Poets never offer simple answers

These are questions Jacob Polley has not been pondering in the past two weeks. A tumultuous time. But Cumbria’s foremost poet is not aiming his pen at the referendum.

“If you start trying to take on a big issue, you’re destined to artistic failure,” he says. “It’s more nuanced than that. I’m always going to be writing about important stuff. But with a tilt.”

Jacob’s work is meticulously crafted. There is great pleasure in untangling his imagery. He speaks carefully too, as if never off duty.

At one point he delivers a line which would look good in one of his books: “There’s nothing to be done about time and its passing.”

This comes in response to a reminder that it’s 16 years since Jacob, 41, was poet in residence for our sister paper the News & Star .

He accompanied reporters on stories and wrote a poem a day for three months, then one a week for The Cumberland News .

His subjects included a story about two brothers making honey. “It became the first poem in my first book. It was a nothing story. But there was something about it.”

A Jar of Honey begins ‘You hold it like a lit light-bulb, swivelling the glow that pitches around the sides’.

These words came quickly for merciless deadlines. But when Jacob has the option, his experiences can take years to re-emerge on the page.

“There’s a great danger in writing about things immediately,” he says. “It means you haven’t really absorbed them and found ways to write about them.”

There is usually some sweating over the words. But even when Jacob is not writing, his subconscious bubbles in the background.

“You often look back and think you were probably writing something that’s informed by things you didn’t even know about.

“You’ve got to hope that the poems are cleverer than I am. More interesting than I am. Because they come out of an unconscious that isn’t regulated, or regular.

“One thing you have to do is loosen the ties between conscious self and dream self. You’ve got to allow your dream self to speak.”

This is the kind of advice Jacob gives as a lecturer in creative writing at Newcastle University.

He started work there recently after five years in a similar role at the University of St Andrews in Fife.

It’s nearly 20 years since he graduated in creative writing from Lancaster University, having grown up in Carlisle.

“I remember foggily what it was like for me as an 18, 19, 20-year-old. You try and work out how to be in the world. You don’t really know yet.

“I was a hopeless writer then. If I could tell you what changed, I’d have some kind of golden key. It’s probably boring stuff like, I worked harder. Which is what I tell my students to do.”

He agrees that there is increasing emphasis in higher education on subjects which lead directly into careers.

“There’s an obvious slant to things that are ‘useful’. Maybe that’s fair enough. But it would be a shame if we begin to think of things like literature and history as the opposite of useful.

“Being able to write well and to be able to think about stories and poems and language is a transferable skill. You can become more eloquent. You can become a subtler reader. That’s all good.”

Ten days ago Jacob read at Carlisle Cathedral on a bill which included Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy and the national poets of Scotland and Wales.

His work is critically acclaimed and sells well, by the standards of poetry books. In this world royalty cheques flutter rather than thud onto doormats.

Jacob estimates that the number of British poets making a living from their work is in single figures, hence the day job.

He is the author of three poetry books and one novel, and the recipient of numerous awards.

Poetry collection number four, Jackself , will be published in November.

Its publicity material describes the book as a ‘fictionalised autobiography’. It uses mythical Jacks, such as Jack-o’-lantern, Jack Sprat and Jack Frost, to explore ‘an innocence and childhood lost in the darker corners of Reiver country and of English folklore.’

Jacob says: “It’s like a concept album. A very odd book, which tells a story. Every poem is about this character called Jackself.”

Where did he get the idea? Ask his subconscious.

“It’s hard to work out why and how. It’s not something you do consciously. It just kind of happens. You start something. It seems like a good idea. You’ve scribbled something down. Suddenly you realise you’ve got quite a lot of this stuff that’s quite interesting, in the way a lot of other stuff you’ve scribbled down isn’t.”

He adds: “In my second book there was a poem called The Cheapjack . It was almost like a prediction for something 10 years later.”

His poetry books are published, on average, every four years.

“It kind of comes in cycles. I won’t write anything now for a while. I’m just going through the process of finishing the book. I’m checking proofs, making sure no typos have got through.

“I’m not in the right mind for writing a poem. The right mind for writing a poem is kind of careless and free.

“That state is always really nice. It’s a sort of suspended judgement. You have to suspend your judgement or you’d never do anything.”

Jacob’s ambition is for his work to achieve “a kind of timelessness. You can find that in poems written in the 1500s. A poem is about the particular. So they’re about spoons and rugs and whatever else. But they also manage to be about the universal.

“Poetry complicates things – which is a good thing. Poems never try to offer simple answers. It’s not to offer any answers really. It’s to engage with the world.”

Jacob’s world has changed personally as well as professionally. He lives with his partner Mai and their two-year-old son Ben.

“Being a father, you find yourself doing things that many other people have done. Which is interesting. You’re having to fulfil a role. There are certain expectations attached to that.”

He adds that at some point he will probably write about all this, without necessarily realising it.

Fatherhood has reduced Jacob’s reading time. He has a fascination with letters and diaries, particularly from the theatre.

“Partly because it’s not my world at all. And I like reading about people doing something collectively.”

He is currently trying that firsthand, setting Jackself to music with his friend John Alder for public performance.

Has Jacob read anything which might surprise people? Anything we might not expect of a man with a rather serious image?

He pauses, and says “Jordan’s diaries.”

Really?

“Yeah, I’ve read Jordan’s diaries.”

Honestly?

“No.”

* Jackself will be published by Picador on November 3. It is available to preorder at bookshops and online retailers.

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PANEL: Two poems by Jacob Polley

I Try to Explain a Flower

to my son, who would take apart

whatever caught his eye if

I let him. Something happens

in the dark to make boldness

a necessity. Yes, the flower is

saying something somehow,

and we must let it. Heartfelt.

It means the heart has little

hands and pats its pockets

like Daddy when he’s trying

to remember where he put

whatever he was supposed to

keep close. Yes, money most

of the time, or time, or keys

to home. No, you don’t need

one to open a flower. Money

is beautiful, in a way. Like lots

of things we might not see

for seeing all the time, or don’t

see but dream of. Dreaming

is a kind of worry, yes, and a

flower, happening as it does

in the dark. Someone knows

why, but not Daddy. Don’t

touch. You can feel by looking.

Then we’ll do something.

Swimmer

He swims through the dark

where there are no stars.

Whose dark has no stars?

The blind potato’s

and the blinder stone’s.

His breaststroke throws

up constellations of bones.