Andrew Duncan

texts

Q-landscapes

recent publications

Cut Memories and False Commands (Reality Studios, 1991)

Sound Surface (Five Eyes of Wiwaxia, 1992)

Alien Skies (Equipage, 1993)

Pauper Estate (Shearsman, 2000)

Switching and Main Exchange (Shearsman, 2000)

Skeleton Looking at Chinese Pictures (Waterloo, 2001)

Anxiety Before Entering a Room: Selected Poems 1977-1999 (Salt 2001)

Surveillance and Compliance (Wiwaxia, 2003)

biographical note

"I became interested in poetry in either 1972 or 1973, because I had to study some at school and because poets came to give readings at the school. This is when I decided that writing poetry was going to be my main activity in life. Up till then my main interest had been in learning languages, which in fact I have gone on doing. The key moment was in 1977 which is when I discovered how to write poetry I actually liked. This became In a German Hotel (published 1978), relating to my experiences as a Gastarbeiter. Since then I’ve written some nine books of poetry. Every book has been a sharp change of direction; except Sound Surface, which was related to its predecessor Threads of Iron.

I suppose the key process is one whereby one’s admired stylistic reference frame stops being someone 60 years older than self (David Jones, in this case, my great hero) and comes to be someone one’s own age: so that one becomes contemporary with the contemporary. This came somewhat late, in my case; it took me a long time to realise that the British practice was to publicise the worst poets and keep the best ones secret. I wrote a poem ‘History of my contemporary’, which describes this, or something like it.

The biography might mention various jobs and directions of study, effortful now to recollect. The single intellectual mystery which has occupied me most is the links between Siberian Animal Style art and Celtic art – the flow down the east-west cultural slope.

I have written about 300 poems, and I prefer not to repeat themes. Something which does often crop up is an interest in science and technology. This is to do with Socialist Realism as a set of precepts: the belief that history is made by the productive forces of technology in the hands of humans, the attempt to move the camera away from the rich and the manners of the Court. Also because I grew up in an industrial town. Also because my father was a historian of science. Also because I worked in the engineering industry for nine years. The interest in addressing the poem to a complex subject outside itself is connected to a dislike of prestige signalling and in-group codes. I fail to see these as proofs of poetic legitimacy.
I find it difficult sticking to one set of models, and the Socialist Realist current has to be modified by an interest in myth and folklore. Reading Weores and Juhasz when I was a student was very inspiring about ways of drawing on folklore, as was David Jones in another way.

I am working on the last poems of a new book, Savage Survivals. Right now I am finishing a poem called ‘Twelve Days’. This is based on a folk legend about the world disappearing at the end of the year, to be rebuilt during the twelve interstitial days of Christmas: half-complete objects and creatures metamorphosing towards their full shapes. And planning a work called Kitschomania, which will be an escape from reason and good taste. After that, I am contemplating a liminal poem called ‘The Crossing’. Not sure it’s possible.

‘Anglophilia, a Romance of the Docks’, is a biography of someone who was in charge of the brand name of England between the wars. This poem is an interview with a hero who appears in advertisements, validating the commodity system, but doesn’t actually exist. ‘Q ships’ were fake ships camouflaged to lure U-boats, Q-landscapes something parallel.

I hadn’t done much translation up till the past five years, because of the business problems; but since then have published a lot of translations from German, and translated some Dutch poets for the Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry. Some of the translations are at www.chidesalphabet.org.uk.

contact

Andrew Duncan's website is at www.pinko.org

last updated February 12, 2004

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