Month: May 2016

Blog/

A few poetry comp deadlines coming up

be in it to win it

This is the post I set out to write before I got sidetracked with my last one! So enough with the musings. I just wanted to mention some poetry competition deadlines coming up. Like London buses, they all seem to come at once, so I hope you’ve got a nice bagful of competition-winning poems at the ready.

Frogmore Poetry Prize – you’ve got to be quick because it’s postal submissions only and the deadline is Tuesday 31st May. Judged by Catherine Smith, first prize 250 guineas and a 2-year subscription to The Frogmore Papers, entry fee £3 per poem. A pedigree comp with an impressive list of distinguished former winners.

Bridport Prize – also closing Tuesday 31st May, but you can enter online. Judged by Patience Agbabi, first prize is a whopping £5,000 and the entry fee is a correspondingly fat £9. One of the big ones and famous for its long longlist.

South Bank Poetry Competition – closes 15th June. Judge is Mimi Khalvati, first prize is £300 and entry fees are £4 for the first poem, £3 for the second and £2 for the third and each subsequent poem (discounts for subscribers to the magazine). This is a new competition, just in its third year, and although although the entry free to prize money ratio isn’t great, there are good reading opportunities for winners, plus publication. And the money supports the magazine.

Mslexia Women’s Poetry Competition – closes 13th June. Judged by Liz Lochhead. First prize £2,000 plus a week’s writing retreat and a mentoring session, entry fee £7 for up to 3 poems.

Troubadour Poetry Prize – closing Tuesday 21st June. Judges are Glyn Maxwell and Jane Yeh. First prize £5,000 and a £5 entry fee. Another of the big ones – the deadline is earlier than usual this year, but at £5 a go it’s good value from a comper’s point of view.

Plus there are more listed at the Poetry Library. Good luck!

Angst/

Thank you, Dr Upadhayay

lift off

I was one of those lucky people who enjoyed school, and whose English teachers (and I will name them, by way of a belated thank you – Dr Upadhayay and Mr Jennings) believed I had some writing ability and encouraged it. But I couldn’t see what they saw and thought it was utterly ridiculous to have any kind of creative writing ambition. Looking back on this in my forties I was ashamed of how I’d refused their encouragement, and (perhaps by way of atonement) decided I would try to find out if I did have any talent for poetry.

So I set myself a deadline – get a poem published in a ‘serious’ poetry journal before my fiftieth birthday, or … or what? Stop writing? Stop submitting? Keep writing ‘for pleasure’ and always wonder if any of it was any good? Get to my old age and feel bitter for not having really tested myself? I don’t know – but I made the deadline (just!) so I never had to find out. If it had all gone pear-shaped I like to think I would have just set a new deadline, and not ‘settled’, but who knows?

I guess I’m not one of those people who has to write, like having to scratch an itch. The world would still turn for me even if I never wrote another poem. But I get great satisfaction from doing something well. In fact, anything I do I want and expect to do well. I know I’m setting myself up for disappointment. I know it’s not fashionable, wanting to excel, especially at something creative. “It’s all subjective! We shouldn’t set store on the judgements of other people!” OK, but there are standards on which many people agree, and I don’t see the point in pretending there are not. If there are standards, I want to at least reach them. Then there’s the school of thought that says you should only write for yourself, and if you admit to wanting the affirmation that being published or winning a prize can bring, then you are a bit sad and probably not especially talented. I understand that viewpoint, but it is in itself judgemental.

Getting a single, unremarkable poem published in respected poetry magazine was important to me. I needed that one thing because it provided the motivation to get me going, to start me off – which is of course the bit that requires the most effort (I’m thinking rocket launches here).

Then a funny thing happened. After the honeymoon period of getting some poems into magazines, winning a few things and thinking I was going to conquer the poetry world, I’m now more realistic, and I’m strangely OK with that. I have goals, but they’re reasonably modest and they feel attainable. Writing poetry is part of my life, but I’m no longer on a one-track mission. I’m enjoying all the other aspects of ‘taking poetry seriously’ – being inspired by people I meet and work with through poetry, other people’s writing and all the great poetry I’ve yet to discover. I still have goals and I set myself deadlines, but they’re not all-or-nothing. Or to return to the rocket analogy, I haven’t reached the moon and maybe never will but I’m comfortably in orbit.

Importantly I also feel I’m delivering on the promise my teachers saw. I wish I could tell them how I still remember and appreciate the push they gave me, and although I couldn’t act on it then because I was too timid and immature, I’m doing something about it now.

Blog/

Coffee-House poetry workshops with Anne-Marie Fyfe

Coffee-House poetry workshop

Last weekend I was at the Troubadour in London on a Sunday afternoon for one of Anne-Marie Fyfe’s themed writing workshops. It was intense without feeling like hard work – I felt I’d been challenged and came away with a number of useful seedlings of ideas that may one day make their way into poems or other creative writing. Which is, I think, the best possible result.

Writing workshops are a funny thing – as a participant, I often quickly get irritated or restless when invited to do a piece of ‘free writing’ or ‘imagine you’re five years old and you’ve just seen your first elephant’ or whatever. More often than not, nothing comes into my head, or else I just write reams of nonsense which just makes my hand ache. If it goes on for too long I look around at everyone else furiously writing and feel a bit resentful that I’m wasting precious writing time trying to write about ‘a time in my life when… [insert insignificant episode here].’ And then I get fed up with the silences when the open questions come, and get annoyed at those who never say anything.

I realise this all sounds very snitty and you’re right to be thinking ‘well don’t go to any bloody writing workshops then!’ But I’m ever the optimist, so I do still occasionally put myself through it. And when I’ve had a really good experience I want to tell people about it.

There are a number of reasons why Anne-Marie’s sessions are so good. The time is well-organised and the sessions run to enough of a pattern to make regular participants know what to expect. Exercises are open enough to allow for individual interpretation but focused enough to pull you into the task. And they come thick and fast – so if one exercise doesn’t resonate you don’t have time to start wishing you were elsewhere, because something different is then sprung on you. As well as her considerable experience and sense of fun, Anne-Marie brings a big range of material to trigger thoughts – images, books, poems, even music – and has a wonderfully inclusive manner. There is a good chunk of time in which you are left alone to work something up. And everyone is encouraged (gently but firmly!) to take part – in reading things aloud, talking about their responses to the exercises or the source material and commenting on other people’s work.

It’s probably no coincidence that these workshops seem to attract a lot of ‘serious’ poets, often from quite a distance – and serious poets want to be in workshops with people they perceive to be at least as serious about it as they are. So the whole thing becomes a virtuous circle.

Anne-Marie’s Troubadour workshops are always full and as result she tends to repeat them later in the season. The one I went to, on the theme of ‘Invisible Cities’, is running again next Sunday 29th May, and I would highly recommend it – £28 well spent.

Blog/

Bare Fiction, Marion Tracy’s new book & other news

Chronicles of Eve & Bare Fiction magazine

It’s gone a bit quiet here as I’ve been preoccupied with all sorts of things – our new flat is taking shape, so I’ve been spending time choosing paint colours, painting, filling, putting putty into windows and all kinds of decorating jobs. There are tons of boxes all over the place, and the thing you want is always in the bottom of the bottom box. I’ve finally moved my desk, filing cabinet and everything out of the office space I’ve rented the last three years, and into a corner of the bedroom. It probably doesn’t sound ideal but the room is big, I get a lovely quiet workspace and a view out the window and it’s a joy to have everything in one place.

On the poetry front I was very pleased to receive my contributor copies of The Chronicles of Eve, an anthology from Paper Swans Press, and Bare Fiction Issue 7.

The Chronicles of Eve is a kind of testament to womanhood, its joys and (mostly) tribulations. Eighty or so poems from a wide range of poets, many of whom were unknown to me. It’s hard to pick out my favourites but I really enjoyed Marcia J Pradzinski’s ‘When I Ask My Father To Sign College Prep Forms’, Victoria Gatehouse’s ‘Burning Mouth Syndrome’ and Claire Walker’s ‘Pisces’. A great job done was done by Sarah Miles in putting the book together, and the cover design is stunning.

Bare Fiction is still a relatively new magazine but it ‘punches above its weight’ (sorry, that’s just too much of a cliche not to need quote marks) thanks in great part to its editor Robert Harper. Robert puts a huge amount of time and dedication into producing and promoting the magazine, with its unique mix of poetry, prose and plays. Not only that but he really supports and gets behind those he publishes, whether in the magazine or in book form. In my experience it’s very rare for a magazine editor to ask questions about the poems s/he has already accepted, or suggest light edits.

The selection process for Bare Fiction is anonymous and there’s a willingness to take a risk with slightly unusual material. And the format of the magazine is equally unusual with its big, easy to read typeface and poets’ names almost embarrassingly large on the page. I’ve tried to get in here a couple of times with no success but I’m glad I persevered.
what I'm reading

On my bedside table at the moment I have two books borrowed from Eastbourne Library (which appears to have a small but not too disgraceful poetry section) – Jackie Kay’s Fiere (Picador 2011) which I’ve read right through and loved, and Sean O’Brien’s November (also Picador 2011) which I’ve been dipping into. Awaiting my perusal is Les Murray’s New Collected Poems (Carcanet 2003) which is an absolute tome. I plan to read it in chronological order, as advised by John McCullough (whose New Writing South course I’ve been attending this year, and who has introduced me to all sorts of interesting poets).

Marion Tracy Dreaming of our Better SelvesI want to also give a shout out to Marion Tracy‘s first full collection, Dreaming of Our Better Selves (Vanguard Editions) which is hot off the press. Marion is a friend and we’ve participated in many workshops together, and I also enjoyed her excellent Happenstance pamphlet Giant in the Doorway (2012).

Marion’s style refuses to be categorised – Dreaming of Our Better Selves contains poems of great depth and sadness, but a certain amount of hilarity too. She knows how to employ a kind of deadpan surrealism that a less confident poet wouldn’t get away with, but there’s lyricism here too. There are riddles, parables and some poems feel like they may almost be jokes at the reader’s expense, rather like the ‘Messages way above my head / I’m not supposed to understand, like x loves y / or the word eternity traced on a beach…’ (‘Pictures placed on high shelves in hospitals’). The poet’s mother is never far away – sometimes in disguise, sometimes a figure on a bed, or asleep, or in the punningly-titled ‘La Mer’ – (‘I feel a kind of guilt / that I didn’t stay closer to the sea, / as she was drowning…’)

On the jacket blurb Neil Rollinson speaks of ‘a vibrant imagination… slightly bonkers, off kilter but always fascinating’ and I’d agree – a rich read. Congratulations to Marion and to Richard Skinner at Vanguard for snapping Marion up.