To take up the question of translation in poetry, apart from your very modest comments on your own work in the area, I&#8217;d be interested to hear your views. Say, despite the fact that the translator is using and deriving directly from the text of another&#8217;s work, she nevertheless brings to it something the other didn&#8217;t put into it. To quote a well known example of Robert Lowell&#8217;s translation of the work originally attributed to Sappho and then to Catullus<em> \u201cThe one who stands before you\u201d<\/em> in which he claimed the translation was his own poem. What is your opinion about translation in poetics in particular?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> I think I stand with Barthes on the whole issue of creative process. It extends beyond the work of the originator right to the final reader (in the case of poetry). Thus the work of the translator is undeniably creative in its own right, yes; but I feel we have to give credit to a translator for her aim, which is to convey as much of the original as she can, given that the work is being filtered through a whole different cultural medium, if you see what I mean.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Context depends entirely on the reader?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> Let me speak from experience for a minute or two. When I translated de Nerval\u2019s \u2018El Desdichado\u2019, for example \u2013 and I can tell you it wasn\u2019t easy! \u2013 I had several things in mind. I was very familiar with the poem, but mainly because when I was little my family had a record of Donald Swann\u2019s quirky version set to music. I loved it, although I didn\u2019t really begin to understand it until I had learned French. Even then so much of the poem, with its classical references and so on, is highly symbolical. I guess to really know what it\u2019s all about, it would be necessary to go back and live in de Nerval\u2019s head. That\u2019s impossible, of course, so what I had to do \u2013 or so it felt to me \u2013 was to try to give, as near as I could, the same imagery rendered as directly as possible into English, and let it remain as arcane to readers as the original did to me. I also wanted to attempt to use a comparable structure or rhythm and rhyme, or assonance or slant rhyme where I couldn\u2019t wrestle a direct rhyme into submission, to stay as close as possible there too. Actually, to be honest, I had the rhythm and stresses of Donald Swann\u2019s musical version in my head, and I think he (and I) mugged the metre in a couple of places, but so what! I\u2019ll give it to you here. Caveat \u2013 I don\u2019t hold this out as a great work of art or scholarship, and I know that other translators (Richard, for example, who is a better scholar of French than I am) disagree with my treatment.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>Oh, by the way, one thing that has always struck me is the affinity of some of de Nerval\u2019s imagery with the Marseilles Tarot. Just chucking that fact in apropos nothing.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>I am the man of shade, bereaved, inconsolate,<br \/>\nThe Prince of Aquitaine, with my keep overthrown;<br \/>\nMy only star is dead, and my zodiac\u2019d lute<br \/>\nBlazoned now anew with black Melancholy\u2019s sun.<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>In the night of the tomb, you who granted me peace,<br \/>\nGive me back Pausilippe, the Italian brine,<br \/>\nThe flower that brought such joy to my heart, shorn of ease,<br \/>\nOr the rose-arch\u2019s column enwrapped with grapevine.<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Am I Love or Sun-god? Lousignan or Biron?<br \/>\nMy temples reddened still by kisses from the Queen,<br \/>\nHere by the Siren\u2019s sea-cave pool I had a dream&#8230;<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>As a conqueror twice, I have crossed Acheron,<br \/>\nModulating in turn, on the Orphean lyre,<br \/>\nAll the sighs of the Saint, and the elf-maiden\u2019s cry!<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>So what am I doing here, bearing in mind my aim? Is this as much, or even more, my own creativity as de Nerval\u2019s? And here\u2019s another question for you \u2013 where is the poetry actually<em> happening <\/em>in any case? Let me draw an analogy: Marcel Duchamp seemingly withdrew from art and spent his days becoming a chess master, but all the time he was working on the masterpiece<em> \u00c9tants donn\u00e9s<\/em>, which was only put on display after his death, and which you look at like a peep show \u2013 where was or is is the art<em> happening?<\/em><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Now you&#8217;re asking me, I thought I was asking you, to be frank I think the translation and the original poem are two poems and two poets and the reader has to live with it. Are there any writers, artists, poets in particular who have influenced your development as a poet and if so, how and why?<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie. <\/strong>That isn\u2019t as easy a question as it seems. I almost wish I had never read any poetry, so that I could be sure my own poems were totally fresh and original. However, I can\u2019t live in a vacuum, so I can\u2019t write in a vacuum.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>I don\u2019t think I can name any one other poet in that way. However, if I identify with any artistic movement, I would say it is twentieth-century expressionism.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Well life doesn&#8217;t originate in a vacuum, that&#8217;s for sure, though some would disagree. Lets return the Veronica Franco poems, which you describe as your obsession and which we&#8217;ve been honoured to feature at PLT with more to come, I trust. I&#8217;m intrigued about the relationship with Wooden Mary and her devoted adoration, nay, veneration for the beautiful, brilliant, audacious and defiant (in her period) 16th century Italian courtesan to the nobility, Veronica Franco. Herself a poet in her own right, insomuch as she did actually exist and isn&#8217;t just a fictional character.  It seems to me that Veronica Franco is not only the epitome of femininity in Wooden Mary&#8217;s desires, but an oracle, a muse in fact. And the object is the concept of beauty as defined  through the female. I&#8217;ve selected a few titles from the series with brief excerpts below, as an outline:<\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m dancing with Veronica<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u2026.Our laughter lasts right to her curtsey,<br \/>\nand my stiff bow, taking care<br \/>\nnot to break the balsa<br \/>\nof my performed identity&#8230;. <\/p>\n<p><strong>I\u2019m angry at Veronica because she\u2019s perfect<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>\u2026.it all hangs on you like art, like Versace, like the exactitude of nature&#8230;.  <\/p>\n<p>\u2026.making out of me only an artisan perfection, not that of a genius&#8230;. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Lament of Maria Maresciallo at the funeral of Veronica Franco<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u2026.Tintoretto and Titian worshipped you, you know,<br \/>\nand your lover the Saint, he adored you;<br \/>\nbut I was your sister, the only initiate of Berenice,<br \/>\nI wandered your depth and breadth, nave and aisle,<br \/>\ndanced in your wake, walking on water by your magic, \u2026.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Veronica to Wooden Mary.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>@WoodenMary I&#8217;m sleeping, child<br \/>\nlet me be, I&#8217;m no better<br \/>\nfor the gold paint you splash<br \/>\non my memory, and yet I know<br \/>\nyou iconize my thumbprint<br \/>\non a glass<\/p>\n<p>Unlock the shrine and let me out,<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve faded, and never was that angel<br \/>\nof your imagination;<\/p>\n<p>there&#8217;s no gold here, let alone oranges,<br \/>\nI&#8217;m away \u2013 and so&#8217;s my saint,<br \/>\nfor what it&#8217;s worth \u2013<br \/>\nto God knows where <\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> I don\u2019t know if there was an actual question in there, Robin, but I wouldn\u2019t quarrel with your basic interpretation of what I\u2019m doing in this particular series of poems.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Ok, but what I&#8217;m trying to extricate here is your comment on your obsession as specific to this aesthetic concept of beauty.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> Look at her portrait, the one by Tintoretto. She\u2019s beautiful (where is the beauty <em>happening?<\/em>). But don\u2019t forget that her beauty has been commodified. Everything that is beautiful, elegant, admirable, accomplished about her is on sale. But it does exist in its own right. To \u2018Wooden Mary\u2019, to<em> Maria di Legno<\/em>, to me, this beauty is appreciable but only partly accessible, my love alone can\u2019t buy it. All Wooden Mary can do is write poems about her, share some occasional intimacies that have nothing to do with the world of male power and economic power she is suffered to inhabit, but are set aside from it. I am writing about the effect that this beauty has on Wooden Mary, yes, and the first and most obvious effect is that it makes Wooden Mary write! At the same time, I am using Veronica\u2019s perspective to question the way we see such things, to cock a small snook at that male world. In one of the poems, where Veronica and Wooden Mary visit my home city of Dundee, I give Veronica her freedom to question how we view pornography, to be the spokeswoman for an alternative view, while Wooden Mary tut-tuts in the background.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin.<\/strong> Well thank you very much for hosting with PLT Marie, it&#8217;s truly appreciated, may I ask as a closure any tips you might have for aspiring and despairing poets and if you would include a poem of your own selection.<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Marie.<\/strong> Thank you for having me, Robin. I hope I haven\u2019t come across as too po-faced. If I have, slap me now.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Robin<\/strong>. Sounds like an authentic Marie to me<\/p>\n<ul>\n<strong>Marie.<\/strong> About advice<em> to<\/em> poets \u2013 I don\u2019t think I have ever read any advice<em> from<\/em> a poet that I felt was appropriate, so I shy from giving it. I could volunteer some small stuff, such as how redundant I feel simile is, but that\u2019s just a personal thing.<\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul>As a farewell, here\u2019s<strong> \u2018Big moments in Jazz, version2\u2019<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>When Bird and Miles woke up to find<br \/>\na hundred flowers blooming in a motel room<br \/>\nand some doghouse man, maybe Mr. PC,<br \/>\npizzicatoed so far up the fingerboard<br \/>\nhe played the tailpiece right to the spike <\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>Smith and McGriff and McDuff<br \/>\nfunctioned their function as a ternary star<br \/>\nso it pricked them in their gravity <\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>wet Harlem streets yellowed-out in the low sun<br \/>\nas Frank O\u2019Hara hastily scribbled in<br \/>\na thumbed gumshoe book braving the loft<br \/>\nwhere Lady Day blued through the haze<br \/>\nand Trane and Pharaoh blew weird <\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>a devot of the Sun Ra sect vacationing on earth<br \/>\ntook a thread from Joe Zawinul\u2019s hat<br \/>\nunravelled and reravelled it saying<br \/>\n\u2018we\u2019re having a ball\u2019 and the rest of us<br \/>\nsnapped our fingerpops saying \u2018wow\u2019 and \u2018cool\u2019<br \/>\nand calling each other \u2018man\u2019 far too much<br \/>\nwhile Ra himself stepped on the cracks<br \/>\nand dared the bears<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<ul><strong>most often only realizing it was a day<br \/>\noh such a day when it was all gone<br \/>\nand later-day eyes looked so sideways at us<br \/>\nlike we had our coats buttoned up wrong<br \/>\nor had gone out in the rain without shoes<\/strong><\/ul>\n<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/robin@artvilla.com\">robin@artvilla.com<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/PoetryLifeTimes\">PoetryLifeTimes<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/%20www.artvilla.com\/plt\">Poetry Life &#038; Times<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artvilla.com\">www.artvilla.com<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Artvilla.com\">Artvilla.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-socializer wpsr-share-icons\" data-lg-action=\"show\" data-sm-action=\"show\" data-sm-width=\"768\"><h3>Share and Enjoy !<\/h3><div class=\"wpsr-si-inner\"><div class=\"wpsr-counter wpsrc-sz-40px\" style=\"color:#000\"><span class=\"scount\" data-wpsrs=\"\" data-wpsrs-svcs=\"pinterest,print,pdf,twitter\"><i class=\"fa fa-share-alt\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/i><\/span><small class=\"stext\">Shares<\/small><\/div><div class=\"socializer sr-popup sr-count-1 sr-40px sr-pad\"><span class=\"sr-pinterest\"><a data-pin-custom=\"true\" data-id=\"pinterest\" style=\"color:#ffffff;\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/pin\/create\/button\/?url=&amp;media=&amp;description=\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Submit this to Pinterest\"><i class=\"fab fa-pinterest\"><\/i><span class=\"ctext\" data-wpsrs=\"\" data-wpsrs-svcs=\"pinterest\"><\/span><\/a><\/span>\n<span class=\"sr-print\"><a data-id=\"print\" style=\"color:#ffffff;\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.printfriendly.com\/print?url=\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Print this article \"><i class=\"fa fa-print\"><\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<span class=\"sr-pdf\"><a data-id=\"pdf\" style=\"color:#ffffff;\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.printfriendly.com\/print?url=\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Convert to PDF\"><i class=\"fa fa-file-pdf\"><\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<span class=\"sr-twitter\"><a data-id=\"twitter\" style=\"color:#ffffff;\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=%20-%20%20\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Tweet this !\"><i class=\"fab fa-twitter\"><\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<span class=\"sr-share-menu\"><a href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"More share links\" style=\"color:#ffffff;\" data-metadata=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;excerpt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;image&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;short-url&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;rss-url&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.artvilla.com\\\/plt\\\/feed\\\/&quot;,&quot;comments-section&quot;:&quot;comments&quot;,&quot;raw-url&quot;:null,&quot;twitter-username&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;fb-app-id&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;fb-app-secret&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\"><i class=\"fa fa-plus\"><\/i><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div><div class=\"wp-socializer wpsr-share-icons\" data-lg-action=\"show\" data-sm-action=\"show\" data-sm-width=\"768\"><div class=\"wpsr-si-inner\"><div class=\"socializer sr-popup sr-32px sr-pad\"><span class=\"sr-facebook\"><a data-id=\"facebook\" style=\"background-color:#1e73be;color:#8224e3;\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/share.php?u=\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Share this on Facebook\"><i class=\"fab fa-facebook-f\"><\/i><\/a><\/span>\n<span class=\"sr-share-menu\"><a href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"More share links\" style=\"background-color:#1e73be;color:#8224e3;\" data-metadata=\"{&quot;url&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;excerpt&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;image&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;short-url&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;rss-url&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.artvilla.com\\\/plt\\\/feed\\\/&quot;,&quot;comments-section&quot;:&quot;comments&quot;,&quot;raw-url&quot;:null,&quot;twitter-username&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;fb-app-id&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;fb-app-secret&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\"><i class=\"fa fa-plus\"><\/i><\/a><\/span><\/div><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Poetry Life and Times &#8211; An Interview With Marie Marshall &#8211; Poet by Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of Poetry Life and Times Bio \u2013 Marie Marshall (3rd person) MM is a middle-aged Anglo-Scottish author, poet, and editor, who says little about herself, preferring to let her writing speak. She has had three novels published, two &#8230; <a title=\"Poetry Life and Times &#8211; An Interview With Marie Marshall &#8211; Poet\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/poetry-life-and-times-an-interview-with-marie-marshall-poet\/\" aria-label=\"More on Poetry Life and Times &#8211; An Interview With Marie Marshall &#8211; Poet\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,590,170,52],"tags":[670,616,18,136,3,617],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3967"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3996,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions\/3996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}