Revisiting Hidden truths
His obituary in the UK Independent, written by the poet Alan Brownjohn (appropriately, it is hidden behind the paywall, but copied here) says Norman Hidden brought a mixture of vision and common-sense practicality to everything he did.
In Brownjohn’s obituary I again came upon the name of Andrew Davies, who adapted a number of classic novels for television and who also attended Hidden’s Lamb and Flag readings. In 2004, Davies contributed to the book I edited to commemorate the writer Russell Hoban’s 80th birthday.
So it was a little odd, having first read that Hidden had died, reading a few moments later, in the words of the poet laureate Andrew Motion, that he was still alive. Such is the internet — this second piece of information originated in 2004, when an article appeared in Magma 30. In it, Motion describes how, instead of subjecting it to what he suspected would be certain rejection by august journals like the UK Listener or the New Statesman, he decided to send his poetry to a more modest publication:
Except to say that, on 9 February 1976, five months after I turned 15, I sent two poems to Workshop New Poetry and less than a month later received a handwritten reply. I still have it:
On 9 March I sent Hidden six more poems and received this reply soon after (even before email, we could move quickly when we wanted to):
I remember feeling uneasy about having to provide the name of my school. I wrote my poetry at weekends and in my spare time and hated almost everything about school. Admitting to such a hobby in a school such as mine would have resulted in a black eye and a Chinese burn, at the very least. But I hadn’t given enough credit to an English teacher who read aloud RS Thomas and Ted Hughes in class, and who tried but failed to persuade me to go on one of the Arvon Foundation’s residential creative writing courses, at what was to become the Ted Hughes house in Lumb Bank. I was not mature enough to ignore the prospect of ridicule and the bullying my teacher’s announcement would have heralded. (To make matters worse, years later I misremembered this teacher’s name and called him Keith and not Ken Walsh in the credits to my book of short stories.)
Workshop New Poetry published poets far more illustrious in its day, but Hidden — while a friend and collaborator of controversial concrete poet Bob Cobbing — was engagingly anything but snobbish about poetry, and even used his magazine as the platform for a limerick contest. He must have been an extraordinary man, and I wish I’d met him. Three-times married, two of his wives were German-Jewish, and by marrying the first, Trudi Gerson, he enabled her parents to leave Hitler’s Germany. Later, he became a well-liked and active Chairman of the Poetry Society.
I, on the other hand, remain a word bureaucrat, maintaining a submissions log, just as Hidden recommended. Today it’s an Excel spreadsheet, in those days it was a Black N’ Red feint-ruled notebook that I still have. I was a shy, if pompous teenager who couldn’t spell as well as he thought he could but, false modesty aside, I am still proud of this page in that log book:
I note from my log-book that I sent Hidden five more poems on 23 May 1986, shortly before I left the UK forever. The blank page suggests I never received a reply; perhaps Workshop Press moved and the address I had was out of date.
I recently began submitting poetry to magazines again (two of the poems I sent Hidden in 1986 are still among them) and my first poem in over 20 years has just been published. Norman Hidden’s criticism certainly helped me. It will be interesting to see whether any editors agree.
“…but Hidden also had something rarer: a steady, amenable nature which encouraged trust and won friends.”It was in this obituary that I also learned more about the live events Hidden organised at the Lamb and Flag pub in Covent Garden in the 1960s. There, writers such as George MacBeth and Ivor Cutler (who sadly also died this year) would go to read from their work.
In Brownjohn’s obituary I again came upon the name of Andrew Davies, who adapted a number of classic novels for television and who also attended Hidden’s Lamb and Flag readings. In 2004, Davies contributed to the book I edited to commemorate the writer Russell Hoban’s 80th birthday.
So it was a little odd, having first read that Hidden had died, reading a few moments later, in the words of the poet laureate Andrew Motion, that he was still alive. Such is the internet — this second piece of information originated in 2004, when an article appeared in Magma 30. In it, Motion describes how, instead of subjecting it to what he suspected would be certain rejection by august journals like the UK Listener or the New Statesman, he decided to send his poetry to a more modest publication:
“It was called Workshop, and it was edited by a man who I’ve always thought had the ideal name for the editor of a really small magazine — Norman Hidden. I sent him some poems, and to my delight he took one. It was called Salome’s Moon. Which shows the kind of thing I was up to then. A sort of Wildean caprice.” Workshop followed that by publishing, in Motion’s gap year, a small pamphlet of his poems. “That really felt like a breakthrough. Norman Hidden is still alive,” (and, pace Motion, distinguished enough to have been awarded a Civil List pension in 1974, for services to literature), “and I really owe him a big debt. I don’t think these poems are any good — and the larger part of me hopes they never see the light of day again. But at the time it was tremendously important. It emboldened me in all sorts of ways.”I feel similarly about my own Workshop New Poetry experience — a paradoxical combination of hoping these early poems never again see the light of day and the emboldening experience of seeing my words in print at the time. Similarities between the Poet Laureate and me end there.
Except to say that, on 9 February 1976, five months after I turned 15, I sent two poems to Workshop New Poetry and less than a month later received a handwritten reply. I still have it:
2.3.76A number of thoughts occur to me as I re-read his letter. Firstly, acute embarrassment that I sent him two poems with the word ‘sunset’ in their title, and (worse still) one containing a spelling mistake; secondly, recognition of an early interest in alcohol; and thirdly, that this was exactly the kind of constructive criticism and encouragement I needed. His allusion to vanity publishing in the second paragraph is also noteworthy, as it was a total no-go area for poets in the 1970s.
Dear Christopher,
Thank you for sending me your poems. I’m sorry to have taken so long to reply. This was partly due to my sending them by post to a colleague for her opinion also. We both agree that there is real promise in your work, as far as we can tell from such a small sample. I would very much like you to send us some more of your work, especially poems which are more central to your age group and to your environment: e.g. in “Intrusion on a Private Sunset”, if we are to take it as autobiographical, no pub should be serving you at your age! Equally, “Papier Mâché Sunset” is either set in Hollywood or in some ‘dream/film land’. These small points tend to undermine the sincerity/credibility of the poems. Technically, they are well carried out, though “I suppose I’m being selfish” is rather gawky (perhaps permissibly so), “tavern”, though good for rhythm, is old hat for vocabulary and “extravaganza” needs its spelling corrected.
I hope you will be encouraged by these criticisms. To achieve success in poetry one needs a lot of helpful criticism. Of course, one can achieve publication without such toil, but in the long run one gets nowhere significant. I’ll keep “Intrusion” if I may, and perhaps you’ll send me some more to look at.
Yours sincerely,
Norman Hidden
On 9 March I sent Hidden six more poems and received this reply soon after (even before email, we could move quickly when we wanted to):
22.3.1976Sending out poems to several publications simultaneously was a big no-no, too — and there were no PCs; each copy of a poem had to be typed individually. Sending out carbon copies was considered the height of shoddiness. Times have changed: multiple submissions are now considered acceptable (provided you inform the editor of your intentions), and sending a carbon copy might today be considered endearingly eccentric.
Dear Christopher,
I’ll put “Down By The Sea” and “Midsummer Haiku” with “Intrusion on a Private Sunset”: they may make up a ‘schools’ page. Would you let me know the name of your school, please. Although I term it a ‘schools’ page I never publish work in it which would not stand up in the magazine in its own right. This I think your two recent (above named) poems do.
You are quite right: never send poems to two editors simultaneously, always await their return. Keep a log book so that you know where you’ve sent and when. And, of course, you will always keep a carbon copy.
Yours sincerely,
Norman Hidden
I remember feeling uneasy about having to provide the name of my school. I wrote my poetry at weekends and in my spare time and hated almost everything about school. Admitting to such a hobby in a school such as mine would have resulted in a black eye and a Chinese burn, at the very least. But I hadn’t given enough credit to an English teacher who read aloud RS Thomas and Ted Hughes in class, and who tried but failed to persuade me to go on one of the Arvon Foundation’s residential creative writing courses, at what was to become the Ted Hughes house in Lumb Bank. I was not mature enough to ignore the prospect of ridicule and the bullying my teacher’s announcement would have heralded. (To make matters worse, years later I misremembered this teacher’s name and called him Keith and not Ken Walsh in the credits to my book of short stories.)
Workshop New Poetry published poets far more illustrious in its day, but Hidden — while a friend and collaborator of controversial concrete poet Bob Cobbing — was engagingly anything but snobbish about poetry, and even used his magazine as the platform for a limerick contest. He must have been an extraordinary man, and I wish I’d met him. Three-times married, two of his wives were German-Jewish, and by marrying the first, Trudi Gerson, he enabled her parents to leave Hitler’s Germany. Later, he became a well-liked and active Chairman of the Poetry Society.
I, on the other hand, remain a word bureaucrat, maintaining a submissions log, just as Hidden recommended. Today it’s an Excel spreadsheet, in those days it was a Black N’ Red feint-ruled notebook that I still have. I was a shy, if pompous teenager who couldn’t spell as well as he thought he could but, false modesty aside, I am still proud of this page in that log book:
26th June 1976I continued writing, but in my 20s far fewer poems than in my teens. They tended to be observational, rather than darkly autobiographical. Then, in around 1986 I stopped submitting them to magazines. I think it was a combination of my obsession with music, the boredom of rejection slips, the lack of financial rewards on the rare occasion they were published, and the fact my subscription to Poetry Information (the best source of information on small presses) had lapsed.
FIRST PUBLICATION
3 poems:- Down By The Sea
Midsummer Haiku
Intrusion on a Private Sunset
Page 38, New Poetry, No 33,
June 1976
Editor: Norman
Hidden
3 copies recieved [sic]
I note from my log-book that I sent Hidden five more poems on 23 May 1986, shortly before I left the UK forever. The blank page suggests I never received a reply; perhaps Workshop Press moved and the address I had was out of date.
I recently began submitting poetry to magazines again (two of the poems I sent Hidden in 1986 are still among them) and my first poem in over 20 years has just been published. Norman Hidden’s criticism certainly helped me. It will be interesting to see whether any editors agree.
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