Poetry Review, Paul Birtill, All’s Well That Ends.
Wrecking Ball Press
I met up with the poet Paul Birtill at a coffee shop in Belsize Park, where he now lives, to learn more about his poetry collection All’s Well That Ends. Despite having written over one thousand poems, nine hundred of which have been published in the Independent, the New Statesman and the Guardian, it is unlikely you would see Paul at poetry events if he wasn’t there to read. You would likely find him at the Flask pub in Hampstead, being garrulously entertaining. He is a big drinking, Liverpudlian, Irish, working-class rogue, with a vast knowledge of literature and a savant memory of dates and events. He is equally certain of his faith in a God who urges people to be kind but would avoid the sanctimonious in any community. He wears half a suit at all times of the day, writes on a typewriter, rejects the internet (his family run his X account) and never swears in front of ladies. I was overjoyed at the opportunity to write about Paul's work. I have wanted anyone who reads poetry, or who thinks they don't like it, to know about him from the first time I read it. He is a style of writer who makes you feel you have found a best-kept secret and need to share the news as soon as possible. I believe it has something to do with how he writes on subjects most would avoid. Paul revealed that writing the poems has taken it out of him psychologically, but that he ‘still goes there.’ This level of devotion is something I bond to with any artist. Thank you, were the first words I said aloud to myself, on reading his poem One in Four. It portrays a minority of misfits he suspects are the majority, all touched by ‘madness.’ This includes his doctor: ‘I’m not sure, but I think my doctor is a one in four.’ The poems are freeing because as Paul says, ‘misery can be very uplifting.’ Paul Birtill’s satirical, narrative genre is accessible and minimal, he avoids traditional forms yet is no shirker of craft. Each tidy and precise observation of outsider living, part true, part fiction, is carefully considered with never a word too many, even the title of each prose poem is a forewarning or end-point connected to what is included in the content. His one-line poem titled Depression: is an example of this, ‘whenever I think of old age, I reach for my cigarettes.’ He told me that each collection takes him ‘about two years to write’, that ‘they just come’ and he ‘can’t be bothered to write prose because it takes too long.’ I had assumed Paul was more widely known after first meeting him at Hampstead’s Pentameters Theatre in the mid-00s. I had been encouraged by two female friends to audition for a part in his play Squalor which was preparing to have a run there. He was leaning on a wall outside of the theatre smoking a cigarette and had apparently been told a little about my vulnerable past. He introduced himself to me by asking if I’d ‘had issues because I was a lapsed Christian.’ I replied that I was still trying to figure it all out. He suggested I buy his book which turned out to be his New and Selected Poems, published by John Rety at Hearing Eye Press. I didn’t get the part in the play and I didn’t want it, but I was told afterwards that Paul had said he ‘found me very beautiful’ which added to my necessary healing process at the time, as did reading his work. I came to understand, however, that Paul’s approach to the social scene of writing and the arts in general, has left a space between him and wider acknowledgement in literary circles. He has a self-protective indifference to commercialism and trends and a selective and often unpopular, opinion on the art of writing. He believes that inspiration is not taught, it is lived and lived for. He also has a lack of trust in the intention of most poets. He has no hesitation in saying that his favourite poet is Philip Larkin and that he ‘likes the opening of The Wasteland, The Burial of The Dead by TS Elliot’, but that the rest of it ‘goes off track and needs editing.’ He says he highly rates and enjoys Stevie Smith but is disappointed that ‘most female poets write about sex.’ He has a similar distaste for the overriding themes of sex and alcohol in the poetry of Charles Bukowski, who he is often compared to. He rejects this comparison, except to say they are both ‘equally direct’ and that he ‘prefers Bukowski’s prose writing.’ Added to his preferences are a ‘bit of Sassoon, Yeats and Auden,’ although it’s important to him to say that he ‘had read no poets’ when he began writing in 1987. He considers this lucky as to him, it means he is uninfluenced in his form or style.
He once sent a typed poem to me in the post, which I had to remind him to sign as he was more interested that the gesture meant something to me. This quirky unspoilt charm has led to him being revered by many alternative artists, including the band The Farm and Pete Doherty of the Libertines. The poet John Cooper Clark calls him on his landline for a chat and is quoted on the back cover of All’s Well That Ends as saying Paul ‘makes you laugh and feel depressed at the same time and that’s a rare gift’, yet it’s still a fact that more readers know about John Cooper Clarke than they do Paul Birtill.
He remains largely a cult figure while continuing to be respected. Don't expect to see him on tour and appearing at your local town hall anytime soon. However, His poem ‘Writers Block’ from All’s Well That Ends was long-listed for the Forward Poetry prize, and nominated by Ambit magazine. The poem is two lines long: ‘I told him I hadn’t written a new poem in over a month. ‘You look well on it though’ he said.’ It is telling of his character that despite him selling most of his books at poetry readings, he left copies of them at home on being invited to read at Ambit magazine’s launch. The organisers informed him afterwards that it would have been fine, but he was mindful of the magazine doing the best it could at the event.
Conversely, there are tales of Paul leaving wildly unconventional messages on his friends' answer phones, and episodes of outlandishness that have resulted in hospital visits. I experienced this other Paul Birtill firsthand while eating alone in an Indian restaurant in South End Green one evening. He opened the door and raged at me, calling me neurotic for not agreeing to go to his flat for tea. I said he was right that I was neurotic, but also it had ‘something to do with him writing poems about axes by fireplaces.’ It calmed him down, the way only honesty can. But he was right, at that time I did spend too much time alone and it would have been healthier to eat with others.
I have continued to buy his books and meet up with him to have them signed as he has moved over to his new publisher, Wrecking Ball Press and we have developed an unbreakable connection and mutual respect. He inspired my passion to follow other risk-taking writers and artists. I believe they deserve a place as a constant category alongside established and classical poets for the conversations on difference they keep alive. They may have you holding your stomach with laughter pains or banging on beer-soaked tables in agreement as you read them, but you will likely be glad it’s not you, who must live the life that informs their insights. I admire that. Difficult people, like unconventional poems, can be a catalyst for great change, if we let them.
I saw him on the bus a few months after the restaurant rage incident. He was on his way home after having had afternoon tea with the poet John Hegley. We sat close and he said he felt sad after contemplating whether he should have chosen love over a lifetime given to writing poetry. I suggested he try doing both from now on. Thankfully we both believe in giving unpredictable people, such as us, second chances, or more. After all, isn't it an imbalance to respect unique expressions on the page but to reject people for it in life? Maybe Paul is destined to remain underground like the subjects in his poems unless they are unearthed his particular way. That's ok, but read him if you can, ultimately his poems are based on acceptance of each other, which could be the answer to all our problems today.
