Hello, I’m Polly Clark, novelist and TS Eliot Prize–shortlisted poet. Monday Night Reads brings thoughtful writing direct to your inbox each week.
I’d like to welcome warmly all the new readers and subscribers who have come to this substack over the last week of events surrounding the publication of my new book, Afterlife: New and Selected Poems. I am in reach of 1000 regular readers of my essays now and rose to #34 in Literature on Substack. This means a great deal to me. Thank you.
If you value my work, please consider supporting it — through a subscription, a coffee, or by buying the book. It makes a real difference, particularly at moments like this.
Dear Reader,
I’m writing this week’s post on the aft deck of my boat, with the bird calls in their many registers and dialects echoing over the soft water of the marina. I am perilously close to my deadline due to a distraction earlier which required the use of my binoculars. In the car park beyond the little bridge an altercation went on for nearly an hour. A girl was yelling, men were jostling, and some police officers arrived at the scene, placidly corralling the woman — now raging and pacing — like retired sheepdogs having a go at the old game for old time’s sake. It resolved, though in what way I could not be sure. Relationships viewed from afar without proper sound are strange, almost uncanny, like the interactions of birds: nearly recognisable, but not quite. My boat is distractingly well placed for observing petty crime and discord.
I have been late to everything today due to being very tired. I had come home late from the live interview on Free Speech Nation above, and sleep was slow to arrive. The foam that forms the mattress of most berths is so absurdly comfortable that my cabin bed resembles a nest. As I lay in my warm nest at 3am, the sound of birds cheeping drifted through the thin fibreglass walls of the boat. It’s unusual to hear birds at night: like us they are asleep. The small dramas of status and hierarchy that govern any social creature usually play out in daylight hours. Strength must be gathered in the dark of the nest. I lay in mine, listening to the conversation of the birds in theirs, and considered the bewildering events of the last week.
For this is not what I expected, hoped for, or imagined for the twenty-five years of work that make up Afterlife. Ten days ago, when the book was published, I had no idea that instead of celebrating this milestone I would be on the top-ranking news show of Sunday evening defending my reputation and my ordinary belief in biological sex. I was more than glad to be on Josh Howie’s Free Speech Nation, but the downside is to find myself talking about the not-work instead of the work.
Let us first acknowledge the sorrow this week has brought, because only by recognising it can we see clearly where the hope lies. And there is hope, and more of it than sorrow I believe.
Sorrow lies in the silence of literary colleagues and friends. In the face of something so clearly and egregiously wrong, perhaps especially then, it is painful to experience the turning away of those you consider close, whether in your professional life or your personal one.
I did nothing to cause what Gutter did. It arrived in my life just as I was preparing to celebrate Afterlife. A vague, unevidenced and damaging assertion about me was brought to my door. This is the first harm caused by activists (to understand these harms more fully, read Hounded by Jenny Lindsay). If I do nothing, it will sit there: a shadow over my reputation with my publisher, the subject of whispers and gossip across my literary community and beyond. So I have to defend myself. I have to stop what I am doing, set down my pen, my hopes for the fortunes of the book, my delight at publishing something I am so proud of — and act.
Sadly, the victim of this is not praised for standing up against it. In fact, people even asked me not to make a fuss because it would affect their relationship with Gutter. This is the second harm, compounded from the first. The woman (for it is usually a woman) is blamed for defending herself, as if there were something shameful about resisting a false accusation.
So we enter rock-and-a-hard-place territory. To say nothing is to be publicly shamed and appear to accept it. To defend oneself is to incur a different kind of shame, and to confirm one’s aloneness. There is only one thing to do in this comfortless territory: act according to what is truthful and right, and give up hope of universal understanding.
That is the sorrow, and it is considerable.
Yet unexpected things have happened.
A young poet wrote beneath my Instagram post that although she disagreed with my view on — I assume — biological sex, she had liked my post because she loves my poetry and believes we should be able to coexist. I sincerely believe that a year ago such an overture would not have been made. Another poet I greatly admire commissioned an interview with me so that the focus could remain on the work itself. I was deeply grateful for this. Fighting the slings and arrows of casual reputational slurs takes time: actual years of a life, and the creative energy needed to write. Others have to help keep the work alive. It cannot all come from the person under siege.
Then came the wave of support from those who learned what had happened through the press, from X, and from this interview. Some of you have joined me here; some of you are supporting my work with subscriptions and donations; and it seems that many of you have bought Afterlife. People who do not normally read contemporary poetry have bought the book and are writing to tell me how much they love it. This is delight beyond measure. I have a lump in my throat as I write.
The Free Speech Union and Freedom in the Arts have stepped in to take my case up officially. This makes me feel far less alone, far less exposed. I am grateful, and energised to see this through and pursue it properly.
There has been no defence of Gutter from any quarter. Their actions are indefensible. It must also be said that I tried very hard to resolve this privately. I never sought this publicity, though I am deeply glad that so many new readers have come to my poetry through it.
What I hope is that, because this case is so clear, and because it has happened in a particular political moment, with the law recently clarified by the Supreme Court, it might become a case that breaks through in the arts. A moment when people who disagree can stop short of thinking that annihilating a poet’s work of a lifetime bestows a moral high ground.
A moment, indeed, to think again and to unite over the shared project of literature. Most of all to return to the simplest feature of a civilised society: live and let live.
In this hope, like the birds in their nests, we gather strength in the dark and begin again in the morning.
Thank you for reading,
Until next time,
Polly x
If you value my work, please consider supporting it — through a subscription, or a coffee. Please also share and comment. It helps all of us feel less alone, I think.
If you are new to Monday Night Reads, you may enjoy the posts and recordings of poems from Afterlife in the section Letter From A Poet. You may also enjoy my interview with Graham Linehan which touches on many of the themes I’ve been living through in the last week.
