Being Alive, edited by Neil Astley: a review of the Bloodaxe anthology

James Byrne reviews Being Alive, edited by Neil Astley and published by Bloodaxe at £10.95. He starts with its predecessor, Staying Alive, which carried a sorrowing face on the cover, arrived soon after 9/11 and reached buyers who rarely bought poetry, while academics sniped at its one-sided approach. Being Alive is the second of three: a third, Being Human, was announced for 2006. Byrne likes the cover photograph and the endorsements from Meryl Streep, Van Morrison and Beth Orton, which suggest poetry and popular art rediscovering each other.

On the poems, he credits Astley with a gift for choosing strong work from a very wide field. The opening group begins with three poems about writing poems, which he finds tiring, and only gets going with Muldoon's Symposium, then Simon Armitage and Michael Longley. The second section, Taste and See, is among the best, with Plath's Blackberrying and poems by Michael Donaghy and Czeslaw Milosz. He admires the international reach, from Mahmood Darwish and Saadi Youssef to Irish and American poets, and the further reading in the appendices. Some choices puzzle him: he winces at Maya Angelou's Still I Rise, regrets the absence of Don Paterson and is glad to meet Julia Darling and Helen Farish.

His main reservation is the emphasis on poetry as a healing tool. He argues that poetry is "essentially about language" and that three anthologies built around comfort risk presenting it as a prop for bad times. Astley's introduction, he notes, rejects simple medication in favour of poetry that questions and challenges, and the volume has light-hearted pieces too.

His verdict is warm but guarded. He expects it to outsell other poetry anthologies and finds it an enjoyable read at a decent price, with gritty, varied poems and, mercifully, no Kipling's If. He hopes it leads newcomers to contemporary work, while remaining unconvinced about the strategy.

Work

Being Alive

Author

Neil Astley (editor)

Publisher

Bloodaxe

poetry is essentially about language, its excitability, elasticity

James Byrne, The Wolf, issue 8

an enjoyable read, at a very decent price

James Byrne, The Wolf, issue 8