Skip to main content

Josephine Hart Has Died

Sad news.  Novelist and poetry lover Josephine Hart has died.  Hart, along with Daisy Goodwin and Neil Astley, would have to be described as three of the leading UK poetry activists, promoting poetry to the people through their events and publications.  Hart's events in London were big affairs, attended by the general public, with the poems read out by celebrities, mainly actors and rock stars.  While I never attended one of the events (as I don't think poems do well at the hands of celebrity readers usually) there is no doubt that her promotion of poetry touched a nerve and brought poetry to many.

Perhaps poetry shouldn't need celebs and glittering venues to lure in readers; but this is Britain in the age of media and celebrity, which her husband, Lord Saatchi, helped to invent. Anyway, that's a digression.  Hart's love of poetry and commitment to it was strong.  She was also, of course, a successful novelist.  Her biggest novel was her debut, twenty years ago, Damage, which was made into a movie with Jeremy Irons performing odd acrobatic sex; though OTT as a film, it was a hit and created quite a stir at the time.  Hart will be missed.

Comments

Poetry Pleases! said…
Dear Todd

Sad news indeed. She was a powerful advocate for poetry both ancient and modern. The fact that she was married to Maurice Saatchi simply underlines your point in an earlier post that not everybody associated with British poetry is necessarily poverty-stricken.

Best wishes from Simon

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".