Desperado Essay-Interviews. Interviews with contemporary British writers
Publisher: Contemporary Literature Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Bucharest, Romania, http://editura.mttlc.ro/desp_interviews.html
Number of pages: 432
ISBN-13: 9786069216705
Description: I already knew how intelligent – probing yet gentle – an interlocutor Lidia Vianu, the author of this collection of interviews, can be; after all, I am one of the 47 writers: poets, novelists and critics, who are included! But reading through the pieces, as well as being intrigued by the responses of colleagues, I am taken by surprise by the breadth of Vianu`s knowledge and sympathies, and the fineness of her perceptions. Again and again this is commented on. To give a few examples, I can quote from the interviews with Catherine Byron: “Your questions are fascinating, and get very close to the marrow bone themselves!”, with Elaine Feinstein, who answers the question: “Do you plan your voice or does it find you when you write?” thus: “I like what you say here. And yes, my voice finds me when I write”, and with George Szirtes: “I think you have asked the most intelligent questions I have yet been asked and also the most difficult. You must be a remarkably perceptive reader … ”

The link between the writers she chooses, according to Vianu, is that they all can be described by her term Desperado. What she means by that term, and the different reactions to being categorised in that way, is one of the most interesting strands of this material. When she tells Anne Stevenson, “I like to call contemporary writers Desperadoes because they make their own law and most often break all laws”, and asks if Stevenson accepts this, the poet replies: “I`m a fully qualified, radical Desperado.” Peter Redgrove says: “Lazarus, like Dracula, knows the thresholds and how to pass them. The Desperado desperately wants to do this, does it in one way or another.” Alasdair Gray responds: “If a Desperado is someone driven by despair then I may be one, because my art is a way of avoiding it”, while Pascale Petit says, “Your definition of a Desperado poet suits me.” Obviously, the question of exactly how to define ‘Desperado’ is still open!

For this collection of fascinating autobiographical material including descriptions of their work and methods, and her own sensitive and shrewd comments which present an entirely new way of looking at contemporary English writing and those who write it, Lidia Vianu deserves all possible praise.

RUTH FAINLIGHT
Table of contents: title: CONTENTS; title: Foreword,; title: Dannie Abse, Words tell me that I think,; title: Peter Ackroyd, The mind is the soul,; title: R.V. Bailey, It’s no good being ‘deep and meaningful’ if what you write isn’t meaningful to anybody else,; title: Julian Barnes, Giving up criticism is much easier than giving up alcohol or tobacco,; title: Jean Bleakney, Desperado is a flexible term. It respects the outsider/loner status of the 										poet,; title: Alan Brownjohn: When they clearly understand what I am saying I am happy – whether they like the poetry or not; I’d like critics to understand the aim a little better; I do not enjoy specialised academic criticism,; title: Catherine Byron, The best critic is the editor within,; title: Andrei Codrescu, The poetic activity consists in overthrowing poetry for its own sake,; title: Julia Copus, The more I write, the more I value clarity,; title: Peter Dale, I have always tried to avoid literary and journalistic pigeon-holing of my 										work,; title: Michael Donaghy, I don’t recognize myself as part of any group,; title: Maura Dooley, I look for the poem that will haunt me for a while...,; title: Nick Drake, We live in an Age of Entertainment, and so a minor age for poetry,; title: Ian Duhig, I do mock literature and take it seriously at the same time,; title: Ruth Fainlight: Writers can have some effect on the world at large; Honesty, clarity, 								simplicity,; title: U.A. Fanthorpe, Poetic arrogance is as bad as any other kind of arrogance,; title: John Fowles, Literature is half imagination and half game,; title: Elaine Feinstein, My voice finds me when I write,; title: Kate Foley, To would be writers the only advice must be, read, WRITE – and don’t be afraid,; title: John Fuller, The idea is the great hull that gets you launched,; title: Alasdair Gray, I have never wanted to confuse readers,; title: Robert Hampson, There has to be a concern for the reader – something more than blinding the reader with one’s obscurity; I would be very happy to avoid the term ‘postmodern’: it has been used in such different senses as to be no longer useful,; title: David Harsent, Postmodernism has proved such a muddle and mess,; title: Selima Hill, Sometimes autobiography is not true enough,; title: Mimi Khalvati, Displacement is at the heart of my work,; title: Wayne Lanter, I don’t know where I fit, or if I fit at all,; title: David Lodge, Art must entertain, or give delight,; title: Mary Michaels, I aim for absolute clarity,; title: Timothy Mo, What one wants to do is leave the novel different from how one found it and yet to contribute to the canon as well,; title: John Mole, My addiction is to surprise and the unexpected,; title: Sean O’Brien, Criticism needs to be readable,; title: Bernard O’Donoghue, I am rather against ‘confessional poetry’,; title: Pascale Petit, Your definition of a Desperado poet suits me,; title: Peter Redgrove, Ideally criticism is more literature,; title: Carol Rumens, I feel I am on my own,; title: Eva Salzman, Cleverness has become the new altar on which we may sacrifice too 							many poems,; title: Fiona Sampson, I’m aware that my writing doesn’t belong to any particular school.  							But this is involuntary,; title: Jo Shapcott, I like the idea of being ‘a Desperado of the tender thought’,; title: Eugen Simion, The critic can be a Desperado too,; title: Anne Stevenson, I’m a fully qualified, radical Desperado,; title: Liviu Ioan Stoiciu, I felt revolt against God, who left Romania,; title: Matthew Sweeney, A poet should never pay much attention to his or her critics,; title: Graham Swift, ‘Desperado’ perhaps conveys some of the individualism of writing,; title: George Szirtes, I think the problem with us Desperadoes is that we constitute too 							diverse a landscape for now,; title: John Whitworth, I would hate to write anything that people think they ought to read 							rather than want to read,; title: Thomas Wright, Criticism is not a Science but rather a matter of preferences, 								passions and opinions,; title: POETS’ NEW YORK, Interviews with Ruth Fainlight, Leah Fritz, Eva Salzman and Andrei Codrescu,