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Poetry Notebook: Reflections on the Intensity of Language
Legendary poet and critic Clive James provides an unforgettably eloquent book on how to read and appreciate modern poetry.
Since its initial publication, Poetry Notebook has become a must-read for any lover of poetry. Somewhat of an iconoclast, Clive James gets to the heart of truths about poetry not always addressed, “some hard” but always “firmly committed to celebration” (Martin Amis). He presents a distillation of all he’s learned about the art form that matters to him most. James examines the poems and legacies of a panorama of twentieth-century poets, from Hart Crane to Ezra Pound (a “mad old amateur fascist with a panscopic grab bag”), from Ted Hughes to Anne Sexton. Whether demanding that poetry be heard beyond the world of letters or opining on his five favorite poets (Yeats, Frost, Auden, Wilbur, and Larkin), his “generosity of attention, his willingness to trawl through pages of verse in search of the hair-raising line, is his most appealing quality as a critic” (Adam Kirsch, Wall Street Journal).
Since its initial publication, Poetry Notebook has become a must-read for any lover of poetry. Somewhat of an iconoclast, Clive James gets to the heart of truths about poetry not always addressed, “some hard” but always “firmly committed to celebration” (Martin Amis). He presents a distillation of all he’s learned about the art form that matters to him most. James examines the poems and legacies of a panorama of twentieth-century poets, from Hart Crane to Ezra Pound (a “mad old amateur fascist with a panscopic grab bag”), from Ted Hughes to Anne Sexton. Whether demanding that poetry be heard beyond the world of letters or opining on his five favorite poets (Yeats, Frost, Auden, Wilbur, and Larkin), his “generosity of attention, his willingness to trawl through pages of verse in search of the hair-raising line, is his most appealing quality as a critic” (Adam Kirsch, Wall Street Journal).
257 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2014
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431 people want to read
About the author
Clive James
94 books289 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.
An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
December 23, 2016
James wrote many of the pieces on commission for Christian Wiman when the latter was editor of Chicago’s Poetry magazine. As he has been battling leukemia for a number of years (and Wiman himself fought bone cancer), there is a sense of summing up to these essays: he is celebrating the poets who have meant the most to him in his life, the poems he’s gone back to time and again.
Favorite lines:
Favorite lines:
“I would never stop reading [Robert Frost] if there were not something talkatively smooth about him that allows me to convince myself he is not intense.”
“When reacting to a poem, the word ‘perfect’ is inadequate for the same reason that the word ‘wow’ would be. But it isn’t inadequate because it says nothing. It is inadequate because it is trying to say everything.”
“when we want to switch people on to a specific poet, we don’t deliver a complete lecture, we try to hook them with a sentence.”
“there is such a thing as being so concerned with the self that one loses sight of the poet’s privileged duty, which is to be concerned with everything, in the hope of producing something – a poem, a stanza, even a single line – that will live on its own, in its own time.”
December 12, 2019
It was a GR virtualista (but of course!) who first introduced me to the foreign (to me) name, Clive James. It sounded like a singer's name. In fact, at first I thought she meant Cliff Richard, my mixed synapses conflating "Clive" with "Cliff" (and the wonderful song, "We Don't Talk Anymore").
But, no. This fellow was multi-talented, apparently, no stranger to prose and verse, radio and TV, wit and wisdom. No stranger, that is, unless you were one of those provincial Americans who lives in a cave (safer, especially these days).
This, then, is a collection of previously published essays James sold to various periodicals, especially Poetry, the one poetry journal with deep pockets (and you thought they were unicorn-like, or maybe dodo-like, or any like you please).
Overall, I'd say his voice stands out most. If you take it as a given (and I did in my day) that every professor lectures, you probably realize that there is such a thing as a GOOD lecturer. Rare (unicorns and dodos again), but out there. Men and women so knowledgeable that you hang on every word. Men and women whose voices are animated and full of personality. And most of all, men and women with (going the way of unicorns and dodos... do you see a pattern?) senses of humor.
Did I say humor? Yes. And when talking about poetry (the equivalent of outer space), the one necessity we can agree upon is humor (the equivalent of oxygen, thank you). James doesn't take himself overly seriously, in other words, though he certainly is serious about his topic.
Among his beliefs is that you cannot be a free verse poet who never learns meter and expects to get anywhere. This reminds me of grammar teachers in writing class who say, "You can break the rules for effect, but only after you've mastered them." (Insert student writers thinking, "Damn!")
So, yes. Until you know your anapest from your iamb, your dactyl from your trochee, don't expect to wow them with your liberated free verse by placing too much faith in your natural rhythm alone. More likely it will lead to bad poetry, though James is kind enough to admit that well-versed form poems can be blindingly bad, too, perhaps the worse for the trying and failing badly.
As you might expect, you'll quickly learn James' preferences: Plath, Frost, Betjeman, Larkin, Wilbur, to name a few. And you'll meet more than a few you've never heard of before, too: Michael Donaghy, Les Murray, and Michael Longley, in my case. But you're here to learn, right? That is why you signed up for the course, right?
Parting humorous send-off: "In my dreams I see the ideal poetry teacher, nearly always a woman, giving personal instruction to the ideal pupil, nearly always a girl (the boys stay so thick so long, do they not? Although some of them sharpen up later, in their tediously competitive way)...."
Me, I'm just trying to sharpen up. And, forewarned as I am, avoid any competition. Test-wise, those anapesty grades would be the end of me.
But, no. This fellow was multi-talented, apparently, no stranger to prose and verse, radio and TV, wit and wisdom. No stranger, that is, unless you were one of those provincial Americans who lives in a cave (safer, especially these days).
This, then, is a collection of previously published essays James sold to various periodicals, especially Poetry, the one poetry journal with deep pockets (and you thought they were unicorn-like, or maybe dodo-like, or any like you please).
Overall, I'd say his voice stands out most. If you take it as a given (and I did in my day) that every professor lectures, you probably realize that there is such a thing as a GOOD lecturer. Rare (unicorns and dodos again), but out there. Men and women so knowledgeable that you hang on every word. Men and women whose voices are animated and full of personality. And most of all, men and women with (going the way of unicorns and dodos... do you see a pattern?) senses of humor.
Did I say humor? Yes. And when talking about poetry (the equivalent of outer space), the one necessity we can agree upon is humor (the equivalent of oxygen, thank you). James doesn't take himself overly seriously, in other words, though he certainly is serious about his topic.
Among his beliefs is that you cannot be a free verse poet who never learns meter and expects to get anywhere. This reminds me of grammar teachers in writing class who say, "You can break the rules for effect, but only after you've mastered them." (Insert student writers thinking, "Damn!")
So, yes. Until you know your anapest from your iamb, your dactyl from your trochee, don't expect to wow them with your liberated free verse by placing too much faith in your natural rhythm alone. More likely it will lead to bad poetry, though James is kind enough to admit that well-versed form poems can be blindingly bad, too, perhaps the worse for the trying and failing badly.
As you might expect, you'll quickly learn James' preferences: Plath, Frost, Betjeman, Larkin, Wilbur, to name a few. And you'll meet more than a few you've never heard of before, too: Michael Donaghy, Les Murray, and Michael Longley, in my case. But you're here to learn, right? That is why you signed up for the course, right?
Parting humorous send-off: "In my dreams I see the ideal poetry teacher, nearly always a woman, giving personal instruction to the ideal pupil, nearly always a girl (the boys stay so thick so long, do they not? Although some of them sharpen up later, in their tediously competitive way)...."
Me, I'm just trying to sharpen up. And, forewarned as I am, avoid any competition. Test-wise, those anapesty grades would be the end of me.
November 10, 2020
Only the late, great Clive James could make poetry criticism funny, engrossing, and thought-provoking.
Even if you have only a passing interest in poetry, there is something for everyone here - from an impressive guide to the best North American poets in the last century, to the political complications of Oxford University's elected post of Professor of Poetry.
Favourite chapter: 'The Arrow has not Two Points' - James' impressive critique of Ezra Pound's Cantos.
Even if you have only a passing interest in poetry, there is something for everyone here - from an impressive guide to the best North American poets in the last century, to the political complications of Oxford University's elected post of Professor of Poetry.
Favourite chapter: 'The Arrow has not Two Points' - James' impressive critique of Ezra Pound's Cantos.
August 7, 2015
I wanted to read this book after I heard that he was a traditionalist who believed that modern poetry's loss of formal roots has damaged the art form, and I also believe that rhythm and meter are the most important aspects of a poem. But I quickly learned that beyond that, we have very different ideas about what poetry fundamentally is.
James infuses poetry with supernatural ability. He believes that language alone has the power to shake us and leave us spellbound. He rather reminds me of a poetry professor I once had who declared "poetry is better than sex," and made some other incredulous claims about poetry being identical to a direct experience.
I on the other hand, take a historical materialist view of art. I think poetry was invented by humans at a specific time and place to perform a function. To the best of our knowledge, poetry began in per-literate human societies because rhyming and meter are mnemonic devices, and so allowed people to pass on information more efficiently. Poetry's place altered as human technologies and cultures evolved. For a long time, few people were literate, and the poetic forms of religious texts and prayers were important for spiritual practice. Plays were always written in poetic form until after the invention of the printing press because form allowed the actors to memorize their lines quickly when there were few copies of the script to go around. Before recorded music, lyricists would publish their works, only sometimes with sheet music, so that people could learn and perform songs at home.
So contrary to Clive James, I'd argue that poetry didn't lose it's public place because it lost it's formal roots. It lost it's formal roots because it lost it's public place. As human technologies made the functions outlined in my previous paragraph irreverent, poetry had no reason to be easily memorized, and so moved away from the lives of everyday people and further and further into the academy, which valued obscure references and experimentation, thus changing the way poetry was written and performed. It is true that modernist poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were rock stars among a certain erudite crowd, but that couldn't last forever.
None of this is to say I don't appreciate poetry, but I'm pretty picky and generally prefer pre-20th century poetry, though I do read the modernist from time to time. I like narrative and the Romantics and ballads, some favorites being "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "The Lady of Shallot," "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and "The Eve of St. Anges." I am rarely interested in poetry about the author's personal life or a frozen moment in time. I find looking out my own window more interesting than reading a poem about someone looking out their window. My taste don't align with Clive James very often, as he seems to want to change the form but not the content of contemporary poetry, and most of the poems he cites, perfect form or not, could put me to sleep. Still, he did inspire me to pick up some poetry books from the library, but I wouldn't say that I found his praise of language infectious.
James infuses poetry with supernatural ability. He believes that language alone has the power to shake us and leave us spellbound. He rather reminds me of a poetry professor I once had who declared "poetry is better than sex," and made some other incredulous claims about poetry being identical to a direct experience.
I on the other hand, take a historical materialist view of art. I think poetry was invented by humans at a specific time and place to perform a function. To the best of our knowledge, poetry began in per-literate human societies because rhyming and meter are mnemonic devices, and so allowed people to pass on information more efficiently. Poetry's place altered as human technologies and cultures evolved. For a long time, few people were literate, and the poetic forms of religious texts and prayers were important for spiritual practice. Plays were always written in poetic form until after the invention of the printing press because form allowed the actors to memorize their lines quickly when there were few copies of the script to go around. Before recorded music, lyricists would publish their works, only sometimes with sheet music, so that people could learn and perform songs at home.
So contrary to Clive James, I'd argue that poetry didn't lose it's public place because it lost it's formal roots. It lost it's formal roots because it lost it's public place. As human technologies made the functions outlined in my previous paragraph irreverent, poetry had no reason to be easily memorized, and so moved away from the lives of everyday people and further and further into the academy, which valued obscure references and experimentation, thus changing the way poetry was written and performed. It is true that modernist poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound were rock stars among a certain erudite crowd, but that couldn't last forever.
None of this is to say I don't appreciate poetry, but I'm pretty picky and generally prefer pre-20th century poetry, though I do read the modernist from time to time. I like narrative and the Romantics and ballads, some favorites being "Rime of the Ancient Mariner," "The Lady of Shallot," "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" and "The Eve of St. Anges." I am rarely interested in poetry about the author's personal life or a frozen moment in time. I find looking out my own window more interesting than reading a poem about someone looking out their window. My taste don't align with Clive James very often, as he seems to want to change the form but not the content of contemporary poetry, and most of the poems he cites, perfect form or not, could put me to sleep. Still, he did inspire me to pick up some poetry books from the library, but I wouldn't say that I found his praise of language infectious.
April 19, 2015
You're a dying man. You want to sum up a lifetime of reading and writing about poetry, and you have to do it in less than 250 pages. The stakes could not be higher.
Thankfully, James rises the challenge, often in language that rises to the status of what it exalts. Of the penultimate line in Shakespeare's 129th sonnet, he writes 'Reversing the two words "well knows" so as to wind the spring at the end of the line gives a reserve of energy to launch the last line like a crossbow bolt'. He can get a complex argument into a simple-seeming joke. Martian poetry had its moments, but was 'all climax and no build-up [...] after Martian poetry became a drug on the market it grew apparent that it might be better to have the narrator rowing out in his little boat to catch the mackerel, before the porpoises dramatically appear.'
Some have complained that James includes too few women poets in his personal list of greats (which rather ignores the space he devotes to Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore and Sylvia Plath). As complaints go, that isn't as reasonable as it sounds: personal choices are precisely that, and subject to neither quotas nor the kind of people keen on imposing them.
The same goes for self-consciously 'experimental' poetry. James fully appreciates the innovations Hopkins and Whitman bring to the table, and is only too aware that bad verse is never improved by strict form. But (echoing Larkin, perhaps in many ways the hero of this book) he never lets us forget that readability isn't something distinct from intelligence, but part of it. If that might sound a tad redundant to British readers, it's a point well worth stating.
The essays don't so much repeat his points but deepen them, and often challenge received thoughts - that Les Murray's recent work has added nothing to his stature, say, or the best of John Updike's poetry is found in his novels.
I'm docking him a star for the moments when James forgets he is addressing a living audience instead of one made of strawmen, and which should have been edited out at an early stage. I have always found Christian Wiman's prose rather arrogant, and his poetry short of James' grand claims for it. That aside, this is a punchy, vigorous collection, and the best of it will be hard to improve on. If James' recent poems have been any indication, especially 'Japanese Maple', his next collection will be his monument.
Thankfully, James rises the challenge, often in language that rises to the status of what it exalts. Of the penultimate line in Shakespeare's 129th sonnet, he writes 'Reversing the two words "well knows" so as to wind the spring at the end of the line gives a reserve of energy to launch the last line like a crossbow bolt'. He can get a complex argument into a simple-seeming joke. Martian poetry had its moments, but was 'all climax and no build-up [...] after Martian poetry became a drug on the market it grew apparent that it might be better to have the narrator rowing out in his little boat to catch the mackerel, before the porpoises dramatically appear.'
Some have complained that James includes too few women poets in his personal list of greats (which rather ignores the space he devotes to Edna St. Vincent Millay, Marianne Moore and Sylvia Plath). As complaints go, that isn't as reasonable as it sounds: personal choices are precisely that, and subject to neither quotas nor the kind of people keen on imposing them.
The same goes for self-consciously 'experimental' poetry. James fully appreciates the innovations Hopkins and Whitman bring to the table, and is only too aware that bad verse is never improved by strict form. But (echoing Larkin, perhaps in many ways the hero of this book) he never lets us forget that readability isn't something distinct from intelligence, but part of it. If that might sound a tad redundant to British readers, it's a point well worth stating.
The essays don't so much repeat his points but deepen them, and often challenge received thoughts - that Les Murray's recent work has added nothing to his stature, say, or the best of John Updike's poetry is found in his novels.
I'm docking him a star for the moments when James forgets he is addressing a living audience instead of one made of strawmen, and which should have been edited out at an early stage. I have always found Christian Wiman's prose rather arrogant, and his poetry short of James' grand claims for it. That aside, this is a punchy, vigorous collection, and the best of it will be hard to improve on. If James' recent poems have been any indication, especially 'Japanese Maple', his next collection will be his monument.
September 10, 2016
I love listening to old poetry lovers talk about poetry. Period.
This collection of essays was also enjoyable because James and I seem to have similar preferences (Larkin, Auden, Yeats, etc.) and similar feelings for the current throng of self-proclaimed poets:
"The idea that form can be perfectly free has had so great a victory, everywhere in the English-speaking world, that the belief in its hidden technical support no longer holds up... The general assumption that beginning poets had to put in their time with technical training, like musicians learning their scales, is everywhere regarded as out of date."
James contends that only a mastery of technique can enable a poet to write good "free verse," the way that - for example - Picasso's technical mastery enabled him to create new forms of art.
But I guess if your readers lack technical knowledge of poetry, they won't miss it...
This collection of essays was also enjoyable because James and I seem to have similar preferences (Larkin, Auden, Yeats, etc.) and similar feelings for the current throng of self-proclaimed poets:
"The idea that form can be perfectly free has had so great a victory, everywhere in the English-speaking world, that the belief in its hidden technical support no longer holds up... The general assumption that beginning poets had to put in their time with technical training, like musicians learning their scales, is everywhere regarded as out of date."
James contends that only a mastery of technique can enable a poet to write good "free verse," the way that - for example - Picasso's technical mastery enabled him to create new forms of art.
But I guess if your readers lack technical knowledge of poetry, they won't miss it...
July 19, 2018
Clive James’s essays provided an insightful and sometimes humorous look into how a poet reads poetry. He provides some excellent examples of attention to language and image. The essays also introduced me to some new (to me) poets from Britain and Australia. My only criticism is that I wished he had discussed more female poets—mostly because I am always on the prowl for new material to use in class. This lack he also acknowledges as such in the introduction.
May 27, 2022
It was okay.
I tried to take what I needed from it and leave the rest. This is very much a niche book, written for a certain person - and I'm not quite that person.
I tried to take what I needed from it and leave the rest. This is very much a niche book, written for a certain person - and I'm not quite that person.
December 19, 2015
A simply delightful read. Full of erudition and witticism but thoughtful, honest and surprisingly comprehensive in the field it covers in such a (relatively) small volume.
One of many favourite and funny lines is when talking about Jack London, James observes that "though he longed for success as a poet, (London) never wrote a stanza that anyone wanted to remember: his whole gift was for prose. Thus, poor guy, he was condemned to fame and wealth: a fate most poets avoid" (p. 65)
One of many favourite and funny lines is when talking about Jack London, James observes that "though he longed for success as a poet, (London) never wrote a stanza that anyone wanted to remember: his whole gift was for prose. Thus, poor guy, he was condemned to fame and wealth: a fate most poets avoid" (p. 65)
January 4, 2019
Full of James' trademark balance of erudition and playfulness, insight and wit, and I found him to enhance the reading of the poets I already love and an enriching challenge with those I like but he doesn't.
January 23, 2022
Immediately accessible for a reader with an in-depth knowledge of poetry. For someone who is less-well read, its best use is as a journey through poetry, taking time to explore each poem along the way. A book to cherish as a reference guide and dip into regularly, with Clive James as your guide.
December 3, 2024
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
Cut that out of a newspaper many moons ago.
He had such a way with words. Finally got around to reading this! Thanks Sue.
And I am pleased.
Cut that out of a newspaper many moons ago.
He had such a way with words. Finally got around to reading this! Thanks Sue.
May 30, 2017
To her great amusement during a recent telephone conversation, I explained to my friend Stense how, having finally managed to start appreciating certain poetry in recent years, I had just bought a collection by a poet whose earlier work I had very much enjoyed, only to find it utterly incomprehensible. The following day, Stense spotted Clive James’s Poetry Notebook in a bookshop and bought it for me for Christmas.
What this book made me realise is it’s OK not to enjoy certain poems—even, perhaps, the vast majority of them. And it’s OK to like certain bits of a poem, without necessarily liking the whole thing. James has a useful word to describe particularly good bits in poems: he refers to them as moments. Enjoying poetry is all about discovering such moments.
James is firmly of the opinion that poetry needs to be formally constrained in some way for it to work. It needs metre, or a rhyme-scheme, or something like that—although it’s OK to break these self-imposed constraints from time to time for effect. James is clearly no fan of unconstrained, free-form poetry. I know where he’s coming from. It always felt like a total cheat to me. Poetry Notebook made me realise it was OK to feel that way.
I should confess, I found a couple of the essays in Poetry Notebook hard-going. Most of them were originally written for a poetry journal, so they rightly assume the reader has a better working knowledge of poetry that I do. But the vast majority of the essays were very readable, and made a lot of sense. Having read this book, I know I’ll go about reading poetry in a different way in future. In fact, I think I might start by giving the incomprehensible collection a second chance.
Highly recommended.
What this book made me realise is it’s OK not to enjoy certain poems—even, perhaps, the vast majority of them. And it’s OK to like certain bits of a poem, without necessarily liking the whole thing. James has a useful word to describe particularly good bits in poems: he refers to them as moments. Enjoying poetry is all about discovering such moments.
James is firmly of the opinion that poetry needs to be formally constrained in some way for it to work. It needs metre, or a rhyme-scheme, or something like that—although it’s OK to break these self-imposed constraints from time to time for effect. James is clearly no fan of unconstrained, free-form poetry. I know where he’s coming from. It always felt like a total cheat to me. Poetry Notebook made me realise it was OK to feel that way.
I should confess, I found a couple of the essays in Poetry Notebook hard-going. Most of them were originally written for a poetry journal, so they rightly assume the reader has a better working knowledge of poetry that I do. But the vast majority of the essays were very readable, and made a lot of sense. Having read this book, I know I’ll go about reading poetry in a different way in future. In fact, I think I might start by giving the incomprehensible collection a second chance.
Highly recommended.
November 15, 2022
Clive James who died in 2019 had a long period of terminal illness which is reflected in this book published in 2014. I picked this book up at ‘Word after Word,’ an amazingly good bookstore for a town the size and nature of Truckee. I am still gaining sea legs in poetry and thought someone as accessible as James would serve as a good guide.
While the writing is engaging, the nature of the book, a series of collected columns and short essays for magazines and newspapers means that mostly he is skirting on the surface of poets and poetry, pointing out here and there a stanza or line he likes. I don’t mind that he is quite opinionated. That is helpful for someone like me to measure my engagement and reasons for it against a giant like James. What I don’t like is his bias in favor of poetry that is better for it being confined to a form, be it formal or consciously thought out.
I’m glad this wasn’t my introduction to poetry because even though I am still finding my way into its magic and bliss, I wouldn’t have wanted James’s perspective on poetry as existing like a sea of sparkling jewels where each great poem is finely cut and shaped and separated out from all the lesser stones based on a gauzy sense of mastery and greatness. I want to read good poetry because it is more interesting than bad poetry not because I am constantly climbing a lofty summit. Poetry is our symbolic conversation with ourselves, our past, our future and hopefully with the spiritual oneness that exists beyond our conscious shores.
While the writing is engaging, the nature of the book, a series of collected columns and short essays for magazines and newspapers means that mostly he is skirting on the surface of poets and poetry, pointing out here and there a stanza or line he likes. I don’t mind that he is quite opinionated. That is helpful for someone like me to measure my engagement and reasons for it against a giant like James. What I don’t like is his bias in favor of poetry that is better for it being confined to a form, be it formal or consciously thought out.
I’m glad this wasn’t my introduction to poetry because even though I am still finding my way into its magic and bliss, I wouldn’t have wanted James’s perspective on poetry as existing like a sea of sparkling jewels where each great poem is finely cut and shaped and separated out from all the lesser stones based on a gauzy sense of mastery and greatness. I want to read good poetry because it is more interesting than bad poetry not because I am constantly climbing a lofty summit. Poetry is our symbolic conversation with ourselves, our past, our future and hopefully with the spiritual oneness that exists beyond our conscious shores.
October 20, 2023
Poetry Notebook 2006-2014 is a collection of essays on poetry, mostly written for Poetry magazine (Chicago), with ‘interludes’ written specifically for the book format to link them together and provide a little extra background. The last section of the book consists of poetry articles written for publication elsewhere, plus one last chapter to close it all off.
James is clearly very knowledgeable and has been reading, writing and thinking about poetry for decades. He is familiar with many poets and their times, and is honest in his opinions of them and always tries to explain why he holds them. Sometimes his opinions have changed throughout his life, sometimes they have been reinforced, and even in his old age he can be taken by surprise, for there is always something new to discover, even if it is only a new way of seeing something he thought he knew well.
These are the writings of a man who takes poetry seriously; as the articles were written for a poetry magazine, they have a good depth of detail and a thankful lack of simplification or pandering to an imagined raw audience. He is writing as a lover of poetry to other lovers of poetry, but he is not writing as an academic, and this is what makes the essays work so cohesively in book format. Thoroughly recommended for anyone with an interest in poetry or poetry criticism.
James is clearly very knowledgeable and has been reading, writing and thinking about poetry for decades. He is familiar with many poets and their times, and is honest in his opinions of them and always tries to explain why he holds them. Sometimes his opinions have changed throughout his life, sometimes they have been reinforced, and even in his old age he can be taken by surprise, for there is always something new to discover, even if it is only a new way of seeing something he thought he knew well.
These are the writings of a man who takes poetry seriously; as the articles were written for a poetry magazine, they have a good depth of detail and a thankful lack of simplification or pandering to an imagined raw audience. He is writing as a lover of poetry to other lovers of poetry, but he is not writing as an academic, and this is what makes the essays work so cohesively in book format. Thoroughly recommended for anyone with an interest in poetry or poetry criticism.
May 25, 2017
To my shame, Clive James' status as a poet and critic of international renown only came to my attention a few years ago when, with his cancer diagnosis, valedictory (prematurely, as it turned out) articles began to be written in the national press. Prior to that he was entirely associated in my mind with the genial bald-headed presenter of Saturday Night Clive with his wry comments about the foibles of television.
This collection of essays and articles reveals him to be a sensitive, highly intelligent critic - the only apparent connection between the two Clive Jameses being that sense of humour. Some of the articles are quite specialist and will only connect with those who are well ensconced in the contemporary poetry scene. Others are more wide-ranging and will be of interest to the general reader (like me).
The greatest blessing to me from this book is being introduced to the poetry of Michael Donaghy and Edgar Stephen - James being something of an evangelist for the latter. Entertaining and well-worth reading.
This collection of essays and articles reveals him to be a sensitive, highly intelligent critic - the only apparent connection between the two Clive Jameses being that sense of humour. Some of the articles are quite specialist and will only connect with those who are well ensconced in the contemporary poetry scene. Others are more wide-ranging and will be of interest to the general reader (like me).
The greatest blessing to me from this book is being introduced to the poetry of Michael Donaghy and Edgar Stephen - James being something of an evangelist for the latter. Entertaining and well-worth reading.
Read
May 12, 2025Didn't actually read as it failed the first 5 pages test (ie if still don't like it so can stop) BUT fault is on my side as CJ is def readable Some things I don't like in first person as it reads a bit like a lecture. My experience with poetry, both writing and thinking about, is deeply personal - even from an analytical direction - and so is this a bit but on a vastly more elevated level and I simply got bored. Repeat, judgment on me, not the book itself. I wanted feelings, blood and flesh but this work is purely intellectual mainly plus a record of part of a literary life well led and impressively peopled by others. The word 'Notes' in the title mislead; less notebook with tea stains and more diary-like record of thoughts on people and event and siignificant other poets. Am listing it here for myself only as part of my reading record, as I may return to it and experience the work better. No stars as no opinion yet.
January 23, 2021
A collection of funny and interesting critical(ish) eassys on poets and poetry.
- Clive James insists that the 'poem' is more important than 'poetry' and regulary decried poets who failed to see that.
- Form is important, even if a poet goes on to write formless poetry, the must have that bedrock first. Using the analogy of picasso who was an undisputed master of art form before he abandoned them.
- Be sure to check out some great australian poets - Les Murray and Peter Porter.
- Get Robert Frost's collected poems as his quality is consistent across (rather than being a few of the early collections as sometimes happens).
- Clive James insists that the 'poem' is more important than 'poetry' and regulary decried poets who failed to see that.
- Form is important, even if a poet goes on to write formless poetry, the must have that bedrock first. Using the analogy of picasso who was an undisputed master of art form before he abandoned them.
- Be sure to check out some great australian poets - Les Murray and Peter Porter.
- Get Robert Frost's collected poems as his quality is consistent across (rather than being a few of the early collections as sometimes happens).
November 18, 2023
Brilliant and witty. I readily admit that I have not read many of the poets mentioned beyond the ones most known (and at least mentioned in some literature class). Clive James’s knowledge of poetry is vast. His writing has inspired me to read the poems he mentions, and this he is also a great teacher.
June 24, 2019
Brilliant essays on poetry by Mr James.
May 23, 2020
Brilliant. Wonderful writing, superb analysis and yet more references to follow up.
December 20, 2020
A delight to read, and draws out the insight on poetry to the novice like me. Wow
December 24, 2024
You are highly likely to become a better poetry reader, in a variety of ways, by reading this book.
June 14, 2017
The long mourning of Clive James has begun, before he has even shuffled off this mortal coil. I feel sure he relishes the irony of being feted in magazine and newspaper, especially in those that would never countenance publishing any of his verse.
His long decline into the grave has engendered an extraordinary outpouring of writing, both of verse and criticism. Even before his final illness was diagnosed he produced Cultural Amnesia, a work that almost defies description, and one I think will be an essential guide to the glorious mess that was the 20th century as time wears on. His translation of Dante is wonderful, and the work just keeps coming.
Poetry notebook pretty much does what it says on the cover - it is a collection of pieces written by James about poetry over the last ten years for various outlets, with his pieces for the magazine Poetry being at the heart.
There is no doubt that behind the bonhomie and wit of his television persona, James is a deep thinker, and committed to poetry as the highest of arts. He has a lot to say, in his own inimitable way, about exactly what it is that makes a poem, and how they affect us, the gentle reader. James leads us through just what it is that makes a poem, from the memorable phrase, a master touch of rhythm and the wonderfully argued stanza. By referring back to his own discovery of verse, he reminds us of the great thrill of that first time you read a line, a stanza, or even a whole poem that grabs you by the guts and makes you feel lightheaded.
In the first section of the book, "Notes on poetry", James brings together his articles from Poetry magazine, interspersed with little "interludes"; and, while each essay is a whole within itself, they link together to provide a critical framework for what James considers important. And that is genius in language tied together with structure, allows the poet to transcend both language and structure to create greatness.
James refers in one essay to Michael Donaghy's concept of “negotiation”, “obtained from a contest between what the poet aimed to say and the form in which he had chosen to say it.”, and it’s fair to say that James also believes in this concept. This belief makes him very wary of free verse. While he points out that much rubbish has been written both in formal and informal modes, James suggests that informal verse has a much higher bar to jump over to be considered good poetry, and in fact used poorly can take away the effect from some wonderful lines. James doesn’t dismiss informal verse entirely though, as there are success stories, and freedom and form need to both exist to bounce off each other.
All good poems must have something to say, and James is merciless to poems that don’t. There is a wonderful essay on Pound in this book, where James revisits his (and let’s face it, lots of our) early devotion to his work with a more mature eye, and calls out the Cantos for the cant that they mostly are, pointing out the irony that Pound the critic was all about meaning and being to the point, yet his poetry was often the exact opposite: “The arrow has not two points.”….
The second section of the book consists of articles and essays regarding particular poets, including Peter Porter, Les Murray, John Updike, Robert Frost and others. These writings reflect James’ conviction that poetry must be meaningful in a basic sense to really become poetry – he doesn’t like woolly language that attempts profundity, but holds to Frost’s concept of the “Sound of sense”.
James has always been at his best in the mode of critic, and it is in the essay that he finds his ideal outlet. This book (and it is true also of Cultural Amnesia), while constructed of disparate pieces, can be read as a single entity – a theory with examples scattered throughout the text. It is a book well worth reading for those engaged in writing poetry: even if you may not agree with his ideas about what poetry is, his advice to “young” poets is helpful – read as much as you can, work out why something grabs you, and practice, practice, practice.
There are other little gems of advice as well: James is a firm believer in the value of anthologies, as they not only bring together the “best” poetry, but they give you insights into the times they were produced, or what particular poetic movements considered seminal.
The final piece “Trumpets at Sunset” is a poignant collection of paragraphs in which James laments his imminent passing and how he now lacks the time to revisit some poets that he feels he may need to read again. He also lets us know in this section that he’s not a huge fan of Milton or Swinburne, but enjoys a bit of Dryden.
It will be interesting to see how posterity treats Clive James. I think Poetry Notebook is well worth reading.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
His long decline into the grave has engendered an extraordinary outpouring of writing, both of verse and criticism. Even before his final illness was diagnosed he produced Cultural Amnesia, a work that almost defies description, and one I think will be an essential guide to the glorious mess that was the 20th century as time wears on. His translation of Dante is wonderful, and the work just keeps coming.
Poetry notebook pretty much does what it says on the cover - it is a collection of pieces written by James about poetry over the last ten years for various outlets, with his pieces for the magazine Poetry being at the heart.
There is no doubt that behind the bonhomie and wit of his television persona, James is a deep thinker, and committed to poetry as the highest of arts. He has a lot to say, in his own inimitable way, about exactly what it is that makes a poem, and how they affect us, the gentle reader. James leads us through just what it is that makes a poem, from the memorable phrase, a master touch of rhythm and the wonderfully argued stanza. By referring back to his own discovery of verse, he reminds us of the great thrill of that first time you read a line, a stanza, or even a whole poem that grabs you by the guts and makes you feel lightheaded.
In the first section of the book, "Notes on poetry", James brings together his articles from Poetry magazine, interspersed with little "interludes"; and, while each essay is a whole within itself, they link together to provide a critical framework for what James considers important. And that is genius in language tied together with structure, allows the poet to transcend both language and structure to create greatness.
James refers in one essay to Michael Donaghy's concept of “negotiation”, “obtained from a contest between what the poet aimed to say and the form in which he had chosen to say it.”, and it’s fair to say that James also believes in this concept. This belief makes him very wary of free verse. While he points out that much rubbish has been written both in formal and informal modes, James suggests that informal verse has a much higher bar to jump over to be considered good poetry, and in fact used poorly can take away the effect from some wonderful lines. James doesn’t dismiss informal verse entirely though, as there are success stories, and freedom and form need to both exist to bounce off each other.
All good poems must have something to say, and James is merciless to poems that don’t. There is a wonderful essay on Pound in this book, where James revisits his (and let’s face it, lots of our) early devotion to his work with a more mature eye, and calls out the Cantos for the cant that they mostly are, pointing out the irony that Pound the critic was all about meaning and being to the point, yet his poetry was often the exact opposite: “The arrow has not two points.”….
The second section of the book consists of articles and essays regarding particular poets, including Peter Porter, Les Murray, John Updike, Robert Frost and others. These writings reflect James’ conviction that poetry must be meaningful in a basic sense to really become poetry – he doesn’t like woolly language that attempts profundity, but holds to Frost’s concept of the “Sound of sense”.
James has always been at his best in the mode of critic, and it is in the essay that he finds his ideal outlet. This book (and it is true also of Cultural Amnesia), while constructed of disparate pieces, can be read as a single entity – a theory with examples scattered throughout the text. It is a book well worth reading for those engaged in writing poetry: even if you may not agree with his ideas about what poetry is, his advice to “young” poets is helpful – read as much as you can, work out why something grabs you, and practice, practice, practice.
There are other little gems of advice as well: James is a firm believer in the value of anthologies, as they not only bring together the “best” poetry, but they give you insights into the times they were produced, or what particular poetic movements considered seminal.
The final piece “Trumpets at Sunset” is a poignant collection of paragraphs in which James laments his imminent passing and how he now lacks the time to revisit some poets that he feels he may need to read again. He also lets us know in this section that he’s not a huge fan of Milton or Swinburne, but enjoys a bit of Dryden.
It will be interesting to see how posterity treats Clive James. I think Poetry Notebook is well worth reading.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
March 1, 2022
Poetry Notebook is an old-fashioned work of criticism and reactionary formalism, belaboring the technical brilliance of 20th-century poets (especially, Yeats, Frost, Plath, Larkin and Auden) and deriding the nonsense of abstract poetry (Pound) and the metrical degeneracy of free verse. It is full of dogmatic pronouncements (this line is packed, this one unreadable; this word is weak, this one arresting) and it has a somewhat snobby attitude to contemporary poets and scholars who, so he thinks, lack a sensitive ear for the craftsmanship of poetic verse.
Broadly, I agreed with his criticism but I disagreed with the particulars. Where he hears a conversational lilt, I often heard overwrought syntax; where he detects pleasing iambs, I thought it was monotonous spondees. Where he says an expression is superfluous, I thought it was elegant. While I admired his loquacious verve in lampooning the bad aesthetics of academic poetry, I felt his appreciation of poetry was too doctrinal and too often turned into a simple cerebral act of apprehending its verbal design. He talks about poetic intensity where others before him would have praised the poetic sublime. There's something very anemic about the way Clive James thinks about poetry and language, and his judgements are more often grounded in witty antitheses and ex-cathedra decrees than in any sober criteria. I enjoyed it, but it was fuddy-duddy.
I was also struck by the impression that he was a critic quagmired in a distinctly British past. His favorite poets are overwhelmingly male and white and his apolitical ideal of poetry means that he narrowly selects from the the 20th century (as he says, "if there are revolutions in literature, they are palace revolutions" and so the Harlem Renaissance has no place in his reflections). His high-minded view of the poet as a craftsman also puts him at odds with the current moment in which the poet is also expected to meet a certain ethical standard. When he discusses Walcott's withdrawal from the election for Oxford Professorship of Poetry because of a sexual harassment allegation, he laments how it "became an American presidential election in parodic miniature" and argues that one can be villain and still be a great poet ("people would still flock to him from behind bars"). And strange how he never does actually discuss Walcott's poetry... In another essay, he bemoans America as "a puritan culture in which an artist's integrity must be sufficiently unblemished to impress Oprah Winfrey". So for all his noble sentiments about the poet as artist and not a moralist, Clive James comes across as a bit of a political revanchist with the old colonial condescensions towards America. I like formalism but it doesn't have to be a cover for cultural chauvinism.
Broadly, I agreed with his criticism but I disagreed with the particulars. Where he hears a conversational lilt, I often heard overwrought syntax; where he detects pleasing iambs, I thought it was monotonous spondees. Where he says an expression is superfluous, I thought it was elegant. While I admired his loquacious verve in lampooning the bad aesthetics of academic poetry, I felt his appreciation of poetry was too doctrinal and too often turned into a simple cerebral act of apprehending its verbal design. He talks about poetic intensity where others before him would have praised the poetic sublime. There's something very anemic about the way Clive James thinks about poetry and language, and his judgements are more often grounded in witty antitheses and ex-cathedra decrees than in any sober criteria. I enjoyed it, but it was fuddy-duddy.
I was also struck by the impression that he was a critic quagmired in a distinctly British past. His favorite poets are overwhelmingly male and white and his apolitical ideal of poetry means that he narrowly selects from the the 20th century (as he says, "if there are revolutions in literature, they are palace revolutions" and so the Harlem Renaissance has no place in his reflections). His high-minded view of the poet as a craftsman also puts him at odds with the current moment in which the poet is also expected to meet a certain ethical standard. When he discusses Walcott's withdrawal from the election for Oxford Professorship of Poetry because of a sexual harassment allegation, he laments how it "became an American presidential election in parodic miniature" and argues that one can be villain and still be a great poet ("people would still flock to him from behind bars"). And strange how he never does actually discuss Walcott's poetry... In another essay, he bemoans America as "a puritan culture in which an artist's integrity must be sufficiently unblemished to impress Oprah Winfrey". So for all his noble sentiments about the poet as artist and not a moralist, Clive James comes across as a bit of a political revanchist with the old colonial condescensions towards America. I like formalism but it doesn't have to be a cover for cultural chauvinism.
December 14, 2022
I was required to take a class called Literary Criticism as part of my English major at university. It was one of my favorite classes. In it we both read examples of various schools of literary criticism and produced some of our own. I haven't read much literary criticism since, however, but one of the things I learned in another class "Cervantes, Dickens, Tolstoy, Proust, and Mann" came from reading Miguel de Unamuno's superb piece of literary criticism, "Meditations on Quixote," is that great critical writing expands the work it is considering; it adds something precious and essential to it, helping us gain more from the experience of reading that work.
Clive James does exactly that in Poetry Notebook: Reflections on the Intensity of Language. His essays on various (mostly) modern (mostly) male poets and their works are rich in their consideration of what makes a poem great or not so great. He realizes and makes clear nuances I never imaged, ways that language is mined for the greatest possible wealth, layers on layers of meaning from structure to syntax to phoneme to the way a line scans in reading. His focus is primarily on American and British poets, with a fairly large offering of his Australian compatriots. In his pages, I encountered old favorites of mine, to be sure, but mostly I was introduced to poets who were new to me, prompting many breaks in reading to Google their names and read the full poems of which James quoted a few lines or a stanza. I expect to continue mining this book for more in the coming year. And I've already ordered an anthology that accompanied him in his youth from his native Australia to England, The Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse.
The writing is wonderful, sometimes poetic and sometimes laugh out loud funny. The fact that James was himself a poet and seems to have memorized hundreds of poems also gives this collection a great deal of its power. What took him years to accumulate seems to be offered effortlessly, coming trippingly off the tongue, so to speak. What a wealth of knowledge and insight!
Sadly, James was curating this collection of his published essays and writing the Interludes that introduced each of them as he was dying, and that fact also informs this book, particularly at the end. Of course I Googled and learned that he wrote a farewell poem "Japanese Maple." I suggest that you Google it for yourself. It's beautiful. His book is in fact a love letter to poetry, an encomium to poetry and to life.
Clive James does exactly that in Poetry Notebook: Reflections on the Intensity of Language. His essays on various (mostly) modern (mostly) male poets and their works are rich in their consideration of what makes a poem great or not so great. He realizes and makes clear nuances I never imaged, ways that language is mined for the greatest possible wealth, layers on layers of meaning from structure to syntax to phoneme to the way a line scans in reading. His focus is primarily on American and British poets, with a fairly large offering of his Australian compatriots. In his pages, I encountered old favorites of mine, to be sure, but mostly I was introduced to poets who were new to me, prompting many breaks in reading to Google their names and read the full poems of which James quoted a few lines or a stanza. I expect to continue mining this book for more in the coming year. And I've already ordered an anthology that accompanied him in his youth from his native Australia to England, The Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse.
The writing is wonderful, sometimes poetic and sometimes laugh out loud funny. The fact that James was himself a poet and seems to have memorized hundreds of poems also gives this collection a great deal of its power. What took him years to accumulate seems to be offered effortlessly, coming trippingly off the tongue, so to speak. What a wealth of knowledge and insight!
Sadly, James was curating this collection of his published essays and writing the Interludes that introduced each of them as he was dying, and that fact also informs this book, particularly at the end. Of course I Googled and learned that he wrote a farewell poem "Japanese Maple." I suggest that you Google it for yourself. It's beautiful. His book is in fact a love letter to poetry, an encomium to poetry and to life.
August 2, 2019
Clive James is an excellent critics and a serious cultural voice. He is also a prize-winning poet. Since he was first enthralled by the mysterious power of poetry, he has been a dedicated student. In fact, for Clive James, poetry has been nothing less than the occupation of a lifetime, and in this book he presents a distillation of all he's learned about the art form that matters to him most. With his customary wit, delightfully lucid prose style and wide-ranging knowledge, James explains the difference between the innocuous stuff that often passes for poetry today and a real poem: the latter being a work of unity that insists on being heard entire and threatens never to leave the memory.
A committed formalist and an astute commentator, James offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets (from Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound), and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life - just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time! Whether discussing technical details of metaphorical creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating. Filled with insight and written with an honest, infectious enthusiasm, Poetry Notebook is the product of over fifty years of writing, reading, translating and thinking about poetry and mortality.
A committed formalist and an astute commentator, James offers close and careful readings of individual poems and poets (from Shakespeare to Larkin, Keats to Pound), and in some case second readings or re-readings late in life - just to be sure he wasn't wrong the first time! Whether discussing technical details of metaphorical creativity or simply praising his five favourite collections of all time, he is never less than captivating. Filled with insight and written with an honest, infectious enthusiasm, Poetry Notebook is the product of over fifty years of writing, reading, translating and thinking about poetry and mortality.
January 22, 2015
There's lots of enthusiasm for different poets in this collection of essays by James. His voice is so familiar, with its sardonic inflections that it's hard not to hear it as you read the book. It's full of his trademark wit and there are some nice reflections on the nature of poetry: "But poetry remains what it has always been: the thing that hardly anyone can do. Most of the contenders are aware of that, but go on trying anyway. Since there are such thin rewards even for success, and no rewards at all for failure, we might as well say that they do it from instinct, and call the instinct divine. And besides, there will be no lingering embarrassment from failing to make one's mark: a poem that doesn't work will be forgotten even while it is being set down. When Keats said that his name was written in water, he was right about almost every poet except himself." And the final sentence: "Better to think back on all the poems you have ever loved, and to realize what they have in common: the life you soon must lose."
October 1, 2016
In recent years, as he has battled serious illness, Clive James considers himself a poet above all else. It's natural therefore that in addition to writing books of poetry himself he would also write about poetry. Now I am a Clive James obsessive but I've never read any of his poetry, nor have I read a lot of poetry full stop (Larkin, Hughes & Dylan Thomas aside). As a result I struggled with this book, you need to know the poets & poems he writes about and for the majority of time I didn't know either. That being said the witty turn of phrase that is James' hallmark is still in evidence.
December 16, 2014
I have always enjoyed Clive James' clever criticisms of the world and especially his critiques of poetry. His writings and commentary taught me the art of literary satire and have underpinned my love affair with language, with the very essence of words and their sounds, their meaning and intent. He remains one of my favourite expatriots whose writings and journeys I admire.
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