Cliff Yates at 70 : my parts in this celebration of his poetry and poetics (links to it)

It doesn’t seem possible that Cliff Yates is 70! All that tiggerish classroom energy, all that boundless enthusiasm for the moment of poetry, all that unquenchable curiosity for life, seem so much the possession of youth that I have to pause and count the years.

Alan Baker and Andrew Taylor have now edited this tribute to him, CLIFF YATES @ 70, (see their preface here: Preface | Cliff Yates @ 70 (cliffyatestribute.blogspot.com)

with many poets offering their praise and their best wishes, from Poetry and Poetics stalwarts from Edge Hill, like Andrew himself, to Scott Thurston, Matt Fallaize and Angela Keaton, through to the big wide world poets, like Nick Power, Matt Welton and Kelvin Corcoran, and other names, like Pam Thompson that are new to me. Even his children are here, both writers in their own rights. A lot of the poems address Cliff directly, which seems right. A lot of us have attempted to write what Ian McMillan, in his tribute, calls a ‘Yatesy’ poem. There's also a video of Cliff reading (that wasn't there when I first blogged this!) Have a look at the tributes here: https://cliffyatestribute.blogspot.com/

 

I was asked to contribute and I produced one of my birthday ‘Burnt Journal’ poems for him, one which I feel pretty pleased with: https://cliffyatestribute.blogspot.com/2022/12/robert-sheppard.html

I was also asked to write an introduction, which I did. I was pretty pleased with that too. I think I got it right (I won’t repeat my assessment of Cliff’s work, because you may read that here: 

https://cliffyatestribute.blogspot.com/2023/01/introduction-by-robert-sheppard_13.html

Introduction by Robert Sheppard | Cliff Yates @ 70 (cliffyatestribute.blogspot.com)

(These links keep changing as more posts are added, so if they don't work, use the one to the site : https://cliffyatestribute.blogspot.com/

Cliff was one of the first poetry people I met when Patricia and I moved up to the North West in 1996 (oh yes, she’s here too, or at least I think she is, she's written Cliff a poem as though she were a Bulgarian), and I had seen some of his poems in magazines. Little was I to know that he would become one of the important members of the original Poetry and Poetics Research Group at Edge Hill University, which sounds a dull body, but we gave readings (Tate Gallery no less) and made a CD and generally helped each other as writers to become more like themselves.

Of course, Cliff was also a famous teacher of poetry well before I met him. Read about that here:

A few choice words from the guru | English and creative writing | The Guardian

Keep up with Cliff’s news. There’s a new Selected and New Poems on the way, for starters! :  Cliff Yates – poet & tutor (wordpress.com)

He also appears on this blog a few times too, with regards to the PPRG here:

https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/11/going-privategoing-privateafterword-to.html

https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/05/introduction-to-fifth-series-edge-hill.html

And with regard to his own poetry and poetics:

 https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-cliff-yates.html

Pages: 25 Edge Hill Poets: Cliff Yates (robertsheppard.blogspot.com)

 He even reviewed my The Poetry of Saying

https://robertsheppard.blogspot.com/2009/06/cliff-yates-poetry-of-saying.html

AND he provided me with the word ‘provocation’ to focus my thoughts about writerly poetics, circa 2007.

Cliff and I are definitely due another meeting in Birmingham soon I hope.

I wrote that sentence this morning. This afternoon I came back from a walk to find an answerphone message for Patricia and me. From Cliff! He says he wants to say thanks and he wants to ‘catch up’. Yes, indeed, as Sy Oliver used to sing.

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Locating Robert Sheppard: email: robertsheppard39@gmail.com  website: www.robertsheppard.weebly.com Follow on Twitter: Robert Sheppard (@microbius) / Twitter  latest blogpost: www.robertsheppard.blogspot.com. Or you can phone me, like Cliff did.