I remember reading an article in a Sunday glossy years ago, about successful salespeople at a double-window firm, in which the reporter went on a prize giving jolly to the Canaries at an end of year hurrah.

S/he profiled the various successful salespeople, about eight of them, and the seven runners up all had different stories to tell about how they had become sellers of windows – and the one streak of sameness they all exhibited, was claiming that the most important ingrediant in their job was to believe in the Product.

Seven people, all saying that if you don’t believe in what you’re trying to sell, forget trying to palm it off on others. And they waxed lyrical to varying degrees about how and why via the act of blathering, they could shift X Windows onto the market with a clear conscience. Like Jovo witnesses, all fully commited to a higher mono efficacy vis a vis the Excellence of UPVC and glass objects.

Words like trust, responsibility, duty of care (well maybe not) peppered their Sales poetic and a right-on PC world-view, that there was far, far more to what they were doing – that one’s calling as a spieler had something far deeper and more going on with it than Josephine Soap unconnected personally to the trade, might first think. Basically, that there was some significant moral dimension to the whole gig of persuassion.

And then, the top seller’s profile, who out-performed his nearest rival by an order of ten to one, or if not this ratio, certainly a figure which stopped the Reader in their tracks – went and proved an exception is the rule.

His take was the polar opposite to that of his colleagues, because he said, that far from the job of Selling being akin to a religious vocation (almost), where one need have a fundamental commitment to the product on a personal level – he believed that what makes a succesful salesperson is the capacity to detach and keep emotion and morality out of it. Treat the job as a job – of acting, talking bullshit on anything at all, pretending for a career – as if what we tell porkies about, is the most important thing in our life.

He viewed the colleagues he had sold five and ten times more windows than, as naive babes in arms, wet behind the ears and deluded, and that all the talk of having to believe in the product, rubbish. In short, he was refreshingly honest.

*I could be from Mickey Mouse Windows, and still sell to people by the bucketload” – (or words to that effect), he said.

He became incredulous when the journalist asked if he had the wiondows in his own Surrey detached, saying he wouldn’t have the rubbish he sold in his own house, because the quality is too poor and not value for money, manufactured for a mass market, stating that the middle-mass who all want to believe the tat they buy is – whilst not as expensive as the highest quality windows on the market – value for money, and his job was to sell the idea, appeal not to their common sense, but their vanity by flattering them.

The dodge of a good salesperson he thought, is to come across as everyone’s mate: good old person X who we can trust because – listen to them, they know what they are talking about and there is a human connection, their words speak to us as human beings, even though they may believe in them as much as UFO’s on the White Hosue lawn.

And like Peverett, i thought on reading: this is the undeniable, proven Reality of Sales success — as the man was selling far, far more than his nearest rival; was detached, didn’t fall for the blurb and publicity which is there, not to tell us the bare boned truth (in most cases) but to Sell us something. Anything, from washing powder to 500,000 acres of a far distant up and coming third world resort that’s gonna be the next garden of eden.

~

I remember doing one day of teleselling newspaper ad-space, in a poky office in the midlands of England in the early-nineties, lasting one day in the job. I was handed a sheet of the local newspaper ad section, and informed my duties wee, to ring every number on it and use a script as a how-to guide for what, on that day, for all i knew, could have been a first step on the road to my first million. After all, i had read about the fella selling double glazing (i think, though the chronolgy may be incorrect) and all i needed was to act.

Having played Hamlet at 16, Malvolio at 14 and being a drama queen at heart, this could have been my big break.

But it wasn’t to be, the gods had decided my geniuis lay in doing something other than this, as i discovered during a long slow morning of no sales, no interest and zero enthusiasm from both myself and the people i phoned, at an intensive one day (workshop?) lesson in the reality of continual rejection. Ffiteen an hour.

However, watching the boss at work, who was a few years older and obviously an old ham, i understand now what he was doing.

He would sit in the seat, intently reading an ad, psyching himself up, going through his cerebral routine and covering all bases. Projecting the outcome, sussing out exactly who he was making contact with for the first time, going at it with a Belief (in the power of blather) and on ringing, would say *hello, John Smith here from* blah blah blah – in a very confident, normal way and either got off straight away when he knew their was no sale at the end of the exercise – or talked to (what souded like) old friends and made a sale after his chat.

What he was actually doing of course, was becoming their bezzie new mate in ten seconds. Straight in: talking to business people and honed over many years of continual rejection, trial and error – like a gigilo at a casino in the South of France – the 35 year old Pierce Brosnan in his Taffin heyday (anyone else ever seen that movie?) – he just made it all seem like magic.

As an untutored youth, listening in, to the (what was indistinguishable from) Humanity of the chat, laced with just the right gags and confidential bonhomie flowing forth from the salesperson who knew their craft – thought; gawd, how does he do it?

For my faith at what is effectivley (and benign perhaps) conning people, (naturally) was zero, with the only sale a random idiot who i rang with a heavy heart four hours into the job, and didn’t even have to finish the spiel.

Yes, i’ll have it, the person said, coming as a total surprise: my (non-existent) selling skills playing no part in the transaction. Here was proof, i thought, that the whole world is just an unknowable maze of sheer impenetrability, on my part at least.

~

But that was long ago of yore when mullets where all the rage, and have been proven half right – the world then was a crazier place all round. I mean, who in their right minds would think a mullet rthe height of sophistication nowadays?

However, what also caught my eye was Rob, saying there are:

“..many books which I can’t quite decide whether I like or not..”

In this position, the challenge is i think, to write about it by coming to the page, not knowing, not with a fixed idea but like a skater about to go on the rink for the first time, or a newspaper ad-space office jockey, to sell on her (or his) first day – where all is Yeatsean *soft wax* of unformed potential for going any direction.

The excercise, to tease out some text and put a shape of something readable together.

Viewing the task, not like the seven runners up in the sales competition, all earnestly believing they have a duty of care to the consumer – a Reader who our words may influence to make a decision in reality (not obviously on the Yeatsean scale of *did that play i wrote send out certain men the English shot?*) – ten quid out their life on our say so or (judging by the anecdotal evidence of few buying books on the strenght of reviews), possibly not.

No, we should consider our role as Reviewer, as that of an actor, detached and with the mind-set of the top salesperson in the glossy did, playing a game-with-self, where we take (professional) pride over appearing the most involved, moved and engaged at a quantum emotional and intellectual level with the text. This is perhaps, because we need perspective, as at the end of the day, releasing a slim book of verse, as Ginsberg (i think) had it – is not unlike dropping a feather from the Empire State Building and waiting for the cops to come and arrest us for vandalism.

The most important component and responsibilty (if you feel there has to be one) is to your Reader, (whoever that is), to keep them engaged and on your side, like a lawyer lying for a living. Sure, deliver an opinion on the book as a bible, life-changing text, (or not) but make sure we get to show off ourself. That’s the point, being in the spotlight whilst making it appear we are priveliging an *other* – the trick to sell any old tat, because it’s only a tenner anyway.

At least, that’s one way to look at it.

I think the challenge as a person delivering an opinion, or Criticism, when we are unsure about a book, is to use the book as a vehicle into learning by the practise of Writing, to further our own project of becoming a bore. To work out, clarfy see what we think by drawing out a swirl within, and as we write, the opinion firming up into Criticism – the right corners on it, the correct form, undeniably our own sound and din.

Coax out an imaginary, unarticualted, indecisive pensato note and form it into an opera of opinion and show, show, show them the money. Make your Reader think, phwoar, this one knows the gig alright, seems to be an expert i can trust.

Which we achieve by the simple act of practising in print, with the goal of beoming ourselves – because the plain fact is, we are all more or less the same in our minds, unless i suppose we are a hereditary monarch with a different slant and experience on the world, and even then we’re all formed by the same (non existent) God, who, in the famous words of Mister Bono, Sir Good – *doesn’t take cash, mister* – which most on the planet (at the concerts at least) on hearing this in the late nineties, thought, yeah, right on Bono, you tell ‘em – even though Sir Good is worth a few hundred mill.

I was struck by this from Michael Peverett – “I don’t think it’s important to be “honest” because I’m not sure if that makes sense. I believe most of us have ambivalent feelings about most poetry. I’m often aware when I’m praising some feature of some poem that I could just as easily be ripping this very same feature to shreds.”

That’s strangely true. It feels as if it shouldn’t be though!

Some books I immediately know I like. Others I know I dislike. However, there are many books which I can’t quite decide whether I like or not. I like some things about them but not other things. Or I might feel that I’ve previously disliked a book which did something similar, but maybe I like this new one better. Or maybe I don’t…

What you say there definitely strikes a chord with me. I don’t know whether that points to a weakness in me as a critic or whether it’s a good thing.

Secondly, it doesn’t follow that all intelligent readers want to engage with it, which is why your comment in reply to Jack is maybe a bit unkind. I have had many students who preferred to read that way, and didn’t want their personal reaction interfered with by critical discourse. Myself I thought they sometimes were missing out, but it didn’t always make them unintelligent readers by any means, and better any sort of reader than none at all.

“Professional reviewers” is a clumsy phrase. I’m glad you picked up on it.

I didn’t mean to imply that academics should be doing more reviewing. I think that reviewing loses its sting, and poetry its integrity, if the distinction between reader/writer isn’t upheld.

@Ben

The dichotomy is an important one, I think.

There’s mystery in art. Most people just can’t do it. The fans in the terraces can’t play, but their opinion is what matters, applause or jeers. I don’t want to read reviews that fail to address, at a basic level, the poem as a ‘mystery’: something imparted, irrevocably whole, intransient, singular. I don’t want cool appraisal or critique, I want to know what it was like to receive the poem, how it felt to be subjected to the poem.

I’ve been reading Alex Ross’ ‘The Rest is Noise’: he’s really excellent at marrying his knowledge of the technical intricacies of classical music with the incredulous reaction of a fan. He also writes beautifully evocative, revealing prose – I wish I read any poetry reviews like that.

I’m not sure the I’ve made the distinction any clearer, and I accept that inevitably many readers of poetry are poets. Even so, the reviewer must approach a poet as a fan rather than a peer.

Thanks for quoting me from Harriet. Isn’t anyone interested in giving an historical context to this issue?

Critical intelligence is a key element in all kinds of pedagogy and invaluable in the Letters of a nation or a society, and simply cannot be separated from creative writing.

This remark up-thread from Jack: “Reading poetry is largely a private, personal experience and the idea of someone mouthing off about it is just ugly” made me laugh. How jejune!

Thomas