~ Nine Arches Press ~
Endlings by Angela France
UK poet Angela France reads her poem “Endlings” in a film directed by Helen Dewbery for Nine Arches Press. “Endlings” was nearly the title poem for France’s latest collection, Terminarchy (2021), as she noted in an interview:
I came across the word ‘endling’, which means the last of any species, a while ago. For a long time this collection was going to be titled ‘Endling’ but then a poet in the USA brought out a collection with that title and there is also a series of fantasy books and a computer game called endling. The other word for the last of a species is ‘terminarch’. I didn’t like terminarch as much at first, it had an ugly sound to my ear. Adding a ‘y’ softened the sound and suggested a different direction; we are used to talking about patriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, perhaps we should think about whether we are heading for terminarchy.
I liked the sound of the word endling but also thought a lot about what it means to be the last. The strongest, most urgent drive in nature is to reproduce so an endling is driven into hopelessness. The endlings in the poem ignore their prey because of that ‘older, greater need’ and only find release, and peace, in death.
I suspect most of us could name at least a couple of extinct animals, such as the Tasmanian Tiger (the thylacine) but when I started researching the species lost in the last few years, I was astonished, and saddened, at the number of them. Some of the names were just wonderful, such as the ‘Gloomy tube-nosed bat’ and the ‘Darling Downs hopping mouse’. They didn’t find their way into this poem but they have remained in my memory, perhaps for another time. There is a very particular grief, for me, in discovering these things after they have left us.
The form of the poem is a loose terza rima, with slant rhyme. I like this form because of its subtle music and also because the interlocking rhyme scheme can have the effect of looking back while stepping forward. I usually prefer slant rhyme because I find full rhyme can fall very heavily on the end of the line unless it is used with great skill.
I feel I should explain something about Sparrow who appears at the end of this poem. William Sparrow was a historical character in my last book, The Hill. He was one of the ringleaders of the local riots over the closure of rights of way on the hill, in 1902. He was a road-sweeper and was literate, witty, and furious, writing daily letters to the newspapers. He has insisted on having a voice in this book but he is not now William Sparrow. He is not Sparrow the man, nor is he sparrow the bird, but something else entirely and he speaks up in a few poems through the book. I am not sure what he is except that he seems to take the role of an ecological conscience. Here, he weeps for all we have lost and are losing, the hopelessness of not having an ark.
In Conversation – Angela France
Recusio Redacted by Jacqueline Saphra
Recusio Redacted is a film by Helen Dewbery, from a poem by Jacqueline Saphra. The poem appears in the collection Dad, Remember You Are Dead, published by Nine Arches Press.
Helen will be familiar to followers of Moving Poems from her earlier films previously shared here. Aside from being a marvelous film-maker, she is co-editor with Chaucer Cameron of the online journal Poetry Film Live.
Jacqueline Saphra is a playwright as well as a poet. Her writing has been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize, among other honours. She lives in London and teaches at The Poetry School.
Song of the Soil by Jessica Mookherjee
Jessica Mookherjee‘s poem “Song of the Soil”, from her collection, Tigress (Nine Arches Press, 2019), is given heartfelt filmic treatment by Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron, under the auspices of their production house, Elephant’s Footprint. According to the book’s webpage,
Jess Mookherjee is of Bengali heritage and grew up in Swansea. She has been widely published in magazines, including Under the Radar, Agenda, The North, Rialto, Antiphon and Ink, Sweat & Tears. She is author of The Swell (Telltale Press) and Joyride (Black Light Engine Room Press) and Flood (Cultured Llama). She was highly commended in the Forward Prize 2017 for best single poem. Jessica works in Public Health and lives in Kent.
The poem expresses a deep connection to the Earth in an elegy of lost origins and disappearing ground. Giving further voice to these themes, the film is imbued with overexposed images of a natural world scorched yellow and burnt brown, and a soundtrack made ominous by ambient bass. Mookherjee’s solemn, rich narration rounds the elements of this powerfully organic piece.
The film is part of a series Helen and Chaucer have been doing for Nine Arches Press. They note that “The film-poems are not only viewed by Nine Arches’ existing readers and online audiences, but are a tool for their poets to engage more easily with their existing and new audiences.” The press, however, does not appear to embed any of the videos on the books’ pages, which is kind of baffling.
Poem in which we hear the word ‘drone’ by Josephine Corcoran
This is the latest in a series of videos by Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron for collections of poetry from Nine Arches Press, which just celebrated its tenth birthday with the publication of the book excerpted here: What Are You After? by Josephine Corcoran. (It’s a lovely collection, incidentally; I just bought a copy and began reading it yesterday. Always good to support a fellow blogger and late bloomer!)
Terms and Conditions by Tania Hershman
A videopoem by Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron for the title poem from Tania Hershman‘s debut poetry collection with Nine Arches Press. A song by Tania’s brother Nick Hershman, “You Get What You Deserve”, is also incorporated into the soundtrack, and the interplay between the two texts is part of what makes this work so well, I think.
