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  Lidia Vianu - Director of CTITC (CENTRE FOR THE TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE CONTEMPORARY TEXT), Bucharest University, Professor of Contemporary British Literature at the English Department of Bucharest University, Member of the Writers’ Union, Romania.

 

 
 
 
 
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LIDIA VIANU

Poets

 

LEAH FRITZ

 

Home is anywhere you decide it should be
 

 

Interview with LEAH FRITZ (born 31 May 1931), British poet
Published in LIDIA VIANU, Desperado Essay-Interviews, Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2006

© Lidia Vianu
 

 

 

LIDIA VIANU: The same as Ruth Fainlight, you came from New York to London. Two more Americans turned English are Sylvia Plath and Eva Salzman.

LEAH FRITZ: And the late Michael Donaghy, among others, though I’m a permanent resident here and not a citizen. Strangely, Eva, Michael and I turned up in London around the same time. I’ve read with both of them publicly, with Eva at the Barbican Library, with Michael at Lauderdale House. Perhaps what we all had in common was an understanding of New York nuance, quite different from what the British mean when they say ‘irony,’ but something like a family sense of humour. Like everyone else in the large poetry circle here, we miss Michael who, as I’m sure you know, died suddenly at the age of 50 last year. He was a superb poet who was much loved for his personal qualities of warmth and kindness, as well as for his genius.


LV. What does it feel like to live in England after having been born and educated in America? Is society different?

LF. Yes, but it depends on where you live in each country as to the kinds of differences you will encounter. Until the 9/11 tragedy, New Yorkers were barely considered citizens of the United States by people in the hinterlands. Then suddenly we were loved, until my compatriots in that city (I was already here, of course) held up signs saying ‘not in my name,’ in opposition to many of Bush’s policies. In Britain there is some anti-American feeling, but poets here generally recognise themselves as belonging to the international nation of poets, which is one of the international nations I belong to.


LV. What is your profession? Where do your main interests go?

LF. I regard myself as a professional writer, although I don’t earn a living from that. I’m also a housewife! My interests are in my work, my family, the world, everything...


LV. Is poetry a calling, a refuge, an alternative?

LF. It’s simply what I do. I don’t question it. As it turned out, it became the fulcrum for my social life in Britain, as well.


LV. I understand you are involved in politics.

LF. I’m not now.


LV. How would you define your position in both directions?

L.F. I take it, by that question, you mean poetry and politics. In poetry, I have no position.

These days I’m interested in writing formal verse for the most part. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because it adds to the pleasure of writing certain constraints which make it a bit more challenging. After all, I’ve been writing poems since I was eight years old, so imposing difficulties may be a way of keeping me fascinated with the discipline. But as an admirer of poetry, my taste is definitely eclectic – and some of the best poems I have written, even recently, are in free verse.

In regard to politics, I am a feminist and a pacifist and against all forms of racism – but beyond that I tend to stick to local activism, if at all. I am, frankly, quite disillusioned with the results of past efforts to change the world. The place keeps getting worse and worse. Whatever efforts I do make, I want to have a chance of being effective, and so right now I am struggling against the closing down of a local poetry venue.


LV. One of your lines says, ‘poets are radioactive.’ Do you feel that way? Your poetry is not at all aggressive.

LF. Strange you should say that. One reviewer called me ‘dangerous.’ But radiation isn’t actually aggressive, is it? It doesn’t will the changes it causes; they just happen because of its nature. In that sense, I think the metaphor is apt.



LV. But it does betray a fighting awareness. Are you a fighter? If so, what for?

LF. I don’t relate to the word ‘fighting.’ I’m a pacifist. But I do believe in verbal persuasion in limited areas, as above.


LV. Quite a number of your poems deal with the condition of women ‘in a cage’. Could you describe your idea of feminism?

LF. I’m fascinated that you’ve noticed that. I recall using that image once in a very old prose-poem, but where else, I wonder? I wrote a prose book on feminism once. I may not agree now with everything I said then, but it’s a good reflection of what I thought in the 1970s – and much of what I still think, surely.
 


LV. One of your poems ends like this:

I am beginning to champion the cause
of apathy.
There is something to be said
for not becoming part of this,
one side or another,
whatever they do to you.
There is something to be said
for not encouraging them.
There is something to remembering
the personal,
for not letting it become
political,
for not becoming a martyr,
not letting yourself be used tomorrow
in another war.
For being so quiet that if you die
they won’t know
on either side.
And it won’t be in their war,
and it won’t be by their doing,
but just what happened anyway.
But just what happened anyway.

Someone who, like me, lived under communism for quite a number of years, would see in these lines a wonderful statement of independent opinion, the refusal to be anybody’s pawn.

LF. I’m glad you read it that way.


LV. What exactly moved you to write this?

LF. It was written in the 1980s at the request of Decoder, an Italian magazine. The funny thing is, the left-wing magazine objected to my attitude, but printed it anyway. Obviously I felt a keen disillusion with politics.


LV. You write about ‘the city I left an ocean ago.’ Any regrets about leaving New York?

LF. No.


LV. Do you intend to go to live back there?

LF. No.


LV. A stanza is angrily directed at male poets:

Among the Oxford poets listed in his book,
four are women, 34 men.
He complains in her anthology
60 per cent are women. No apology.

Good point. But there are a lot of women poets in Britain today. Is feminism still a necessary weapon?

LF. This is not directed at male poets but at a particular publisher, Oxford University Press. I admire and like many male poets. Again, ‘weapon.’ That’s not what it is. It’s a point of view. From where I stand, the world still looks lopsided in favour of men. Don’t you think so?


LV. Another poem states, ‘home is anywhere.’ Which might also mean nowhere. Do you feel at home in English letters?

LF. I feel that’s a positive statement. Home is anywhere you decide it should be and you make it home by caring for it. My two daughters have chosen other places to live. The factor of choice, in this instance, is important to me. And ‘nowhere’ is correct, too, as I feel one shouldn’t be ‘caged’ (if you like) in a particular place because you were born there. That’s probably a very American attitude, although one shared by Australians, too, and for that matter, many Britons. Maybe it has to do with speaking a language that is almost universal.

In regard to English letters, the way the English language is spoken/written in the U.S. and in Britain varies as much internally on a regional basis in both countries as it does between the two. I have learned new words and expressions since coming to Britain which I think enrich my writing. Perhaps more important is that, like Eva Salzman, Michael Donaghy and other Americans who have chosen to live and work in Britain, I feel very at home with British poets.


LV. Can poetry be a political weapon? It does not seem to be, in your case. Your opinions play second fiddle to lyricism in your poems. Did you intend it to be otherwise?

LF. No, I don’t see poetry as a weapon. Why should it be? I’m glad you feel my work is lyrical. I want it to sing. When I write prose, I write prose. When I write poems, I write poems. I hope what I’m thinking and feeling gets across, although people are free to make their own interpretations. If they are persuaded toward a point of view they think is implicit in my poems, good. If not, that’s o.k., too.


LV. If you could start all over again, where would you like to be born and what would you like to do with your life?

LF. New York is a good place to be born and grow up. I raised my own children there, and they think so, too. It’s zesty and has a lively mix of international flavours. Whatever your ethnic origins, you tend to feel more comfortable where your group exists in numbers and is influential in the community, and at this time no culture is dominant in that city. There is also a saying, ‘If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.’ So you go elsewhere and you’re not afraid. That is, you feel you know how to take care of yourself, and you speak your mind freely. If I had had the opportunity, I might have come to Britain sooner, though. It’s a softer place – but then, I do live in a quiet patch of London.

If I had my life to live over, I’d probably have more understanding of, and been kinder to, my parents and more sensitive toward my children – but who doesn’t wish that in old age? Otherwise, I’ve spent twenty very happy years here, and I almost feel my life in New York was a kind of preparation for this – but not really. I have very few regrets. I’m amazed I can say this, but it feels true.
 


January 2005

 

 


 

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