Veteran Poet in a world of Nature [with some smut and bad language].
James Nash is happy and slightly apprehensive. The 75 year old, who spends his time between flats in Leeds and Bridlington, has a new collection of poetry coming out in the coming months.
‘Why do I do this to myself?’ he asks, ‘Each time I bring out a book I wonder if it might be my last. It’s such an emotional journey for the writer, from the writing, to submitting it to a publisher, going through the editorial process, and then waiting to see what people make of it’.
This will be Nash’s fifth book with publishers Valley Press [with one e-book] and he thanks publisher Jamie McGarry for continuing to believe in him.
‘I write sonnets, Shakespearian, not Petrarchan, they’re too difficult. I’ve written more sonnets than the master, but to be honest they’re just not as good. There’s something about a sonnet that can help you to get to the heart of the matter, they don’t offer solutions but they may bring some resolution’’.
He talks about his catching a clip of Judi Dench reading a Shakespearian sonnet on a chat show.
‘She made perfect sense of the poem, the little debate within it, and brought out all the beauty of language, thought and iambic pentameter’.
On the question of his occasional straying into bad language and taste in this new collection, James Nash responds robustly.
‘Yes I’m a poet but I relish the language and attitudes of the modern day. If something makes me snigger then there’s a good chance it’ll have the same effect on the reader. You can deliver a bomb in the final couplet of a sonnet. Perhaps a warning could be given out with certain poems, about not drinking tea when reading them’.
Nash looks at the natural world, urban and seaside life, comments on the society we live in and writes about what matters, and what might be remembered in future years. He can often be seen in the churchyard at the end of his road in Headingley, with his small dog, looking at gravestones and occasionally sitting to contemplate the peace to be found there.
The collection finishes with Three Sonnets from Kefalonia, where he celebrates Byron, Odysseus and by implication the great poet Homer.
‘We were in Kefalonia early in June, by chance in the village where Byron had a house, we then took a ferry to Ithaca [memories of the Cavafy poem] where there were statues of Odysseus and Homer. I got such a sense of the European poetic tradition. The seafood was good too’.
‘Notes of Your Music’ from Valley Press
Launch dates to be announced.
