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Poetry makes perfect beach reading, so where are the anthologies?
Why don’t more people read poetry on the beach? The short, epiphanic nature of the form is perfect for what we want from a holiday: sequential moments of joy, space to dream, escapism and adventure. Between applications of sun cream and topping up on drinks, poetry adds to this time of indulgence, with its commitment to lyricism and excessive feeling. It’s surprising, then, that this is a market yet to be embraced by publishers.
Forget Rough Guides, there’s no better way to get to know a new country than to read poetry written by a poet indigenous to the area. Last year I visited the Greek island of Zakynthos and packed the late poems of Yannis Ritsos. Alright, he never actually lived on Zakynthos, but every summer he did travel to the Greek Island of Samos, where he would observe the locals, the sea and the dogs, and write brilliant imagistic poetry out of the experience. As I read his poems on the balcony and down on the beach, his work brought extra vision to my experience, because his eyes and thoughts were focused on aspects of Greek culture I would have otherwise missed. These details were probably missed by his contemporary Greek islanders as well, but that’s a poet for you.
If wanderlust and escapism define your usual idea of beach reads, then no genre moves through time and space as quickly as poetry
If your summer holiday has already happened this year, now’s the time to add a poem a day to your reading and build the joyous habit that will make holiday reading memorable. The last few years have seen an outpouring of poetry collections which are asking to become entangled with your Speedos: Luke Kennard’s Notes on the Sonnets is the perfect immersive poetry experience, a verse novel set at an awkward house party, with each section responding to one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. Anarchic, funny, self-contained as a self-poured rum and Coke, this book will have you chuckling between swims and eager to get back on the lounger to continue with the ride. Then there’s Anthony Joseph’s Sonnets for Albert, a swansong for his missing father, portrayed as "cocksman, the rake, conductor of mystery, a man who wore silver rings and suede boots, beige and gabardine bell-bottoms." Written as ‘calypso sonnets’, this book is perfect for those who like biographies or novels with a strong emotional arc. And for those who want some magic – to be transported through the imagination to the sublime – what about Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, the coming-of-age story of a red monster called Geryon? This verse novel has stunned readers since its publication in 1998. If the bag limits allow, you might want to take the sequel Red Doc>, which continues the adventure in a different style and with Geryon now called "G". Carson writes poetry of transportation, moving the power of mythology into a borderless contemporary poetry; you won’t know how to define these books and you won’t care to try.
But publishers: where are the anthologies for the beach? Holidays bring different kinds of joys for different people. My ideal holiday poetry anthology might have poems to read first thing in the morning; for after a swim; for the joys of good food and drink; for historic sites; for listening to other languages; for being open to the moment; for reflecting on an incredible day. With a dust jacket designed to resist to sun cream and pages at the back for your own writing and notes. And a pocket inside the back cover for paper keepsakes. The book would be part of creating the experience but also a container for it too.
If wanderlust and escapism define your usual idea of beach reads, then no genre moves through time and space as quickly as poetry. Few people go on holiday to make life decisions but sometimes the freeing of the self from the everyday can be transformative. Poetry is essentially a dialogic art, a conversational invitation that holds you in its world of ritual, magic and the sacred. It’s a conversation that doesn’t want to give you answers but aids the discovery of your own ineffable truths: the ones you discover for yourself. There is a perfect dovetailing between the dream space poetry offers and the reason why we holiday.
When we come back from an antique land, from our special time away, we want to feel renewed, transformed. What better gift can you make to yourself than deepening the experience with poems that make you see more clearly? Feel more deeply. That illuminate the landscape. Maybe even urge you to write. To make you feel that you’ve been somewhere and found yourself and come back with sharper vision, grounded in your own personal oasis, which you carry with you like an inner light into the colder days, in dialogue with the poets.