Month: August 2014

Mags & Blogs/

In praise of the ‘zine

Poetry zines

I love the idea of giving birth to an arts/literary magazine. I dream about it and go through possible plans for it, in the same way some people do kitchens, or dream homes.

Whenever I come across some quirky ‘zine I keep a copy, for future reference, in case there any ideas I can borrow from it. Every aspect is fascinating – size, paper weight/finish, typefaces, layout, colours, how many printed, distribution channels, who’s behind it, contributors, whether there are ads or sponsors and if so, who they are. And that’s before I even get to the actual content. I don’t have any system for gathering my research material other than a box file, and I tend to lose things so not everything makes it into the box file.

Some examples stand out, such as the very high spec (yet with an independent vibe) neighbourhood literary/arts magazine I came across when staying in Clerkenwell a few years back. Can I lay my hands on it now? No. And when I google it all I find is a somewhat shiny corporate version produced by a media company which just wasn’t it. Maybe the original idea got taken over.

Then there was the surprise of receiving a copy of Fuselit, with not one but two micro-magazines falling out the envelope together with three little fridge magnets and a mini-CD. Extraordinary attention to detail and surely many man- or woman-hours in the making. It was like a one-off.

More recently I was attracted to Belgium-based Miel Books’ 1110/7 micro-journal – I think I followed a link to the website and fell for the design – and I had it by my bedside for some time, re-reading its contents, mostly what I would call avant garde – certainly no villanelles or poems about dementia. I quite like a mixed diet, whether or not I respond to all the individual poems themselves.

And today (what prompted this post I guess) the first edition of ‘The High Flight’ arrived.  It’s a new ‘100% independent fanzine’ being distributed around Edinburgh and Glasgow mainly. I’m probably on the outer edges of their market (in all senses!) – I think I must have made a donation via Kickstarter, anyway my name is listed as a benefactor, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, and pleased to be supporting a bit of genuine grass-roots, lets-get-it-out-there, take-it-or-leave-it grunge-lit post-expressionism. I enjoyed it – some short pithy poems, one or two colourful and/or random graphics, an essay on why we need to start getting angry again, an amusing tale of pill-taking and a smattering of what my mum would call language – and applaud those who’ve got it off the ground.

I’ve too many other projects at the moment to think about launching a lit-zine, but one of these days…!

Angst/

And lo … the teeny window of acceptances doth open

Waiting to hear the results of submissions can be like waiting for the interest rate to change – something could happen today, next month or not for a year or so. You know how I like to moan a bit about it (ahem!)…but come on,  I do seem to have had a fair amount of bad luck  (several lost submissions, poems getting rejected and accepted at the same time, notifications going astray, competition admins not changing the status on Submittable so you’ve no idea if your work has been read, etc etc).

Every acceptance feels like an impossibly stiff window opening an inch further. Rather like my frozen shoulder which six months ago laid me stupidly low, convinced I was surely entering Old Age, and now, little by little, it’s almost back to normal (no handstands as yet, though. No idea why I say that, because I haven’t done a handstand in at least 15 years.) Anyway, what I’m leading up to is that yesterday I had a note from Fiona at The Rialto to say they’d like one of poems for the next issue, which is always wonderful news. It also means the three poems they rejected are now free for me to send elsewhere. That’s a win-win I believe!

I went in for two or three competitions this year and the results of those are all due in the next few weeks, which again means even if I haven’t had any luck there at least I’ll have back a few poems that have been tied up for months. Look on the bright side no matter what!

Courses/

Bring up the poems (are they dead or sleeping?)

As part of my autumn poetry reactivation plan (sounds good, eh?) I’ve signed up for an online course from the Poetry’s School with Karen McCarthy Woolf. It’s a feedback course for the ‘general improvement of left-for-dead poems in need of resuscitation’. This premise really appealed to me – having quite a few poems languishing at the moment, some of which I feel at the end of my editorial tether (with). (Apologies for the clumsy construction, but since I’m off duty while writing this I feel able to mush over any dodgy grammar or whatever. It’s the equivalent of pulling on a onesie and eating a takeaway while watching TV. I’m at home. Off duty.)

Putting Baby to Bed

Soooo … time to dust off some old pomes. While we’re on the subject, I should mention that I was pleased to find out that South have taken two poems of mine for their autumn issue, just when I’d thought they wouldn’t find a home. I did think I wasn’t going to submit to South again, but when it came to it I just felt those poems belonged there, so I’m glad the selectors felt the same. It’s an unusual setup there – no one editor, but a committee, of which (as far as I can tell) two or three people act as selectors for each issue. Although submissions are anonymous, there’s a distinctive consistency about the poems chosen. For example, my Lewes cohort Jeremy Page manages to have something in every single issue – what gives, JP?? – and other names too are ‘regulars’. The magazine doesn’t include poet biogs (which is a shame) but it does have a launch event for each issue (which is good).

Anyway, I digress – my question to you is, when do you leave a poem for dead? Is it ever actually ‘dead’, or just sleeping gently in a drawer until you bring it out for another airing? Do you have any good success stories about poems you resurrected after a long period of time? I’d love to hear them.

Events/

Latest on Telltale, plus forthcoming events

Having just emerged from a book-writing marathon I’m now fighting a cold and the urge to feel pathetically sorry for myself! Not helped by the submissions doldrums – what on earth will it take for things to start moving? I have so many poems ‘out there’ and it must be easily 6 months since the last rejection. Is anyone else in this slump?  It’s hard to summon up the motivation to send anything else out, EVER! Oh well maybe that’s a slight exaggeration. “Worse things happen at sea” as my mum used to say.

At least I have a number of exciting other projects in the pipeline, such as Telltale Press, which is finally preparing to poke its head above the parapet. I’ve discussed it over and over with poet and publisher friends, plus people who know about arts funding, (not to mention my solicitor and accountant!) trying to nail down the ethos of the whole thing, how it will work in practice, and I think it’s kind of there. The time has come to try it out! So we have 3 autumn launch events coming up, basically to launch Peter’s pamphlet and also to introduce Telltale. (If you’re interested, I’ve tweaked the ‘about’ page to better reflect the direction it’s going in).

Plus two other lovely events to look forward to – the Poetry Prom at Snape Maltings with Ian McMillan and John Hegley, and on September 6th it’s the Free Verse Poetry Book Fair at Conway Hall in London. I was a ‘helper’ there last year and this year I’m looking forward to taking in a few more of the readings, of which there are plenty. If you’re going too, let me know and let’s at least say hello.